Homilies on First Corinthians

Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat, asking no question for conscience sake.

Having said that “they could not drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of the devils,” and having once for all led them away from those tables, by Jewish examples, by human reasonings, by the tremendous Mysteries, by the rites solemnized among the idols; and having filled them with great fear; that he might not by this fear drive again to another extreme, and they be forced, exercising a greater scrupulosity than was necessary, to feel alarm, lest possibly even without their knowledge there might come in some such thing either from the market or from some other quarter; to release them from this strait, he says, “Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat, asking no question.” “For,” says he, “if you eat in ignorance and not knowingly, you are not subject to the punishment: it being thenceforth a matter not of greediness, but of ignorance.”

Nor does he free the man only from this anxiety, but also from another, establishing them in thorough security and liberty. For he does not even suffer them to “question;” i.e., to search and enquire, whether it be an idol-sacrifice or no such thing; but simply to eat every thing which comes from the market, not even acquainting one's self with so much as this, what it is that is set before us. So that even he that eats, if in ignorance, may be rid of anxiety. For such is the nature of those things which are not in their essence evil, but through the man's intention make him unclean. Wherefore he says, “asking no question.”