Chapter XX.

How vain, then—nay, how desperate—is the reasoning of persons, who, just because they decline to lose a pleasure, hold out that we cannot point to the specific words or the very place where this abstinence is mentioned, and where the servants of God are directly forbidden to have anything to do with such assemblies! I heard lately a novel defence of himself by a certain play-lover. “The sun,” said he, “nay, God Himself, looks down from heaven on the show, and no pollution is contracted.” Yes, and the sun, too, pours down his rays into the common sewer without being defiled. As for God, would that all crimes were hid from His eye, that we might all escape judgment! But He looks on robberies too; He looks on falsehoods, adulteries, frauds, idolatries, and these same shows; and precisely on that account we will not look on them, lest the All-seeing see us. You are putting on the same level, O man, the criminal and the judge; the criminal who is a criminal because he is seen, and the Judge who is a Judge because He sees.  Are we set, then, on playing the madman outside the circus boundaries? Outside the gates of the theatre are we bent on lewdness, outside the course on arrogance, and outside the amphitheatre on cruelty, because outside the porticoes, the tiers and the curtains, too, God has eyes? Never and nowhere is that free from blame which God ever condemns; never and nowhere is it right to do what you may not do at all times and in all places.  It is the freedom of the truth from change of opinion and varying judgments which constitutes its perfection, and gives it its claims to full mastery, unchanging reverence, and faithful obedience. That which is really good or really evil cannot be ought else. But in all things the truth of God is immutable.

CAPUT XX.

Quam vana igitur, imo desperata argumentatio eorum, qui sine dubio tergiversationem admittendae voluptatis obtendunt, nullam ejus abstinentiae mentionem specialiter in Scripturis determinari, quae directo prohibeat, ejusmodi conventibus interesse servum Dei. Novam proxime defensionem suaviludii cujusdam audivi. Sol (inquit), imo etiam ipse Deus de coelo spectat, nec contaminatur. 0652B Plane sol et in cloacam radios suos defert , nec inquinatur. Utinam autem Deus nulla flagitia hominum spectaret, ut omnes judicium evaderemus. Sed spectat et latrocinia, spectat et falsa, et adulteria, et fraudes, et idololatrias, et spectacula ipsa. Idcirco ergo nos non spectabimus, ne videamur ab illo qui omnia spectat. Comparas , homo, reum et judicem: reum, qui quia videtur, reus est: judicem, qui quia videt, judex est. Numquid ergo et extra limites circi furori studemus, et extra cardines theatri impudicitiae intendimus, et insolentiae extra stadium, et immisericordiae extra amphitheatrum, quod deus etiam extra cameras, et gradus , et apulias oculos habet. Erramus, nusquam et nunquam excusatur 0653A quod Deus damnat. Nusquam et nunquam licet, quod semper et ubique non licet. Haec est veritatis integritas , et quae ei debetur disciplinae plenitudo et aequalitas timoris, et fides obsequii, non immutare sententiam, nec variare judicium. Non potest aliud esse, quod vere quidem est bonum seu malum. Omnia autem penes veritatem Dei fixa sunt.