Therefore, if food makes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat while the world stands, lest I make my brother to stumble.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
It is all right to have a wife, but if she commits adultery she is to be rejected. Likewise, it is all right to eat meat, but if it has been sacrificed to idols it is to be refused. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
Those who are stronger and are not troubled by scruples are nevertheless commanded to abstain so as not to offend those who, on account of their weakness, still find abstinence necessary.
Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth. S. Chrysostom says: "It is the mark of a good teacher to teach by example as well as precept. The Apostle does not qualify what he says by adding "justly" of "unjustly," but he says absolutely, "If meat make my brother to offend." He does not speak of idol-offerings as being prohibited for other reasons, but he says that if what is lawful causes his brother to offend, he will abstain from it, not for one or two days, but for his whole life. Nor does he say, "Lest I destroy my brother," but "Lest I make my brother to offend." It would be he height of folly in us to regard those things, which are so dear to Christ that He refused not to die for them, as so worthless that we will not for their sake abstain from certain food."
On the subject of offence, see S. Basil (Reg. Brevior64), where, towards the end, he says that the offence is greater in proportion to the knowledge or rank of him who gives ...
Certainly let them not cause a scandal to the brethren or sisters, since it is written, "If meat cause my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend."
If meat scandalize. That is, if my eating cause my brother to sin. (Challoner)
Can we put any meat, or life itself, in competition with a soul, and the blood of Christ, which has been shed for that soul, when we know the value of each!
This is like the best of teachers, to apply to himself the things he is speaking about. Paul is not concerned about the rights and wrongs of the issue in any objective sense. His only concern is that his brother should not stumble.
11. Wherefore, if meat make my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for ever. This is like the best of teachers, to teach in his own person the things which he speaks. Nor did he say whether justly or unjustly; but in any case. I say not, (such is his tone,) meat offered in sacrifice to an idol, which is already prohibited for another reason; but if any even of those things which are within license and are permitted causes stumbling, from these also will I abstain: and not one or two days, but all the time of my life. For he says, I will eat no flesh for ever. And he said not, Lest I destroy my brother, but simply, That I make not my brother to stumble. For indeed it comes of folly in the extreme that what things are greatly cared for by Christ, and such as He should have even chosen to die for them, these we should esteem so entirely beneath our notice as not even to abstain from meats on their account.
Now these things might be seasonably spoken not to them only, but also to us...
