For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
One does not sin who afterward unwittingly eats food which he had previously refused as belonging to idols. Vegetables and any kind of fruit grown in any field are God’s who created them.
"Conscience, I say, not his own, but that of the other; for why is my liberty judged of by another conscience? For if I by grace am partaker, why am I evil spoken of l for that for which I give thanks? Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.".
"But the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.".
But he who culls what is useful for the advantage of the catechumens, and especially when they are Greeks (and the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.
But "the earth is God's, and the fulness thereof"
For the earth is the Lord"s and the fulness thereof. Every creature, because it is the Lord"s, is good and clean; Song of Solomon , too, things offered to idols are not unclean, as you suppose, because they have been offered to a devil, but are clean, because created by the Lord. So Chrysostom, Theophylact,, Anselm. Theophylact gives another meaning as well: "Abstain from all food sacrificed to idols, for the whole earth is the Lord"s, and you can be abundantly satisfied from other sources." But this meaning is not suited to the context, especially, to the injunction, "Eat whatever is sold in the shambles."
For to the Lord belongs the earth and the fullness thereof. Not to the devils. Now if the earth and the fruits and the beasts be all His, nothing is unclean: but it becomes unclean otherwise, from our intention and our disobedience. Wherefore he not only gave permission
