Caput XXVIII. De gula
Gluttony's Origin in the Fall
Gluttony is identified as the first bodily sin, through which Adam and Eve lost paradise and brought toil and sorrow upon all humanity.
The first bodily sin is gluttony — that is, an intemperate desire for food or drink — through which the first parents of the human race lost the happiness of paradise and were cast down into the wretched misery of this life, where every person is born through sin, lives through toil, and dies through sorrow.
Three Ways Gluttony Reigns
Gluttony manifests in three concrete forms: eating before the appointed hour, seeking overly rich foods, and consuming beyond what health requires.
This vice seems to reign in a person in three ways: first, when someone wants to anticipate the canonical and appointed hour of eating for the sake of gluttony; second, when they order more exquisite foods to be prepared for themselves than the body's necessity or the demands of their own station require; or third, when they take more in eating or drinking out of a desire for excess than serves their health.
The Fruits of Gluttony and the Remedy of Fasting
Gluttony gives rise to a chain of vices including foolishness, lust, and drunkenness, which are overcome through fasting, abstinence, and diligent work, summed up in the rule that religious persons never fill their bellies.
From this gluttony are born foolish joy, buffoonery, lightness of speech, idle talk, bodily uncleanness, instability of mind, drunkenness, and lust — because from a full belly the body's desire gathers strength, which is best conquered through fasting, abstinence, and steady application to work of any kind. For it is a common rule for all religious persons, both healthy and infirm, that they never fill their belly with any food whatsoever.
Read the original Latin
Primum est corporale peccatum gula, id est, intemperans cibi vel potus voluptas, per quam primi parentes humani generis paradisi felicitatem perdiderunt, et in hanc aerumnosam hujus vitae miseriam dejecti sunt; ubi omnis homo per peccatum nascitur, per laborem vivit, per dolorem moritur. Quae tribus modis regnare videtur in homine; id est, dum homo horam canonicam et statutam gulae causa anticipare cupit, aut exquisitiores cibos sibi praeparare jubet, quam necessitas corporis, vel suae qualitas personae exigat, vel si plus accipiet in edendo vel bibendo propter desiderium intemperantiae suae, quam suae proficiat saluti. De qua gula nascitur inepta laetitia, scurrilitas, levitas, vaniloquium, immunditia corporis, instabilitas mentis, ebrietas, libido: quia ex saturitate ventris libido corporis congeritur, quae per jejunia et abstinentiam, et operis cujuslibet assiduitatem optime vincitur. Communis enim est regula omnibus religiosis sanis et infirmis, ut de qualicunque cibo nunquam impleant ventrem.
On Virtues and Vices (De virtutibus et vitiis) companion
Read the plan one portion at a time — delivered daily
The Chosen Portion app serves each day's Alcuin chapter as a morning devotional, free.
Alcuin designed this book for daily use by a layman with no spare time, and Chosen Portion restores that use: one chapter-length portion per morning until the mirror is complete.
- All 30 days of the plan delivered automatically — no bookmark-keeping or lost PDFs
- Each chapter arrives as a 3-5 minute modern-readable portion with its Scripture references linked
- When day 30 ends, keep going: dozens more royal-house devotional works in the same format