1002. 'Not eating' means not mixing together. This follows from what has been said above. Regarded in itself eating animal flesh is something profane, for in most ancient times people never ate the flesh of any beast or bird, but only different kinds of grain, especially wheaten bread, also the fruit of trees, vegetables, milk, and milk products such as butter. Slaughtering living creatures and eating their flesh was to them abominable, akin to the behaviour of wild animals. Service and use alone was demanded of those creatures, as is clear from Genesis 1:29-30. But in the process of time when mankind began to be as savage as wild animals, indeed more savage, they first began to slaughter living creatures and eat their flesh. And because man had become such, he was permitted to do so and is still permitted today. And insofar as he does so from conscience, it is quite legitimate, for his conscience is given form from all those things he presumes to be true and so legitimate. Consequently nobody nowadays stands in any sense condemned because he eats meat.

2955. 'I will bury my dead' means that they would emerge from night and be made alive. This is clear from the meaning of 'burying' and of 'one who is dead', dealt with above in 2917, 2923, 2925, 2931, 2948. They are spoken of here as being made alive because they are on their way to receiving faith; for it is from faith, that is to say, from the good that is the fruit of it, that they receive life. That life has no other source. A further reason why 'I will bury my dead' means emerging from spiritual night and being made alive is that once the previous Church has died, a new one is established by the Lord to take its place, and so life is imparted to take the place of death, and morning to take the place of night. And there is the further reason still that with everyone who is being reformed and becoming spiritual, that which has died in him is so to speak buried, and that which is new and made alive rises up, so that instead of the night with him, that is, instead of darkness and cold, morning breaks, bringing its light and warmth. This explains why with angels, who have the Lord's life in them, in place of men's idea of burial of the dead there is the idea of resurrection and of new life. This is indeed so, for some Church always exists on earth, and when the old Church breathes its last and night has fallen, a new one rises up somewhere else, and morning breaks.