III.

The Shows, or De Spectaculis.1

Chapter I.

Ye Servants of God, about to draw near to God, that you may make solemn consecration of yourselves to Him,2 seek well to understand the condition of faith, the reasons of the Truth, the laws of Christian Discipline, which forbid among other sins of the world, the pleasures of the public shows. Ye who have testified and confessed3 that you have done so already, review the subject, that there may be no sinning whether through real or wilful ignorance.  For such is the power of earthly pleasures, that, to retain the opportunity of still partaking of them, it contrives to prolong a willing ignorance, and bribes knowledge into playing a dishonest part. To both things, perhaps, some among you are allured by the views of the heathens who in this matter are wont to press us with arguments, such as these: (1) That the exquisite enjoyments of ear and eye we have in things external are not in the least opposed to religion in the mind and conscience; and (2) That surely no offence is offered to God, in any human enjoyment, by any of our pleasures, which it is not sinful to partake of in its own time and place, with all due honour and reverence secured to Him. But this is precisely what we are ready to prove:  That these things are not consistent with true religion and true obedience to the true God. There are some who imagine that Christians, a sort of people ever ready to die, are trained into the abstinence they practise, with no other object than that of making it less difficult to despise life, the fastenings to it being severed as it were. They regard it as an art of quenching all desire for that which, so far as they are concerned, they have emptied of all that is desirable; and so it is thought to be rather a thing of human planning and foresight, than clearly laid down by divine command. It were a grievous thing, forsooth, for Christians, while continuing in the enjoyment of pleasures so great, to die for God! It is not as they say; though, if it were, even Christian obstinacy might well give all submission to a plan so suitable, to a rule so excellent.

CAPUT PRIMUM.

Qui status fidei , quae ratio veritatis, quod praescriptum disciplinae, inter caetera saecularium errorum, etiam spectaculorum voluptates adimat, Dei servi cognoscite, qui cum maxime ad Deum acceditis: recognoscite, qui jam accessisse vos testificati et confessi estis, ne aut ignorando aut dissimulando quis peccet. Tanta est enim vis voluptatum, ut et ignorantiam protelet in occasionem, 0630B et conscientiam corrumpat in dissimulationem. Ad utrumque, adhuc forsan alicui opiniones ethnicorum blandiuntur, quae in ista caussa adversus nos ita argumentari consueverunt: Nihil obstrepere religioni in animo et consciencia tanta solatia extrinsecus oculorum vel aurium: nec vero Deum offend oblectatione hominis, qua, salvo erga Deum metu et honore, suo in tempore et suo in loco frui, scelus non sit. Atquin hoc cum maxime paramus demonstrare, quemadmodum isthaec non competant verae religioni et vero obsequio erga Deum verum. Sunt qui existiment Christianos expeditum 0631A morti genus ad hanc obstinationem abdicatione voluptatum erudiri, quo facilius vitam contemnant, amputatis quasi retinaculis ejus, ne desiderent, quam jam supervacuam sibi fecerint : ut hoc consilio potius et humano prospectu, non divino praescripto definitum existimetur. Pigebat scilicet etiam perseverantes in tantis voluptatibus propter Deum mori. Quanquam etsi ita esset, tam apto consilio, tantae obstinatio disciplinae debebat obsequium.