5. What is the need of prosecuting the subject further, or of describing the unnatural kinds of sacrifices in the public shows, among which sometimes even a man becomes the victim by the fraud of the priest, when the gore, yet hot from the throat, is received in the foaming cup while it still steams, and, as if it were thrown into the face of the thirsting idol, is brutally drunk in pledge to it; and in the midst of the pleasures of the spectators the death of some is eagerly besought, so that by means of a bloody exhibition men may learn fierceness, as if a man’s own private frenzy were of little account to him unless he should learn it also in public?  For the punishment of a man, a rabid wild beast is nourished with delicacies, that he may become the more cruelly ferocious under the eyes of the spectators. The skilful trainer instructs the brute, which perhaps might have been more merciful had not its more brutal master taught it cruelty. Then, to say nothing of whatever idolatry more generally recommends, how idle are the contests themselves; strifes in colours, contentions in races, acclamations in mere questions of honour; rejoicing because a horse has been more fleet, grieving because it was more sluggish, reckoning up the years of cattle, knowing the consuls under whom they ran, learning their age, tracing their breed, recording their very grandsires and great-grand-sires! How unprofitable a matter is all this; nay, how disgraceful and ignominious! This very man, I say, who can compute by memory the whole family of his equine race, and can relate it with great quickness without interfering with the exhibition—were you to inquire of this man who were the parents of Christ, he cannot tell, or he is the more unfortunate if he can. But if, again, I should ask him by what road he has come to that exhibition, he will confess (that he has come) by the naked bodies of prostitutes and of profligate women, by (scenes of) public lust, by public disgrace, by vulgar lasciviousness, by the common contempt of all men. And, not to object to him what perchance he has done, still he has seen what was not fit to be done, and he has trained his eyes to the exhibition of idolatry by lust: he would have dared, had he been able, to take that which is holy into the brothel with him; since, as he hastens to the spectacle when dismissed from the Lord’s table, and still bearing within him, as often occurs, the Eucharist, that unfaithful man has carried about the holy body of Christ among the filthy bodies of harlots, and has deserved a deeper condemnation for the way by which he has gone thither, than for the pleasure he has received from the exhibition.

V. Plura prosequi quid est necesse, vel sacrificiorum 0783C in ludis genera monstruosa describere, inter quae nonnumquam et homo fit hostia latrocinio sacerdotis, dum cruor etiam de jugulo calidus exceptus spumanti patera, dum adhuc fervet, et quasi sitienti idolo in faciem jactatus crudeliter propinatur, et inter voluptates spectantium quorumdam mors erogatur, ut per cruentum spectaculum saevire discatur, quasi parum sit homini privata sua rabies, nisi illam et publice discat. In poenam hominis fera rabida nutritur in deliciis, ut sub spectantium oculis crudelius insaniat. Erudit artifex belluam, quae clementior fortasse fuisset si non illam magister crudelior saevire docuisset. Ergo, ut taceam quicquid latius idololatria probat, quam vana sunt ipsa certamina, lites in coloribus, contentiones in cursibus, favores in honoribus, 0783D gaudere quod equus velocior fuerit, moerere 0784A quod pigrior, annos pecoris computare, consules nosse, aetates discere, prosapiam designare, avos ipsos atavosque commemorare! Quam hoc totum otiosum negotium, immo quam turpe et ignominiosum, hunc, inquam, memoriter totam equini generis sobolem computantem et sine offensa spectaculi cum magna velocitate referentem! Parentes Christi, si praeroges, nescit, ut infelicius sit et scire. Quod si rursum praerogem quo ad aliquod spectaculum nescit, aut infelicior, si scit. Quod si rursum praerogem quo ad aliquod spectaculum itinere pervenerit, confitebitur per luparum, per prostitutarum nuda corpora, per publicam libidinem, per dedecus publicum, per vulgarem lasciviam, per communem omnium contumeliam. Cui ut non objiciam quod fortasse commisit, vidit tamen quod committendum 0784B non fuit, et oculos ad idololatriae spectaculum per libidinem duxit, ausus secum sanctum in lupanar ducere, si potuisset; qui festinans ad spectaculum, dimissus e Dominico et adhuc gerens secum, ut assolet, Eucharistiam, inter corpora obscoena meretricum Christi sanctum corpus infidelis iste circumtulit, plus damnationis meritus de itinere quam de spectaculi voluptate.