84.  Sinners are planning upon our backs;255    Ps. cxxix. 3 (LXX.). and what we devise against each other, they turn against us all:  and we have become a new spectacle, not to angels and men,256    1 Cor. iv. 9. as says Paul, that bravest of athletes, in his contest with principalities and powers,257    Eph. vi. 12. but to almost all wicked men, and at every time and place, in the public squares, at carousals, at festivities, and times of sorrow.  Nay, we have already—I can scarcely speak of it without tears—been represented on the stage, amid the laughter of the most licentious, and the most popular of all dialogues and scenes is the caricature of a Christian.

ΠΔʹ. Τεκταίνουσι δὲ ἐπὶ τῶν νώτων ἡμῶν οἱ ἁμαρτωλοί: καὶ ἃ κατ' ἀλλήλων ἐπινοοῦμεν, κατὰ πάντων ἔχουσι: καὶ γενόναμεν θέατρον καινὸν, οὐκ ἀγγέλοις καὶ ἀνθρώποις, οἷον ὁ γενναιότατος τῶν ἀθλητῶν Παῦλος, πρὸς τὰς ἀρχὰς καὶ τὰς ἐξουσίας ἀγωνιζόμενος, ἀλλὰ πᾶσι μικροῦ τοῖς πονηροῖς, καὶ ἐπὶ παντὸς καιροῦ καὶ τόπου, ἐν ἀγοραῖς, ἐν πότοις, ἐν εὐφροσύναις, ἐν πένθεσιν. Ἤδη δὲ προήλθομεν καὶ μέχρι τῆς σκηνῆς, ὃ μικροῦ καὶ δακρύω λέγων, καὶ μετὰ τῶν ἀσελγεστάτων γελώμεθα: καὶ οὐδὲν οὕτω τερπνὸν τῶν ἀκουσμάτων καὶ θεαμάτων, ὡς Χριστιανὸς κωμῳδούμενος.