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Dialogue with Trypho
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Chapter 20: Why specific meats were recommended.
IN ADDITION: you were instructed to avoid certain kinds of food to keep God in mind while eating and drinking, since you were likely to drift away from His knowledge, as Moses also states: ‘The people ate and drank, and then indulged in revelry.’ And again: ‘Jacob ate, was satisfied, and became fat; and the beloved one rebelled: he grew fat, thick, and large, and abandoned God who made him.’ Moses tells you in Genesis that God allowed Noah, being a just man, to eat any animal, but not flesh with blood, which is lifeless.” As he was about to say, “as the green herbs,” I interrupted: “Why don’t you understand this phrase, ‘as the green herbs,’ in the way God intended, meaning that just as God provided herbs for human nourishment, He also permitted animals for meat? But you argue that a distinction was later made to Noah and that we don’t eat certain herbs.
Your interpretation seems unlikely. First, I won't dwell on this, though I could argue that every vegetable is food and suitable for eating. Even though we choose between herbs and don’t eat all of them, we avoid some not because they are common or unclean, but because they are bitter, poisonous, or thorny.
However, we consume all herbs that are sweet, nourishing, and good, whether they are marine or land plants. Likewise, God instructed you through Moses to abstain from unclean, improper, and aggressive animals.
Yet, while you were in the desert eating manna and witnessing all the wondrous acts God did for you, you made and worshiped the golden calf.
Thus, he rightly declares, ‘They are foolish children, lacking faith.’