Better [is] a dinner of herbs, where love is
What Plautus F9 calls "asperam et terrestrem
caenam", "a harsh and earthly supper", made of what grows out of
the earth; which is got without much cost or care, and dressed
with little trouble; a traveller's dinner, as the word
F11 signifies, and a poor one too to
travel upon, such as is easily obtained, and presently cooked,
and comes cheap. Now, where there are love and good nature in the
host that prepares this dinner; or in a family that partakes of
such an one, having no better; or among guests invited, who eat
friendly together; or in the person that invites them, who
receives them cheerfully, and heartily bids them welcome: such a
dinner, with such circumstances, is better than a stalled
ox, and hatred therewith;
than an ox kept up in the stall for fattening; or than a fatted
one, which with the ancients was the principal in a grand
entertainment; hence the allusion in ( Matthew 22:4
) ( Luke
15:23 ) . In the times of Homer, an ox was in high esteem at
their festivals; at the feasts made by his heroes, Agamemnon,
Menelaus, and Ajax, an ox was a principal part of them, if not
the whole; the back of a fat ox, or a sirloin of beef, was a
favourite dish F12. Indeed in some ages, both among
Greeks and Romans, an ox was abstained from, through a
superstitious regard to it, because so useful a creature in
ploughing of the land; and it was carried so far as to suppose it
to be as sinful to slay an ox as to kill a man F13: and
Aratus F14 represents it as not done, neither
in the golden nor silver age, but that in the brasen age men
first began to kill and eat oxen; but this is to be confuted by
the laws of God, ( Genesis 9:3 ) (
Deuteronomy 14:4 ) ;
and by the examples of Abraham and others. Now if there is
hatred, either in the host, or in the guests among themselves, or
in a family, it must stir up strifes and contentions, and render
all enjoyments unpleasant and uncomfortable; see ( Proverbs
17:1 ) ( Ecclesiastes
4:6 ) ; but where the love of God is, which is better than
life, and the richest enjoyments of it; which sweetens every
mercy, and cannot be purchased with money; and secures the best
of blessings, the riches of grace and glory, and itself can never
be lost; where this is, the meanest diet is preferable to the
richest and most costly banquets of wicked men; who are hated and
abhorred by the Lord, for their oppression and injustice, their
luxury, or their covetousness; for poor men may be loved of God,
and the rich be abhorred by him, ( Psalms 10:4 ) (
Luke
15:19-23 ) .
F9 Capteivei, Act. 1. Sc. 2. v. 80. &. 3. Sc. 1. v. 37.
F11 (txra) "viaticum", Montanus, Amama; "commeatus", Cocceius.
F12 Iliad. 7. v. 320, 321. Odyss. 4. v. 65. & 8. v. 60. Vid. Suidam in voce (omhrov) . Virgil. Aeneid. 8. v. 182.
F13 Aelian. l. 5. c. 14. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 45.
F14 Phoenomena, v. 132.