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Ora our part the fame solemn renunciation against ali idolat .
7. The two hinds of public games, then, have one origin ;
So, Mo, as they are equalir talia ted with tho sin os idolat , their foundreas, they must noeti like each other in their pom p. But the more ambitious preliminary display of the circus games, to Whicli the name procession specialty belongs, is in iiself the proos io whom the wholo thing appertains, in the many images, the long line os statues, the chariola os allsoris, the thrones, the cro ns, the dresses. What hio religious rites besides, what sacrifices precede, come belWeen, and follo' hoW many guiliis, hoW many priesthoods, ho nanny omees are set astir, is known to tho inhabitanti os thoqi eat ei in whicli the demon convention has iis headquartera. Is these things are done in hum bter style in the provinces, in accordanee with their inferior means, stili ali circus games must be counted as longing to that irom Whicli they are derived; the sonnisin from .hicli they spring defites them. For the tiny streamiet from ita very sprinyhead, the littio tWig srom ira very bud ling, contains in it the essentiat natureos itis origin. It may be grand or mean, no matter, any circus procession Whateuer is ostensiva to God. Though therobe few images to graco it, there is idolatry in one; thoughthei no more thau a single sacred car, it is a chariotof Jupiter: anything of idolatry Whatever, Whether meanlyarruyed or modestly ricli and gorgeous, lainis it in iis orion. 8. To follo. out my plan in regard to places: the circusis chiessy consecrated to the Suia, Whoso temple stands in themiddie of it, and whose imago fhines forth smm iis templo
summit; for they have not thought it proper in pay sacred
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honoum undemeast a mos to an object they have ilaeis in open space. Those Who asseri that the fini spectaclo was exhibited by Circe, and in honour of the Sun her fallier, as they willhave it, maintain also the name of circus was derived hom her. Plainin then, the enchantrem did this in the nams of tho parties Whoss priestem alie Was-I mean the demons and spirita os evil. What an aggregation os idolatries you see, accordin y, in the decoration os the place i Eve ornamentos the circus is a temple by itself. The ems are regardinas sacred to the Castors, by men Who are not ashamed toprofess satin in their production from the egg of a sWan, which was no other than Jupiter himself. The Dolphinsvomit forth in honour of Neptune. Images of Sessia, socalled as the goddess of so ing; of Messia, so called as thogoddess os reaping; os Tutulina, in called as the frui,pr tecting deit load the pillam. In front of these you have three altare to these three gods-Great, Ilio , Victorious. They rechon these of Sam Thrace. The huge obelish, as Hermeteles amrms, is set up in public to the Sun; iis inscription, as iis origin, belougs to Egyptian superstition. Cheeriem Uere the demon-gathering without their Mater Magna; and so fhe presides there over the Euripus. Consus, as me have mentioned, lies hidden under ground at the Murcian Goala. These two sprang srom an idol. For they will have it that Murcia is the goddess os love ; and to ber, at that spol, theyhave consecrated a temple. See, Christian, hoW many impure names haVe taken possession of the circus t You havo nothing to do With a sacred placo whicli is tenanted by such multitudes of diabolic spirita. And speahing of places, thisis the sultable occasion for some remarks in anticipation ofa potnt that some will raise. What, then, you say; shali Ibe in danger os pollution is I go in the circus when thegames are not being celebrated Τ Thero is no law so bidding the mere places to us. For not only the places sorshoW-gatherings, but even the temples, may be entered Without any peril of his religion by the servant of God, is he hasonly some honest reason sor it, unconnected with their properbusiness and ossiciat duties. Why, even the streeis, and thu
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or the temple of Serapis to sacrifice or adore, as Ι shail also do by going as a spectator in the circus and the theatre. Thoplaces in themselves do not contaminate, but What is done in them, from Whicli even the places themselves, me maintain,
beeome defited. The polluted things pollute us. It is oninis account that we set besore you to whom places of thohind ars dedicateri that ws may prove the things Which aredone in them to belong to tho idol-patrons to Whom the
9. NoW as to the hin d os performances peculiis to the circus exhibitions. In former dus equestrianism Was pra tised in a simple Way on horsebach, and certainly iis ordinarynse had nothing sin fui in it; but when it was Mamed into the games, it passed trom the service of God into tho employment of demons. Accordingly this hind of circus per- formances is regarded as sacred to Castor and Pollux, to hom, Stesichorus telis us, horses mere given is Mercur And Neptune, too, is an equestrian dei , by the Greehs called Hippius. In regard in the leam, they have cons crated the chariot and four to the sun; the chariot and patrio the moon. But, as the poet has it, Erichthonius fimidared to yoko four horam to the chariol, and to ride uponiis wheels with victorious swi finess. ' Erichthonius, the sonos Vulcan and Minerva, fruit os unWorthy passion oponearth, is a demon-monster, nay, the devii himself, and nomere mahe. But is Trochilus the Argivo is maher of thostrat chariot, he dedicated that work of his to Juno. ΙΤRomulus fidit exhibited the four-horso chariot at Rome, heloo, I tbinh, has a place gi ven him among idola, at least is hoand Quirinus are the fame. But as chariola had such i Ventor' the charioteers mere naturalty dressed, too, in thocolours of idolatry : for at fidit these Were only tWo, namely
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is offered to the elements of nature.
10. Let us para on noW to theatrical exhibitions, which e have alaeady sho n have a common origin With thecircus, and bear like idolatrous designations ven as froni the first thoy have bomo the name of μ Ludi,' and equallyminister to idols. They resemble each other also in thoi pomp, having the fame procession to the sceno of their dis- play hom temples and altars and that mournsul profusionos inconse and blood, With music of pipes and trumpera,
ali under tho direction of tho soothsayer and tho underis 'thoso tWo foui masters os funerat rites and sacrifices. Soas Wo Went on from the origin of tho Ludi ' to tho circusgames, Ne shali noW direct our course thende to those of
the theatre, beginning With the place of exhibition. At frat
purities, searing some time or other censorian condemnationoi his memo , superposed on it a temple of Venus; and summoning by public proclamation the peopte to ita consecration, he called it not a theatre, but a temple, under Whicli, said he, e have placed iters of seata sor vieriing tho
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19shows.' So he thre a veil over a structure on Whicli condemnation had been osten passed, and whicli is ever to boheld in reprobation, by pretending that it Was a sacred place ;and by means os superstition ho blinded the Ves os a virtuous discipline. But Venus and Bacchus are close allies. These two evit spirita are in s orn consedera With eachother, as the patrons of drunkenness and lust. So the theatro of Venus is as Woli the liouse of Bacchus: for they properlygave tho name of Liberalia also to other theatrical am e-ments- hich besides being consecrated to Bacchus as meretho Dionysia of the Greelis , mere instituted by him; and, without docti, the performances of the theatro have thocommon patronage of theso tWo deities. That immodestyos gesture and attire Which so specialty and peculi lycharacterizes the stage are consecrated to them-tho onedeity Wanton is her sex, the other by his drape ; While iis services of Volce, and wng, and lute, and pipe, belong to Apollos, and Muses, and Minervas, and Mercuries. Youwill halo, o Christian, the things whose authors must bothe objecta Os your ulter detestation. So we Would nowmahe a remish about the aris of the theatre, about the thingsalso Whose authors in the names me execrate. Wo knowthat tho names of the dead are nothing, as are their images ;but me know Weli enough, too, Who, When images are solup, under these names carry on their Wiched Work, and cxultin tho homam rendered to them, and pretend to be divino -none other than spiriis accursed, than deviis. Wo see, therelare, that the aris also are consecrated to the se ce of
tho boings who dweli in tho names of their foundere; and that things cannot bo held freo from the laint of idolat whose inventors have got a place among the gods sor their discoVeries. Nay, as regards the aris, Me ought to have gono further bach, and barred ali further argument by the position that the demons, predetermining in their own interesis frem the first, among other eviis Oi idolat , the pollutions of the public shows, with the object os dra ing man aWaysrom his Lota and binding him to their own service, carrie l
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the sho a require. For nono but themselves Would havomade provision and preparation ior the objecta they had in VieW; nor mouid they have given the aris to tho . id by any but those in Whose names, and images, and historiis theyset up for their own enda the artifice of consecration. 11. In fulfilment of Our plan, let us noW go on to considerthe combala. Their origin is Ain to that of tho games iudi). Henco they aro hept as either sacred or funereat, asthey have been instituted in honour of the idolviods of the nations or of the dead. Τhus, too, they are called Olympian in hono of Jupiter, known at Rome as the Capitolino; Nemean, in honour of Hercules; Isthmian, in honour of ptune; the rest mortuarii' as belonging to the dea l. What w dex, then, is idolato pollutes the combat-parado in profane crowns, With sacerdotal chiess, With attendanis belonging to the various colleges, last os ali with tho bloodos ita sacrifices ' To add a completing Word about tho placo'-in the common place for the college of the aris sacred to the Μuses, and Apollo, and Minerva, and also for that of the aris dedicated to Mars, they With contest and found of trumpet emulate the circus in the arena, Whicli is a real temple-Ι mean of the god whoso festivias it celebrates. Τhe gymnastic aris also originaled With their Castora,
and Herculeses, and Mercuries.12. It remains for us to examine the spectaclo' most
thought that in this solemnity they rendered ossices to thedead; at a later period, With a crueity more refined, theysomeWhat modi fied ita character. For formerly, in the bellos that the fouis of the departud were appeased by human blood, they wero in the habit of buying captives or flaves of Wicheddisposition, and immolating them in their funerat obsequies. AsterWards they thought good to throw the Veii of ple ureover their iniquity. Those thereiore Whom they had provided for the combat, and then trained in arma as best theycould, only that they might learn to die, they on the funeral
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is murdere. Such is the origin of tho Munus.' But is demees their refinement came up to their , crueity ; for these human wild Masis couid not find pleas e exquisite enough, save in the spectacle of men torn to pie s by Wild Mans. offerings in propitiate the dead then Were regataed as belong- ing to the clam os funerat sacrifices; and these are idolat :for idolat , in faci, is a sori οξ homage to the departed; theone M Weli as the other is a service in dead men. Mor
over, demons have a de in tho images of the dead. Toreser also to the matter of names, though this sors of exhibition has passed iram honours of the dead to honoum of theliving, I mean, to quaestorallips and magistracies-to priestly ossices of different hinds, yet since idolato stili cleaves to the digni 's name, Whateuer is dono in iis name partakes of ita impuri . The fame remarh Will apply to the procession ostho Μunus V as wo loa at that in the pomp Which is connectin mith these honoura themselves; for the purple robes, tho fasces, the filleis, the croWns, the proclamations too, and edicta, the sacred ferais of the day besore, are not milhout inepomp os the devii, Without invitation os demons. What need, then, of d elling on the place of horrors, Whicli is ino mucheven for the longus os the penureri For the amphitheatreis consecrated to names more numerous and more dire inanis tho Capitol itself, templo os ali demons as it is. Thereare as many unclean spirita there M it holds men. To comcludo mith a singlo rem k about the arra Which have a placein it, me know that ira tWo foris of amusement have for thoirpatrons Mars and Diana.
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occupants of these consecrated images, Whether of dead mon
cause they have a common so ce sor their doad and their deities are one-we abstain hom both idolatrios. Nor do wedistilis tho temples tess than tho monumenta: Wo have nothingio do with elther altar, me adore netther image, me do notoffer sacrifices to the gods, and we mahe no funerat oblations to the departed; nay, We do not partake of What is offeredeither in the one case or the other, for We cannot partahe
selves comfortabie in the thought that the abstinence We urgo is not in so many Words enjoined, as is in the condemnationos the lusis of tho worid thero was not involved a sussicient declaration against ali these amusementa. For as there is alust os money, or rank, or eating, or impure enjοyment, or
is With tho places of exhibition, that they are not pollutingin themselves, but o ing to the things that are done in themiroin whicli they imbibe impurisy, and then spiri it again on
15. Having done enough, then, as Wo limo said, in regardio that principat argument, that there is in them ali the laint
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Without some unuttered movings of the inner man. No onepartises os pleraures such as these Without their strong excitements ; no one comes under their excitements without their natural lapses. These lapses, again, create passionate destre.
But it there is no destre, there is no pleasure, and he is cham able with trifling who goes Where nothing is miten. But in
itis place among those With Whom, by his disinclination to bo
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TERTULLIANUS strong emotion, almady tumultuous, atready passion-blind, Hready agitated about their beta. The praetor is too floWior them: their Ves are ever rolling as though along Miththo lota in his urn ; then they hang ali eager on the signat;
them is the united shout os a common madness. observe
and discords, and est that they who are consecrated in peaceought never to indulge in. Then there are curses and r proaches, With no cause of hatred; there are cries of applause, mith nothing to merit them. What are tho partakers in allthis ot their oWn masters-to obtain os it for themselves
disreputabie. So the best path to the hi est favour of iisgod is the vileness which tho Atellan gesticulates, which the