SavaBeljovic wrote: ↑Tue 17 September 2024 3:11 pmThere was a pre-schism British Synod that forbade eating dog... Fr. Joseph and Vladyka Andrei when I asked them about eating dog both said "...why would you want to eat one?"
I probably did eat dog when I lived in Mexico. The Mayans in the south would eat anything. I ate fried armadillo and more than once had some "mystery meat" dishes.
Fr. Joseph and Vladyka Andrei hit the nail on the head as far as St. Nicodemus goes. Here's what I have from the Rudder:
Canon LXXXVI of St. Basil:
To the elegant Encratites in respect to their formidable question asking why we do not eat everything, let the answer to be given be that we abominate also our excrements. For in respect of valuableness, vegetables are meat to us (Gen. 9:3), but in respect of discretion as touching our mercenary interests, as also in the case of vegetables, we separate what is injurious or harmful from what is suitable and fit: seeing that even hemlock is a vegetable, precisely as a vulture too is meat; yet no one that has any sense would eat hyoscyamus, nor would he touch dog meat unless it were a matter of life and death, so that to eat it would be no iniquity.
From the commentary of St. Nicodemus on Canon LI of the Apostles, quoting Canon LXXXVI of St. Basil:
St. Basil the Great replies to [Encratites] by saying, in his Canon LXXXVI, that so far regards their value all kinds of meat are considered with us to be like green vegetables and herbs...just as we do not eat all herbs in general, but only those which are harmless and beneficial, neither do we eat all kinds of meat but only meats that are harmless and useful to the health of our body...in a similar manner no one would eat a dog or a vulture, because they are both harmful to the health and unpalatable, except only if he should be forced to do so by the direst necessity and hunger. For then if he should eat a dog or a vulture. he would not be sinning, since those things are not forbidden in the New Testament. For in their Acts (15:29) they only forbade one to eat foods offered to idols, and...If, however, any should object that the dog and the vulture are called unclean in the Old Testament, we reply that it is not because they are abhorrent and loathsome that they are thus called: for we have said that there is nothing that is common or unclean in its own nature. But hey are called thus for three reasons. The first and chief reason is, as St. Basil explained above, that all unclean animals are harmful to the health of the body; in fact, this statement is corroborated by the experiments of physicians...So that, because of the fact that God loves the health of our body and wants to keep us from eating them, He called them unclean...
This makes sense. Dogs eat every kind of filth and accumulate every kind of poison and disease quite easily. I imagine the British Fathers were speaking along the same lines.
I know a guy with severe intestinal problems whose best diet so far is the one based on Old Testament dietary laws.
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