Even the apostle Paul gives this wise advice:
It is good not to eat meat, not to drink wine, and to refrain from that which, for his brother, is the cause of fall or of weakness. (Romans 14:21).
Therefore, if a food drops my brother, I will never eat meat again, so that my brother will not fall. (Romans 8:13).
Even the apostle Peter specifies that God teaches him by a vision that there are no unclean animals.
The Lord God said to him: "What God has declared pure, do not regard it as defiled". (Acts 10:15)
Vegetarian Christians.
The writings of the early Christians also demonstrate the importance of vegetarianism in their religious practice
Clement of Alexandria (160-240), one of the fathers of the Christian church, recommends: “It is better to be happy, he said, than to make our bodies like graves for animals”.
The apostle Matthew ate grains, nuts and vegetables, and abstained from all animal flesh.
Saint Jerome, famous leader at the beginning of the Christian church wrote: “Preparing vegetables, fruits and pulses is easy and does not require expensive cooks”. He felt that such a diet was better suited to a life devoted to the quest for wisdom.
Saint John Chrysostom (345-407) considered eating meat as a cruel and unnatural custom for Christians. He specifies: “We imitate the habits of wolves, leopards, or rather we do worse than them. Nature made them to feed like this, but God endowed us with speech and a sense of fairness, and we have become worse than wild beasts”. He also said: “We Christian leaders practice abstinence from animal flesh”.
Saint Benedict, who founded the monastic order of the Benedictines in 529, prescribed the vegetarian food as the staple food for its monks.
The Order of La Trappe, from its foundation in the 17th century, was strictly against the consumption of meat, eggs and other foods of animal origin. This rule was relaxed by the Vatican Council of 1965, but most Trappists still adhere to the original teaching on vegetarianism.
Today, the Seventh-day Adventist Church strongly recommends vegetarianism to its members, drawing on the teachings of the Bible. Even though the majority of Christians are non-vegetarians, there are many who do and can make statements similar to those of John Wesley (1703-1791), the founder of Methodism, who once said: “thank God, because since I left the meat and the wine, I have been free from all physical illness”.