From feasting to fasting

The evolution of a Sin In this study, V. Grimm discusses early Christian texts dealing with food, eating and fasting. Modern day eating disorders often equate food with sin and see fasting as an attempt to regain purity, an attiutde which can also be oberved in early Christian beliefs in the mortification of the flesh. Describing fisrt the historical and social context of judaism and the Greco-roman world, the author then proceeds to analyse christian attitudes towards food. Descriptions of food such as those found in the Pauline Epistles, The Acts of the Apostles, Tertullian and Agustine are compared to contemporary Jewish or Graeco-roman pagan texts. Thus, a particular christian mode of fasting is elaborated which influences us to the present day: ascetic fastinf for the suppression of the sexual urges of the body.