The Shows, or De Spectaculis - Tertullian
Advanced Information
Translated by the Rev. S. Thelwall.
Text edited by Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson and
first published by T&T Clark in Edinburgh in 1867. Additional
introductionary material and notes provided for the American
edition by A. Cleveland Coxe, 1886.
Chapter I
Ye Servants of God, about to draw near to God. that you may make solemn
consecration of yourselves to Him, [333] seek well to understand the
condition of faith, the reasons of the Truth, the laws of Christian
Discipline, which forbid among other sins of the world, the pleasures of the
public shows. Ye who have testified and confessed [334] that you have done
so already, review the subject, that there may be no sinning whether through
real or wilful ignorance. For such is the power of earthly pleasures, that,
to retain the opportunity of still partaking of them, it contrives to
prolong swilling ignorance, and bribes knowledge into playing a dishonest
part. To both things, perhaps, some among you are allured by the views of
the heathens who in this matter are wont to press us with arguments, such as
these: (1) That the exquisite enjoyments of ear and eye we have in things
external are not in the least opposed to religion in the mind and
conscience; and (2) That surely no offence is offered to God, in any human
enjoyment, by any of our pleasures, which it is not sinful to partake of in
its own time and place, with all due honour and reverence secured to Him.
But this is precisely what we are ready to prove: That these things are not
consistent with true religion and true obedience to the true God. There are
some who imagine that Christians, a sort of people ever ready to die, are
trained into the abstinence they practise, with no other object than that of
making it less difficult to despise life, the fastenings to it being severed
as it were. They regard it as an art of quenching all desire for that which,
so far as they are concerned, they have emptied of all that is desirable;
and so it is thought to be rather a thing of human planning and foresight,
than clearly laid down by divine command. It were a grievous thing,
forsooth, for Christians, while continuing in the enjoyment of pleasures so
great, to die for God! It is not as they say; though, if it were, even
Christian obstinacy might well give all submission to a plan so suitable, to
a rule so excellent.
Chapter II.
Then, again, every one is ready with the argument [335] that all things, as
we teach, were created by God, and given to man for his use, and that they
must be good, as coming all from so good a source; but that among them are
found the various constituent elements of the public shows, such as the
horse, the lion, bodily strength, and musical voice. It cannot, then, be
thought that what exists by God's own creative will is either foreign or
hostile to Him; and if it is not opposed to Him, it cannot be regarded as
injurious to His worshippers, as certainly it is not foreign to them. Beyond
all doubt, too, the very buildings connected with the places of public
amusement, composed as they are of rocks, stones, marbles, pillars, are
things of God, who has given these various things for the earth's
embellishment; nay, the very scenes are enacted under God's own heaven. How
skilful a pleader seems human wisdom to herself, especially if she has the
fear of losing any of her delights'any of the sweet enjoyments of worldly
existence! In fact, you will find not a few whom the imperilling of their
pleasures rather than their life holds back from us. For even the weakling
has no strong dread of death as a debt he knows is due by him; while the
wise man does not look with contempt on pleasure, regarding it as a precious
gift'in fact, the one blessedness of life, whether to philosopher or fool.
Now nobody denies what nobody is ignorant of'for Nature herself is teacher
of it'that God is the Maker of the universe, and that it is good, and that
it is man's by free gift of its Maker. But having no intimate acquaintance
with the Highest, knowing Him only by natural revelation, and not as His
"friends"-afar off, and not as those who have been brought nigh to Him'men
cannot but be in ignorance alike of what He enjoins and what He forbids in
regard to the administration of His world. They must be ignorant, too, of
the hostile power which works against Him, and perverts to wrong uses the
things His hand has formed; for you cannot know either the will or the
adversary of a God you do not know. We must not, then, consider merely by
whom all things were made, but by whom they have been perverted. We shall
find out for what use they were made at first, when we find for what they
were not. There is a vast difference between the corrupted state and that of
primal purity, just because there is a vast difference between the Creator
and the corrupter. Why, all sorts of evils, which as indubitably evils even
the heathens prohibit, and against which they guard themselves, come from
the works of God. Take, for instance, murder, whether committed by iron, by
poison, or by magical enchantments. Iron and herbs and demons are all
equally creatures of God. Has the Creator, withal, provided these things for
man's destruction? Nay, He puts His interdict on every sort of man-killing
by that one summary precept, "Thou shalt not kill." Moreover, who but God,
the Maker of the world, put in its gold, brass, silver, ivory, wood, and all
the other materials used in the manufacture of idols? Yet has He done this
that men may set up a worship in opposition to Himself? On the contrary
idolatry in His eyes is the crowning sin. What is there offensive to God
which is not God's? But in offending Him, it ceases to be His; and in
ceasing to be His, it is in His eyes an offending thing. Man himself, guilty
as he is of every iniquity, is not only a work of God'he is His image, and
yet both in soul and body he has severed himself from his Maker. For we did
not get eyes to minister to lust, and the tongue for speaking evil with, and
ears to be the receptacle of evil speech, and the throat to serve the vice
of gluttony, and the belly to be gluttony's ally, and the genitals for
unchaste excesses, and hands for deeds of violence, and the feet for an
erring life; or was the soul placed in the body that it might become a
thought-manufactory of snares, and fraud, and injustice? I think not; for if
God, as the righteous ex-actor of innocence, hates everything like
malignity'if He hates utterly such plotting of evil, it is clear beyond a
doubt, that, of all things that have come from His hand, He has made none to
lead to works which He condemns, even though these same works may be carried
on by things of His making; for, in fact, it is the one ground of
condemnation, that the creature misuses the creation. We, therefore, who in
our knowledge of the Lord have obtained some knowledge also of His foe'who,
in our discovery of the Creator, have at the same time laid hands upon the
great corrupter, ought neither to wonder nor to doubt that, as the prowess
of the corrupting and God-opposing angel overthrew in the beginning the
virtue of man, the work and image of God, the possessor of the world, so he
has entirely changed man's nature'created, like his own, for perfect
sinlessness'into his own state of wicked enmity against his Maker, that in
the very thing whose gift to man, but not to him, had grieved him, he might
make man guilty in God's eyes, and set up his own supremacy. [336]
Chapter III.
Fortified by this knowledge against heathen views, let us rather turn to the
unworthy reasonings of our own people; for the faith of some, either too
simple or too scrupulous, demands direct authority from Scripture for giving
up the shows, and holds out that the matter is a doubtful one, because such
abstinence is not clearly and in words imposed upon God's servants. Well, we
never find it expressed with the same precision, "Thou shalt not enter
circus or theatre, thou shalt not look on combat or show; "as it is plainly
laid down, "Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not worship an idol; thou shalt
not commit adultery or fraud." [337] But we find that that first word of
David bears on this very sort of thing: "Blessed," he says, "is the man who
has not gone into the assembly of the impious, nor stood in the way of
sinners, nor sat in the seat of scorners." [338] Though he seems to have
predicted beforehand of that just man, that he took no part in the meetings
and deliberations of the Jews, taking counsel about the slaying of our Lord,
yet divine Scripture has ever far-reaching applications: after the immediate
sense has been exhausted, in all directions it fortifies the practice of the
religious life, so that here also you have an utterance which is not far
from a plain interdicting of the shows. If he called those few Jews an
assembly of the wicked, how much more will he so designate so vast a
gathering of heathens! Are the heathens less impious, less sinners, less
enemies of Christ, than the Jews were then? And see, too, how other things
agree. For at the shows they also stand in the way. For they call the spaces
between the seats going round the amphitheatre, and the passages which
separate the people running down, ways. The place in the curve where the
matrons sit is called a chair. Therefore, on the contrary, it holds,
unblessed is he who has entered any council of wicked men, and has stood in
any way of sinners, and has sat in any chair of scorners. We may understand
a thing as spoken generally, even when it requires a certain special
interpretation to be given to it. For some things spoken with a special
reference contain in them general truth. When God admonishes the Isrealites
of their duty, or sharply reproves them, He has surely a reference to all
men; when He threatens destruction to Egypt and Ethiopia, He surely
pre-condemns every sinning nation, whatever. If, reasoning from species to
genus, every nation that sins against them is an Egypt and Ethiopia; so
also, reasoning from genus to species, with reference to the origin of
shows, every show is an assembly of the wicked.
Chapter IV.
Lest any one think that we are dealing in mere argumentative subtleties, I
shall turn to that highest authority of our "seal" itself. When entering the
water, we make profession of the Christian faith in the words of its rule;
we bear public testimony that we have renounced the devil, his pomp, and his
angels. Well, is it not in connection with idolatry, above all, that you
have the devil with his pomp and his angels? from which, to speak.
briefly'for I do not wish to dilate'you have every unclean and wicked
spirit. If, therefore, it shall be made plain that the entire apparatus of
the shows is based upon idolatry, beyond all doubt that will carry with it
the conclusion that our renunciatory testimony in the layer of baptism has
reference to the shows, which, through their idolatry, have been given over
to the devil, and his pomp, and his angels. We shall set forth, then, their
several origins, in what nursing-places they have grown to manhood; next the
titles of some of them, by what names they are called; then their apparatus,
with what superstitions they are observed; (then their places, to what
patrons they are dedicated; ) then the arts which minister to them, to what
authors they are traced. If any of these shall be found to have had no
connection with an idol-god, it will be held as free at once from the taint
of idolatry, and as not coming within the range of our baptismal abjuration.
[339]
Chapter V.
In the matter of their origins, as these are somewhat obscure and but little
known to many among us, our investigations must go back to a remote
antiquity, and our authorities be none other than books of heathen
literature. Various authors are extant who have published works on the
subject. The origin of the games as given by them is this. Timµus tells us
that immigrants from Asia, under the leadership of Tyrrhenus, who, in a
contest about his native kingdom, had succumbed to his brother, settled down
in Etruria. Well, among other superstitious observances under the name of
religion, they set up in their new home public shows. The Romans, at their
own request, obtain from them skilled performers'the proper seasons'the name
too, for it is said they are called Ludi, from Lydi. And though Varro
derives the name of Ludi from Ludus, that is, from play, as they called the
Luperci also Ludii, because they ran about making sport; still that sporting
of young men belongs, in his view, to festal days and temples, and objects
of religious veneration. However, it is of little consequence the origin of
the name, when it is certain that the thing springs from idolatry. The
Liberalia, under the general designation of Ludi, clearly declared the glory
of Father Bacchus; for to Bacchus these festivities were first consecrated
by grateful peasants, in return for the boon he conferred on them, as they
say, making known the pleasures of wine. Then the Consualia were called
Ludi, and at first were in honour of Neptune, for Neptune has the name of
Consus also. Thereafter Romulus dedicated the Equiria to Mars, though they
claim the Consualia too for Romulus, on the ground that he consecrated them
to Consus, the god, as they will have it, of counsel; of the counsel,
forsooth, in which he planned the rape of the Sabine virgins for wives to
his soldiers. An excellent counsel truly; and still I suppose reckoned just
and righteous by the Romans themselves, I may not say by God. This goes also
to taint the origin: you cannot surely hold that to be good which has sprung
from sin, from shamelessness, from violence, from hatred, from a fratricidal
founder, from a son of Mars. Even now, at the first turning-post in the
circus, there is a subterranean altar to this same Consus, with an
inscription to this effect: "Consus, great in counsel, Mars, in battle
mighty tutelar deities." The priests of the state sacrifice at it on the
nones of July; the priest of Romulus and the Vestals on the twelfth before
the Kalends of September. In addition to this, Romulus instituted games in
honor of Jupiter Feretrius on the Tarpeian Hill, according to the statement
Piso has handed down to us, called both Tarpeian and Capitoline. After him
Numa Pompilius instituted games to Mars and Robigo (for they have also
invented a goddess of rust); then Tullus Hostilius; then Ancus Martius; and
various others in succession did the like. As to the idols in whose honour
these games were established, ample information is to be fount in the pages
of Suetonius Tranquillus. But we need say no more to prove the accusation of
idolatrous origin.
Chapter VI.
To the testimony of antiquity is added that of later games instituted in
their turn, and betraying their origin from the titles which they bear even
at the present day, in which it is imprinted as on their very face, for what
idol and for what religious object games, whether of the one kind or the
other, were designed. You have festivals bearing the name of the great
Mother [340] and Apollo of Ceres too, and Neptune, and Jupiter Latiaris, and
Flora, all celebrated for a common end; the others have their religious
origin in the birthdays and solemnities of kings, in public successes in
municipal holidays. There are also testamentary exhibitions, in which
funeral honours are rendered to the memories of private persons; and this
according to an institution of ancient times. For from the first the
"Ludi" were regarded as of two sons, sacred and funereal, that is in honour
of the heathen deities and of the dead. But in the matter of idolatry, it
makes no difference with us under what name or title it is practised, while
it has to do with the wicked spirits whom we abjure. If it is lawful to
offer homage to the dead, it will be just as lawful to offer it to their
gods: you have the same origin in both cases; there is the same idolatry;
there is on our part the same solemn renunciation of all idolatry.
Chapter VII.
The two kinds of public games, then, have one origin; and they have common
names, as owning the same parentage. So, too, as they are equally tainted
with the sin of idolatry, their foundress, they must needs be like each
other in their pomp. But the more ambitious preliminary display of the
circus games to which the name procession specially belongs, is in itself
the proof to whom the whole thing appertains, in the many images the long
line of statues, the chariots of all sorts, the thrones, the crowns, the
dresses. What high religious rites besides, what sacrifices precede, come
between, and follow. How many guilds, how many priesthoods, how many offices
are set astir, is known to the inhabitants of the great city in which the
demon convention has its headquarters. If these things are done in humbler
style in the provinces, in accordance with their inferior means, still all
circus games must be counted as belonging to that from which they are
derived; the fountain from which they spring defiles them. The tiny
streamlet from its very spring-head, the little twig from its very budding,
contains in it the essential nature of its origin. It may be grand or mean,
no matter, any circus procession whatever is offensive to God. Though there
be few images to grace it, there is idolatry in one; though there be no more
than a single sacred car, it is a chariot of Jupiter: anything of idolatry
whatever, whether meanly arrayed or modestly rich and gorgeous, taints it in
its origin.
Chapter VIII.
To follow out my plan in regard to places: the circus is chiefly consecrated
to the Sun, whose temple stands in the middle of it, and whose image shines
forth from its temple summit; for they have not thought it proper to pay
sacred honours underneath a roof to an object they have itself in open
space. Those who assert that the first spectacle was exhibited by Circe, and
in honour of the Sun her father, as they will have it, maintain also the
name of circus was derived from her. Plainly, then, the enchantress did this
in the name of the parties whose priestess she was'I mean the demons and
spirits of evil. What an aggregation of idolatries you see, accordingly, in
the decoration of the place! Every ornament of the circus is a temple by
itself. The eggs are regarded as sacred to the Castors, by men who are not
ashamed to profess faith in their production from the egg of a swan, which
was no other than Jupiter himself. The Dolphins vomit forth in honour of
Neptune. Images of Sessia, so called as the goddess of sowing; of Messia, so
called as the goddess of reaping; of Tutulina, so called as the
fruit-protecting deity'load the pillars. In front of these you have three
altars to these three gods'Great, Mighty, Victorious. They reckon these of
Samo-Thrace. The huge Obelisk, as Hermeteles affirms, is set up in public to
the Sun; its inscription, like its origin, belongs to Egyptian superstition.
Cheerless were the demon-gathering without their Mater Magna; and so she
presides there over the Euripus. Consus, as we have mentioned, lies hidden
under ground at the Murcian Goals. These two sprang from an idol. For they
will have it that Murcia is the goddess of love; and to her, at that spot,
they have consecrated a temple. See, Christian, how many impure names have
taken possession of the circus! You have nothing to do with a sacred place
which is tenanted by such multitudes of diabolic spirits. And speaking of
places, this is the suitable occasion for some remarks in anticipation of a
point that some will raise. What, then, you say; shall I be in danger of
pollution if I go to the circus when the games are not being celebrated?
There is no law forbidding the mere places to us. For not only the places
for show-gatherings, but even the temples, may be entered without any peril
of his religion by the servant of God, if he has only some honest reason for
it, unconnected with their proper business and official duties. Why, even
the streets and the market-place, and the baths, and the taverns, and our
very dwelling-places, are not altogether free from idols. Satan and his
angels have filled the whole world. It is not by merely being in the world,
however, that we lapse from God, but by touching and tainting ourselves with
the world's sins. I shall break with my Maker, that is, by going to the
Capitol or the temple of Serapis to sacrifice or adore, as I shall also do
by going as a spectator to the circus and the theatre. The places in
themselves do not contaminate, but what is done in them; from this even the
places themselves, we maintain, become defiled. The polluted things pollute
us. It is on this account that we set before you to whom places of the kind
are dedicated, that we may prove the things which are done in them to belong
to the idol-patrons to whom the very places are sacred. [341]
Chapter IX.
Now as to the kind of performances peculiar to the circus exhibitions. In
former days equestrianism was practised in a simple way on horseback, and
certainly its ordinary use had nothing sinful in it; but when it was dragged
into the games, it passed from the service of God into the employment of
demons. Accordingly this kind of circus performances is regarded as sacred
to Castor and Pollux, to whom, Stesichorus tells us, horses were given by
Mercury. And Neptune, too, is an equestrian deity, by the Greeks called
Hippius. In regard to the team, they have consecrated the chariot and four
to the sun; the chariot and pair to the moon. But, as the poet has it,
"Erichthonius first dared to yoke four horses to the chariot, and to ride
upon its wheels with victorious swiftness." Erichthonius, the son of Vulcan
and Minerva, fruit of unworthy passion upon earth, is a demon-monster, nay,
the devil himself, and no mere snake. But if Trochilus the Argive is maker
of the first chariot, he dedicated that work of his to Juno. If Romulus
first exhibited the four-horse chariot at Rome, he too, I think, has a place
given him among idols, at least if he and Quirinus are the same. But as
chariots had such inventors, the charioteers were naturally dressed, too, in
the colours of idolatry; for at first these were only two, namely white and
red,'the former sacred to the winter with its glistening snows, the latter
sacred to the summer with its ruddy sun: but afterwards, in the progress of
luxury as well as of superstition, red was dedicated by some to Mars, and
white by others to the Zephyrs, while green was given to Mother Earth, or
spring, and azure to the sky and sea, or autumn. But as idolatry of every
kind is condemned by God, that form of it surely shares the condemnation
which is offered to the elements of nature.
Chapter X.
Let us pass on now to theatrical exhibitions, which we have already shown
have a common origin with the circus, and bear like idolatrous
designations'even as from the first they have borne the name of "Ludi," and
equally minister to idols. They resemble each other also in their pomp,
having the same procession to the scene of their display from temples and
altars, and that mournful profusion of incense and blood, with music of
pipes and trumpets, all under the direction of the soothsayer and the
undertaker, those two foul masters of funeral rites and sacrifices. So as we
went on from the origin of the "Ludi" to the circus games, we shall now
direct our course thence to those of the theatre, beginning with the place
of exhibition. At first the theatre was properly a temple of Venus; and, to
speak briefly, it was owing to this that stage performances were allowed to
escape censure, and got a footing in the world. For ofttimes the censors, in
the interests of morality, put down above all the rising theatres,
foreseeing, as they did, that there was great danger of their leading to a
general profligacy; so that already, from this accordance of their own
people with us, there is a witness to the heathen, and in the anticipatory
judgment of human knowledge even a confirmation of our views. Accordingly
Pompey the Great, less only than his theatre, when he had erected that
citadel of all impurities, fearing some time or other censorian condemnation
of his memory, superposed on it a temple of Venus; and summoning by public
proclamation the people to its consecration, he called it not a theatre, but
a temple, "under which," said he, "we have placed tiers of seats for viewing
the shows." So he threw a veil over a structure on which condemnation had
been often passed, and which is ever to be held in reprobation, by
pretending that it was a sacred place; and by means of superstition he
blinded the eyes of a virtuous discipline. But Venus and Bacchus are close
allies. These two evil spirits are in sworn confederacy with each other, as
the patrons of drunkenness and lust. So the theatre of Venus is as well the
house of Bacchus: for they properly gave the name of Liberalia also to other
theatrical amusements'which besides being consecrated to Bacchus (as were
the Dionysia of the Greeks), were instituted by him; and, without doubt, the
performances of the theatre have the common patronage of these two deities.
That immodesty of gesture and attire which so specially and peculiarly
characterizes the stage are consecrated to them'the one deity wanton by her
sex, the other by his drapery; while its services of voice, and song, and
lute, and pipe, belong to Apollos, and Muses, and Minervas, and Mercuries.
You will hate, O Christian, the things whose authors must be the objects of
your utter detestation. So we would now make a remark about the arts of the
theatre, about the things also whose authors in the names we execrate. We
know that the names of the dead are nothing, as are their images; but we
know well enough, too, who, when images are set up, under these names carry
on their wicked work, and exult in the homage rendered to them, and pretend
to be divine'none other than spirits accursed, than devils. We see,
therefore, that the arts also are consecrated to the service of the beings
who dwell in the names of their founders; and that things cannot be held
free from the taint of idolatry whose inventors have got a place among the
gods for their discoveries. Nay, as regards the arts, we ought to have gone
further back, and barred all further argument by the position that the
demons, predetermining in their own interests from the first, among other
evils of idolatry, the pollutions of the public shows, with the object of
drawing man away from his Lord and binding him to their own service, carried
out their purpose by bestowing on him the artistic gifts which the shows
require. For none but themselves would have made provision and preparation
for the objects they had in view; nor would they have given the arts to the
world by any but those in whose names, and images, and histories they set up
for their own ends the artifice of consecration.
Chapter XI.
In fulfilment of our plan, let us now go on to consider the combats. Their
origin is akin to that of the games (ludi). Hence they are kept as either
sacred or funereal, as they have been instituted in honour of the idol-gods
of the nations or of the dead. Thus, too, they are called Olympian in honour
of Jupiter, known at Rome as the Capitoline; Nemean, in honour of Hercules;
Isthmian, in honour of Neptune; the rest mortuarii, as belonging to the
dead. What wonder, then, if idolatry pollutes the combat-parade with profane
crowns, with sacerdotal chiefs, with attendants belonging to the various
colleges, last of all with the blood of its sacrifices? To add a completing
word about the "place"'in the common place for the college of the arts
sacred to the Muses, and Apollo, and Minerva, and also for that of the arts
dedicated to Mars, they with contest and sound of trumpet emulate the circus
in the arena, which is a real temple'I mean of the god whose festivals it
celebrates. The gymnastic arts also originated with their Castors, and
Herculeses, and Mercuries.
Chapter XII.
It remains for us to examine the "spectacle" most noted of all, and in
highest favour. It is called a dutiful service (munus), from its being an
office, for it bears the name of "officium" as well as "munus." The ancients
thought that in this solemnity they rendered offices to the dead; at a later
period, with a cruelty more refined, they somewhat modified its character.
For formerly, in the belief that the souls of the departed were appeased by
human blood, they were in the habit of buying captives or slaves of wicked
disposition, and immolating them in their funeral obsequies. Afterwards they
thought good to throw the veil of pleasure over their iniquity. [342]
Those, therefore, whom they had provided for the combat, and then trained in
arms as best they could, only that they might learn to die, they, on the
funeral day, killed at the places of sepulture. They alleviated death by
murders. Such is the origin of the "Munus." But by degrees their refinement
came up to their cruelty; for these human wild beasts could not find
pleasure exquisite enough, save in the spectacle of men torn to pieces by
wild beasts. Offerings to propitiate the dead then were regarded as
belonging to the class of funeral sacrifices; and these are idolatry: for
idolatry, in fact, is a sort of homage to the departed; the one as well as
the other is a service to dead men. Moreover, demons have abode in the
images of the dead. To refer also to the matter of names, though this sort
of exhibition has passed from honours of the dead to honours of the living,
I mean, to quµstorships and magistracies'to priestly offices of different
kinds; yet, since idolatry still cleaves to the dignity's name, whatever is
done in its name partakes of its impurity. The same remark will apply to the
procession of the "Munus," as we look at that in the pomp which is connected
with these honours themselves; for the purple robes, the fasces, the fillets
the crowns, the proclamations too, and edicts, the sacred feasts of the day
before, are not without the pomp of the devil, without invitation of demons.
What need, then, of dwelling on the place of horrors, which is too much even
for the tongue of the perjurer? For the amphitheatre [343] is consecrated
to names more numerous and more dire [344] than is the Capitol itself,
temple of all demons as it is. There are as many unclean spirits there as it
holds men. To conclude with a single remark about the arts which have a
place in it, we know that its two sorts of amusement have for their patrons
Mars and Diana.
Chapter XIII.
We have, I think, faithfully carried out our plan of showing in how many
different ways the sin of idolatry clings to the shows, in respect of their
origins, their titles, their equipments, their places of celebration, their
arts; and we may hold it as a thing beyond all doubt, that for us who have
twice [345] renounced all idols, they are utterly unsuitable. "Not that an
idol is anything," [346] as the apostle says, but that the homage they
render is to demons, who are the real occupants of these consecrated images,
whether of dead men or (as they think) of gods. On this account, therefore,
because they have a common source'for their dead and their deities are
one'we abstain from both idolatries. Nor do we dislike the temples less than
the monuments: we have nothing to do with either altar, we adore neither
image; we do not offer sacrifices to the gods, and we make no funeral
oblations to the departed; nay, we do not partake of what is offered either
in the one case or the other, for we cannot partake of God's feast and the
feast of devils. [347] If, then, we keep throat and belly free from such
defilements, how much more do we withhold our nobler parts, our ears and
eyes, from the idolatrous and funereal enjoyments, which are not passed
through the body, but are digested in the very spirit and soul, whose
purity, much more than that of our bodily organs, God has a right to claim
from us.
Chapter XIV.
Having sufficiently established the charge of idolatry, which alone ought to
be reason enough for our giving up the shows, let us now ex abundanti look
at the subject in another way, for the sake of those especially who keep
themselves comfortable in the thought that the abstinence we urge is not in
so many words enjoined, as if in the condemnation of the lusts of the world
there was not involved a sufficient declaration against all these
amusements. For as there is a lust of money, or rank, or eating, or impure
enjoyment, or glory, so there is also a lust of pleasure. But the show is
just a sort of pleasure. I think, then, that under the general designation
of lusts, pleasures are included; in like manner, under the general idea of
pleasures, you have as a specific class the "shows." But we have spoken
already of how it is with the places of exhibition, that they are not
polluting in themselves, but owing to the things that are done in them from
which they imbibe impurity, and then spirt it again on others.
Chapter XV.
Having done enough, then, as we have said, in regard to that principal
argument, that there is in them all the taint of idolatry'having
sufficiently dealt with that, let us now contrast the other characteristics
of the show with the things of God. God has enjoined us to deal calmly,
gently, quietly, and peacefully with the Holy Spirit, because these things
are alone in keeping with the goodness of His nature, with His tenderness
and sensitiveness, and not to vex Him with rage, ill-nature, anger, or
grief. Well, how shall this be made to accord with the shows? For the show
always leads to spiritual agitation, since where there is pleasure, there is
keenness of feeling giving pleasure its zest; and where there is keenness of
feeling, there is rivalry giving in turn its zest to that. Then, too, where
you have rivalry, you have rage, bitterness, wrath and grief, with all bad
things which flow from them'the whole entirely out of keeping with the
religion of Christ. For even suppose one should enjoy the shows in a
moderate way, as befits his rank, age or nature, still he is not undisturbed
in mind, without some unuttered movings of the inner man. No one partakes of
pleasures such as these without their strong excitements; no one comes under
their excitements without their natural lapses. These lapses, again, create
passionate desire. If there is no desire, there is no pleasure, and he is
chargeable with trifling who goes where nothing is gotten; in my view, even
that is foreign to us. Moreover, a man pronounces his own condemnation in
the very act of taking his place among those with whom, by his
disinclination to be like them, he confesses he has no sympathy. It is not
enough that we do no such things ourselves, unless we break all connection
also with those who do. "If thou sawest a thief," says the Scripture, "thou
consentedst with him." [348] Would that we did not even inhabit the same
world with these wicked men! But though that wish cannot be realized, yet
even now we are separate from them in what is of the world; for the world is
God's, but the worldly is the devil's.
Chapter XVI.
Since, then, all passionate excitement is forbidden us, we are debarred from
every kind of spectacle, and especially from the circus, where such
excitement presides as in its proper element. See the people coming to it
already under strong emotion, already tumultuous, already passion-blind,
already agitated about their bets. The prµtor is too slow for them: their
eyes are ever rolling as though along with the lots in his urn; then they
hang all eager on the signal; there is the united shout of a common madness.
Observe how "out of themselves" they are by their foolish speeches. "He has
thrown it!" they exclaim; and they announce each one to his neighbour what
all have seen. I have clearest evidence of their blindness; they do not see
what is really thrown. They think it a "signal cloth," but it is the
likeness of the devil cast headlong from on high. And the result accordingly
is, that they fly into rages, and passions, and discords, and all that they
who are consecrated to peace ought never to indulge in. Then there are
curses and reproaches, with no cause of hatred; there are cries of applause,
with nothing to merit them. What are the partakers in all this'not their own
masters'to obtain of it for themselves? unless, it may be, that which makes
them not their own: they are saddened by another's sorrow, they are
gladdened by another's joy. Whatever they desire on the one hand, or detest
on the other, is entirely foreign to themselves. So love with them is a
useless thing, and hatred is unjust. Or is a causeless love perhaps more
legitimate than a causeless hatred? God certainly forbids us to hate even
with a reason for our hating; for He commands us to love our enemies. God
forbids us to curse, though there be some ground for doing so, in commanding
that those who curse us we are to bless. But what is more merciless than the
circus, where people do not spare even their rulers and fellow-citizens? If
any of its madnesses are becoming elsewhere in the saints of God, they will
be seemly in the circus too; but if they are nowhere right, so neither are
they there.
Chapter XVII.
Are we not, in like manner, enjoined to put away from us all immodesty? On
this ground, again, we are excluded from the theatre, which is immodesty's
own peculiar abode, where nothing is in repute but what elsewhere is
disreputable. So the best path to the highest favour of its god is the
vileness which the Atellan [349] gesticulates, which the buffoon in
woman's clothes exhibits, destroying all natural modesty, so that they blush
more readily at home than at the play, which finally is done from his
childhood on the person of the pantomime, that he may become an actor. The
very harlots, too, victims of the public lust, are brought upon the stage,
their misery increased as being there in the presence of their own sex, from
whom alone they are wont to hide themselves: they are paraded publicly
before every age and every rank'their abode, their gains, their praises, are
set forth, and that even in the hearing of those who should not hear such
things. I say nothing about other matters, which it were good to hide away
in their own darkness and their own gloomy caves, lest they should stain the
light of day. Let the Senate, let all ranks, blush for very shame! Why, even
these miserable women, who by their own gestures destroy their modesty,
dreading the light of day, and the people's gaze, know something of shame at
least once a year. But if we ought to abominate all that is immodest, on
what ground is it right to hear what we must not speak? For all
licentiousness of speech, nay, every idle word, is condemned by God. Why, in
the same way, is it right to look on what it is disgraceful to do? How is it
that the things which defile a man in going out of his mouth, are not
regarded as doing so when they go in at his eyes and ears'when eyes and ears
are the immediate attendants on the spirit'and that can never be pure whose
servants-in-waiting are impure? You have the theatre forbidden, then, in the
forbidding of immodesty. If, again, we despise the teaching of secular
literature as being foolishness in God's eyes, our duty is plain enough in
regard to those spectacles, which from this source derive the tragic or
comic play. If tragedies and comedies are the bloody and wanton, the impious
and licentious inventors of crimes and lusts, it is not good even that there
should be any calling to remembrance the atrocious or the vile. What you
reject in deed, you are not to bid welcome to in word.
Chapter XVIII.
But if you argue that the racecourse is mentioned in Scripture, I grant it
at once. But you will not refuse to admit that the things which are done
there are not for you to look upon: the blows, and kicks, and cuffs, and all
the recklessness of hand, and everything like that disfiguration of the
human countenance, which is nothing less than the disfiguration of God's own
image. You will never give your approval to those foolish racing and
throwing feats, and yet more foolish leapings; you will never find pleasure
in injurious or useless exhibitions of strength; certainly you will not
regard with approval those efforts after an artificial body which aim at
surpassing the Creator's work; and you will have the very opposite of
complacency in the athletes Greece, in the inactivity of peace, feeds up.
And the wrestler's art is a devil's thing. The devil wrestled with, and
crushed to death, the first human beings. Its very attitude has power in it
of the serpent kind, firm to hold'tortures to clasp'slippery to glide away.
You have no need of crowns; why do you strive to get pleasures from crowns?
Chapter XIX.
We shall now see how the Scriptures condemn the amphitheatre. If we can
maintain that it is right to indulge in the cruel, and the impious, and the
fierce, let us go there. If we are what we are said to be, let us regale
ourselves there with human blood. It is good, no doubt, to have the guilty
punished. Who but the criminal himself will deny that? And yet the innocent
can find no pleasure in another's sufferings: he rather mourns that a
brother has sinned so heinously as to need a punishment so dreadful. But who
is my guarantee that it is always the guilty who are adjudged to the wild
beasts, or to some other doom, and that the guiltless never suffer from the
revenge of the judge, or the weakness of the defence, or the pressure of the
rack? How much better, then, is it for me to remain ignorant of the
punishment inflicted on the wicked, lest I am obliged to know also of the
good coming to untimely ends'if I may speak of goodness in the case at all!
At any rate, gladiators not chargeable with crime are offered in sale for
the games, that they may become the victims of the public pleasure. Even in
the case of those who are judicially condemned to the amphitheatre, what a
monstrous thing it is, that, in undergoing their punishment, they, from some
less serious delinquency, advance to the criminality of manslayers! But I
mean these remarks for heathen. As to Christians, I shall not insult them by
adding another word as to the aversion with which they should regard this
sort of exhibition; though no one is more able than myself to set forth
fully the whole subject, unless it be one who is still in the habit of going
to the shows. I would rather withal be incomplete than set memory
a-working. [350]
Chapter XX.
How vain, then'nay, how desperate'is the reasoning of persons, who, just
because they decline to lose a pleasure, hold out that we cannot point to
the specific words or the very place where this abstinence is mentioned, and
where the servants of God are directly forbidden to have anything to do with
such assemblies! I heard lately a novel defence of himself by a certain
play-lover. "The sun," said he, "nay, God Himself, looks down from heaven on
the show, and no pollution is contracted." Yes, and the sun, too, pours down
his rays into the common sewer without being defiled. As for God, would that
all crimes were hid from His eye, that we might all escape judgment! But He
looks on robberies too; He looks on falsehoods, adulteries, frauds,
idolatries, and these same shows; and precisely on that account we will not
look on them, lest the All-seeing see us. You are putting on the same level,
O man, the criminal and the judge; the criminal who is a criminal because he
is seen, and the Judge who is a Judge because He sees. Are we set, then, on
playing the madman outside the circus boundaries? Outside the gates of the
theatre are we bent on lewdness, outside the course on arrogance, and
outside the amphitheatre on cruelty, because outside the porticoes, the
tiers and the curtains, too, God has eyes? Never and nowhere is that free
from blame which God ever condemns; never and nowhere is it right to do what
you may not do at all times and in all places. It is the freedom of the
truth from change of opinion and varying judgments which constitutes its
perfection, and gives it its claims to full mastery, unchanging reverence,
and faithful obedience. That which is really good or really evil cannot be
ought else. But in all things the truth of God is immutable.
Chapter XXI.
The heathen, who have not a full revelation of the truth, for they are not
taught of God, hold a thing evil and good as it suits self-will and passion,
making that which is good in one place evil in another, and that which is
evil in one place in another good. So it strangely happens, that the same
man who can scarcely in public lift up his tunic, even when necessity of
nature presses him, takes it off in the circus, as if bent on exposing
himself before everybody; the father who carefully protects and guards his
virgin daughter's ears from every polluting word, takes her to the theatre
himself, exposing her to all its vile words and attitudes; he, again, who in
the streets lays hands on or covers with reproaches the brawling pugilist,
in the arena gives all encouragement to combats of a much more serious kind;
and he who looks with horror on the corpse of one who has died under the
common law of nature, in the amphitheatre gazes down with most patient eyes
on bodies all mangled and torn and smeared with their own blood; nay, the
very man who comes to the show, because he thinks murderers ought to suffer
for their crime, drives the unwilling gladiator to the murderous deed with
rods and scourges; and one who demands the lion for every manslayer of
deeper dye, will have the staff for the savage swordsman, and rewards him
with the cap of liberty. Yes and he must have the poor victim back again,
that he may get a sight of his face'with zest inspecting near at hand the
man whom he wished torn in pieces at safe distance from him: so much the
more cruel he if that was not his wish.
Chapter XXII.
What wonder is there in it? Such inconsistencies as these are just such as
we might expect from men, who confuse and change the nature of good and evil
in their inconstancy of feeling and fickleness in judgment. Why, the authors
and managers of the spectacles, in that very respect with reference to which
they highly laud the charioteers, and actors, and wrestlers, and those most
loving gladiators, to whom men prostitute their souls, women too their
bodies, slight and trample on them, though for their sakes they are guilty
of the deeds they reprobate; nay, they doom them to ignominy and the loss of
their rights as citizens, excluding them from the Curia, and the rostra,
from senatorial and equestrian rank, and from all other honours as well as
certain distinctions. What perversity! They have pleasure in those whom yet
they punish; they put all slights on those to whom, at the same time, they
award their approbation; they magnify the art and brand the artist. What an
outrageous thing it is, to blacken a man on account of the very things which
make him meritorious in their eyes! Nay, what a confession that the things
are evil, when their authors, even in highest favour, are not without a mark
of disgrace upon them!
Chapter XXIII.
Seeing, then, man's own reflections, even in spite of the sweetness of
pleasure, lead him to think that people such as these should be condemned to
a hapless lot of infamy, losing all the advantages connected with the
possession of the dignities of life, how much more does the divine
righteousness inflict punishment on those who give themselves to these arts!
Will God have any pleasure in the charioteer who disquiets so many souls,
rouses up so many furious passions, and creates so many various moods,
either crowned like a priest or wearing the colours of a pimp, decked out by
the devil that he may be whirled away in his chariot, as though with the
object of taking off Elijah? Will He be pleased with him who applies the
razor to himself, and completely changes his features; who, with no respect
for his face, is not content with making it as like as possible to Saturn
and Isis and Bacchus, but gives it quietly over to contumelious blows, as if
in mockery of our Lord? The devil, forsooth, makes it part, too, of his
teaching, that the cheek is to be meekly offered to the smiter. In the same
way, with their high shoes, he has made the tragic actors taller, because
"none can add a cubit to his stature." [351] His desire is to make Christ
a liar. And in regard to the wearing of masks, I ask is that according to
the mind of God, who forbids the making of every likeness, and especially
then the likeness of man who is His own image? The Author of truth hates all
the false; He regards as adultery all that is unreal. Condemning, therefore,
as He does hypocrisy in every form, He never will approve any putting on of
voice, or sex, or age; He never will approve pretended loves, and wraths,
and groans, and tears. Then, too, as in His law it is declared that the man
is cursed who attires himself in female garments, [352] what must be His
judgment of the pantomime, who is even brought up to play the woman! And
will the boxer go unpunished? I suppose he received these cµstus-scars, and
the thick skin of his fists, and these growths upon his ears, at his
creation! God, too, gave him eyes for no other end than that they might be
knocked out in fighting! I say nothing of him who, to save himself, thrusts
another in the lion's way, that he may not be too little of a murderer when
he puts to death that very same man on the arena.
Chapter XXIV.
In how many other ways shall we yet further show that nothing which is
peculiar to the shows has God's approval, or without that approval is
becoming in God's servants? If we have succeeded in making it plain that
they were instituted entirely for the devil's sake, and have been got up
entirely with the devil's things (for all that is not God's, or is not
pleasing in His eyes, belongs to His wicked rival), this simply means that
in them you have that pomp of the devil which in the "seal" of our faith we
abjure. We should have no connection with the things which we abjure,
whether in deed or word, whether by looking on them or looking forward to
them; but do we not abjure and rescind that baptismal pledge, when we cease
to bear its testimony? Does it then remain for us to apply to the heathen
themselves. Let them tell us, then, whether it is right in Christians to
frequent the show. Why, the rejection of these amusements is the chief sign
to them that a man has adopted the Christian faith. If any one, then, puts
away the faith's distinctive badge, he is plainly guilty of denying it. What
hope can you possibly retain in regard to a man who does that? When you go
over to the enemy's camp, you throw down your arms, desert the standards and
the oath of allegiance to your chief: you cast in your lot for life or death
with your new friends.
Chapter XXV.
Seated where there is nothing of God, will one be thinking of his Maker?
Will there be peace in his soul when there is eager strife there for a
charioteer? Wrought up into a frenzied excitement, will he learn to be
modest? Nay, in the whole thing he will meet with no greater temptation than
that gay attiring of the men and women. The very intermingling of emotions,
the very agreements and disagreements with each other in the bestowment of
their favours, where you have such close communion, blow up the sparks of
passion. And then there is scarce any other object in going to the show, but
to see and to be seen. When a tragic actor is declaiming, will one be giving
thought to prophetic appeals? Amid the measures of the effeminate player,
will he call up to himself a psalm? And when the athletes are hard at
struggle, will he be ready to proclaim that there must be no striking again?
And with his eye fixed on the bites of bears, and the sponge-nets of the
net-fighters, can he be moved by compassion? May God avert from His people
any such passionate eagerness after a cruel enjoyment! For how monstrous it
is to go from God's church to the devil's'from the sky to the stye, [353]
as they say; to raise your hands to God, and then to weary them in the
applause of an actor; out of the mouth, from which you uttered Amen over the
Holy Thing, to give witness in a gladiator's favour; to cry "forever" to any
one else but God and Christ!
Chapter XXVI.
Why may not those who go into the temptations of the show become accessible
also to evil spirits? We have the case of the woman'the Lord Himself is
witness'who went to the theatre, and came back possessed. In the
outcasting, [354] accordingly, when the unclean creature was upbraided
with having dared to attack a believer, he firmly replied, [355] "And in
truth I did it most righteously, for I found her in my domain." Another
case, too, is well known, in which a woman had been hearing a tragedian, and
on the very night she saw in her sleep a linen cloth'the actor's name being
mentioned at the same time with strong disapproval'and five days after that
woman was no more. How many other undoubted proofs we have had in the case
of persons who, by keeping company with the devil in the shows, have fallen
from the Lord! For no one can serve two masters. [356] What fellowship has
light with darkness, life with death? [357]
Chapter XXVII.
We ought to detest these heathen meetings and assemblies, if on no other
account than that there God's name is blasphemed'that there the cry "To the
lions!" is daily raised against us [358] 'that from thence persecuting
decrees are wont to emanate, and temptations are sent forth. What will you
do if you are caught in that heaving tide of impious judgments? Not that
there any harm is likely to come to you from men: nobody knows that you are
a Christian; but think how it fares with you in heaven. For at the very time
the devil is working havoc in the church, do you doubt that the angels are
looking down from above, and marking every man, who speaks and who listens
to the blaspheming word, who lends his tongue and who lends his ears to the
service of Satan against God? Shall you not then shun those tiers where the
enemies of Christ assemble, that seat of all that is pestilential, and the
very super incumbent atmosphere all impure with wicked cries? Grant that you
have there things that are pleasant, things both agreeable and innocent in
themselves; even some things that are excellent. Nobody dilutes poison with
gall and hellebore: the accursed thing is put into condiments well seasoned
and of sweetest taste. So, too, the devil puts into the deadly draught which
he prepares, things of God most pleasant and most acceptable. Everything
there, then, that is either brave, noble, loud-sounding, melodious, or
exquisite in taste, hold it but as the honey drop of a poisoned cake; nor
make so much of your taste for its pleasures, as of the danger you run from
its attractions.
Chapter XXVIII.
With such dainties as these let the devil's guests be feasted. The places
and the times, the inviter too, are theirs. Our banquets, our nuptial joys,
are yet to come. We cannot sit down in fellowship with them, as neither can
they with us. Things in this matter go by their turns. Now they have
gladness and we are troubled. "The world," says Jesus, "shall rejoice; ye
shall be sorrowful." [359] Let us mourn, then, while the heathen are
merry, that in the day of their sorrow we may rejoice; lest, sharing now in
their gladness, we share then also in their grief. Thou art too dainty,
Christian, if thou wouldst have pleasure in this life as well as in the
next; nay, a fool thou art, if thou thinkest this life's pleasures to be
really pleasures. The philosophers, for instance, give the name of pleasure
to quietness and repose; in that they have their bliss; in that they find
entertainment: they even glory in it. You long for the goal, and the stage,
and the dust, and the place of combat! I would have you answer me this
question: Can we not live without pleasure, who cannot but with pleasure
die? For what is our wish but the apostle's, to leave the world, and be
taken up into the fellowship of our Lord? [360] You have your joys where
you have your longings.
Chapter XXIX.
Even as things are, if your thought is to spend this period of existence in
enjoyments, how are you so ungrateful as to reckon insufficient, as not
thankfully to recognize the many and exquisite pleasures God has bestowed
upon you? For what more delightful than to have God the Father and our Lord
at peace with us, than revelation of the truth than confession of our
errors, than pardon of the innumerable sins of our past life? What greater
pleasure than distaste of pleasure itself, contempt of all that the world
can give, true liberty, a pure conscience, a contented life, and freedom
from all fear of death? What nobler than to tread under foot the gods of the
nations'to exorcise evil spirits [361] 'to perform cures'to seek divine
revealings'to live to God? These are the pleasures, these the spectacles
that befit Christian men'holy, everlasting, free. Count of these as your
circus games, fix your eyes on the courses of the world, the gliding
seasons, reckon up the periods of time, long for the goal of the final
consummation, defend the societies of the churches, be startled at God's
signal, be roused up at the angel's trump, glory in the palms of martyrdom.
If the literature of the stage delight you, we have literature in abundance
of our own'plenty of verses, sentences, songs, proverbs; and these not
fabulous, but true; not tricks of art, but plain realities. Would you have
also fightings and wrestlings? Well, of these there is no lacking, and they
are not of slight account. Behold unchastity overcome by chastity, perfidy
slain by faithfulness, cruelty stricken by compassion, impudence thrown into
the shade by modesty: these are the contests we have among us, and in these
we win our crowns. Would you have something of blood too? You have Christ's.
Chapter XXX.
But what a spectacle is that fast-approaching advent [362] of our Lord,
now owned by all, now highly exalted, now a triumphant One! What that
exultation of the angelic hosts! What the glory of the rising saints! What
the kingdom of the just thereafter! What the city New Jerusalem! [363]
Yes, and there are other sights: that last day of judgment, with its
everlasting issues; that day unlooked for by the nations, the theme of their
derision, when the world hoary with age, and all its many products, shall be
consumed in one great flame! How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye!
What there excites my admiration? what my derision? Which sight gives me
joy? which rouses me to exultation?'as I see so many illustrious monarchs,
whose reception into the heavens was publicly announced, groaning now in the
lowest darkness with great Jove himself, and those, too, who bore witness of
their exultation; governors of provinces, too, who persecuted the Christian
name, in fires more fierce than those with which in the days of their pride
they raged against the followers of Christ. What world's wise men besides,
the very philosophers, in fact, who taught their followers that God had no
concern in ought that is sublunary, and were wont to assure them that either
they had no souls, or that they would never return to the bodies which at
death they had left, now covered with shame before the poor deluded ones, as
one fire consumes them! Poets also, trembling not before the judgment-seat
of Rhadamanthus or Minos, but of the unexpected Christ! I shall have a
better opportunity then of hearing the tragedians, louder-voiced in their
own calamity; of viewing the play-actors, much more "dissolute" in the
dissolving flame; of looking upon the charioteer, all glowing in his chariot
of fire; of beholding the wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in
the fiery billows; unless even then I shall not care to attend to such
ministers of sin, in my eager wish rather to fix a gaze insatiable on those
whose fury vented itself against the Lord. "This," I shall say, "this is
that carpenter's or hireling's son, that Sabbath-breaker, that Samaritan and
devil-possessed! This is He whom you purchased from Judas! This is He whom
you struck with reed and fist, whom you contemptuously spat upon, to whom
you gave gall and vinegar to drink! This is He whom His disciples secretly
stole away, that it might be said He had risen again, or the gardener
abstracted, that his lettuces might come to no harm from the crowds of
visitants!" What quµstor or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the
favour of seeing and exulting in such things as these? And yet even now we
in a measure have them by faith in the picturings of imagination. But what
are the things which eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and which have not
so much as dimly dawned upon the human heart? Whatever they are, they are
nobler, I believe, than circus, and both theatres, [364] and every
race-course.
Footnotes
[332] [It is the opinion of Dr. Neander that this treatise proceeded from
our author before his lapse: but Bp. Kaye (p. xvi.) finds some exaggerated
expressions in it, concerning the military life which savour of Montanism.
Probably they do, but had he written the tract as a professed Mointanist,
they would have been much less ambiguous, in all probability. At all events,
a work so colourless that doctors can disagree about even its shading, must
be regarded as practically orthodox. Exaggerated expressions are but the
characteristics of the author's genius. We find the like in all writers of
strongly marked individuality. Neander dates this treastise circa a.d. 197.
That it was written at Carthage is the conviction of Kaye and Dr. Allix; see
Kaye, p. 55.]
[333] [He speaks of Catechumens, called elsewhere Novitioli. See Bunsen,
Hippol. III. Church and House-book, p. 5.]
[334] [Here he addresses the Fideles or Communicants, as we call them.]
[335] [Kaye (p. 366), declares that all the arguments urged in this tract
are comprised in two sentences of the Apology, cap. 38.]
[336] [For the demonology of this treatise, compare capp. 10, 12, 13, 23,
and see Kaye's full but condensed statement (pp. 201-204), in his account of
the writings, etc.]
[337] Ex. xx. 14.
[338] Ps. i. 1. [Kaye's censure of this use of the text, (p. 366) seems to
me gratuitous.]
[339] [Neander argues with great force that in referring to Scripture and
not at all to the "new Prophecy," our author shows his orthodoxy. We may add
" that highest authority" to which he appeals in this Chapter.]
[340] [Cybele.]
[341] [Very admirable reflections on this Chapter may be found in Kaye,
pp. 362-3.]
[342] [The authority of Tertullian, in this matter, is accepted by the
critics, as of historic importance.]
[343] [Though this was probably written at Carthage, his reference to the
Flavian theatre in this place is plain from the immediate comparison with
the Capitol.]
[344] [To the infernal deities and first of all to Pluto. See vol. I.
note 6, p. 131, this Series.]
[345] [Bunsen, Hippol. Vol. iii. pp. 20-22.]
[346] 1 Cor. viii. 4.
[347] 1 Cor. x. 21.
[348] Ps. xlix. 18. [This Chapter bears on modern theatres.]
[349] [The ludi Atellani were so called from Atella, in Campania, where a
vast amphitheatre delighted the inhabitants. Juvenal, Sat. vi. 71. The like
disgrace our times.]
[350] [See Kaye, p. 11. This expression is thought to confirm the
probability of Tertullian's original Gentilism.]
[351] Matt. vi. 27.
[352] Deut. xxii.
[353] [De Caelo in Caenum: (sic) Oehler.]
[354] [The exorcism. For the exorcism in Baptism, see Bunsen, Hippol.
iii. 19.]
[355] See Neander's explanation in Kaye, p. xxiii. But, let us observe
the entire simplicity with which our author narrates a sort of incident
known to the apostles. Acts, xvi. 16.]
[356] Matt. vi. 24.
[357] 2 Cor. iv. 14.
[358] [Observe'"daily raised." On this precarious condition of the
Christians, in their daily life, see the calm statement of Kaye, pp. 110,
111.
[359] John xvi. 20.
[360] Phil. i. 23.
[361] [See cap. 26, supra. On this claim to such powers still remaining
in the church. See Kaye, p. 89.]
[362] [Kaye, p. 20. He doubtless looked for a speedy appearance of the
Lord : and note the apparent expectation of a New Jerusalem, on earth,
before the Consummation and Judgment.]
[363] [This New Jerusalem gives Bp. Kaye (p. 55) "decisive proof" of
Montanism, especially as compared with the Third Book against Marcion. I
cannot see it, here.]
[364] Viz., the theatre and amphitheatre. [This concluding Chapter, which
Gibbon delights to censure, because its fervid rhetoric so fearfully depicts
the punishments of Christ's enemies, "appears to Dr. Neander to contain a
beautiful specimen of lively faith and Christian confidence." See Kaye, p.
xxix.]
Also, see links to 3500 other Manuscripts:
http://mb-soft.com/believe/txv/earlych7.htm
E-mail to: BELIEVE1@mb-soft.com
The main BELIEVE web-page (and index to subjects) is at:
http://mb-soft.com/believe/