The Shows

Chapter I

Ye Servants of God, about to draw near to God, that you may make solemn consecration of yourselves to Him,^ seek well to under- stand 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 ^ 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 opportu- nity of still partaking of them, it contrives to prolong a willing ignorance, and bribes knowl- edge into playing a dishonest part. To both things, perhaps, some among you are allured by the views of the heathens who in this mat- ter are wont to press us with arguments, such as these : (i) 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 se- cured to Him. But this is precisely what we are ready to prove : That these things are not consistent with true religion and true obedi- ence to the true God. There are some who

' [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 IMontanist, 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 char- acteristics of the author's genius. We find the like in all writers of strongly marked individuality. Neander dates this treatise circa A.D. 197. That it was wiittcn at Carthage is the conviction of Kaye and Dr. Allix- see Kaye, p. 55.]

-■ [He speaks of Catechumens, called elsewhere Novitioli. See Bunsen, Hippol. III. Church and House-book, p. 5.]

3 [Here he addresses the Fideles or Communicants, as we call Ihem.]

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 de- sire for that which, so far as they are con- cerned, they have emptied of all that is de- sirable ; 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 obsti- nacy 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* 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 can- not, 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 her-

•» [Kaye (p. 366), declares that all the arguments urged ia this tract are comprised in two sentences of the Apology, cap, 38.]

8o

[CH^P. III.

oelf, especially if she has the fear of losing i\ny of her delights — any of the sweet enjoy- ments 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 3trong 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 blessed- ness 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 ?s good, and that it is man's by free gift of its 'Maker. But having no intimate acquaintance v;ith the Highest, knowing Him only by natu- ral 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 pro- hibit, and against which they guard them- selves, 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 crown- ing 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 min- ister 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-manu- factory of snares, and fraud, and injustice ? I think not ; for if God, as the righteous ex- actor of innocence, hates everything like ma- lignity— if He hates utterly such plottmg 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 condem- nation, 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 corrupt- ing 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 — cre- ated, 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.'

Chapter III

Fortified by tnis knowledge against heathen views, let us rather turn to the unworthy rea- sonings 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 absti- nence 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."'' 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,

' [For the demonology of this treatise, comp.-jre capp. ro, i2, 13, -'•^, and see Kaye's full but condensed statement (pp. 201-294), in Ins account 0/ the writings, etc.]

2 Kx. .\x. 14.

CHAP, v.]

8l

nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of scorners."' Though he seems to have predicted beforehand of that just man, that he took no part in the meetings and dehberations 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 inter- dicting 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 amphi- theatre, 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 re- quires a certain special mterpretation to be given to it. For some things spoken with a special reference contain in them general truth. When God admonishes the Israelites 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 (rom sjjea'es 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.

CHAP. 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 re- nounced 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 dilarte — you have every unclean and wicked spirit. If, there-

' Ps. i. I. [Kaye's censure of this use of the text, (p. 366) seems to me gratuitous.']

6

fore, it shall be made plain that the entire apparatus of the shows is based upon idola- try, beyond all doubt that will carry with it the conclusion that our renunciatory testimony in the laver 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 super- stitions they are observed; (then their places, tcwhat 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.^

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 author- ities 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. Timaeus tells us that immigrants from Asia, under the leadership of Tyrrhenus, who, in a contest about his native kingdom, had suc- cumbed 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 Zudi, from Zjdi. And though Varro derives the name of Zudi from Lmiiis, that is, from play, as they called the Luperci also Ludii, because they ran about making sport; still that sport- ing of young men belongs, in his view, to festal days and temples, and objects of re- ligious 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 re- turn for the boon he conferred on them, as they say, making known the pleasures of wine.

= [Neander argues with great force that in referring to Scripture and not at all to the " New Prophecy," our author shows his or- thodoxy. We may add " that highest authority " to which he ap- peals in this chapter.]

82

[chap. VIII.

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 Rom- ulus, 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 shameless- ness, 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 in- stituted 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 found 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 ' 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 birth- days and solemnities of kings, in public suc- cesses in municipal holidays. There are also testamentary exhibitions, in which funeral honours are rendered to the memories of pri- vate persons ; and this according to an insti-

» [Cybele.l

tution of ancient times. For from the first the " Ludi " were regarded as of two sorts, 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 idol- atry, their foundress, they must needs be like each other in their pomp. But the more am- bitious 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 priest- hoods, 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 de- rived; 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 im- ages 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 pro- per to pay sacred honours underneath a roof to an object they have itself in open space.

CHAP

X.]

THE SHOWS, OR DR SPECTACULIS

83

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 Ma fer Magna; and so she presides there over the Euripus. Consus, as we have men- tioned, lies hidden under ground at the Mur- cian Goals. These two sprang from an idol. For they will have it that Murcia is the god- dess of love; and to her, at that spot, they have consecrated a temple. See^ Christian, howniariy impure names have taken posses- sion of the circus ! You have nothing to do with a sacred place w-hich 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-^ia^ger of pollution if I go to the circus whdn" the games are not being celebrated ? There is no law forbidding the mere places to us. For not only the places for show-gather- ings, 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 taint- ing 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 de- filed. 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.'

CHAP, 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 de- mons. Accordingly this kind of circus per- formances 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." Erich- thonius, 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 char- iots had such inventors, the charioteers were naturally dressed, too, in the colours of idola- try ; for at first these were only two, namely white and red, — the former sacred to the winter with its glistening snows, the latter sa- cred to the summer with its ruddy sun : but after\vards, 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 au- tumn. But as idolatry of every kind is con- demned by God, that form of it surely shares the condemnation which is offered to the ele- ments of nature.

Chapter X

Let us pass on now to theatrical exhibitions, which we have already shown have a commor.

I [Very admirable reflections on this chapter may be fouad is

Kaye, pp. 362-3.]

84

[chap. XI,

origin with the circus, and bear like idolatrous designations — even as from the first they have borne the name of " Ludi," and equally min- ister 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 perform- ances 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 knowl- edge even a confirmation of our views. Ac- cordingly 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, su- perposed on it a temple of Venus ; and sum- moning 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 Bac- chus 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 Bac- chus: for they properly gave the name of Lib- eralia 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 im- modesty of gesture and attire which so spe- cially and peculiarly characterizes the stage are consecrated to them — the one deity wan- ton 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 au- thors 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 be- ings 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 ar- gument by the position that the demons, pre- determining in their own interests from the first, among other evils of idolatry, the pollu- tions of the public shows, with the object of drawing man away from his Lord and binding him to their own service, carried out their pur- pose by bestowing on him the artistic gifts which the shows require. For none but them- selves would have made provision and prepara- tion 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 arc 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 vwrtuarii, 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 sa- cred to the Muses, and Apollo, and Minerva, and also for that of the arts dedicated to Mars, they with contest and sound of trumpet emu- late the circus in the arena, which is a real temple — I mean of the god whose festivals it celebrates. The gymnastic arts also origi- nated with their Castors, and Herculeses, and Mercuries.

Chapter XIV }

THE SHOWS, OR I)E SPECTACULIS

^5

Chapter XII

It remains for us to examine the " specta- cle " most noted of all, and in highest favour. Ct is called a dutiful service {inunus), from its peing an office, for it bears the name of "^- cium'' as well as '' miinus.'' The ancients thought that in this solemnity they rendered oifices 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.' 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 quaestorships 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 filiets the crowns, the proclamations too, and edicts, the sacred feasts of th day before, are not without the pomp of the cevil, 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 - is consecrated to names more numerous and more dire ^ than is the Capitol itself, temple of all demons as it is. There are as many unclean spirits there as it

' [The authority of Tertullian. in ihk matter, is accepted by the critics, as of historic importaiace.]

2 [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.]

3 [To the infernal deities and first of all to Pluto. See vol. I. >ote 6, p, I ji, this Series.]

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 re- spect of their origins, their titles, their equip- ments, their places of celebration, their arts; and we may hold it as a thing beyond all doubt, that for us who have twice* renounced all idols, they are utterly unsuitable. " Not that an idol is anything," ^ as the apostle says, but that the homage they render is to demons, vvho are the real occupants of these conse- crated images, whether of dead men or (as they think) of gods. On this account, there- fore, because they have a common source — for their dead and their deities are one — we abstain from both idolatries. Nor do we dis- like 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.* 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 abtmdanti look at the subject in an- other 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 condem- nation 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 enjoy- ment, or glory, so there is also a lust of pleas- ure. But the show is just a sort of pleasure. I think, then, that under the general designa- tion of lusts, pleasures are included; in like manner, under the general idea of pleasures,

4[Bunsen, Hippol. vol. III. pp. 20-22.] 5 I Cor. viii. 4. ^ I Cor. X. ?i.

86

[chap. XVII.

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 pollut- ing in themselves, but owing to the things that are done in them from which they im- bibe 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 — hav- ing 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 al- ways 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 ex- citements 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 dis- inclination 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." ' 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.

•Ps. x'lix. 18. [This chapter bears on modern theatres.]

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 praetor 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 like- ness 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 ha- tred ; there are cries of applause, with noth- ing 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 glad- dened 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 G<pd, they will be seemly in the cir- cus 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

Chapter XIX ]

87

which the Atellan ' gesticulates, which the buffoon in woman's clothes exhibits, destroy- ing all natural modesty, so that they blush more readily at home than at the play, which finally is done from his childhood on the per- son 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 pres- ence 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 noth- ing 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 miser- able women, who by their own gestures de- stroy 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 serv- ants-in-waiting are impure ? You have the theatre forbidden, then, in the forbidding of immodesty. If, again, we despise the teach- ing 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.

CHAP, 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 every-

* [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.]

thing 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 fool- ish 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 compla- cency 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 con- demn 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 v/ho 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 be- come the victims of the public pleasure. Even in the case of those who are judicially con- demned to the amphitheatre, what a mon- strous 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 aver- sion with which they should regard this sort of exhibition; though no one is more able than myself to set forth fully the whole sub- ject, unless it be one who is still in the habit

88

[chap. XXII.

of going to the shows. I would rather withal be incomplete than set memory a-working."

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 men-- tioned, 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 false- hoods, 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 ? Out- side the gates of the theatre are we bent on lewdness, outside the course on arrogance, and outside the amphitheatre on cruelty, be- cause 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 rever- ence, and faithful obedience. That which is really good or really evil cannot be ought else. But in all things the truth of God is immu- table.

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 neces- sity of nature presses him, takes it off in the

' [See Kaye, p. ii. This expression is thought to confirm the probability of Tertullian's original Oenlilism.]

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 brawl- ing pugilist, in the arena gives all encourage- ment 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 re- wards 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 incon- sistencies as these are just such as we might expect from men, who confuse and change the nature of good and evil in their incon- stancy of feeling and fickleness in judgment. Why, the authors and managers of the spec- tacles, 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 perver- sity ! 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 XXV

89

Chapter XXllI

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 posses- sion of the dignities of life, how much more does the divine righteousness inflict punish- ment on those who give themselves to these arts ! Will God have any pleasure in the charioteer who disquiets so many souls, rouse $ 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." ' 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 like- ness, 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 ivill 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, = 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 caestus-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

' Matt. vi. 27. ^Deut, xxii.

show that nothing which is peculiar to the shows has God's approval, or without that ap- proval 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 pkasing in His eyes, belongs to His wicked •jval), 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 baptis- mal pledge, when we cease to bear its testi- mony ? 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 dis- tinctive badge, he is plainly guilty of denying it. What hope can you possibly retain in re- gard 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 agree- ments 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 pro- phetic 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

90

[chap, xxix

the sky to the stye,' 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 temp- tations 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,^ accordingly, when the unclean creature was upbraided with having dared to attack a believer, he firmly replied, ^ " 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 hear- ing 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.* What fellow- ship has light with darkness, life with death ?5

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* — 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 judg- ments ? 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

' [De Caelo in Cxnum : (sic) Oekler.']

» [The exorcism. For the exorcism in Baptism, see Hansen, Hippol. iii. 19.]

3 [See Neander's explanation in Kaye, p. xxiii. But, let us ob- serve the entire simplicity with which our author narrates a sort of incident known to the apostles. Acts, xvi. 16.]

4 Matt. vi. 24.

5 2 Cor. iv. 14.

* [Observe — " daily raised." On this precarious condition of the Christians, in their daily life, see the calm statement of Kaye,

tp. no, III.]

of Christ assemble, that seat of all that is pestilential, and the very superincumbent at- mosphere all impure with wicked cries ? Grant that you have there things that are pleasant, things both agreeable and innocent in them- selves; 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, melo- dious, 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 XXVIIl

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." ' 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 h^ve you answer me this question: Can we not (ive 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 ? * 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 in- sufficient, as not thankfully to recognize the many and exquisite pleasures God has be- stowed upon you ? For what more delightful

7 John xvi. 20.

8 Phil. i. 23.

Chapter XXX ]

91

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 ' — to per- form 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 abun- dance 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 faith- fulness, cruelty stricken by compassion, im- pudence 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,

But what a spectacle is that fast-approaching advent^ 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 ! ^ Yes, and there are other sights: that last day of judgment, with its everlasting issues; that day unlocked 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 ad- miration ? what my derision ? Which sight

' [See cap. 26 supra. On this claim to such powers still re- ■laining iti the church. See Kaye, p. 89.]

» [Kaye, p. 20. He doubtless looked for a speedy appearance of the Lord : and note the apparent expectation of a New Jerusa- lem, on earth, before the Consummation and Judgment.]

3 [This New Jerusalem gives Bp. Kaye (p. 55) "decisive proof" of Montanism,especiall)[ as compared with the Third Book against Marcion. I cannot see it, here.]

gives me joy ? which rouses me to exultation .'' — as I see so many illustrious monarchs, whose reception into the heavens was publicly an- nounced, 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 cov- ered with shame before the poor deluded ones, as one fire consumes them ! Poets also, trem- bling not before the judgment-seat of Rhada- manthus 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 tlje dissolving flame; of looking upon the charioteer, all glowing in his chariot of fire; of beholding the wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but toss- ing 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 in- satiable 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 se- cretly 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 quaestor 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 imagi- nation. 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 thea- tres,"* and every race-course.

4 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. xxixJ]

IV.