And what hope, I ask, of amendment is there in us, who are led to evil not by an error of opinion, but strive by the zeal of an evil will, that we may ever seem to be worse? And hence it is that I complained a while ago that we are far worse than the barbarians, because ignorance of the law excuses them, while knowledge accuses us. They, through inexperience of the truth, since they know not what things are good, love evil in place of good; but we, though we possess knowledge of the truth and know most excellently what things are good... in these ways. First, that there is scarcely any crime or disgrace which is not present in the spectacles:
where the highest kind of delight is for men to die, or — what is graver and more bitter than death — to be torn apart; for the bellies of wild beasts to be glutted with human flesh; for men to be devoured amid the joy of the bystanders and the pleasure of the onlookers — that is, to be devoured almost no less by the gaze of men than by the teeth of beasts. And that this may happen, the whole world is spent; for this is contrived and labored over with great care. Even hidden places are sought out, trackless glades are ranged over, impenetrable forests are traversed, cloud-bearing Alps are climbed, deep valleys are penetrated; and so that the entrails of men may be devoured by beasts, nature is not permitted to keep anything hidden. But these things, you say, do not always happen. It is certain.
And a splendid excuse for the error it is, that they do not always happen — as though indeed those things that offend God ought ever to happen, or as though things that are evil are done well because they are not done continually. For murderers too do not always kill, and yet they are murderers even when they do not kill, because at times they are polluted by murder. And robbers all do not always rob, yet they do not cease to be robbers, because even when they are not committing robberies in actual deed, in their minds they do not withdraw from robbery. So too surely all these who take delight in spectacles of this sort, even when they are not watching, are nonetheless not innocent in mind of the abominations of spectacles, because they would always wish to watch if they could. And not this only, but there are other, greater things.
For what? Are not chickens still fed at the consuls' inauguration in the manner of the old heathen sacrileges, and the auguries of the flying feather sought, and almost everything done which even those ancient pagans of old accounted trifling and worthy of ridicule? And though these very things are done by the very men who give their names to the years, and from whom the years themselves take their beginning, do we believe that the years can turn out well for us, when they take their start from such things? And would that, just as these things are done only for the consuls' sake, so they defiled only those for whose sake they are done. This is the most deadly and grievous thing: that while they are performed by public consent, the honor of a very few becomes the crime of all; and thus, since two are inaugurated every year, it comes near that in all the world no one escapes.
But concerning these things let us suppose that enough has been said — those things which, as you yourselves plead in excuse, do not always happen. Let us speak, however, of the daily obscenities, which such and so innumerable legions of demons have devised, that even honorable and upright minds, although they can spurn and trample some of them, yet can scarcely wholly overcome them all utterly.
For just as armies about to fight are said to cut off with pits, or fix with stakes, or beset with caltrops those places through which they know the enemy's squadrons will pass — namely, so that even if someone does not fall into all of them, yet none may wholly escape — so too the demons have stretched out in this life so many snares of enticements before the human race, that even if someone escapes very many of them, he is nonetheless caught by some one of them. And indeed, since it would be long now to speak of all of them — the amphitheaters, the odeums, the gladiatorial shows, the pomps, the athletes, the rope-dancers, the pantomimes, and the other monstrosities which it is loathsome to name, because it is loathsome even to know such evil — I speak of the impurities of the circuses and theaters alone.
For the things which are done there are such that no one can even recall them, let alone speak of them, without pollution. Other crimes, indeed, claim for themselves generally single portions of us: as filthy thoughts claim the soul, shameless glances the eyes, and wicked hearings the ears — so that when one of these has gone astray, the rest can be free of sin. In the theaters, however, none of these is free of guilt, because the soul is polluted by lusts, the ears by hearing, and the eyes by the gaze; all which things are indeed so shameful that no one could even unfold and speak of them with modesty unharmed.
For who, with the state of his modesty intact, could speak of those imitations of foul things, those obscenities of voices and words, those turpitudes of movements, those foulnesses of gestures? And how great a crime these are can be understood from this very thing — that they even forbid the report of themselves. Some even of the greatest crimes can be reported and named and censured with the modesty of the reporter intact — as murder, robbery, adultery, sacrilege, and the rest of this sort: only the impurities of the theaters are such that they cannot even be honorably accused.
Thus in exposing the shamefulness of these turpitudes, it turns out for the one exposing them that, although he who wishes to accuse them is without doubt honorable, he yet cannot with honor intact speak of and accuse them. Those who commit all other evils also pollute themselves, but not those who see or hear them; since, even if you hear some blasphemer, you are not polluted with sacrilege, because in mind you dissent; and if you happen upon a robbery, you are not defiled by the deed, because in spirit you abhor it. The impurities of the spectacles alone are such that they make one and the same crime both of those who act and of those who look on. For while the spectators approve these things and willingly watch them, they all commit them by their sight and by their assent.
So that truly upon them that apostolic saying falls in a special way: that 'they are worthy of death, not only those who do these things, but also those who consent to those who do them.' And so, at those images of fornications, the whole populace utterly fornicates in mind; and those who perhaps had come to the spectacle pure return from the theater adulterers. For they fornicate not only then, when they return, but also when they come; for by this very thing — that someone desires a filthy matter, while he hastens toward the unclean — he is unclean. Behold, then, into what — since these things are so — behold into what all, or almost all, Romans fall. And since these things are so, we who do such things complain that we are neglected by the Divinity, and say that we are abandoned by our Lord, while we ourselves abandon the Lord.
For let us imagine that our Lord should be willing to look upon us even though we do not deserve it: let us see whether he can. Behold, countless thousands of Christians dwell daily in the spectacles of shameful things. Can God, then, look upon them who are such? Can he look upon those who revel in the circuses, who commit adultery in the theaters?
Or do we perhaps not wish this, and think it fitting that, since God sees us in the circuses and in the theaters, he should also look upon with us those very things which we behold, and that the turpitudes which we discern he too should discern with us? For one of two things must necessarily happen: since, if he deigns to see us, it follows that he also sees those things where he sees us; or if from those things — which is not in doubt — he turns away his eyes, he likewise turns them away also from us who are there. And though these things are so, we nonetheless do these things I have spoken of, without ceasing. Or do we perhaps, after the manner of the old pagans, suppose that we have a God of the theaters and circuses? For those men of old did these things because they believed these to be the delights of their idols.
How do we do these things, we who are certain that our God hates them? Or if indeed we know that these turpitudes please God, I do not forbid that we do them without ceasing. But if in our conscience this is so — that God abhors these things, that he execrates them, that in them, as there is the feeding of the devil, so there is the offense of God — how do we say that we worship God in the Church, we who in the obscenity of the games have always been slaves to the devil, and this knowingly and wittingly, by deliberation and design? Thus what hope, I ask, will there be for us with God, we who offend God not by chance or imprudence, but after the example of those giants of old, who, we read, in mad attempts scaled the height and, as it were, carried their steps into the clouds?
Thus, by the injuries which we always inflict upon God throughout the whole world, we assault heaven, as it were, by public consent. To Christ, therefore (O monstrous madness!), to Christ we offer circus-games and mimes; and this most of all then, when we receive some good from him, when some prosperity is bestowed by him, or victory over enemies is granted by the Divinity. And what else do we seem to do by this than as if one should be injurious to a man bestowing a benefit, or should strike with insults one who is caressing him, or transfix with a sword the face of one who is kissing him?
For I ask all the powerful and rich of this world: of what guilt is that servant guilty who plots evil against a good and pious master, who reviles one who deals well with him, and returns insult for the liberty which he received? Without doubt he is held guilty of the greatest crime who returns evil for good, to whom it would not be lawful to return even evil for evil. This, then, we too who are called Christians do: we provoke against ourselves the merciful God by our impurities; we injure with filth the God who is showing us favor; we lash with injuries the God who is caressing us. To Christ, therefore (O monstrous madness!), to Christ we offer circus-games and mimes; to Christ, in return for his benefits, we render back the obscenities of the theaters; to Christ we sacrifice the victims of the foulest amusements.
Was it, forsooth, this that our Savior, born for us in the flesh, taught us? Was it this that he preached, whether through himself or through the apostles? Was it for this that he underwent the shame of human birth and took up the reproachful beginnings of an earthly origin? Was it for this that he lay in a manger, he whom the angels served as he lay? Was it for this that he willed to be wrapped in the swaddling-bands of rags, he who ruled heaven in rags? Was it for this that he hung upon the gibbet, at whose hanging the world was struck with dread? 'Who for your sakes,' says the apostle, 'became poor, though he was rich, that by his poverty you might be enriched.' And 'though he was in the form of God,' he says, 'he humbled himself even unto death, and that the death of the cross.'
This, forsooth, Christ instilled in us, when he endured these things for us: a splendid recompense we render for his passion, we who, though we have received redemption by his very death, repay him with a most shameful life. 'For there has appeared,' says the most blessed Paul, 'the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, instructing us, that denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly and justly and piously in this world, awaiting the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and cleanse for himself an acceptable people, a follower of good works.' Where are those who do these things, for the sake of which the apostle says Christ came?
Where are those who flee the desires of the world? Where those who lead a life piously and justly? Where those who show by good works that they hope for the blessed hope, and, leading an unstained life, prove by this very thing that they await the kingdom of God, because they merit to receive it? 'The Lord Jesus Christ came,' it says, 'that he might cleanse for himself an acceptable people, a follower of good works.' Where is that clean people? Where the acceptable people? Where the people of good work? Where the people of holiness? 'Christ,' says the Scripture, 'suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow his footsteps.' The footsteps of the Savior, forsooth, we follow in the circuses; the footsteps of the Savior we follow in the theaters.
Such an example, forsooth, Christ left us — he whom we read to have wept, but do not read to have laughed. And both of these for our sake, because weeping is the compunction of the soul, laughter the corruption of discipline. And therefore he said: 'Woe to you who laugh, for you shall weep'; and 'Blessed are you who weep, for you shall laugh.' But for us it is not enough to laugh and rejoice, unless we rejoice with sin and in madness, unless our laughter be mingled with impurities, unless with disgraceful deeds. What, I ask, is this error, what this folly? Can we not be continually glad and laugh, unless we make our laughter and our gladness to be a crime? Or do we perhaps think simple joy unfruitful, and does it not delight us to laugh without a crime?
What evil, I ask, is this, or what madness? Let us laugh, I beg, however immoderately we rejoice, however continually — provided only it be innocently. What senselessness and madness is it, that we should think laughter and joy of no account unless it have in itself an injury to God? An injury indeed, and that the greatest. For in the spectacles there is a certain apostasy of the faith, and a deadly prevarication both of the very Creed and of the heavenly sacraments. For what is the first confession of Christians in the saving baptism — what, namely, but that they protest they renounce the devil and his pomps and spectacles and works? Therefore spectacles and pomps are, even according to our own profession, the works of the devil.
How then, O Christian, do you pursue spectacles after baptism, which you confess to be the work of the devil? You once renounced the devil and his spectacles, and by this it is necessary that, prudent and knowing, when you return to the spectacles, you should recognize that you are returning to the devil. For you renounced both things together, and said that both were one and the same. If you return to the one, you have gone back to both. 'For I renounce,' you say, 'the devil, his pomps, spectacles, and works.' And what afterward? 'I believe,' you say, 'in God the Father almighty, and in Christ his Son.' Therefore the devil is first renounced that God may be believed in, because he who does not renounce the devil does not believe in God; and therefore he who returns to the devil forsakes God.
But the devil is in the spectacles and in his pomps, and by this, when we return to the devil's spectacles, we forsake the faith of Christ. In this way, then, all the sacraments of the Creed are dissolved, and the whole of what follows in the Creed is shaken and totters; for nothing that follows stands, if the principal thing has not stood. Say, then, O Christian: how do you think you hold the sequel of the Creed, whose beginnings you have lost? Limbs without a head are of no use, and all things look back to their origin; which surely, if they have perished, drag everything down to ruin, since, when the root is taken away, either the rest do not exist, or, if they exist, they are without profit, because without a head nothing stands firm.
If therefore the crime of the spectacles seems light to anyone, let him consider all these things which we have said, and he will see that in the spectacles there is not pleasure but death. And what else is it than to incur death, to have lost the origin of life? For where the foundation of the Creed is overthrown, life itself is slain. Again, therefore, we must return to that which we have often said: What like this among the barbarians? Where among them are the circus-games? Where the theaters? Where the crime of the various impurities — that is, the ruin of our hope and salvation? Which things, though they, being pagans, might use them, they yet erred with less fault of sacred offense, because, although there was impurity of sight, there was nevertheless no prevarication of the sacrament. But what can we answer on our own behalf?
We hold the Creed and overthrow it; we confess the gift of salvation and at the same time deny it. And by this, where is our Christianity, we who receive the sacrament of salvation only for this — that we may afterward sin by a greater crime of prevarication? We prefer amusements to the churches of God; we spurn the altars and honor the theaters; in short, we love all things, we worship all things: God alone, in comparison with all these, is worthless to us. In short, besides the other things which prove it, this very matter which I speak of also indicates this.
For if it ever happens — which indeed often happens — that on the same day both an ecclesiastical festival and public games are held, I ask the conscience of all: which place has the greater throngs of Christian men, the pit of the public games or the hall of God? And whether all rather flock to the temple or to the theater; whether they love more the sayings of the Gospels or of the stage-players, the words of life or the words of death, the words of Christ or the words of the mime? There is no doubt that we love more that which we prefer. For on every day of the deadly amusements, whatever festivals of the Church there may be, not only do those who say they are Christians not come to the church, but if any perchance unknowingly come, while they are in the very church, if they hear that the games are being held, they abandon the church.
The temple of God is spurned, that men may run to the theater; the church is emptied, the circus is filled; we abandon Christ at the altar, that we may feed our eyes, adulterating them with the foulest sight, upon the fornication of shameful amusements. And therefore most rightly does the Lord God say to us: 'Because of your filthiness you have been driven out with destruction.' And again he says: 'The altars of this laughter shall be destroyed.' But it may perhaps be answered — this can be answered — that these things are not done in all the cities of the Romans. It is true; nay, I add even more: that they are not now done even there where they were always done before. For this is no longer done in the city of the Mainzers, but because it has been cut down and destroyed; it is not done at Cologne, but because it is full of enemies;
it is not done in the most excellent city of the Treveri, but because it has been laid low by a fourfold overthrow; it is not done, in short, in very many cities of the Gauls and the Spains. And therefore woe to us and to our iniquities! Woe to us and to our impurities! What hope is there before God for Christian peoples, seeing that these evils have ceased in the Roman cities from the time when they began to be under the barbarians' rule? And by this, viciousness and impurity are, as it were, a certain kinship of the Roman men, and, as it were, their mind and nature, because there especially are vices, wherever there are Romans. But perhaps this complaint may be grievous and unjust — grievous indeed, if it be false.
But how, you say, how is it not false, since these things which we have spoken of are now done in scarcely a few Roman cities? And very many of them are now no longer polluted by the stain of these impurities; where, although the very places and dwellings of the ancient error remain, yet those things which were formerly done are by no means done. Both things, therefore, must be considered — that is, why it is that the very places and lodgings of the amusements still exist, while the amusements themselves have ceased. For the places and habitations of the turpitudes still exist for this reason, that there all impure things were formerly done. But now the amusements themselves are not held for this reason, that they can no longer be held because of the misery of the time and of poverty. And therefore, what was formerly done was of viciousness; what is now not done is of necessity.
For the calamity of the treasury and the beggary of the now Roman exchequer does not permit that expenses be everywhere lavished and squandered upon trifling matters. Let ever so many things still perish and be cast, as it were, into the mire; yet so many can no longer perish, because there are not so many things to perish. For as far as concerns the wish of our lust and most impure pleasure, we should assuredly desire — if only for this — to have more, that we might desire to convert more into this mire of turpitude. And the matter proves how much we would be willing to squander, if we were opulent and splendid, seeing that we squander so much while beggars. For such is the ruin of present-day morals and their perdition, that even when poverty no longer has what it can waste, viciousness still wishes more to perish.
There is no reason, then, why we should be able to flatter ourselves at all in this respect, so as to say that those things which were formerly done are not now done in all the cities. For they are no longer done in all cities for this reason: that the cities where those things were done now no longer exist — or there, seeing that they were long done, [the things happened] which brought it about that where those things were done, [the cities] can no longer exist. Just as God himself spoke to sinners through the prophet: because 'the Lord remembered these things,' he says, 'and it came up upon his heart, and the Lord could no longer bear it because of the wickedness of your pursuits and because of the abominations which you have done; and your land was made into a desolation and an astonishment and into a curse.'
Through these things, then, it has already come to pass that the greater part of the Roman world has become a desolation and an astonishment and a curse. And would that these things had only been done formerly, and that Roman viciousness would at some time cease from doing them: perhaps, as it is written, God would be propitiated toward our sins. But by no means do we act so that he may be propitiated. For unceasingly we add evils to evils and heap up sins upon sins; and although the greatest part of us has already perished, we bring it about that we all perish. Who, I ask, sees another slain beside him and himself does not fear? Who beholds his neighbor's house burning and does not strive by every means that he himself be not consumed by the fire?
We have not merely watched our neighbours go up in flames; we ourselves have already, for the greatest part of our own bodies, been burned. And what evil is this, O outrage! We have been burned, we have been burned, and yet the flames by which we have already been burned we do not fear. For the fact that the crimes formerly committed are not, as I said, still committed everywhere is a favour of our misery, not of our discipline. In short, I prove this easily. Restore but the condition of the former time, and at once there are everywhere the things that once were. I add more: so far as men's desires are concerned, even if those things are no longer everywhere, they are still everywhere, because everywhere the Roman people would wish them to be. For when a man refrains from an evil deed by necessity alone, the very craving for the base deed is condemned in place of the deed itself.
For if, as I said, according to the saying of our Lord, he who looks upon a woman to lust after her is guilty of adultery conceived in the heart, we can understand that, even though we do not commit base and damnable deeds because necessity prevents us, we are nevertheless condemned for the very will to base things. And why do I speak of the will? Nearly all men do these things when they can. In short, let the inhabitants of any city whatever come to Ravenna or Rome: in the circus they are part of the Roman crowd, in the theatre they are part of the Ravennate populace. And by this let no one think himself excused by place or absence. All who join themselves by the will to base things are one in the baseness of those things. And on top of this we flatter ourselves about our uprightness of morals, we flatter ourselves about the rarity of our disgraces.
I go further and say that not only are those blots of infamous spectacles, which were formerly performed, still performed now, but they are performed far more criminally than they were formerly performed. For then the limbs of the Roman world flourished whole and entire; the public wealth had made the granaries too narrow; the citizens of all cities overflowed with riches and delights; scarcely could the authority of religion, amid such an abundance of things, maintain a censorship over morals. Purveyors of base pleasures were indeed fed here and there in very many places, but everything was full and heaped up: no one thought of the expenses of the commonwealth, no one of its losses, because the expenditure was not felt. In a manner the commonwealth itself sought where to squander what it could scarcely any longer recover in full.
And therefore the heap of riches, which had already nearly exceeded all measure, overflowed even into frivolous things. But now what can be said? The old abundance has departed from us, the resources of former times have departed; we are already wretched, and yet we do not cease to be frivolous. And whereas poverty is wont to come to the aid even of spendthrift wards, and, as soon as they cease to be rich, they cease also to be vicious, we alone are a new kind of wards and prodigals, in whom wealth has ceased to be, but wickedness endures.
So far are we, unlike other men, from having the causes of our corruptions in outward enticements, that we have them in our very hearts; our viciousness is our own mind; so that toward mending ourselves we go on sinning not by the removal of our resources but by the love of evil things. X. Now, how great are the vices of the Romans, with which the barbarian nations are not defiled, though I have thus far said enough, I shall nevertheless add much that is lacking. But this I warn beforehand, before I speak, that no kind of fault whatever which pertains to an affront against God should seem to anyone a light matter.
For if it is by no means permitted that an illustrious and most powerful man be dishonoured by anyone, and if anyone should dishonour him, he is set up as a defendant by the legal decrees and the author of the injury is by law condemned, how much greater a crime of sacrilege is it that anyone be injurious to God? For the guilt of the doer always grows in proportion to the dignity of the one who suffers the injury, since necessarily, the greater the person is who endures the affront, the greater must be the offence of him who commits it. And hence it is that we read in the Law that even those who seemed to have done light things against a sacred command were nevertheless most severely punished:
that we might understand, namely, that nothing pertaining to God is to be reckoned light, since even what seemed a small fault, the affront to the Godhead made great. In short, that Uzzah, a Levite of God, what did he do against the heavenly command, in that he tried to hold up the tottering ark of the Lord? For nothing here had been enjoined by the Law. And yet at once, while he was holding it up, he was struck dead—not because, as it seems, he had committed anything to the outward appearance defiant, or at least with an undutiful mind, but by that very duty he was undutiful, because he presumed upon what was not commanded. That man of the people of Israel too, when he had gathered wood on the Sabbath;
he was slain, and this by the judgement and command of God, that most merciful and most compassionate Judge, who without doubt would rather have spared than slain, had not the reason of severity overcome the reason of mercy. For one man, too heedless, perished, lest many afterwards should perish through heedlessness. And why should I speak of individuals? The whole nation of the Hebrews, when it was making its way through the wilderness, because it craved its accustomed flesh, lost a part of its people. And indeed it had not yet been forbidden that they should crave it, but by a lawful observance, as I judge, God willed them to advance, that He might restrain the people, rebellious over accustomed things: