Tertullian, De Spectaculis, Religious Drama - Music

Tertullian in De Spectaculis: Ritual battles of idolatry were performed and the promoter had to lie and say that the performances were to worship the gods and goddesses. They called the theaters Temples for "holy entertainment" to fool the fools.

See a modern urge for a Spectacle of Worship.

Tertullian of Carthage (Quintus Septimius Florens Terullianus, b. 155 - 160 Carthage - d. 220? AD). Like many of his time, Tertullian in De Spectaculis rejected the theatrical performance in the name of religion. Religious drama and music was dangerous because the performers knew neither the nature of the God nor His Adversary who took advantage of ritual to steal in.

As with most of the ancient writers and even the Bible, music for personal comfort or praise was held harmless. However, when it was performed in a religious sense it was considered idolatrous and effeminate.

Defeat the Idolaters: the Law of Giving is a Lie to support the unsupportable

Defeat the SORCERERS which includes rhetoricians sOPHISts (serpents), singers and musicians: ANY PROFESSIONAL.

All footnotes have been integrated into the text. Chapter titles have been assigned by this poster. I have had to create the HEADER for the paragraphs to show what I believe the writer includes.

I God-Created Things Not Authorized For Religious Worship

II The law of silence

III Direct Commands of God and Necessary Inferences

IV All Theatrical Performance is Based on Idolatry

V Rising Up To Play, Making Sport, Drama, Bacchus Worship

VI All Theatrical Performance is Based on Idolatry

VII Public Games, Idolatry, Processions, Priesthoods, Demon Conventions

VIII Circus, Sun Worship, Polluted Places Pollute Religion

IX Equestrian Art and Charioteering Idolatry

X Theatrical Performance and Religion

XI Jupiter, Muses' Arts Dedicated to Mars Sounds of Trumpets

XII Rituals for the Dead Similar to Amos 5 and 6

XIII Idolatry Clings To the Shows and Funeral Festivals

XIV The Shows: Enjoyment, Glory, Pleasure

XV Theatrical performance creates spiritual anxiesty

XVI Passionate Excitement of Already Emotional Are Easily Deceived

XVII Theatrical Performers Victims of Public Lust

XVIII Racing and Wrestling Facial Distortion

XIX Scripture Condemn the Theater

XX Law of Silence. God's Creations does not Authorize misuse

XXI Theatrical Performance From Non Converted Heathen

XXII Acting and The MARK of Perversity

XXIII Actors, Effeminate to MARK Jesus as a Liar

XXIV Theater Marks One With The Devil

XXV You cannot worship God and watch theatrical performance

XXVI Keeping Company With The Devil at Shows

XXVII Angels MARK Those who Meet With Heathen

XXVIII Christians Mourn While the World Rejoices

XXIX Freedom From Pleasure, Exorcism, False Literature Replaces the Bible

XXX Christians Will See The Theatrical Performers Punished in the Final Spectacle

Note 1: [It is the opinion of Dr. Neander that this treatise proceeded from our author before his lapse: but Bp. Kaye (p. xvi.) finds some exaggerated expressions in it, concerning the military life which savour of Montanism. Probably they do, but had he written the tract as a professed Mointanist, they would have been much less ambiguous, in all probability. At all events, a work so colourless that doctors can disagree about even its shading, must be regarded as practically orthodox. Exaggerated expressions are but the characteristics of the author's genius. We find the like in all writers of strongly marked individuality. Neander dates this treastise circa a.d. 197. That it was written at Carthage is the conviction of Kaye and Dr. Allix; see Kaye, p. 55.]

Chapter I. All Sense Stimulation is God Created but Not Divinely Authorized for Religion

Ye Servants of God, about to draw near to God. that you may make solemn consecration of yourselves to Him, [He speaks of Catechumens, called elsewhere Novitioli. See Bunsen, Hippol. III. Church and House-book, p. 5.] 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 confessed [Here he addresses the Fideles or Communicants, as we call them.] that you have done so already, review the subject, that there may be no sinning whether through real or wilful ignorance.

Romans 14 defines two classes: the wine drinking, meat eating backgrounds speaks of the Dionysics. The vegetarian (nut eaters) defines the Orphics. Only the Essenes--if in Rome--would fit the Jewish situation. A hundred years after Paul wrote the Roman Government had to control the Dionysus worshipers. Both had a charismatic musical background. Therefore, in Romans 14 Paul defined the SYNAGAGOUE or "school of the Bible." Paul says that to follow Christ they would not stimulate mental excitement. The only way to glorify God would be to speak "that which is written" with ONE MOUTH and ONE MIND. Paul says the same thing in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3. Therefore, there is NO musical activity connected to Christian worship. If they engaged in dramatic performances they would be, as Paul said in 1 Cor 14, seen as mad or insane.

For such is the power of earthly pleasures, that, to retain the opportunity of still partaking of them,

it contrives to prolong swilling 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: commands

(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

Chapter II. The Law of Silence, Direct Commands, idolatry of talent

Then, again, every one is ready with the argument [Kaye (p. 366), declares that all the arguments urged in this tract are comprised in two sentences of the Apology, cap. 38.]

that all things, as we teach, were created by God,
and given to man for his use,
and that they must be good,
as coming all from so good a source;

but that among them are found the various constituent elements of the public shows, such as the horse, the lion, bodily strength, and musical voice. It cannot, then, be thought that what exists by God's own creative will is either foreign or hostile to Him;

and if it is not opposed to Him,
it cannot be regarded as injurious to His worshippers,
as certainly it is not foreign to them.

Beyond all doubt, too, the very buildings connected with the places of public amusement, composed as they are of rocks, stones, marbles, pillars, are things of God, who has given these various things for the earth's embellishment; nay, the very scenes are enacted under God's own heaven.

How skilful a pleader seems human wisdom to herself,
..........especially if she has the fear of losing any of her delights-any of the sweet enjoyments of worldly existence!
..........In fact, you will find not a few whom the imperilling of their pleasures rather than their life holds back from us.

For even the weakling has no strong dread of death as a debt he knows is due by him;
..........while the wise man does not look with contempt on pleasure,
..........regarding it as a precious gift-in fact,
..........the one blessedness of life, whether to philosopher or fool.

Now nobody denies what nobody is ignorant of-for Nature herself is teacher of it-that God is the Maker of the universe, and that it is good, and that it is man's by free gift of its Maker.

But having no intimate acquaintance with the Highest,

knowing Him only by natural revelation,
and not as His "friends"-afar off,
and not as those who have been brought nigh to Him-
            men cannot but be in ignorance alike of
            What He enjoins and what He forbids in regard to the administration of His world.

They must be ignorant, too, of the hostile power which works against Him,

and perverts to wrong uses the things His hand has formed;
for you cannot know either the will or the adversary of a God you do not know.
            We must not, then, consider merely by whom all things were made,
            but by whom they have been perverted.

We shall find out for what use they were made at first,
            when we find for what they were not. law of silence

There is a vast difference between the corrupted state and that of primal purity,
..........just because there is a vast difference between the Creator and the corrupter.

Why, all sorts of evils, which as indubitably evils even the heathens prohibit,
            and against which they guard themselves, come from the works of God.

Take, for instance, murder, whether committed by iron, by poison, or by magical enchantments.
            Iron and herbs and demons are all equally creatures of God.

Has the Creator, withal, provided these things for man's destruction?
..........Nay, He puts His interdict on every sort of man-killing by that one summary precept, "Thou shalt not kill."

Moreover, who but God, the Maker of the world, put in its gold, brass, silver, ivory, wood, and all the other materials used in the manufacture of idols?

Yet has He done this that men may set up a worship in opposition to Himself? On the contrary idolatry in His eyes is the crowning sin.

What is there offensive to God which is not God's?
But in offending Him, it ceases to be His; and in ceasing to be His, it is in His eyes an offending thing.

Man himself, guilty as he is of every iniquity,
is not only a work of God-he is His image, and
yet both in soul and body he has severed himself from his Maker.

For we did not get eyes to minister to lust,
and the tongue for speaking evil with,
and ears to be the receptacle of evil speech,
and the throat to serve the vice of gluttony,
and the belly to be gluttony's ally,
and the genitals for unchaste excesses,
and hands for deeds of violence,
and the feet for an erring life;
or was the soul placed in the body that it might become a thought-manufactory of snares, and fraud, and injustice?

I think not; for if God, as the righteous ex-actor of innocence, hates everything like malignity-if He hates utterly such plotting of evil, it is clear beyond a doubt, that, of all things that have come from His hand, He has made none to lead to works which He condemns, even though these same works may be carried on by things of His making; for, in fact, it is the one ground of condemnation, that the creature misuses the creation.

We, therefore, who in our knowledge of the Lord have obtained some knowledge also of His foe-who, in our discovery of the Creator, have at the same time laid hands upon the great corrupter, ought neither to wonder nor to doubt that,

--As the prowess of the corrupting and God-opposing angel overthrew in the beginning the virtue of man,
        the work and image of God, the possessor of the world, so he has entirely changed man's nature-created, like his own, for perfect sinlessness-into his own state of wicked enmity against his Maker, that in the very thing whose gift to man, but not to him, had grieved him, he might make man guilty in God's eyes,and set up his own supremacy.

[For the demonology of this treatise, compare capp. 10, 12, 13, 23, and see Kaye's full but condensed statement (pp. 201-204), in his account of the writings, etc.]

Chapter III. Direct Commands of God and Necessary Inferences

Fortified by this knowledge against heathen views, let us rather turn to the unworthy reasonings of our own people;
..........for the faith of some, either too simple or too scrupulous,
..........demands direct authority from Scripture for giving up the shows,
......... and holds out that the matter is a doubtful one,
..........because such abstinence is not clearly and in words imposed upon God's servants.

Well, we never find it expressed with the same precision,

"Thou shalt not enter circus or theatre, thou shalt not look on combat or show;"
as it is plainly laid down, "Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not worship an idol; thou shalt not commit adultery or fraud." Ex. xx. 14.

But we find that that first word of David bears on this very sort of thing: "Blessed," he says, "is the man who has not gone into the assembly of the impious, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of scorners." Ps. i. 1.

[Necessary Inferences]

Though he seems to have predicted beforehand of that just man, that he took no part in the meetings and deliberations of the Jews, taking counsel about the slaying of our Lord,

yet divine Scripture has ever far-reaching applications: after the immediate sense has been exhausted, in all directions it fortifies the practice of the religious life, so that here also you have an utterance which is not far from a plain interdicting of the shows.

If he called those few Jews an assembly of the wicked,

how much more will he so designate so vast a gathering of heathens! Are the heathens less impious, less sinners, less enemies of Christ, than the Jews were then? And see, too, how other things agree. For at the shows they also stand in the way.

For they call the spaces between the seats going round the amphitheatre, and the passages which separate the people running down, ways. The place in the curve where the matrons sit is called a chair.

Therefore, on the contrary, it holds, unblessed is he who has entered any council of wicked men, and has stood in any way of sinners, and has sat in any chair of scorners.

Definining the theater?

Ps 1:1   Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
.......... nor standeth in the way of sinners,
.......... nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
Ps 1:2   But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
Ps 1:3  And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season;
.......... his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
Ps 1:4  The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
Ps 1:5  Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
.......... nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
Ps 1:6  For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous:
.......... but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

We may understand a thing as spoken generally, even when it requires a certain special interpretation to be given to it.

For some things spoken with a special reference contain in them general truth.
When God admonishes the Isrealites of their duty, or sharply reproves them,
            He has surely a reference to all men; inferences
            He surely pre-condemns every sinning nation, whatever.

If, reasoning from species to genus, every nation that sins against them is an Egypt and Ethiopia;
so also, reasoning from genus to species, with reference to the origin of shows, every show is an assembly of the wicked.

How God destroys with music

Chapter IV. All Theatrical Performance is Based on Idolatry

Lest any one think that we are dealing in mere argumentative subtleties,
..........I shall turn to that highest authority of our "seal" itself.
..........When entering the water,
..........we make profession of the Christian faith in the words of its rule;
..........we bear public testimony that we have renounced the devil, his pomp, and his angels.

Well, is it not in connection with idolatry, above all, that you have the devil with his pomp and his angels? from which, to speak. briefly-for I do not wish to dilate-you have every unclean and wicked spirit.

If, therefore, it shall be made plain that the entire apparatus of the shows is based upon idolatry, beyond all doubt that will carry with it the conclusion that our renunciatory testimony in the laver of baptism has reference to the shows, See the Story of Genun (Jubal). And Enoch.

which, through their idolatry, have been given over to the devil, and his pomp, and his angels.
We shall set forth, then, their several origins, in what nursing-places they have grown to manhood;
next the titles of some of them, by what names they are called;

then their apparatus, with what superstitions they are observed; (then their places, to what patrons they are dedicated; ) then the arts which minister to them, to what authors they are traced.

If any of these shall be found to have had no connection with an idol-god,
it will be held as free at once from the taint of idolatry, and as not coming within the range of our baptismal abjuration

--Organon , to, ( [ergon, erdô] ) I. an implement, instrument, engine of any kind (mostly post-Aug.), Col. 3, 13, 12.--Of military or architectonic engines (whereas machina denotes one of a larger size and more complicated construction)
A. instrument, implement, tool, for making or doing a thing
3.musical instrument, Simon.31, f.l. in A.Fr.57.1 ; homen di'  organôn ekêlei anthrôpous, of Marsyas, Pl.Smp.215c ; aneuorganôn psiloislogois ibid., cf. Plt.268b ; o. poluchordaId.R.399c , al.; met'ôidês kai tinôn organôn Phld.Mus.p.98K. ; of the pipe, Melanipp.2, Telest.1.2
Ergon  [Ergô] I.work, 1. in Il. mostly of deeds of war, polemêïaerga, 3.a hard piece of work, a hard task, Il.: also, a SHOCKING DEED AOR ACT

--Strabo Geography 10.3.16..

Of the rites of Dionysus condemned by Paul in First Corinthians and the wine drinking musical worship in Ephesus:

Also resembling these rites are the Cotytian and the Bendideian rites practiced among the Thracians, among whom the Orphic rites had their beginning. Now the Cotys who is worshipped among the Edonians, and also the instruments used in her rites, are mentioned by Aeschylus; for he says,

O adorable Cotys among the Edonians, and ye who hold mountain-ranging instruments;

And he mentions immediately afterwards the attendants of Dionysus: one, holding in his hands the bombyces (reed flute),

toilsome work of the turner's chisel, fills full the fingered melody, the call that brings on frenzy, while another causes to resound the bronze-bound cotylae. (cupped cymbals or vases) <>"and again, stringed instruments raise their shrill cry, and frightful mimickers from some place unseen bellow like bulls,and the semblance of drums, as of subterranean thunder, rolls along, a terrifying sound.

Note:In connection with this bold use of "semblance" (eikôn) by Aeschylus, note Strabo's studied use of "resembles" (eoike, twice in this paragraph) and "unlikely" (apeikos). Others either translate eikôn "echo," or omit the thought.

The sounding brass (echoing) in First Corinthians thirteen was a Greek military instrument or hollow vase. It is directly related to the Chaldean which is a synonymn for astrologer. It was used like the familiar spirit or "old wineskin" of the witch of Endor to call up a ghost from the subterranean world. By whispering and murmuring into the skin the client heard mysterous sounds which were interpreted as from the gods. At the same time, it was used as a musical instrument or weapon to try to panic the enmy with the noise.

--Aristotle Politics 1341b and all the instruments that require manual skill. And indeed there is a reasonable foundation for the story that was told by the ancients about the flute. The tale goes that Athena found a flute and threw it away. Now it is not a bad point in the story that the goddess did this out of annoyance because of the ugly distortion of her features; but as a matter of fact it is more likely that it was because education in flute-playing has no effect on the intelligence, whereas we attribute science and art to Athena

And since we reject professional education in the instruments and in performance  (and we count performance in competitions as professional,  for the performer does not take part in it  for his own improvement, but for his hearers'  pleasure, and that a vulgar pleasure, owing  to which we do not consider performing to be proper for free men, but somewhat menial; and indeed performers do become vulgar, since the object at which they aim is a low one, as vulgarity in the audience usually influences the music, so that it imparts to the artists  who practise it with a view to suit the audience a special kind of personality,  and also of bodily frame because of the movements required)--we must therefore give some consideration to tunes and rhythms, and to the question whether for educational purposes we must employ all the tunes and all the rhythms or make distinctions; and next, whether for those who are working at music for education we shall lay down the same regulation, or ought we to establish some other third one (inasmuch as we see that the factors in music are melody and rhythm, and it is important to notice what influence each of these has upon education), and whether we are to prefer music with a good melody or music with a good rhythm.

Charles Spurgeon Psalm 149 Ver. 3. Let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp. They who from hence urge the use of music in religious worship, must, by the same rule, introduce dancing, for they went together, as in David's dancing before the ark (Jud 21:21). But whereas many Scriptures in the New Testament keep up singing as a gospel ordinance, none provide for the keeping up of music and dancing; the gospel canon for Psalmody is to "sing with the spirit and with the understanding." --Matthew Henry.

Chapter V. Rising Up To Play, Making Sport, Drama, Bacchus Worship

In the matter of their origins, as these are somewhat obscure and but little known to many among us, our investigations must go back to a remote antiquity, and our authorities be none other than books of heathen literature. Various authors are extant who have published works on the subject. The origin of the games as given by them is this.
..........Timµus tells us that immigrants from Asia,
..........under the leadership of Tyrrhenus,
..........who, in a contest about his native kingdom,
..........had succumbed to his brother,
..........settled down in Etruria.
....................Well,  among other superstitious observances under the name of religion,
....................they set up in their new home public shows.

The Romans, at their own request, obtain from them skilled performers-the proper seasons-the name too, for it is said they are called Ludi, from Lydi. And though Varro derives the name of Ludi from Ludus, that is, from play, as they called the Luperci also Ludii, because they ran about making sport; still that sporting of young men belongs, (playful or ludicrous) in his view, to festal days and temples, and objects of religious veneration.

--Ludo
A.To sport, play with any thing, to practise as a pastime, amuse one's self with any thing:
-Esp., to play on an instrument of music, to make or compose music or song:
B.To sport, dally, wanton
G. To delude, deceive: “auditis, an me ludit amabilis Insania? C. Ludere aliquem or aliquid, to play, mock, imitate, mimic a person or thing

1Cor. 10:7 Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

paizō ,   2. esp. dance, “paisate” Od.8.251; “dōma peristenakhizeto possin andrōn paizontōn” 23.147, cf. Hes.Sc.277; “p. te kai khoreuein” Ar.Ra.409, cf. 390; “enoplia khalkōtheis epaizen” Pi.O.13.86:—Pass., alla pepaistai metriōs hēmin, of the chorus, Ar. Th.1227.

See Jay Guin's use of the PATTERN in dancing in worship.

Their rising up AGAINST god and dancing included:

4. play on a musical instrument, h.Ap.206: c. acc., “Pan ho kalamophthogga paizōn” Ar.Ra.230; dance and sing, Pi. O.1.16

--Vergil Eclogues 6
first my Thalia stooped in sportive mood
to Syracusan strains, nor blushed within
the woods to house her. When I sought to tell
of battles and of kings, the Cynthian god
plucked at mine ear and warned me: “Tityrus,
beseems a shepherd-wight to feed fat sheep,
but sing a slender song.” Now, Varus, I--
for lack there will not who would laud thy deeds,
and treat of dolorous wars--will rather tune
to the slim oaten reed my silvan lay.

--Aristoph. Frogs 225
Rightly so, you busybody.
the Muses of the fine lyre love us
And so does horn-crested Pan, playing his reed pipe.
And the harpist Apollo delights in us as well,
On account of the reed, which as a bridge for his lyre

--Apollōn , ho, Apollo: Abaddon, Apollyon The name of a NUMBER
phorm-iktēs , ou, Dor. phorm-miktas , ho, A. lyre-player, of Orpheus, Pi.P.4.176
phorm-iktos , ē, on, A. sung TO the phormigx, kai peza kai ph. (sc. melē) S.Fr.16.

--Melos , eos, to, 2. music to which a song is set, tune, Arist.Po.1450a14;
3. melody of an instrument, “phormigx d' au phtheggoith' hieron m. ēde kai aulos” ; “aulōn pamphōnon m.” Pi.P.12.19;

2 Peter 2:13 And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;

Entrupo (g1792) en-troo-fah'-o; from 1722 and 5171; to revel in: - sporting selves.

--Truphaô , ( [truphê] )
A. live softly, luxuriously, fare sumptuousl,, en ankalais mêtros truphêsai, of a child, E.Ion 1376, cf. Ba.969; t. en tais esthêsi Isoc.2.32 ; t. kai megaloprepôs diaitasthai X.Ath.1.11 ; leukos anthrôpos, pachus, argos . . , eiôthôs truphan Sosicr. 1 , cf. Ep.Jac.5.5, Gal.6.416, etc.; paison, truphêson, zêson: apothanein se dei Epigr.Gr.362.5 (Cotiaeum, ii/iii A. D.).

Paison paizô [pais]

4. to play (on an instrument), Hhymn. II. to sport, play, jest, joke, Hdt., Xen., etc.; p. pros tina to make sport of one, mock him,

When they MOCKED Jesus the prophecy used the word Alarm or Triumph which is to play loud wind instruments and make a loud rejoicing sound.
G1702 empaizō emp-aheed'-zo From G1722 and G3815 ; to jeer at, that is, deride:

Similar Greek:

--Huporcheomai ,
A. dance with or to music, pros de kardiai phobos aidein hetoimos êd' (fort. hê d') huporcheisthai A.Ch.1025 : c. acc. cogn., orchêsin hu. Plu.Num.13 ; hu. goous sing and dance a lament, Hld.6.8. 3Macc.html
II. sing and dance a character, of a pantomimic actor, Luc.Salt.16.

pros de kardiai phobos aidein hetoimos
Aeschylus, Libation Bearers
Orestes

But since I would have you know, for I do not know how it will end: I think I am a charioteer driving my team far beyond the course. For my ungoverned wits are whirling me away overmastered, and at my heart fear wishes to sing and dance to a tune of wrath. [1025] But while I am still in my senses, I proclaim to those who hold me dear and declare that not without justice did I slay my mother, the unclean murderess of my father, and a thing loathed by the gods.

--Empaizô , fut. - mock at, mock, t

2. euphem. in mal. part., LXXJd. 19.25.

 

Jdg 19:24 Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing.

 

The viol or nebel is named after VILE which can be an empty bag or a harp.

 

Jdg 19:25 But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go

 

illudo to play at or with any thing, to sport with, amuse one's self with, 2. To sport or fool away a thing, i. e. to destroy or waste in sport; in mal. part., to violate, abuse

 

3. Pass., to be deluded, Ev.Matt.2.16, AP10.56.2 (Pall.), Vett.Val.16.14; to be defrauded, of the revenues, Cod.Just.1.34.2.

          II. sport in or on, hôs nebros chloerais e. leimakos hêdonais E.Ba. 866 (lyr.);
               tois choroisin e. to sport in the dance, Ar.Th.975; tôi gumnasiôi Luc.Lex.5 .

Hêdonê A. enjoyment, pleasure, first in Simon.71, S.l.c., Hdt.1.24, al.; prop. of sensual pleasures,

 

E.Ba. 866 Euripides, Bacchae ........OnLine Text

 

Chorus

Shall I move my white foot in the night-long dance, aroused to a frenzy, [865] throwing my head to the dewy air, like a fawn sporting in the green pleasures of the meadow, when it has escaped a fearful chase beyond the watchers [870] over the well-woven nets, and the hunter hastens his dogs [Catamites] on their course with his call, while she, with great exertion and a storm-swift running, rushes along the plain by the river, rejoicing [875] in the solitude apart from men and in the thickets of the shady-foliaged woods.

 

What is wisdom? Or what greater honor do the gods give to mortals than to hold one's hand [880] in strength over the head of enemies? What is good is always dear.

 

Empaiktês , ou, ho,A. mocker, deceiver, LXXIs.3.4, 2 Ep.Pet.3.3, Ep.Jud. 18.

See how Israel rose up to PLAY at Mount Sinai. This was the musical idolatry of the Egyptian Triad. God saw this as a prayer to return to pagan worship. Therefore, He turned them over to worship the starry host (Acts 7, etc.). This included Saturn whose number in Chaldee is 666.

check it

Valentine's day is dedicated to "peace, love and household gods." February 14 was the second day of Parentalia called the Lupercalia. The day is dedicated to Juno-Lupa, the she-wolf. In The Inferno, Dante describes how in "The Dark Wood:" a She-Wolf drove upon me, a starved horror (48) ravening and wasted beyond all belief. She seemed a rack for avarice, gaunt and craving. Oh the many souls she has brought to endless grief! The Lupercal is the setting for the opening scenes of Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. It is the feast time and Caesar says to Antonius: Forget not, in your speed, Antonius, to touch Calpurnia; for our elders say, the barren, touched in this holy chase, shake off their sterile curse. Act 1, Scene II. In this scene, Antonius is one of the Luperci, young men (priests) who ran a course in the city of Rome from the Cave of the Lupercal (the place where, by tradition, the founders of Rome - Romulus and Remus - were suckled by the she-wolf) around the Palatine Hill, in order to purify the ancient site. They wore the skins and blood of goats sacrificed in rites held earlier in the day. During the run, the Luperci struck the women they encountered with strips of goat skin (called a "februa") to promote fertility

However, it is of little consequence the origin of the name, when it is certain that the thing springs from idolatry. The Liberalia, under the general designation of Ludi, clearly declared the glory of Father Bacchus;

for to Bacchus these festivities were first consecrated by grateful peasants,

in return for the boon he conferred on them, as they say,

making known the pleasures of wine. See our comments on Romans 14.

What follows is not the views of Alexander Campbell on instrumental music. It is a letter supporting instrumental music based upon ancient, pagan practices. Mr. G recognizes that music is a device of mind control Which we discuss in other articles Click Here. Not Alexander Campbell on Instrumental music but Mr. G states that:

"INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC is entirely in harmony with the most grateful, solemn and happy feelings of which the human heart is susceptible. Indeed, sacred music upon an instrument, tends, in a very considerable degree, to excite solemn and holy emotions; and we cannot forbear to say, that could the music of our churches be improved--could it be accompanied with an instrument,

it would soothe and calm the feelings of the auditors; it would improve the order of the house; it would call into lively action the latent religious emotions of the heart, and add very much to the enjoyment on such occasions.

"Music exerts a mysterious charm upon man--it takes captive the citadel of life--carries him out of himself, and leads him where it will. The shrill fife and the rattling drum, inspire the soldier just about to enter into battle, with a zeal and daring which no hardship can overcome, and no danger intimidate, and causes him to rush headlong into the thickest of the combat, regardless of consequences.

If martial music thus inspires the worshipers of Mars, will sacred music do less for the humble followers of the meek and lowly Jesus--the worshipers of the true and living God? No!

"It will not. It will inspire them, too, with zeal and courage, and impel them on to resist--not flesh and blood with instruments of death, but principalities and powers--spiritual wickedness in high places, with the armor of God and the sword of the Spirit.

"The argument drawn from the Psalms in favor of instrumental music, is exceedingly apposite to the Roman Catholic, English Protestant, and Scotch Presbyterian churches, and even to the Methodist communities. Their churches having all the world in them--that is, all the fleshly progeny of all the communicants, and being founded on the Jewish pattern of things--baptism being given to all born into the world of these politico-ecclesiastic communities--I wonder not, then, that an organ, a fiddle, or a Jews-harp, should be requisite to stir up their carnal hearts, and work into ecstasy their animal souls, else "hosannahs languish on their tongues, and their devotions die." And that all persons who have no spiritual discernment, taste, or relish for their spiritual meditations, consolations and sympathies of renewed hears, should call for such aid, is but natural. Pure water from the flinty rock has no attractions for the mere toper or wine-bibber. A little alcohol, or genuine Cognac brandy, or good old Madeira, is essential to the beverage to make it truly refreshing. So to those who have no real devotion or spirituality in them, and whose animal nature flags under the oppression of church service, I think with Mr. G., that instrumental music would be not only a desideratum, but an essential prerequisite to fire up their souls to even animal devotion. But I presume, to all spiritually-minded Christians, such aids would be as a cow bell in a concert.

Mars was Nimrod at the Towers of Babel and introduced music and women's bands of singers.

See how Mars did it.

Then the Consualia were called Ludi, and at first were in honour of Neptune, for Neptune has the name of Consus also. Thereafter Romulus dedicated the Equiria to Mars, though they claim the Consualia too for Romulus, on the ground that he consecrated them to Consus, the god, as they will have it, of counsel; of the counsel, forsooth,

in which he planned the rape of the Sabine virgins for wives to his soldiers.

An excellent counsel truly; and still I suppose reckoned just and righteous by the Romans themselves, I may not say by God.

This goes also to taint the origin: you cannot surely hold that to be good which has sprung from sin, from shamelessness, from violence, from hatred, from a fratricidal founder, from a son of Mars. Even now, at the first turning-post in the circus, there is a subterranean altar to this same Consus, with an inscription to this effect:

"Consus, great in counsel, Mars, in battle mighty tutelar deities."
The priests of the state sacrifice at it on the nones of July; the priest of Romulus and the Vestals on the twelfth before the Kalends of September.

In addition to this, Romulus instituted games in honor of Jupiter Feretrius on the Tarpeian Hill, according to the statement Piso has handed down to us, called both Tarpeian and Capitoline.
            After him Numa Pompilius instituted games to Mars and Rgo
            (for they have also invented a goddess of rust);

then Tullus Hostilius; then Ancus Martius; and various others in succession did the like.

As to the idols in whose honour these games were established, ample information is to be found in the pages of Suetonius Tranquillus. But we need say no more to prove the accusation of idolatrous origin.

Chapter VI. All Theatrical Performance is Based on Idolatry

To the testimony of antiquity is added that of later games instituted in their turn, and betraying their origin from the titles which they bear even at the present day, in which it is imprinted as on their very face, for what idol and for what religious object games, whether of the one kind or the other, were designed.

You have festivals bearing the name of the great Mother [Cybele.] and Apollo of Ceres too, and Neptune, and Jupiter Latiaris, and Flora, all celebrated for a common end;

the others have their religious origin in the birthdays and solemnities of kings, in public successes in municipal holidays.

There are also testamentary exhibitions, in which funeral honours are rendered to the memories of private persons; and this according to an institution of ancient times.

For from the first the "Ludi" were regarded as of two sons, sacred and funereal, that is in honour of the heathen deities and of the dead. But in the matter of idolatry, it makes no difference with us under what name or title it is practised, while it has to do with the wicked spirits whom we abjure.

If it is lawful to offer homage to the dead, it will be just as lawful to offer it to their gods: you have the same origin in both cases; there is the same idolatry; there is on our part the same solemn renunciation of all idolatry.

Chapter VII. Public Games, Idolatry, Processions, Priesthoods, Demon Conventions

The two kinds of public games, then, have one origin; and they have common names, as owning the same parentage. So, too, as they are equally tainted with the sin of idolatry, their foundress, they must needs be like each other in their pomp. But the more ambitious preliminary display of the circus (Circe = church) games to which the name procession specially belongs, is in itself the proof to whom the whole thing appertains, in the many images the long line of statues, the chariots of all sorts, the thrones, the crowns, the dresses. What high religious rites besides, what sacrifices precede, come between, and follow.

How many guilds, how many priesthoods, how many offices are set astir, is known to the inhabitants of the great city in which the demon convention has its headquarters.

If these things are done in humbler style in the provinces, in accordance with their inferior means, still all circus games must be counted as belonging to that from which they are derived;

the fountain from which they spring defiles them. The tiny streamlet from its very spring-head, the little twig from its very budding, contains in it the essential nature of its origin. It may be grand or mean, no matter, any circus procession whatever is offensive to God. Though there be few images to grace it, there is idolatry in one; though there be no more than a single sacred car, it is a chariot of Jupiter: anything of idolatry whatever, whether meanly arrayed or modestly rich and gorgeous, taints it in its origin.

Chapter VIII. Circus, Sun Worship, Polluted Places Pollute Religion

To follow out my plan in regard to places: the circus is chiefly consecrated to the Sun, whose temple stands in the middle of it, and whose image shines forth from its temple summit; for they have not thought it proper to pay sacred honours underneath a roof to an object they have itself in open space. Those who assert that the first spectacle was exhibited by Circe, and in honour of the Sun her father, as they will have it, maintain also the name of circus was derived from her.

Plainly, then, the enchantress did this in the name of the parties whose priestess she was- I mean the demons and spirits of evil. What an aggregation of idolatries you see, accordingly, in the decoration of the place! Every ornament of the circus is a temple by itself. The eggs are regarded as sacred to the Castors, by men who are not ashamed to profess faith in their production from the egg of a swan, which was no other than Jupiter himself.

The Dolphins vomit forth in honour of Neptune. Images of Sessia, so called as the goddess of sowing; of Messia, so called as the goddess of reaping; of

Tutulina, so called as the fruit-protecting deity-load the pillars. In front of these you have three altars to these three gods-Great, Mighty, Victorious. They reckon these of SamoThrace.

The huge Obelisk, as Hermeteles affirms, is set up in public to the Sun; its inscription, like its origin, belongs to Egyptian superstition.

Cheerless were the demon-gathering without their Mater Magna; and so she presides there over the Euripus. Consus, as we have mentioned, lies hidden under ground at the Murcian (Spain) Goals. These two sprang from an idol. For they will have it that Murcia is the goddess of love; and to her, at that spot, they have consecrated a temple.

See, Christian, how many impure names have taken possession of the circus! You have nothing to do with a sacred place which is tenanted by such multitudes of diabolic spirits. And speaking of places, this is the suitable occasion for some remarks in anticipation of a point that some will raise.

What, then, you say; shall I be in danger of pollution if I go to the circus when the games are not being celebrated?

There is no law forbidding the mere places to us. For not only the places for show-gatherings, but even the temples,may be entered without any peril of his religion by the servant of God, if he has only some honest reason for it, unconnected with their proper business and official duties. Why, even the streets and the market-place, and the baths, and the taverns, and our very dwelling-places, are not altogether free from idols. Satan and his angels have filled the whole world.

It is not by merely being in the world, however, that we lapse from God, but by touching and tainting ourselves with the world's sins.

I shall break with my Maker, that is, by going to the Capitol or the temple of Serapis to sacrifice or adore, as I shall also do by going as a spectator to the circus and the theatre.The places in themselves do not contaminate, but what is done in them; from this even the places themselves, we maintain, become defiled.

The polluted things pollute us. It is on this account that we set before you to whom places of the kind are dedicated, that we may prove the things which are done in them to belong to the idol-patrons to whom the very places are sacred.

Chapter IX. Equestrian Art and Charioteering Idolatry

Now as to the kind of performances peculiar to the circus exhibitions. In former days

equestrianism was practised in a simple way on horseback, and certainly its ordinary use had nothing sinful in it; but when it was dragged into the games, it passed from the service of God into the employment of demons.

Accordingly this kind of circus performances is regarded as sacred to Castor and Pollux, to whom, Stesichorus tells us, horses were given by Mercury. And Neptune, too, is an equestrian deity, by the Greeks called Hippius. In regard to the team, they have consecrated the chariot and four to the sun; the chariot and pair to the moon.

But, as the poet has it, "Erichthonius first dared to yoke four horses to the chariot, and to ride upon its wheels with victorious swiftness."
        Erichthonius, the son of Vulcan and Minerva, fruit of unworthy passion upon earth, is a demon-monster, nay, the devil himself, and no mere snake.But if Trochilus the Argive is maker of the first chariot, he dedicated that work of his to Juno. If Romulus first exhibited the four-horse chariot at Rome, he too, I think, has a place given him among idols, at least if he and Quirinus are the same.

But as chariots had such inventors, the charioteers were naturally dressed, too, in the colours of idolatry; for at first these were only two, namely white and red,-the former sacred to the winter with its glistening snows, the latter sacred to the summer with its ruddy sun: but afterwards, in the progress of luxury as well as of superstition, red was dedicated by some to Mars, and white by others to the Zephyrs, while green was given to Mother Earth, or spring, and azure to the sky and sea, or autumn. But as idolatry of every kind is condemned by God, that form of it surely shares the condemnation which is offered to the elements of nature.

Chapter X. Theatrical Performance and Religion

Let us pass on now to theatrical exhibitions, which we have already shown have a common origin with the circus [Circe=church] , and bear like idolatrous designations-even as from the first they have borne the name of "Ludi," and equally minister to idols.

They resemble each other also in their pomp, having the same procession to the scene of their display from temples and altars, and that mournful profusion of incense and blood,
.........with music of pipes and trumpets,
........ all under the direction of the soothsayer and the undertaker,
........ those two foul masters of funeral rites and sacrifices.

Plato, Euthydemus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno

[289d] On what proof do you rely? I asked.

I see, he said, certain speech-writers who do not know how to use the special arguments composed by themselves, just as lyre-makers in regard to their lyres: in the former case also there are other persons able to use what the makers produced, while being themselves unable to make the written speech. Hence it is clear that in speech likewise there are two distinct arts, one of making and one of using.

I think you give sufficient proof, I said, that this art of the speech-writers cannot be that whose acquisition would make one happy. And yet I fancied that somewhere about this point would appear the knowledge which we have been seeking all this while.

[289e] For not only do these speech-writers themselves, when I am in their company, impress me as prodigiously clever, Cleinias, but their art itself seems so exalted as to be almost inspired. However, this is not surprising; for it is a part of the sorcerer's art,

[290a] and only slightly inferior to that.

The SORCERER'S art is the charming of snakes and tarantulas and SCORPIONS and other beasts and diseases, while the other is just the charming and soothing of JURIES, assemblies, crowds, and so forth.Or does it strike you differently? I asked. [The other being lyre-makers in regard to their lyres]

No, it appears to me, he replied, to be as you say.
Which way then, said I, shall we turn now? What kind of art shall we try?
For my part, he said, I have no suggestion.
Why, I think I have found it myself, I said.
What is it? said Cleinias."

Musica , ae, and mu-sice- , e-s, f., = mousikê, the art of music, music; acc. to the notions of the ancients, also every higher kind of artistic or scientific culture or pursuit: musicam Damone socci et cothurni,i. e. comic and dramatic poetry, Aus. Ep. 10, 43 : musice antiquis temporibus tantum venerationis habuit,

Similar meaning:

Exegetice , es, f., = exêgêtikê, the art of interpretation, exegesis, Diom. 2, p. 421 P.
Magice - , e-s, f., = magikê (sc. technê), the magic art, magic, sorcery medicinam [dico magicenque, magices factio

Factio , o-nis, f. [id.] II. (Acc. to facio, II. B.; lit., a taking part or siding with any one; hence concr.) A company of persons associated or acting together, a class, order, sect, faction, party (syn.: pars, partes, causa, rebellio, perduellio, seditio).

B. In partic., a company of political adherents or partisans, a party, side, faction

Magia , ae, f., = mageia, the science of the Magi, magic, sorcery (post-class.),
Mageia , hê, theology of the Magians, m. hê Zôroastrou Pl.Alc.1.122a

So as we went on from the origin of the "Ludi" [See table below] to the circus games, we shall now direct our course thence to those of the theatre, beginning with the place of exhibition.

At first the theatre was properly a temple of Venus (Lucifer, Zoe); and, to speak briefly,
it was owing to this that stage performances were allowed to escape censure, and got a footing in the world.

For ofttimes the censors, in the interests of morality,
put down above all the rising theatres,
foreseeing, as they did, that there was great danger of their leading to a general profligacy; so that already, from this accordance of their own people with us,

there is a witness to the heathen, and in the anticipatory judgment of human knowledge even a confirmation of our views.

Paul outlaws PLEASING SELF in Romans 15 so that the assembly or synagogue of Christ could teach "that which is written." The Latin word is Placeo to please, to be pleasing or agreeable, to be welcome, acceptable, to satisfy (class.). 1. In scenic lang., of players or pieces presented, to please, find favor, give satisfaction: scenico placenti Scaenicus I. of or belonging to the stage, scenic, dramatic, theatrical I. Lit.: poëtae, dramatic poets, ludi, stage-plays, theatrical representations, : fabula, a drama, organa, Suet. Ner. 44 : coronae, id. ib. 53 : habitus, id. ib. 38 : gestus, Cic. de Or. 3, 59, 220 : modulatio Comedy. Orator Poi-êtês II. composer of a poem, author, p. kômôidias Pl.Lg.935e ; p. kainôn dramatôn, b. composer of music, 2. author of a speech Organum Vitr. 10, 1.--Of musical instruments, a pipe,. Gen. 4, 21; id. 2 Par. 34, 12 et saep.--Of hydraulic engines, an organ, water-organ: organa hydraulica, Gen 4:21 And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. H8610 manipulate, figuratively to use unwarrantably:--catch, handle, (lay, take) hold (on, over), stop, X surely, surprise, take. H8608 taphaph to drum, that is, play (as) on the tambourine:taber, play with timbrels.H8611 tôpheth to'-feth From the base of H8608 ; a smiting, that is, (figuratively) contempt:--tabret. MEANING HELL Modulatio. In partic., a rhythmical measure, modulation; hence, singing and playing, melody, in poetry and music, Quint. 9, 4, 139: modulatione produci aut corripi (verba), id. 9, 4, 89 : modulatio pedum, id. 1, 6, 2 : scenica, id. 11, 3, 57 : vocis, melody, id. 11, 3, 59 : musica, Aus. Ep. 25, 13 . Clement of Alexandria: "After having paid reverence to the discourse about God, they leave within [at church] what they have heard. And outside they foolishly amuse themselves with impious playing, and amatory quavering (feminine vibrato), occupied with flute-playing, and dancing, and intoxication, and all kinds of trash.

Accordingly Pompey the Great, less only than his theatre, when he had erected that citadel of all impurities, fearing some time or other censorian condemnation of his memory,

superposed on it a temple of Venus (Lucifer, Zoe); and summoning by public proclamation the people to its consecration,
            he called it not a theatre, but a temple, "under which," said he,
            "we have placed tiers of seats for viewing the shows."

So he threw a veil over a structure on which condemnation had been often passed,
            and which is ever to be held in reprobation,
            by pretending that it was a sacred place; and
            by means of superstition he blinded the eyes of a virtuous discipline.

But Venus (Lucifer) and Bacchus are close allies. These two evil spirits are in sworn confederacy with each other, as the patrons of drunkenness and lust. So the theatre of Venus is as well the house of Bacchus: for they properly gave the name of Liberalia also to other theatrical amusements-which besides being consecrated to Bacchus (as were the Dionysia of the Greeks), were instituted by him; and, without doubt,

the performances of the theatre have the common patronage of these two deities.
That immodesty of gesture and attire which so specially and peculiarly characterizes the stage are consecrated to them-
.........the one deity wanton by her sex, the other by his drapery;
.........while its services of voice, and song, and lute, and pipe, belong to Apollos, and Muses, and Minervas, and Mercuries. (Hermes)

After she (Carol Wimber) had a dream in 1976 of standing preaching to a large crowd a seven-point sermon on the gifts of the Spirit, at the final point,  'a sensation like hot electricity' hit her head, travelled down her body, then up and out of her mouth. She awakened speaking in tongues. The sensation of heat and electricity is typical of that experienced in the current revival.  She said 'Soon God stopped showing me what he had wanted to do in the past and began to show me what he was going to do in the future.   I had a strong sense of God's desire for his bride, for the whole Church - Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox.' (Riding the Third Wave - 1987)

In the article "Worship: Intimacy With God the philosophy behind the 'praise and worship' found in the Vineyard churches it is explained that there is a 'well-thought out philosophy' guiding how God is worshipped through music and movement in order to achieve the goal through "Worship: Intimacy With God" .

"To understand how we worship God, it is helpful to learn about our fellowship's history, which goes back to 1977. At that time my wife, Carol, was leading a small group of people in a home meeting that evolved into the Anaheim Vineyard. I'll let her describe what happened during that time.

"After we started to meet in our home gathering, I noticed times during the meeting -- usually when we sang -- in which I experienced God deeply... occasionally we sang a song personally and intimately to Jesus, with lyrics like 'Jesus, I love you.'

Those types of songs both stirred and fed the hunger for God within me... Thus we began to see a difference between songs ABOUT Jesus and songs TO Jesus. "About that time we realised our worship blessed God, that it was for God alone and not just a vehicle of preparation for the pastor's sermon. This was an exciting revelation. After learning about the central place of worship in our meetings, there were many instances in which all we did was worship God for an hour or two.

"At this time we also discovered that singing was not the only way to worship God. Because the word worship means literally to bow down, it is important that our bodies are involved in what our spirits are saying. In scripture this is accomplished through bowing heads, lifting hands, kneeling, and even lying prostrate before God. ... we are blessed as we worship him.

He visits his people with manifestations of the Holy Spirit. "Thus worship has a two-fold aspect: communication with God through the basic means of singing and praying, and communication from God though teaching and preaching the word, prophecy, exhortation, etc. We lift him up and exalt him, and as a result are drawn into his presence where he speaks to us."

"In the Vineyard we see five basic phases of worship, phases through which leaders attempt to lead the congregation.... as we pass through these phases we are headed toward one goal:

intimacy with God.".... The fourth phase is described as "God Visits His People when "Expression then moves to a zenith, a climactic point, not unlike physical lovemaking... We have expressed what is in our hearts and minds and bodies, and now it is time to wait for God to respond.

Stop talking and wait for Him to speak, to move. I call this, the fourth phase, visitation:"

The fifth phase is called "Generosity "The fifth phase of worship is the giving of substance. The church knows so little about giving, yet the Bible exhorts us to give to God. it is pathetic to see people preparing for ministry who don't know how to give. That is like an athlete entering a race, yet he doesn't know how to run. If we haven't learned to give money, we haven't learned anything... " From Source

You will hate, O Christian, the things whose authors must be the objects of your utter detestation. So we would now make a remark about the arts of the theatre,

about the things also whose authors in the names we execrate. We know that the names of the dead are nothing, as are their images;

but we know well enough, too, who, when images are set up, under these names carry on their wicked work, and exult in the homage rendered to them, and pretend to be divine-none other than spirits accursed, than devils.

[If we sing the songs composed by Christ the Spirit then we honor Christ; if we sing the songs composed by human authors then all pagan history knows that we honor the composer and performer]

We see, therefore, that the arts also are consecrated to the service of the beings who dwell in the names of their founders;
and that things cannot be held free from the taint of idolatry whose inventors have got a place among the gods for their discoveries.
            Nay, as regards the arts, we ought to have gone further back,
            and barred all further argument
            by the position that the demons,
                        predetermining in their own interests from the first, among other evils of idolatry,
                        the pollutions of the public shows,

with the object of drawing man away from his Lord
            and binding him to their own service,
            carried out their purpose
            by bestowing on him the artistic gifts which the shows require.

For none but themselves would have made provision and preparation for the objects they had in view;
            nor would they have given the arts to the world by any but those in whose names, and images,
            and histories they set up for their own ends the artifice of consecration.

See the story of Genun (Jubal)

Chapter XI. Jupiter, Muses' Arts Dedicated to Mars Sounds of Trumpets

In fulfilment of our plan, let us now go on to consider the combats. Their origin is akin to that of the games (ludi). Hence they are kept as either sacred or funereal, as they have been instituted in honour of the idol-gods of the nations or of the dead. Thus, too, they are called Olympian in honour of Jupiter, known at Rome as the Capitoline; Nemean, in honour of Hercules; Isthmian, in honour of Neptune; the rest mortuarii, as belonging to the dead. What wonder, then,
.........if idolatry pollutes the combat-parade with profane crowns,
.........with sacerdotal chiefs,
.........with attendants belonging to the various colleges,
.........last of all with the blood of its sacrifices? (Note: the old must always be sacrificed)
.........To add a completing word about the "place"-

in the common place for the college of the arts sacred to the Muses, and Apollo, and Minerva,

and also for that of the arts dedicated to Mars,
they with contest and sound of trumpet emulate the circus in the arena,

which is a real temple-I mean of the god whose festivals it celebrates.
The gymnastic arts also originated with their Castors, and Herculeses,
and Mercuries. [homosexual gods and worshipers]

Chapter XII. Festivals For and With The Dead. Parallel to Amos

It remains for us to examine the "spectacle" most noted of all, and in highest favour. It is called a dutiful service (munus), from its being an office, for it bears the name of "officium" as well as "munus."

The ancients thought that in this solemnity they rendered offices to the dead; at a later period, with a cruelty more refined, they somewhat modified its character.
For formerly, in the belief that the souls of the departed were appeased by human blood,
.........they were in the habit of buying captives or slaves of wicked disposition, and immolating them in their funeral obsequies.

Afterwards they thought good to throw the veil of pleasure over their iniquity. Those, therefore, whom they had provided for the combat, and then trained in arms as best they could, only that they might learn to die, they, on the funeral day, killed at the places of sepulture. They alleviated death by murders.

Such is the origin of the "Munus." But by degrees their refinement came up to their cruelty; for these human wild beasts could not find pleasure exquisite enough, save in the spectacle of men torn to pieces by wild beasts.

Offerings to propitiate the dead then were regarded as belonging to the class of funeral sacrifices; and these are idolatry:

"The marzeah had an extremely long history extending at least from the 14th century B.C. through the Roman period. In the 14th century B.C., it was prominently associated with the ancient Canaanite city of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra), on the coast of Syria... The marzeah was a pagan ritual that took the form of a social and religious association... Some scholars regard the funerary marzeah as a feast for--and with--deceased ancestors (or Rephaim, a proper name in the Bible for the inhabitants of Sheol)." (King, Biblical Archaeological Review, Aug, 1988, p. 35, 35)

"These five elements are: (1) reclining or relaxing, (2) eating a meat meal, (3) singing with harp or other musical accompaniment, (4) drinking wine and (5) anointing oneself with oil." (King, p. 37).

"With the wine-drinking (which is the literal meaning of the Hebrew for feasting), went music and dancing." (Heaton, E. W., Everyday Life in Old Testament times, Scribners, p. 93)

"Worship was form more than substance; consequently, conduct in the marketplace was totally unaffected by worship in the holy place. Amos spoke from the conviction that social justice is an integral part of the Mosaic covenant, which regulates relations not only between God and people, but also among people." (King, p. 44).

"In pagan traditions, musical instruments are invented by gods or demi-gods, such as titans. In the Bible, credit is assigned to antediluvian patriarchs, for example, the descendants of Cain in Genesis 4:21. There is no other biblical tradition about the invention of musical instruments." (Freedman, David Noel, Bible Review, Summer 1985, p. 51). (Proof Here).

for idolatry, in fact, is a sort of homage to the departed; the one as well as the other is a service to dead men.
Moreover, demons have abode in the images of the dead. To refer also to the matter of names,
though this sort of exhibition has passed from honours of the dead to honours of the living.

Most ancients believed that the gods or demons or departed spirits also lived inside of musical instruments.

I mean, to questorships and magistracies-to priestly offices of different kinds; yet, since idolatry still cleaves to the dignty's name, whatever is done in its name partakes of its impurity.

The same remark will apply to the procession of the "Munus," as we look at that in the pomp which is connected with these honours themselves; for the purple robes, the fasces, the fillets the crowns, the proclamations too, and edicts, the sacred feasts of the day before,

are not without the pomp of the devil, without invitation of demons. What need, then, of dwelling on the place of horrors, which is too much even for the tongue of the perjurer?

For the amphitheatre [Though this was probably written at Carthage, his reference to the Flavian theatre in this place is plain from the immediate comparison with the Capitol.] is consecrated to names more numerous and more dire [To the infernal deities and first of all to Pluto. See vol. I. note 6, p. 131, this Series.] than is the Capitol itself, temple of all demons as it is.
            There are as many unclean spirits there as it holds men.
            To conclude with a single remark about the arts which have a place in it,
            .we know that its two sorts of amusement have for their patrons Mars and Diana.

Chapter XIII. Idolatry Clings To the Shows and Funeral Festivals

We have, I think, faithfully carried out our plan of showing in how many
.........different ways the sin of idolatry clings to the shows,
......... in respect of their origins, their titles, their equipments, their places of celebration,
......... their arts; and we may hold it as a thing beyond all doubt,
......... that for us who have twice [Bunsen, Hippol. Vol. iii. pp. 20-22.]
.........renounced all idols, they are utterly unsuitable.

"Not that an idol is anything," (1 Cor. viii. 4.) as the apostle says, but that the homage they render is to demons, who are the real occupants of these consecrated images, whether of dead men or (as they think) of gods.

The Hittite "song book" or Catalog consisted of indifiduals, private songs or chants. When the person died the song belonged to the community. In the same way, as the Songs of God are repudiated it is common to WORSHIP THE DEAD who wrote songs in their lives. For this reason, such substitute "religious hymns" have been correctly identified as idols.

On this account, therefore, because they have a common source-for their dead and their deities are one-we abstain from both idolatries. Nor do we dislike the temples less than the monuments: we have nothing to do with either altar, we adore neither image; we do not offer sacrifices to the gods, and we make no funeral oblations to the departed; nay, we do not partake of what is offered either in the one case or the other, for we cannot partake of God's feast and the feast of devils. (1 Cor. x. 21.)

If, then, we keep throat and belly free from such defilements, how much more do we withhold our nobler parts, our ears and eyes, from the idolatrous and funereal enjoyments, which are not passed through the body, but are digested in the very spirit and soul, whose purity, much more than that of our bodily organs, God has a right to claim from us.

The harps in the book of revelation were well known symbols of the peaceful state of the dead. The LIVING are never shown playing the instruments and the message of the angel TO THE LIVING was "preach the gospel.'

They resemble each other also in their pomp, having the same procession to the scene of their display from temples and altars,
.........and that mournful profusion of incense and blood,
.........with music of pipes and trumpets,
.........all under the direction of the soothsayer and the undertaker,
.........those two foul masters of funeral rites and sacrifices.

Chapter XIV. The Shows: Enjoyment, Glory, Pleasure

Having sufficiently established the charge of idolatry, which alone ought to be reason enough for our giving up the shows, let us now ex abundanti look at the subject in another way, for the sake of those especially who keep themselves comfortable in the thought that the abstinence we urge is not in so many words enjoined, as if in the condemnation of the lusts of the world there was not involved a sufficient declaration against all these amusements.

For as there is a lust of money, or rank, or eating, or impure enjoyment, or glory,
.........so there is also a lust of pleasure.
.........But the show is just a sort of pleasure. I think, then,
.........that under the general designation of lusts, pleasures are included; in like manner,

under the general idea of pleasures,
            you have as a specific class the "shows."

But we have spoken already of how it is with the places of exhibition,
            that they are not polluting in themselves,
            but owing to the things that are done in them from which
            they imbibe impurity, and then spirt it again on others.

Pollute in Hebrew is:

Chalal (h2490) khaw-lal'; a prim. root [comp. 2470]; prop. to bore, i. e. (by impl.) to wound, to dissolve; fig. to profane (a person, place or thing), to break (one's word), to begin (as if by an "opening wedge"); denom. (from 2485) to play (the flute): - begin (* men began), defile, * break, defile, * eat (as common things), * first, * gather the grape thereof, * take inheritance, pipe, player on instruments, pollute, (cast as) profane (self), prostitute, slay (slain), sorrow, stain, wound.

Chapter XV. Rituals Create Spiritual Agitation or a Burden

Having done enough, then, as we have said, in regard to that principal argument, that there is in them all the taint of idolatry-having sufficiently dealt with that,

let us now contrast the other characteristics of the show with the things of God.
God has enjoined us to deal calmly, gently, quietly, and peacefully with the Holy Spirit,

because these things are alone in keeping with the goodness of His nature,
with His tenderness and sensitiveness, and not to vex Him with rage, ill-nature, anger, or grief.

Well, how shall this be made to accord with the shows?

For the show always leads to spiritual agitation,
since where there is pleasure,
.........there is keenness of feeling giving pleasure its zest;
and where there is keenness of feeling,
.........there is rivalry giving in turn its zest to that.

See the proof from modern medical science that musical performance or theatrical performance first creates anxiety before it can deliver pleasure. The Hero has to go over the cliff on this Saturday to make you anxious to come back next Saturday and see how he jumped to safety and was saved by grasping a breaking branch of a tree. The same is true in religious ritual which the word "laded" or "burdened" is "spiritual anxiety created by religious ritual."

Then, too, where you have rivalry, you have rage, bitterness, wrath and grief, with all bad things which flow from them-the whole entirely out of keeping with the religion of Christ.

Musical performance in the Greek and Roman world was always a contest. Applause or hand clapping was to show contempt for the loser.

For even suppose one should enjoy the shows in a moderate way, as befits his rank, age or nature,

still he is not undisturbed in mind, without some unuttered movings of the inner man.
No one partakes of pleasures such as these without their strong excitements;

no one comes under their excitements 

.........without their natural lapses.

These lapses, again, create passionate desire. 

.........If there is no desire, there is no pleasure

and he is chargeable with trifling who goes where nothing is gotten; 

.........in my view, even that is foreign to us.

Moreover, a man pronounces his own condemnation
            in the very act of taking his place among those with whom,
            by his disinclination to be like them, he confesses he has no sympathy.

It is not enough that we do no such things ourselves, 

.........unless we break all connection also with those who do.

"If thou sawest a thief," says the Scripture, "thou consentedst with him." (Ps. 58. 18. [This chapter bears on modern theatres.]
Would that we did not even inhabit the same world with these wicked men!
But though that wish cannot be realized, yet even now we are separate from them in what is of the world; for the world is God's, but the worldly is the devil's.

When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers. Psalm 50:18

Chapter XVI. Passionate Excitement: Those Already Emotional Are Easily Deceived

Since, then, all passionate excitement is forbidden us, we are debarred from every kind of spectacle, and especially from the circus, where such excitement presides as in its proper element.

See the people coming to it already under strong emotion,
            already tumultuous,
            already passion-blind,
            already agitated about their bets.

The prµtor is too slow for them: their eyes are ever rolling as though along with the lots in his urn;
            then they hang all eager on the signal;
            there is the united shout of a common madness. Observe how
            "out of themselves" they are by their foolish speeches.

"He has thrown it!" they exclaim; and they announce each one to his neighbour what all have seen.
I have clearest evidence of their blindness; they do not see what is really thrown.
They think it a "signal cloth," but it is the likeness of the devil cast headlong from on high.

And the result accordingly is, that they fly into rages, and passions, and discords,
            and all that they who are consecrated to peace ought never to indulge in.
            Then there are curses and reproaches, with no cause of hatred;
            there are cries of applause, with nothing to merit them.

What are the partakers in all this-not their own masters-to obtain of it for themselves? unless, it may be, that which makes them not their own:
            they are saddened by another's sorrow,
            they are gladdened by another's joy.

Whatever they desire on the one hand, or detest on the other, is entirely foreign to themselves. So love with them is a useless thing, and hatred is unjust. Or is a causeless love perhaps more legitimate than a causeless hatred?

God certainly forbids us to hate even with a reason for our hating; for He commands us to love our enemies.
God forbids us to curse, though there be some ground for doing so, in commanding that those who curse us we are to bless.
But what is more merciless than the circus,
            where people do not spare even their rulers and fellow-citizens?
            If any of its madnesses are becoming elsewhere in the saints of God,
            they will be seemly in the circus too;
            but if they are nowhere right, so neither are they there.

Chapter XVII. Theatrical Performers Victims of Public Lust

Are we not, in like manner, enjoined to put away from us all immodesty?

On this ground, again, we are excluded from the theatre, which is immodesty's own peculiar abode, where nothing is in repute but what elsewhere is disreputable.

So the best path to the highest favour of its god is the vileness which the Atellan [The ludi Atellani were so called from Atella, in Campania, where a vast amphitheatre delighted the inhabitants. Juvenal, Sat. vi. 71. The like disgrace our times.]
gesticulates, which the buffoon in woman's clothes exhibits, destroying all natural modesty,
            so that they blush more readily at home than at the play,
            which finally is done from his childhood
            on the person of the pantomime, that he may become an actor.

The very harlots, too, victims of the public lust, are brought upon the stage,
            their misery increased as being there in the presence of their own sex,
            from whom alone they are wont to hide themselves:
            they are paraded publicly before every age and every rank-their abode,
            their gains, their praises, are set forth, and that even in the hearing
            of those who should not hear such things.

I say nothing about other matters, which it were good to hide away in their own darkness and their own gloomy caves, lest they should stain the light of day. Let the Senate, let all ranks, blush for very shame!

Why, even these miserable women, who by their own gestures destroy their modesty, dreading the light of day, and the people's gaze, know something of shame at least once a year.

But if we ought to abominate all that is immodest, on what ground is it right to hear what we must not speak?

For all licentiousness of speech, nay, every idle word, is condemned by God.
Why, in the same way, is it right to look on what it is disgraceful to do? How is it that the things which defile a man in going out of his mouth, are not regarded as doing so when they go in at his eyes and ears-

when eyes and ears are the immediate attendants on the spirit-and that can never be pure whose servants-in-waiting are impure?

You have the theatre forbidden, then, in the forbidding of immodesty. If, again, we despise the teaching of secular literature as being foolishness in God's eyes, our duty is plain enough in regard to those spectacles, which from this source derive the tragic or comic play. If tragedies and comedies are the bloody and wanton, the impious and licentious inventors of crimes and lusts, it is not good even that there should be any calling to remembrance the atrocious or the vile. What you reject in deed, you are not to bid welcome to in word.

Chapter XVIII. Racing and Wrestling Facial Distortion

But if you argue that the racecourse is mentioned in Scripture, I grant it at once.

But you will not refuse to admit that the things which are done there are not for you to look upon: the blows, and kicks, and cuffs, and all the recklessness of hand, and everything like that disfiguration of the human countenance, which is nothing less than the disfiguration of God's own image.

You will never give your approval to those foolish racing and throwing feats, and yet more foolish leapings; you will never find pleasure in injurious or useless exhibitions of strength;

certainly you will not regard with approval those efforts after an artificial body
which aim at surpassing the Creator's work;

Salax , a-cis, adj. [salio; cf. sagax, from sagio] .
I. Fond of leaping, esp. of male animals, lustful, lecherous, salacious: galli, Varr. R. R. 3, 9, 5 : aries, Ov. F. 4, 771 : salaciora animalia, Lact. Opif. Dei, 14: salacissimi mares, Col. 7, 9, 1 ; 8, 2, 9: cauda, Hor. S. 1, 2, 45 .--Vulgarly applied to Priapus: deus, Auct. Priap. 14, 1; 34, 1; and sarcastically: salacissimus Juppiter, Sen. ap. Lact. 1, 16, 10.--

II. Poet. transf., that provokes lust, provocative: erucae, Ov. R. Am. 799 : bulbi, Mart. 3, 75, 3 : herba, i.e. eruca, Ov. A. A. 2, 422 ; Mart. 10, 48, 10.

Ov. A. A. 2, 422 Ovid's Art of Love: Book II

and you will have the very opposite of complacency in the athletes Greece, in the inactivity of peace, feeds up. And the wrestler's art is a devil's thing. The devil wrestled with, and crushed to death, the first human beings. Its very attitude has power in it of the serpent kind, firm to hold-tortures to clasp-slippery to glide away. You have no need of crowns; why do you strive to get pleasures from crowns?

Chapter XIX. Scripture Condemn the Theater

We shall now see how the Scriptures condemn the amphitheatre. If we can maintain that it is right to indulge in the cruel, and the impious, and the fierce, let us go there. If we are what we are said to be, let us regale ourselves there with human blood. It is good, no doubt, to have the guilty punished. Who but the criminal himself will deny that? And yet the innocent can find no pleasure in another's sufferings: he rather mourns that a brother has sinned so heinously as to need a punishment so dreadful.

But who is my guarantee that it is always the guilty who are adjudged to the wild beasts, or to some other doom, and that the guiltless never suffer from the revenge of the judge, or the weakness of the defence, or the pressure of the rack?

How much better, then, is it for me to remain ignorant of the punishment inflicted on the wicked, lest I am obliged to know also of the good coming to untimely ends-if I may speak of goodness in the case at all! At any rate, gladiators not chargeable with crime are offered in sale for the games, that they may become the victims of the public pleasure. Even in the case of those who are judicially condemned to the amphitheatre, what a monstrous thing it is, that, in undergoing their punishment, they, from some less serious delinquency, advance to the criminality of manslayers! But I mean these remarks for heathen.

As to Christians, I shall not insult them by adding another word as to the aversion with which they should regard this sort of exhibition; though no one is more able than myself to set forth fully the whole subject, unless it be one who is still in the habit of going to the shows. I would rather withal be incomplete than set memory a-working. [See Kaye, p. 11. This expression is thought to confirm the probability of Tertullian's original Gentilism.]

Chapter XX. More Law of Silence and Direct Commands

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.

Chapter XXI. Theatrical Performance From Non Converted Heathen

The heathen, who have not a full revelation of the truth, for they are not taught of God, hold a thing evil and good as it suits self-will and passion, making that which is good in one place evil in another, and that which is evil in one place in another good.

So it strangely happens, that the same man who can scarcely in public lift up his tunic,
            even when necessity of nature presses him,
            takes it off in the circus, as if bent on exposing himself before everybody;

the father who carefully protects and guards his virgin daughter's ears from every polluting word,
            takes her to the theatre himself, exposing her to all its vile words and attitudes;
            he, again, who in the streets lays hands on or covers with reproaches the brawling pugilist,

in the arena gives all encouragement to combats of a much more serious kind; and he who looks with horror on the corpse of one who has died under the common law of nature, in the amphitheatre gazes down with most patient eyes on bodies all mangled and torn and smeared with their own blood; nay, the very man who comes to the show,

because he thinks murderers ought to suffer for their crime, drives the unwilling gladiator to the murderous deed with rods and scourges; and one who demands the lion for every manslayer of deeper dye, will have the staff for the savage swordsman, and rewards him with the cap of liberty. Yes and he must have the poor victim back again, that he may get a sight of his face-with zest inspecting near at hand the man whom he wished torn in pieces at safe distance from him: so much the more cruel he if that was not his wish.

Chapter XXII. Acting and The MARK of Perversity

What wonder is there in it? Such inconsistencies as these are just such as we might expect from men, who confuse and change the nature of good and evil in their inconstancy of feeling and fickleness in judgment.

Why, the authors and managers of the spectacles, in that very respect with reference to which

they highly laud the charioteers, and actors, and wrestlers, (Note: Polemics is such a battle) and those most loving gladiators,

to whom men prostitute their souls, women too their bodies, slight and trample on them, though for their sakes they are guilty of the deeds they reprobate; nay, they doom them to ignominy and the loss of their rights as citizens, excluding them from the Curia, and the rostra, from senatorial and equestrian rank, and from all other honours as well as certain distinctions.

What perversity! They have pleasure in those whom yet they punish; they put all slights on those to whom, at the same time, they award their approbation;

they magnify the art and brand the artist.
What an outrageous thing it is, to blacken a man on account of the very things which make him meritorious in their eyes!

Nay, what a confession that the things are evil, when their authors, even in highest favour, are not without a mark of disgrace upon them!

The Greek word CHARISMATIC, on the surface, means to PLEASURE ANOTHER whom you consider superior. However, that including sodomy where the worshipers preferred young boys and recruited them from over the land to become "priests." The meaning is pederasty so common in all priestcraft.

Arnobius identifies another "mark" of the beast:

Catamitus is carried off to be a favourite and cup-bearer; and Fabius, that he may be called Jove's darling, is branded on the soft parts, and marked in the hinder.

Greek GANYMEDES, Latin GANYMEDES, OR CATAMITUS, in Greek legend, the son of Tros (or Laomedon), king of Troy. Because of his unusual beauty, he was carried off either by the gods or by Zeus, disguised as an eagle, or, according to a Cretan account, by Minos, to serve as cupbearer. In compensation, Zeus gave Ganymede's father a stud of immortal horses (or a golden vine).

From early times it was believed that Ganymede's kidnapper had a homosexual passion for him, hence the term catamite, derived from the popular Latin form of his name. He was later identified with the constellation Aquarius.

Chapter XXIII. Actors, Effeminate to MARK Jesus as a Liar

Seeing, then, man's own reflections, even in spite of the sweetness of pleasure, lead him to think that people such as these should be condemned to a hapless lot of infamy, losing all the advantages connected with the possession of the dignities of life, how much more does the divine righteousness inflict punishment on those who give themselves to these arts! Will God have any pleasure in the charioteer

who disquiets so many souls, rouses up so many furious passions,

and creates so many various moods, either crowned like a priest

or wearing the colours of a pimp,

decked out by the devil that he may be whirled away in his chariot,

as though with the object of taking off Elijah?

Will He be pleased with him who applies the razor to himself, and completely changes his features; who, with no respect for his face, is not content with making it as like as possible to Saturn and Isis and Bacchus, but gives it quietly over to contumelious blows, as if in mockery of our Lord? The devil, forsooth, makes it part, too, of his teaching, that the cheek is to be meekly offered to the smiter. In the same way,

with their high shoes, he has made the tragic actors taller, because "none can add a cubit to his stature." (Matt. vi. 27.)
His desire is to make Christ a liar. And in regard to the wearing of masks,
I ask is that according to the mind of God, who forbids the making of every likeness, and especially then the likeness of man who is His own image?

The Author of truth hates all the false; He regards as adultery all that is unreal. Condemning, therefore, as He does hypocrisy in every form,

He never will approve any putting on of voice, or sex, or age; He never will approve pretended loves, and wraths, and groans, and tears. Then, too, as in His law it is declared that
        the man is cursed who attires himself in female garments, (Deut. xxii.)
        what must be His judgment of the pantomime, who is even brought up to play the woman!

And will the boxer go unpunished? I suppose he received these cµstus-scars, and the thick skin of his fists, and these growths upon his ears, at his creation! God, too, gave him eyes for no other end than that they might be knocked out in fighting! I say nothing of him who, to save himself, thrusts another in the lion's way, that he may not be too little of a murderer when he puts to death that very same man on the arena.

Chapter XXIV. Theater Marks One With The Devil

In how many other ways shall we yet further show that nothing which is peculiar to the shows has God's approval, or without that approval is becoming in God's servants? If we have succeeded in making it plain that they were instituted entirely for the devil's sake, and have been got up entirely with the devil's things (for all that is not God's, or is not pleasing in His eyes, belongs to His wicked rival),

this simply means that in them you have that pomp of the devil which in the "seal" of our faith we abjure.

We should have no connection with the things which we abjure, whether in deed or word, whether by looking on them or looking forward to them; but do we not abjure and rescind that baptismal pledge, when we cease to bear its testimony? Does it then remain for us to apply to the heathen themselves. Let them tell us, then, whether it is right in Christians to frequent the show.

Why, the rejection of these amusements is the chief sign to them that a man has adopted the Christian faith. If any one, then, puts away the faith's distinctive badge, he is plainly guilty of denying it. What hope can you possibly retain in regard to a man who does that? When you go over to the enemy's camp, you throw down your arms, desert the standards and the oath of allegiance to your chief: you cast in your lot for life or death with your new friends.

Chapter XXV. You cannot worship God and watch theatrical performance

Seated where there is nothing of God, will one be thinking of his Maker? Will there be peace in his soul when there is eager strife there for a charioteer? Wrought up into a frenzied excitement, will he learn to be modest? Nay, in the whole thing he will meet with no greater temptation than that gay attiring of the men and women. The very intermingling of emotions, the very agreements and disagreements with each other in the bestowment of their favours, where you have such close communion, blow up the sparks of passion.

And then there is scarce any other object in going to the show,
            but to see and to be seen

When a tragic actor is declaiming,
            will one be giving thought to prophetic appeals?

Amid the measures of the effeminate player,
            will he call up to himself a psalm?

And when the athletes are hard at struggle, will he be ready to proclaim that there must be no striking again? And with his eye fixed on the bites of bears, and the sponge-nets of the net-fighters, can he be moved by compassion? May God avert from His people any such passionate eagerness after a cruel enjoyment!
For how monstrous it is to go from God's church to the devil's-from the sky to the stye, [De Caelo in Caenum: (sic) Oehler.] as they say;

to raise your hands to God, and then
            to weary them in the applause of an actor;

out of the mouth, from which you uttered Amen over the Holy Thing,
            to give witness in a gladiator's favour; to cry "forever" to any one else but God and Christ!

Chapter XXVI Keeping Company With The Devil at Shows

Why may not those who go into the temptations of the show become accessible also to evil spirits? We have the case of the woman-the Lord Himself is witness-who went to the theatre, and came back possessed. In the outcasting, [The exorcism. For the exorcism in Baptism, see Bunsen, Hippol. iii. 19. accordingly, when the unclean creature was upbraided with having dared to attack a believer, he firmly replied, (See Neander's explanation in Kaye, p. xxiii. But, let us observe the entire simplicity with which our author narrates a sort of incident known to the apostles. Acts, xvi. 16.]) "And in truth I did it most righteously, for I found her in my domain."

Another case, too, is well known, in which a woman had been hearing a tragedian, and on the very night she saw in her sleep a linen cloth-the actor's name being mentioned at the same time with strong disapproval-

and five days after that woman was no more. How many other undoubted proofs we have had in the case of persons who,
by keeping company with the devil in the shows, have fallen from the Lord! For no one can serve two masters. ( Matt. vi. 24.)
What fellowship has light with darkness, life with death? ( 2 Cor. iv. 14.

Chapter XXVII. Angels MARK Those who Meet With Heathen

We ought to detest these heathen meetings and assemblies, if on no other account than that there God's name is blasphemed-that there the cry "To the lions!" is daily raised against us [Observe-"daily raised." On this precarious condition of the Christians, in their daily life, see the calm statement of Kaye, pp. 110, 111. -that from thence persecuting decrees are wont to emanate, and temptations are sent forth. What will you do if you are caught in that heaving tide of impious judgments?

Not that there any harm is likely to come to you from men:

nobody knows that you are a Christian; but think how it fares with you in heaven.

For at the very time the devil is working havoc in the church,
            do you doubt that the angels are looking down from above,
            and marking every man, who speaks and who listens to the blaspheming word,
            who lends his tongue and who lends his ears to the service of Satan against God?

Shall you not then shun those tiers where the enemies of Christ assemble, that seat of all that is pestilential, and the very super incumbent atmosphere all impure with wicked cries?

Grant that you have there things that are pleasant, things both agreeable and innocent in themselves; even some things that are excellent.
Nobody dilutes poison with gall and hellebore: the accursed thing is put into condiments well seasoned and of sweetest taste.

So, too, the devil puts into the deadly draught which he prepares,
things of God most pleasant and most acceptable.
Everything there, then, that is either brave, noble,
            loud-sounding, melodious, or exquisite in taste,
            hold it but as the honey drop of a poisoned cake;
                        nor make so much of your taste for its pleasures,
                        as of the danger you run from its attractions.

Chapter XXVIII. Christians Mourn While the World Rejoices

With such dainties as these let the devil's guests be feasted. The places and the times, the inviter too, are theirs. Our banquets, our nuptial joys, are yet to come. We cannot sit down in fellowship with them, as neither can they with us. Things in this matter go by their turns.

Heb.2:12 Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.
Apalgeo (g524) ap-alg-eh'-o; from 575 and algeo, (to smart); to grieve out, i.e. become apathetic: - be past feeling

Now they have gladness and we are troubled.
            "The world," says Jesus, "shall rejoice; ye shall be sorrowful." (John xvi. 20)

Let us mourn, then, while the heathen are merry,
            that in the day of their sorrow we may rejoice;

lest, sharing now in their gladness,
            we share then also in their grief. Thou art too dainty,

Jesus is the Captain of our souls and the ONLY teacher when the elders "teach that which has been taught." He promises to be with two or three gathered in HIS name:

For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Heb 2:10

The disciples follows in the foot steps of their Captain and worship leader. Remember that the major reason for the assembly was to teach the WORD and to GIVE HEED to Jesus by the Lord's Supper where we remember and preach HIS DEATH. When He meets with us it is not to do whoopy or wow "worship" but:

Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. Heb 2:12
And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me. Heb 2:13

The church is the ekklesia or Synagogue of Christ. There was no praise in the synagogue but TEACHING that which is written:

Apaggello (g518) ap-ang-el'-lo; from 575 and the base of 32; to announce: - bring word (again), declare, report, shew (again), tell.
Aggelos (g32) ang'-el-os; from aggeållo, [prob. der. from 71; comp. 34] (to bring tidings); a messenger; esp. an "angel"; by impl. a pastor: - angel, messenger

If Jesus is singing with us this is what it will be;

Apalgeo (g524) ap-alg-eh'-o; from 575 and algeåo, (to smart); to grieve out, i.e. become apathetic: - be past feeling

Christian, if thou wouldst have pleasure in this life as well as in the next; nay, a fool thou art, if thou thinkest this life's pleasures to be really pleasures.

The philosophers, for instance,

give the name of pleasure to quietness and repose; in that they have their bliss; in that they find entertainment: they even glory in it.

Jesus died to give us REPOSE:

Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Mt.11:28
Anapauo (g373) an-up-ow'-o; from 303 and 3973; (reflex.) to repose (lit. or fig. [be exempt], remain); by impl. to refresh: - take ease, refresh, (give, take) rest.

You long for the goal, and the stage, and the dust, and the place of combat!

The burden laded by CIRCE or the CHURCH or clergy is:
Phortizo (g5412) for-tid'-zo; from 5414; to load up (prop. as aa vessel or animal), i.e. (fig.) to overburden with ceremony (or spiritual anxiety): - lade, be heavy laden.

I would have you answer me this question:
            Can we not live without pleasure,
            who cannot but with pleasure die?
            For what is our wish but the apostle's,
            to leave the world, and be
            taken up into the fellowship of our Lord? (Phil. i. 23.)

You have your joys where you have your longings.

Chapter XXIX. Freedom From Pleasure, Exorcism, False Literature Replaces the Bible

Even as things are, if your thought is to spend this period of existence in enjoyments, how are you so ungrateful as to reckon insufficient, as not thankfully to recognize the many and exquisite pleasures God has bestowed upon you?
            For what more delightful than to have God the Father and our Lord at peace with us,
            than revelation of the truth than confession of our errors,
            than pardon of the innumerable sins of our past life?

What greater pleasure than distaste of pleasure itself,
            contempt of all that the world can give, true liberty,
            a pure conscience, a contented life, and freedom from all fear of death?
            What nobler than to tread under foot the gods of the nations-to exorcise evil spirits

[See cap. 26, supra. On this claim to such powers still remaining in the church. See Kaye, p. 89.]) -to perform cures-to seek divine revealings-to live to God?

These are the pleasures, these the spectacles that befit Christian men-holy, everlasting, free. Count of these as your circus games, fix your eyes on the courses of the world, the gliding seasons, reckon up the periods of time, long for the goal of the final consummation, defend the societies of the churches, be startled at God's signal, be roused up at the angel's trump, glory in the palms of martyrdom.

If the literature of the stage delight you,
we have literature in abundance of our own-plenty of verses,
            sentences, songs, proverbs; and these not fabulous,
            but true; not tricks of art, but plain realities.

Would you have also fightings and wrestlings? Well, of these there is no lacking, and they are not of slight account. Behold unchastity overcome by chastity, perfidy slain by faithfulness, cruelty stricken by compassion, impudence thrown into the shade by modesty: these are the contests we have among us, and in these we win our crowns. Would you have something of blood too? You have Christ's.

Chapter XXX. Christians Will See The Theatrical Performers Punished in the Final Spectacle

But what a spectacle is that fast-approaching advent [Kaye, p. 20. He doubtless looked for a speedy appearance of the Lord : and note the apparent expectation of a New Jerusalem, on earth, before the Consummation and Judgment.] of our Lord, now owned by all, now highly exalted, now a triumphant One!

What that exultation of the angelic hosts! What the glory of the rising saints! What the kingdom of the just thereafter! What the city New Jerusalem! [This New Jerusalem gives Bp. Kaye (p. 55) "decisive proof" of Montanism, especially as compared with the Third Book against Marcion. I cannot see it, here.]

Yes, and there are other sights: that last day of judgment, with its everlasting issues; that day unlooked for by the nations, the theme of their derision, when the world hoary with age, and all its many products, shall be consumed in one great flame!

How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What there excites my admiration? what my derision? Which sight gives me joy? which rouses me to exultation?-as I see so many illustrious monarchs, whose reception into the heavens was publicly announced, groaning now in the lowest darkness with great Jove himself, and those, too, who bore witness of their exultation; governors of provinces, too, who persecuted the Christian name,

in fires more fierce than those with which in the days of their pride they raged against the followers of Christ. What world's wise men besides, the very philosophers, in fact, who taught their followers that God had no concern in ought that is sublunary, and were wont to assure them that either they had no souls, or that they would never return to the bodies which at death they had left, now covered with shame before the poor deluded ones, as one fire consumes them!

Poets also, trembling not before the judgment-seat of Rhadamanthus or Minos, but of the unexpected Christ!

I shall have a better opportunity then of hearing the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity;

of viewing the play-actors, much more "dissolute" in the dissolving flame;
of looking upon the charioteer, all glowing in his chariot of fire; of beholding the wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows; unless even then I shall not care to attend to such ministers of sin, in my eager wish rather to fix a gaze insatiable on those whose fury vented itself against the Lord.

"This," I shall say, "this is that carpenter's or hireling's son, that Sabbath-breaker, that Samaritan and devil-possessed!

This is He whom you purchased from Judas!
This is He whom you struck with reed and fist,
whom you contemptuously spat upon,
to whom you gave gall and vinegar to drink!

This is He whom His disciples secretly stole away, that it might be said He had risen again, or the gardener abstracted, that his lettuces might come to no harm from the crowds of visitants!"

What quµstor or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the favour of seeing and exulting in such things as these? And yet even now we in a measure have them by faith in the picturings of imagination.

But what are the things which eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and which have not so much as dimly dawned upon the human heart? Whatever they are, they are nobler, I believe, than circus, and both theatres, (Viz., the theatre and amphitheatre. [This concluding chapter, which Gibbon delights to censure, because its fervid rhetoric so fearfully depicts the punishments of Christ's enemies, "appears to Dr. Neander to contain a beautiful specimen of lively faith and Christian confidence." See Kaye, p. xxix.] ) and every race-course.

De Spectaculis has its second incarnation in Greek-influenced worship rituals.

Kenneth Sublett at Hohenwald

Church Fathers Index

Home Page

Counter Added 10/25/04 5642 Rev 2.23.07 732  6.13.12 9537 

<a href="https://www.hitwebcounter.com" target="_blank">
<img src="https://hitwebcounter.com/counter/counter.php?page=8041479&style=0032&nbdigits=5&type=ip&initCount=100" title="Free Counter" Alt="web counter"   border="0" /></a>