Why Not Idol Meat?

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That food and dining in the Greco-Roman world provide the background for understanding several difficult passages in Paul’s letters is not surprising. What is surprising is that these same food and dining customs indicate that the supposed rift between the Jerusalem Christians under James and the diaspora Christians under Paul was not as wide or as deep as some scholars have suggested.

The supposed basis for the rift is that the Jerusalem church believed that Gentiles must also become Jews in order to be Christian (the earliest Christians were all Jews). On the other hand, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, made no such requirement; Gentiles were not bound by the yoke of the Law—most importantly, the burden of circumcision and dietary restrictions. What we will conclude, however, is that neither James, the brother of the Lord and “pillar,” if not head, of the Jerusalem church, nor Paul required Gentiles to assume the yoke of the Law in order to become Christians.

Our first port of call is Corinth—or more precisely, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul warns the members of the nascent Corinthian church not to eat eidolothuton, literally idol-meat, meat that had been sacrificed to idols. The same theme is taken up again two chapters later: “What pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners to demons” (1 Corinthians 10:19–20).

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To appreciate this prohibition against eating idol-meat, we must understand the social setting in first-century Corinth. Only then does the full significance of the term emerge.

Meat was not nearly so abundant in the ancient world as it is today. The diet of the masses consisted mostly of various porridges; bread, made mainly from barley meal; olives; a little wine; and some fish as a relish.¹ Meat was far more costly then than it is today; only the well-to-do purchased it regularly from the market (macellum).²

In a city like Roman Corinth, the general public might be invited to come to the temple and dine on meat from a sacrifice honoring some god whose festival was being celebrated. But this was exceptional. And even then the well-to-do got the bulk of the benefit of such public dispensations of food.³

Another kind of exception was an invitation to dine with a social superior, or to partake of a meal because one belonged to a trade association or burial society that would host a dinner in the precincts of a temple and provide a meal of meat sacrificed in the temple.⁴

The Asklepion in Corinth, instead of one large eating room, had three rooms with seven couches each, reflecting the desire for an intimate setting for conversation, a vital part of these meals.⁵ Couches and similar rooms have also been found in the excavation of the Temple of Demeter and Kore on the lower slopes of the Acro-Corinth (the mountain that towers over Corinth), although there is some debate as to whether this evidence pertains to the Roman period or comes from an earlier time.⁶

Both Roman and Greek sources indicate that various temple precincts were in effect the public restaurants of the day. We actually have the form of invitations preserved in Greek papyri: “Chaeremon requests your company at dinner at the table of the lord Sarapis in the Sarapeum tomorrow, the 15th, at 9 o’clock.” Or again: “Apollonius requests you to dine at the table of the lord Sarapis on the occasion of the coming of age of his brothers in the temple of Thoeris.”⁷ This created a dilemma for Jews and some early Christians invited to dinners held in the precincts of a pagan temple.

Moreover, most of the meat available in the markets had already been a temple sacrifice. Pliny complains of the meat of sacrificial victims being for sale everywhere in Bithynia.⁸ Even more striking is the price list of things for sale in Rome, which includes sacrificial animal parts.⁹

In wealthy private homes, the dining room was called a triclinium, so named because the room was lined with couches on three sides forming a kind of rectangular C. This arrangement, in which the guests reclined while eating, would normally seat 12 at a maximum. Hence larger gatherings were held either in the dining rooms of pagan temples, where 22 or more could be accommodated, or sometimes under a tent in the temple precinct. As the Roman historian R. MacMullen comments, “‘Devotees of Hercules,’ ‘the devotees of Jupiter Axoranius,’ ‘the association of Aesculapius and Hygia’ assembled at periodic dinners in temples… [T]he same customs could be found in the Greek provinces.” Many temples “had commodious facilities for private banquets, either built permanently in stone or less elaborately in the form of arbors over stone couches. Users would lie on leaves or straw, hence the name “mattress” given to the banqueting place as a whole; and they would be shielded from the sun, hence the word ‘tent’ used for the same purpose.”¹⁰ The rules of some clubs that met to dine in the temple precincts have survived on the walls of the temple dining rooms.¹¹

Roman Corinth, like other Roman cities, followed certain social conventions. The highest-status guests normally got the couches closest to the host. They 041also got better food and wine. Martial, the first century A.D. satirist, records a typical complaint about this sort of practice in Greco-Roman dining rooms:

“Since I am asked to dinner … why is not the same dinner served to me as to you? You take oysters fattened in the Lucrine lake, I suck a mussel through a hole in the shell; you get mushrooms, I take hog funguses; you tackle turbot, but I, brill. Golden with fat, a turtledove gorges you with its bloated rump; there is set before me a magpie that has died in its cage. Why do I dine without you although, Ponticus, I am dining with you? … [Let] us eat the same fare” (Epigram 360).

The normal order of events was a meal, followed by a drinking party. Entertainment might include anything from a rhetorician or philosopher discoursing on some topic, to musical entertainment, to sexual dalliance. For this reason, Roman dinner parties, especially those held in temple precincts, were largely all-male affairs, at least after the dinner itself. Even in a private home, it was customary for the wife and daughters, if they appeared at all, to come for the dinner, and then retire before the heavy drinking began. After dinner the only women normally present were those who entertained or acted as “companions” (hetairae), the ancient equivalent of call-girls from an escort service. The ensuing sexual trysts were both heterosexual and homosexual, the latter usually confined to pederasty—adult males having sex with adolescent or young boys.

Quintilian, perhaps the greatest teacher of rhetoric of the first century A.D., expresses concern for his younger students sitting next to older boys or men, who may make sexual advances toward them.¹² Elsewhere he says about the attendance of sons at dinner parties: “They see our mistresses and minions; every dinner party is loud with foul songs, and things are present to their eyes of which we should blush to speak…. The poor children learn these things before they know them to be wrong. They become luxurious and effeminate.”¹³

Josephus tells the story of a woman named Paulina who, after dining in a pagan temple, had 042night-long sex with someone named Mundus, assuming he was the god Annubis.¹⁴ Plutarch, in his famous treatise, Convivium septum sapientum (Dinner of the Seven Wise Men), implicitly contrasts a serious dinner featuring a sage as the after-dinner speaker with other sorts of dinners—where sexual play with the girl flute-players or hetairae was common, and women of the family had to be dismissed before the drinking party and such bad behavior began.¹⁵ Clement of Alexandria, a convert to Christianity, had previously participated in such meals; consequently, he warns both Christian men and women to avoid not only private dinner parties, but also larger feasts and festivals because both men and women might be carried away by sexual passion.¹⁶

Greco-Roman dining customs, especially in Corinth, form the backdrop to some of Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 8–11. For example, he criticizes his converts when “one goes hungry and another becomes drunk” (1 Corinthians 11:21). Paul is distressed that the fellowship meal is being treated as an ordinary Greco-Roman banquet, with its usual social inequities. The Christian koinonia or fellowship meal, at the end of which the Lord’s Supper seems to have been celebrated,¹⁷ was meant to be a meal where Christians of every social rank dined together, sharing all of the food in common. Instead, however, some Corinthian Christians were apparently getting preferential treatment, or perhaps coming early and getting the bulk of the good food and drink.

We can also now better understand Paul’s references to “idol-meat” in 1 Corinthians 8–11. The passages relating to idol-meat are juxtaposed, if not associated, with a passage relating to sexual immorality. For example, in 1 Corinthians 10:1–8, Paul admonishes the members of the fledgling Corinthian church to dissociate themselves from the ways of the idolators, whom he compares to some of the Israelites on the Exodus trek from Egypt to the Promised Land: “Do not be idolators as some of them were; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.’ We must not indulge in immorality as some of them did” (1 Corinthians 10:7–8). The reference to “play” in the quotation from Exodus 32:6 is to sexual play, as is the reference in the next verse to “immorality.” Paul clearly assumes that both idolatry and immorality are transpiring in the temple precincts, and thus urges Christians not to participate in meals there. (Elsewhere also idol-meat is associated with sexual immorality. Revelation 2:20–22 warns against a false prophetess who “beguiles my servants to practice immorality and to eat idol-meat.” The term “to practice immorality” obviously refers to sexual immorality.)

Not being able to partake of these meals in the temple precincts would put a significant crimp in the style of some of the more well-to-do Gentile male converts, many of whom likely made business contacts and furthered important patronage relationships during the course of such meals.

Eating idol-meat is condemned in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10: “What pagans sacrifice [food offered to idols] they offer to demons and not to God” (1 Corinthians 10:19–20). Again: “As to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘an idol has no real existence’” (1 Corinthians 8:4).

“Idol-meat” (eidolothuton) is obviously a polemical term. Pagans would not call the statues of their gods idols. Hierothuton, literally holy meat, is the normal Greco-Roman term for sacrificial meat. That term is used in 1 Corinthians 10:28, a tip-off that the speaker is a pagan. In that context Paul is quoting a putative host, or possibly guest, at a dinner. Whether host or guest, the speaker is doubtless a pagan, not a Christian.

Eidolothuton is not simply meat that has been sacrificed in a pagan temple, however; it is meat that was eaten there. Of the 112 references to eidolothuton in all of Greek literature, 110 are clearly in Christian sources, and the other two can be traced to Christian sources. Of the other two examples, Sibylline Oracles 2:96 is found only in one manuscript (based on Pseudo-Phocylides, Sententiae 31), which ultimately goes back to Acts 15:29; and 4 Maccabees 5.2 appears to be a Christian addition because the context of the discussion has to do with eating pork, not idol-meat.¹⁸ In short, the term is a Christian one. Its earliest known usage would be either 1 Corinthians 8–10 (unless Acts 15 accurately reflects an earlier ruling by James, the leader of the Jerusalem church, in about A.D. 49).

In 1 Corinthians 8–11, Paul is not objecting to Christians consuming sacrificial meat per se, but only to consuming it in the pagan temple precinct as part of a pagan ritual, and perhaps in the context of sexual dalliance—in short, that is the difference between hierothuton (sacrificial meat) and eidolothuton (idol-meat). Paul makes it quite clear that it is all right to eat meat that has been sacrificed if it was simply purchased in the meat market: “Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience” (1 Corinthians 10:25). This clearly implies that Paul and his converts knew that at least some of this meat came from pagan temples.

Paul’s concern is about the venue of eating such meat. In one’s own home, or even in the home of a pagan friend, it is fine to eat such meat, unless, as 1 Corinthians 10:27–28 states, one’s pagan host makes a point about it being meat that comes from a pagan temple. In that case one should refrain from consuming the meat, so as not to suggest an endorsement of what went on in pagan temples.

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For Paul, however, there are no food laws that Christians must follow. There are only situations and venues in which Christians must not eat meat that has been sacrificed in a temple if the meal is in the temple itself.¹⁹

This leads us to a final issue of considerable import. If eidolothuton is limited to meat that has been sacrificed in a pagan temple and eaten there, sometimes followed by sexual immorality, this has implications for interpreting one of the most critical texts in the development of early Christianity: Acts 15. There, the famous Jerusalem council is described: Paul, having returned to Jerusalem, meets with the leaders of the Jerusalem church to consider whether it is necessary to become a Jew in order to become a Christian—that is, to be circumcised, to obey the dietary laws and all the other demands of Jewish law. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, clearly does not view this as a requirement. However, though much less widely understood, James, too—the brother of Jesus and head of the Jerusalem church—agrees. This is made quite explicit; James says, “My judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the pollutions of idols and from unchastity and from what is strangled and from blood” (Acts 15:19–20). The reference to idol-meat in Acts 15:29 makes clear that James is thinking of what happens in pagan temples, and is prohibiting participation in dinner there. In short, the decree in Acts 15:29 prohibits attending pagan temple meals; it does not require Gentiles to observe Old Testament food laws.

I do not mean to imply that there were no divisions among Christians. Some Pharisaic Christians opposed Paul—and James (Acts 15:1, 5). But Paul and James essentially shared the same view.

In the past, scholars have often described Paul as something of a maverick because of his views on circumcision, food laws, Sabbath observance and other Jewish practices; certainly, it was said, he was unique among Jewish Christian leaders of the nascent Christian community. F. C. Baur, for example, argued that Pauline Christianity was a “Gentile” form of Christianity pitted against Jewish Christianity centered in Jerusalem and headed by James.²⁰

But this is based on a misreading of Acts 15. If eidolothuton means food sacrificed to idols and eaten in a pagan temple, then one must reconsider what Acts 15 really claims. Acts 15 records that James said Gentiles must do the following to maintain table fellowship with Jewish Christians: Christians must avoid eidolothuton; sexual immorality; things strangled; and blood. James, like Paul, is arguing that Gentile Christians should avoid a venue where sacrificial meat and immorality are both found—namely, pagan temples, where, indeed, all four of the items listed in Acts 15:20 and 29 were available. The issue is not where we might find these four items separately, but where we might find all four of them together.

If this is correct, then James is not imposing food laws on Gentile Christians, any more than Paul was. James, like Paul, wants Gentiles to avoid pagan temples and the things found there.

In short, James appears to be a moderate, standing much closer to Paul than is usually thought, and opposing the Pharisaic Christians who demanded that Gentile converts be required to keep the Mosaic law, including its ceremonial requirements about food and circumcision (Acts 15:1, 5).

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That there were divisions in early Christianity is clear enough, but they were not caused by a rift between Paul and James over whether Gentile Christians should keep food laws when dining with Jewish Christians.²¹

Moreover, all the “apostles and elders” (Acts 15:22) of the Jerusalem church agree, as reflected in the letter sent to the church at Antioch: Christians from Antioch, too, are to “abstain from idol-meat [eidolothuton] and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity” (Acts 15:29). (See also Acts 15:20: “Abstain from the pollutions of idols and from unchastity.”)

In 1 Corinthians 8–10, written, in my judgment, after the Jerusalem council described in Acts 15, we see Paul’s good faith effort to implement James’ dictum in Acts 15, by prohibiting his Gentile converts from eating in pagan temple precincts.

That food and dining in the Greco-Roman world provide the background for understanding several difficult passages in Paul’s letters is not surprising. What is surprising is that these same food and dining customs indicate that the supposed rift between the Jerusalem Christians under James and the diaspora Christians under Paul was not as wide or as deep as some scholars have suggested. The supposed basis for the rift is that the Jerusalem church believed that Gentiles must also become Jews in order to be Christian (the earliest Christians were all Jews). On the other hand, Paul, the apostle to […]