How to deal with the sin of gluttony. The sin of gluttony and the fight against it. Important! the best treatment results are obtained by patients who received "spiritually oriented therapy for skin patients"

I’ll say right away that we are talking about traditional knowledge, which we will discuss separately from religious aspects, so take the text accordingly, agreed? You probably know that traditional knowledge is an important source of health information for me. I believe that knowledge, skills, and practices that are beneficial to health survived and became fixed because they gave an advantage to their carriers (like genes in evolution). Why is gluttony (gluttony) included in the list of mortal sins?! Who seems to feel bad because of what I eat? But everything is not so simple.

What is gluttony?

Gluttony is gluttony, immoderation, greed in food, overeating, eating too much food, satiety. There was even such a definition of a glutton as - gluttonous, i.e. almost insane, obsessed. And overweight, fat, obese, “fat belly” are the usual definitions of the consequences of the life of a glutton.

In antiquity, it was believed that gluttony causes both bodily suffering and suffering of the soul, since the object of joy of the voluptuary is not a true good. The fight against the vice of gluttony involves not so much a strong-willed suppression of the urge to eat, but a reflection on its true place in life [

Gluttony is one of the gravest mortal sins. By gluttony is understood not only overeating, but also drunkenness, drug use, smoking, excessive love for pleasures and sophistication of food.

This passion becomes the desire of the soul for pleasure, an irresistible desire to eat more or more delicious food than is required to maintain. healthy body. Gluttony means greed and immoderation in food, bringing a person to a bestial state. Possessed the highest degree gluttony comes to the point that, realizing the physiological impossibility of digesting the consumed amount of food, he takes pills for digesting food, or, causing a gag reflex, is released from swallowed food for further intake of regular dishes.

The Holy Fathers say that if a person submits to the passion of gluttony, then all other passions, fornication, anger, sadness, despair, love of money easily take possession of him. If you control the womb, you will dwell in Paradise, but if you do not control it, then you will become the prey of death.

Gluttony is the door and the beginning of many sinful inclinations, and whoever overcomes gluttony by strength also rules over other sins.

Know that often a demon sits down on the stomach and does not allow a person to be satisfied, even if he devoured all the food of Egypt and drank all the water in the Nile.

“The beginning of all evil is the hope of the womb and relaxation of oneself with sleep”, “satiety is the mother of fornication, those who have fallen into the pit of iniquity, and “to the extent that one works for the womb, to that extent deprives himself of the taste of spiritual blessings.”

Types of gluttony

1. The urge to eat ahead of time;

2. Satiation with any kind of food: a person is more interested in the amount of food. The limit of overeating is when a person forces himself to eat when he does not feel like it. Gastrimargia (Greek gluttony) - a person's desire to simply fill his womb, not particularly paying attention to the taste of food.

3. Desire for gourmet food, that is, a special attachment to the quality of food. Lemargia (Greek larynx) - a person's desire to enjoy the consumption of delicious food, getting pleasure from organoleptic properties.

4. Other types: There are other types of gluttony, these are: secret eating - the desire to hide one's vice; early eating - when a person, having barely woken up, takes to food, not yet experiencing a feeling of hunger; hasty eating - a person tries to quickly fill the womb and swallows food without chewing, like a turkey.

Differences between satisfying hunger and gluttony

“A person has a natural need for food, as a source of energy for the normal functioning of the human body. There is no sin in her prudent, healthy, moderate satisfaction. The passion of gluttony grows out of the abuse of the satisfaction of this need. Passion perverts, exaggerates the natural need, subjugates the will of man to the lust of the flesh. A sign of a developing passion is the constant desire for satiety.

“To eat on a whim means to want to take food not for bodily needs, but to please the womb. But if you see that sometimes the nature accepts any of the vegetables more readily than juicy, and not out of whim, but according to the lightness of the food itself, this should be distinguished. Some, by their nature, require sweet food, others salty, others sour, and this is neither passion, nor whim, nor gluttony.

And to love some food especially and desire it lustfully - this is a whim, a servant of gluttony. But this is how you know that you are possessed by the passion of gluttony - when it also possesses your thought. If, however, you resist this and gracefully take food according to bodily needs, then this is not gluttony.

History of Gluttony (Gula)

Gula is a Latin word meaning "gluttony, gluttony", organically entered the Old French language and existed almost until the beginning of the New Age. Thirsty for rich dishes and fine wines, the glutton goes beyond the limits set by God, thereby destroying the order established by Him on Earth, creating a threat to the state ... The situation has gone so far that the very word "glutton" (gloz, glot or glou - in the language of that era) began to denote a brawler, a person of a dangerous and unpredictable disposition. The feminine form - gloute - among other things, received the meaning of "nymphomaniac", "prostitute", a woman who does not differ in decent behavior.

Negative attitudes towards people who abuse food can be found both in the books of the Old and New Testaments. For example, King Solomon wrote: “Do not be among those who drink wine, between those who are satiated with meat: for the drunkard and the sated will become impoverished, and drowsiness will put on rags.” And he also advised: "And put a barrier in your throat, if you are greedy."

In Catholic theology, gluttony is also one of the seven major sins (the sin against the second commandment). Together with debauchery, it is classified as “carnal sin” (Latin vitia carnalia). In the classification of the seven deadly sins by the German inquisitor Peter Binsfeld, gluttony was personified by Beelzebub. Beelzebub or Beelzebub (from Hebrew - Baal Zebub, "Lord of the Flies", literally - "Lord of Flying Things") in the Christian religion is one of the evil spirits, the assistant of the devil (quite often identified with him along with Lucifer.

Miniatures and wall paintings of churches show us a huge number of frightening and repulsive images of gluttons. Here is a glutton with a swollen belly, like a dog, gnaws at a bone, here is a thin and wiry drunkard greedily crouched to a glass. Here is another galloping at full speed on a pig (a symbol of pleasing the womb), clutching a piece of meat in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other. Such a way of depicting was the simplest way to convey to the flock the necessary truth: excessive craving for food and wine is deadly, both for the body and for the soul!

Why is gluttony a mortal sin?

In 2003, leading associations of restaurants and cafes in France sent a letter to Pope John Paul II asking him to remove gluttony from the list of sins. They don't see anything wrong with a good table with gourmet dishes. What is the sin in this?

And indeed, why is the desire to eat counted as sins? There are a lot of things around that, it would seem, more deserve to be in the "honorary seven" than simple gluttony, to which we are most often very condescending. After all, hunger, according to scientists, is just a kind of beacon that begins to indicate to us that the body does not have enough energy. But this is only at first and very inattentive glance ...

Thomas Aquinas defined the major vices as the source of many sins as follows: "The chief vice is such that it has an extremely desirable end, so that in its lust a person resorts to committing many sins, which all originate in this vice as their main cause"

Our ancestors did not know about dopamine, but they correctly noticed that "greed has no limits." And if you satisfy emotional hunger with food, or “polish” with food, then this behavior leads to serious violations of the dopamine system. Let me remind you that normally the dopamine system works like a stick, not a carrot.

With few exceptions, this system controls not so much reward as punishment, by shutting down dopamine. In such cases, the level of dopamine drops (for example, in case of hunger), forcing us to take action. active actions. As a result, the reward system briefly returns dopamine, and we feel good. The same mechanism works, for example, when winning a sports competition, praising or condemning other people, etc. The drop in dopamine drives us to achieve the goal, which can be achieved at the cost of overexertion and stress.

That is, if you eat when there is a real need, then this behavior does not disrupt the dopamine system. This is not gluttony. And if you eat for pleasure, then this is a classic dopamine stimulant! That is, according to traditional knowledge, everything that excessively stimulates dopamine is gluttony. I previously described this situation in detail with sweets, but in general it also applies to other manifestations of gluttony. Stimulating dopamine with sweets is a common way. We learn that sugar is no different from a drug and can be addictive, especially for people with a genetic or social predisposition. Yes, yes, people who bite into sweets, cookies or sweet yoghurts are in fact no different from smokers. For our brain, both patterns of behavior are the same. The desire to eat is the absolute analogue of the desire to smoke or drink.

Death from cardiovascular disease in early adulthood - what could be sadder for a spouse, children and friends? Common cause such diseases - overeating and related complications in the form of excess weight, advanced level cholesterol and inactivity (with overweight, you don’t want to move, the vicious circle is absurdly closed). And the reason for the abnormal attitude to food in Christian asceticism is called gluttony. This is a grave sin in both the Orthodox and Catholic traditions. Why?

Satiety as the goal of life

It is believed that a person infected with this disease of the spirit puts his satiety and pleasure from eating above everything in life, including above the Lord God. This submission to the lower needs of the body is, in fact, a form of bondage. How many people want to lose weight without trying to overcome the cause of this trouble - an abnormal relationship with food!

Not only gluttony

In the view of many, gluttony is an excess consumption of food. In fact, gluttony is just one of the demons that torment the soul. The second is the addiction to delicious food. Such a social phenomenon as gourmetism, the desire to "understand" tasty things, is very dangerous from a spiritual point of view.

Anorexics are also gluttons

You have probably noticed that many people who are losing weight begin to be painfully attentive to food, plan each meal and imagine for hours what exactly they will eat tomorrow morning, when it will already be “possible” to eat what is forbidden in the evening? They are obsessed with gluttony! Bulimia and anorexia are also manifestations of an abnormal attitude towards physiology.

How should you eat?

So, there is only No need for extremes, we are not monks, and therefore absolute strictness is beyond the reach of many. You just need to try to eat especially attractive food on holidays, preferably church holidays, and limit yourself to just one small portion without additives. Then we won't make a mistake. The main thing is not to dream about a holiday a month before the event, making gastronomic pleasures the most important thing in the "program".

At a wrong time

The third demon that torments the soul of the glutton is impatience with regard to meal times. That is, when a person eats earlier than the time that is usually or appointed for him. It turns out that the ideal Christian is the one who is able to do without "goodies", he eats moderately and on schedule. Gluttony is a disease of the soul because it makes the sinner dependent on food. All the diversity of the phenomena of the world for a person turns out to be obscured by the opportunity to enjoy "here and now".

mother of passions

Gluttony is a mortal sin because it is from it that all other passions begin. In particular, a person who has allowed himself too much develops excessive or inappropriate sexual desire, laziness, leading to idleness, despondency (from being overweight, for example). Things can even come to pride (when a person is hurt by the fact that he, the "titan of will", took and was defeated).

Is there a specific one, but it makes sense to pray to Mary of Egypt, who was pursued by passions for many years of torment in the wilderness. But magic “from God” does not exist, it is best to pray for the help of Christ himself, remembering that it is impossible to completely defeat the passion of gluttony, even great ascetics failed to do this. You just need to try to keep yourself within the limits every day. And ask God for strength to fight. Gluttony is also non-observance of fasts ...

Why does the Church judge the increased need so severely human body in nutrition? If God gives food and drink to maintain the health of the body, the temple of God, and a person with thanksgiving to the Almighty takes food, then why is gluttony a sin? More on this later in the article.

Historical aspect

Pleasing the flesh testifies to the victory of the flesh over spirituality, allowing all passions to flourish in the Christian body.

What the Church Says About the Passion of Gluttony

It was the passions that destroyed the earth before the flood, when the Creator did not see God's reflection in people, He destroyed His creation. Gluttony makes a person ugly, disfiguring the temple of God, which is a great sin. The filled womb becomes a heavy weight for the spiritual soul, pulling it constantly downward, towards passions.

IN Ancient Rome the top of the nobility was so mired in pleasing their flesh that through gluttony they did not even remember about the mountain. In some cases, the worship of the stomach reached the point of absurdity, when the body could no longer take food, and the throat demanded the continuation of the banquet, gluttons caused vomiting with special feathers and continued to stuff themselves with food.

What is the difference between normal eating and gluttony

Taking healthy food every day, in accordance with the fasts and restrictions established by the Church, and even doing it with family and friends, we are strengthened not only physically, but also mentally. Some priests call the eating of food by Christians in a joint prayer of thanksgiving a continuation of the Liturgy.

Secret prayer for the immoderate in nutrition

(read orally afterprayers for eating)

I also pray to You, Lord, deliver me from satiety, voluptuousness and grant me in the peace of my soul to reverently accept Your generous gifts, so that by eating them I will receive strengthening of my spiritual and bodily strength to serve You, Lord, in the little rest of my life on earth.

Prayer of St. John of Kronstadt

Lord, our sweetest Brasno, who never perishes, but arrives in the eternal belly: cleanse Thy servant from the filth of gluttony, all flesh created and alien to Thy Spirit, and grant him to know the sweetness of Thy life-giving spiritual brush, which is Thy Flesh and Blood and Thy holy, living and active Word.

St. Alexy, man of God

O saint of Christ, holy man of God Alexis! Look mercifully upon us, servant of God (names), and prayerfully stretch out your honest hands to the Lord God, and ask Him for forgiveness of our voluntary and involuntary sins, a peaceful and Christian life, and a good answer at the Last Judgment of Christ. She, the servant of God, do not disgrace our hope, hedgehog, according to God and the Mother of God, we place; but be our helper and patron for salvation; yes, having received grace and mercy from the Lord through your prayers, let us glorify the philanthropy of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and your holy intercession, now and forever and forever and ever.

Saint Ignatius Bryanchaninov

O great and wonderful saint of Christ, Father Ignatius! Graciously accept our prayers with love and gratitude brought to you! Hear us, orphans and helpless (names), who fall to you with faith and love and your warm intercession for us before the Throne of the Lord of Glory asking. Vema, as the prayer of the righteous can do a lot, propitiating the Lord. From the years of your infancy, you have passionately loved the Lord, and having desired to serve Him alone, you have imputed all the red of this world to nothing. You denied yourself and, taking up your cross, you followed Christ. You have chosen the path of a narrow and regrettable life of a monastic will, and on this path you have acquired great virtues. You filled with the writings of your hearts people of the deepest reverence and humility before the Almighty Creator, while the sinners who fell wise with your words in the consciousness of their insignificance and their sinfulness, in repentance and humility, resort to God, instructed you, encouraging them with hope in His mercy. You did not reject those who came to you, but you were a loving father to all and a good shepherd. And now do not leave us, fervently praying to you and asking for your help and intercession. Ask our human-loving Lord for our spiritual and bodily health, affirm our faith, strengthen our strength, exhausted in the temptations and sorrows of this age, warm with the fire of prayer that has cooled our hearts and help us, who have cleansed the Christian death of this belly by repentance, and enter into the palace of the Savior, embellished with all the elect, and there with you bow to the Father and Son and Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.

It should not be forgotten that a person was taken from dust and will turn into it, while the food in the stomach is constantly transformed into stool.

It is necessary to learn to hate that fetid cargo that decomposes in one's own body.

When putting food on a plate, each time you should gradually remove the fourth, third, and then half of the portion from it, which can be eaten after 2-3 hours if hunger arises, but it does not arise so quickly.

The devil will whisper in his ear that restricted food intake is injurious to health, but this is only his lie.

Advice! Home and close people should support the glutton in his struggle, going with him to proper nutrition.

Principles for achieving victory

1. Minimize the use of spices, spices, salts and especially seasonings containing monosodium glutamate.
2. Completely abandon sweets and sugar, replacing it with honey and natural sweeteners.
3. Boycott fatty foods.
4. Chew food thoroughly, eating in silence, without watching TV or reading. Being distracted by extraneous information, it is difficult to control the amount of portions eaten.
5. While chewing food, one should read prayers that can be written down on a piece of paper until they are imprinted in the mind.

Archpriest A. Tkachev on the sin of gluttony

Today we will analyze one interesting question related to food culture and eating behavior. These will be the traditional, religious and scientific aspects of gluttony. Indeed, Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit. And if they managed to curb their senseless appetite, perhaps humanity would still be walking along heavenly tabernacles? I’ll say right away that we are talking about traditional knowledge, which we will discuss separately from religious aspects, so take the text accordingly, agreed? You probably know that traditional knowledge is an important source of health information for me. I believe that knowledge, skills, and practices that are beneficial to health survived and became fixed because they gave an advantage to their carriers (like genes in evolution). Why is gluttony (gluttony) included in the list of mortal sins?! Who seems to feel bad because of what I eat? But everything is not so simple.

What is gluttony?

Gluttony is the first link in the chain of sin. To many it seems to be only a weakness that does not inspire great fear, and that the consequences of this sin, like scabs from leprosy, do not appear at all immediately, but after several years. It must be remembered that after Adam committed a sin, the harmony of the soul with the body of a person was disturbed. After all, the body is only an instrument of the soul, but also an organic part of the human personality. And it turned into a substrate for passions with lust. The body must be the slave of the spirit. But, in no case should the body command a person, his soul. Ideally, there should be a balance between spirit, soul and body.

What is the human body

The body can be called an evil friend and a good enemy. Without a body, a person's personality cannot be formed. Without a body, the spirit with the soul will not be able to manifest themselves to the outside world through words and deeds. The crafty flesh is ready at any moment to betray the soul to the Devil in order to receive vile pleasures. It's like Judas sold his Teacher for three dozen pieces of silver to die. The body is a very insidious companion of the soul on its difficult path to the kingdom of heaven. sometimes it obediently follows the spirit, sometimes on the contrary, it tries to drag it along a wide and stone-lined road, which leads to eternal death. Alternatively, you can even compare the soul and body with a certain rider on a wild horse. And as soon as the rider loosens the bit a little, the horse will rush to where his eyes look, as a result of which both will fall into the nearest hole.

Important!!!

Gluttony is essentially a victory of the body over the spirit. This is a kind of wide field where various passions rage. You can talk about it as the first step of a steep and slippery staircase that leads straight to the underworld.

The womb, as soon as it becomes heavy with food, begins to plunge the mind into a kind of gloomy abyss of slumber, making it lazy and even stupid. The glutton loses the ability to think deeply and accurately or talk about something spiritual. His belly, like a huge lead weight, begins to pull the grounded soul straight down. In particular, such a person is acutely aware of his infirmity during prayer. The mind cannot penetrate the holy words in any way, as if a dull knife does not cut bread. In this sense, gluttony can be considered a constant betrayal of one's prayer.

Important!!!

It should also be noted that gluttony, like any sin, darkens the intellectual and even creative powers of the one who indulges in it. Almost none of the prominent people, whether they were poets and artists, did not differ in their time by gluttony, did not even have a body that would resemble a beer barrel.

It often happens that a glutton who is already very tired from the burden of his own body, which brings him to shortness of breath and to exhaustion, decides to lose weight. He is exhausted by the need to constantly overcome obstacles in the form of the size of his own stomach, for example, when you need to bend down and pick up a thing from the floor or even tritely tie your shoelaces. Then it is logical that he decides to declare war and defeat the demon of gluttony by destroying his own fat as an enemy. Such a person will write diets from fashion magazines, and even announce to all his friends and relatives that soon his figure will noticeably decrease in volume. But, such a glutton, who barely goes on a diet, turns out to be, as it were, in the role of a gladiator, who unarmedly entered into a fight with a huge, wild beast. At first, for the first minutes, he resists, but then falls, torn to shreds by the claws or fangs of a terrible predator. At first, the glutton will adhere to a strict diet and look at those around him almost victoriously, but then the desire to absorb food will take its toll and he will, as before, be zealous in eating.

Are there certain types of this sin or its direction?

In gluttony, it is conditionally possible to distinguish two addictions: gluttony and guttural insanity.

Gluttony is essentially an insatiable desire for food, a kind of aggression of the body directed against the soul. That is, constant harassment from the womb, which every now and then requires a person to constantly eat food. This can be compared to the madness of the womb, which consumes any food indiscriminately. The stomach of such a person will be like a bag into which the stingy owner shoves all things indiscriminately, after which he can hardly drag an unnecessary load behind him.

laryngeal is constant desire dainty or gourmet food, that is, it is the voluptuousness of the larynx. Simply put, a person must eat in order to be able to live, but this person lives in order to eat. He prepares his menu in advance, paying too much attention to the dishes and choosing them carefully. He spends almost all the money on goodies, as if the player loses his fortune in excitement.

There are other types of gluttony, such as secret eating - this is the desire to hide one's vice. Early eating consists in the fact that a person, just waking up, immediately takes to food, even before he begins to experience hunger. Vicious and hasty eating, in which a person tries to fill the stomach very quickly and swallows food without even chewing it, like a turkey. It is considered sinful not to observe fasts, and also to use the larynx of various harmful products. Ancient ascetics generally considered excessive drinking of water to be a sin of gluttony.

How to rid yourself of gluttony?

The Holy Fathers recommend that you first limit yourself to eating spicy or irritating foods. Then make yourself a restriction in sweet and throat-pleasant food. Then you can already abandon the oily and fattening body. You need to eat slowly, so there will be a feeling of fullness sooner.

Advice

It is necessary to get up after a meal in a state when the first hunger has already been satisfied, but the person still feels thirsty for food. It used to be the custom to have a silent meal. Any extraneous conversations will distract attention, and a person who is carried away by a conversation, most likely, automatically eats everything that is on the table. It would also be good to read a prayer to yourself while eating.

Conclusion:

We can say that the sin of gluttony is the gradual eating of the body of the soul, and the result of this is that the heavenly and spiritual beginning gradually fades in a person, and he turns into blind flesh. To get rid of gluttony, you need to give up spicy and irritating food, limit the use of sweets. And remember one rule - you need to get up from the table with a slight feeling of hunger, then gluttony is not scary.