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From this same source, and from this most provident love of the fatherland, it came about that that same high priest of yours—chosen, as must often be said, by the senate of that time without any disagreement of opinions as the best man—restrained from this design and desire the senate that was attempting to construct a theater with tiers of seats, and persuaded it by a most weighty oration not to allow Greek luxury to creep in upon the manly customs of the fatherland, nor to consent to a foreign wickedness for the undermining and enervating of Roman virtue; and he prevailed by his authority to such a degree that the senate's foresight, moved by his words, thereafter forbade even the benches to be set out—benches which, heaped together for the hour, the city had already begun to use at the show of the games.
With how great zeal would this man have removed those very scenic games from the city of Rome, had he dared to resist the authority of those whom he considered gods, but did not understand to be harmful demons—or, if he did understand, thought that they too must rather be appeased than despised! For not yet had the heavenly doctrine been declared to the nations, which, cleansing the heart by faith, would with humble piety change human affection to the seizing of heavenly, or supercelestial, things, and would free it from the domination of the proud demons. [XXXII] Nevertheless know—you who do not know these things, and you who pretend not to know them—take heed, you who murmur against the Liberator from such masters:
the scenic games, spectacles of shameful things and license of vanities, were instituted at Rome not by the vices of men, but by the commands of your gods. It would be more tolerable that you should render divine honors to that Scipio than that you should worship gods of this sort. For those gods were not better than their own high priest. Behold, attend, if a mind so long drunk with these draughts of error permits you to think anything sound! The gods, for the sake of quelling a pestilence of bodies, commanded scenic games to be exhibited to them; but the high priest, for the sake of guarding against a pestilence of souls, forbade the stage itself to be built. If by any light of the mind you set the soul above the body, choose whom you will worship!
For neither did that pestilence of bodies subside because scenic games' delicate madness stole in upon a warlike people, hitherto accustomed only to the games of the circus; but the cunning of wicked spirits, foreseeing that that pestilence would presently cease at its due end, took care through this occasion to send in another far graver one, in which it takes the greatest delight—not upon bodies, but upon morals—one which blinded the souls of the wretched with such great darkness, defiled them with such deformity, that even now (a thing which will perhaps be incredible if it is heard by our posterity), when the city of Rome had been laid waste, those whom this pestilence possessed and who, fleeing thence, were able to reach Carthage, raved daily in the theaters, vying with one another on behalf of the actors.
[XXXIII] O senseless minds! What is this so great thing—not error, but madness—that, while, as we have heard, the peoples of the East bewail your ruin, and the greatest cities in the most remote lands hold public mourning and grief, you should be seeking out theaters, entering them, filling them, and doing things far more insane than before? This blot and plague of souls, this overthrow of probity and honor, that Scipio feared for you when he forbade theaters to be built, when he discerned that you could easily be corrupted and overthrown by prosperous circumstances, when he did not wish you to be secure from the terror of the enemy. For he did not think the republic happy while its walls stand and its morals fall.
But among you that which the impious demons seduced you into prevailed more than that which provident men took precaution against. Hence it is that you do not wish the evils which you do to be imputed to you, but the evils which you suffer you impute to the Christian times. For in your security you seek not a peaceful republic, but an unpunished luxury—you who, depraved by prosperity, could not even be corrected by adversity. That Scipio wished you to be terrified by the enemy, lest you flow into luxury; but you, not even crushed by the enemy, restrained your luxury—you lost the usefulness of calamity, and were made most wretched, and remained most wicked. [XXXIV] And yet that you live is God's doing, who by sparing you admonishes you to be corrected by repentance;
who granted even to you ungrateful ones that, whether under the name of His servants or in the places of His martyrs, you might escape the hands of the enemy. Romulus and Remus are said to have established an asylum, whither whoever fled might be free from all harm, seeking to increase the multitude of the city they were founding. A marvelous example, in honor of Christ, went forth. What the founders of the City had established before, the same the destroyers of the City established. And what great thing is it if they did this, that the number of their citizens might be filled up—a thing which these did, that the multitude of their enemies might be preserved? [XXXV] These things and others, if it can more amply and fittingly, let the redeemed household of the Lord Christ and the pilgrim city of King Christ answer to its enemies.
Let it indeed remember that among these very enemies lie hidden future citizens, lest it think fruitless even among them the fact that, until it comes to those who confess, it bears with those who are hostile; just as, from their number, the City of God likewise has, so long as it sojourns in the world, some joined to it by the communion of the sacraments, yet not destined to be with it in the eternal lot of the saints—some in secret, some openly—who do not hesitate to murmur, even together with these very enemies, against the God whose sacrament they bear, now filling the theaters with them, now the churches with us. But of the correction of certain even such ones, there is much less to be despaired of, if among the most open adversaries predestined friends lie hidden, as yet unknown even to themselves.
For these two cities are intertwined and mingled with one another in this age, until they are separated at the last judgment; concerning whose rise and course and due ends, what I judge must be said, I shall set forth, as far as I shall be divinely aided, for the sake of the glory of the City of God, which, being compared with its opposite, will shine forth more clearly. [XXXVI] But certain things must still be said by me against those who refer the disasters of the Roman republic to our religion, by which they are forbidden to sacrifice to their gods. For those evils must be recalled—as many and as great as can occur, or as will seem sufficient—which that city, or the provinces belonging to its empire, endured before their sacrifices had been forbidden;
all of which they would without doubt attribute to us, if our religion were then already made clear to them, or so forbade them from sacrilegious rites. Next it must be shown what morals of theirs, and for what cause, the true God—in whose power are all kingdoms—deigned to aid for the increasing of the empire, and how nothing helped them, those whom they think gods, and rather how much they harmed by deceiving and beguiling. Finally, it shall be said against those who, though confuted and convicted by the most manifest proofs, attempt to assert that the gods must be worshipped not for the sake of the usefulness of the present life, but for that which is to be after death.
This question, unless I am mistaken, will be much more laborious and worthy of subtler disputation, so that in it there may be discourse also against the philosophers—not any philosophers, but those who are renowned among them with the most excellent glory, and who agree with us in many things, both concerning the immortality of the soul, and that the true God founded the world, and concerning His providence, whereby He rules the whole universe which He founded. But since even they must be refuted in those things wherein they think contrary to us, we ought not to be wanting to this duty, so that, having refuted the impious contradictions according to our strength—which God will impart—we may assert the City of God, and true piety, and the worship of God, in which alone eternal blessedness is truly promised.