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Treatises Attributed to
Cyprian on Questionable Authority.
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On the Public Shows.4816
| 4816
[See Ben Jonson, Volpone, Ep. Dedicatory.] |
Argument.4817
| 4817
Obviously imitating Tertullian’s treatise De
Spectaculis. [See vol. iii. p. 79.] | —The Writer First of All Treats Against Those Who
Endeavoured to Defend the Public Exhibitions of the Heathens by
Scriptural Authority; And He Proves That, Although They are Never
Prohibited by the Express Words of Scripture, Yet that They are
Condemned in the Scriptural Prohibition of Idolatry, from the Fact that
There is No Kind of Public Show Which is Not Consecrated to
Idols.4818
| 4818
He then prosecutes the subject, by going through the several
kinds of public exhibitions, and sets forth, a little more diffusely
than in the Epistle to Donatus, what risks are incurred by the
spectators, and especially in respect of those exhibitions wherein, as
he says, “representations of lust convey instruction in
obscenity.” Finally, he briefly enumerates such exhibitions
as are worthy of the interest of a Christian man, and in which he ought
rightfully to find pleasure. [For Epistle to Donatus, see
p. 275, supra.] |
1. Cyprian to the congregation who stand
fast in the Gospel, sends greeting. As it greatly saddens me, and
deeply afflicts my soul, when no opportunity of writing to you is
presented to me, for it is my loss not to hold converse with you; so
nothing restores to me such joyfulness and hilarity, as when that
opportunity is once more afforded me. I think that I am with you
when I am speaking to you by letter. Although, therefore, I know
that you are satisfied that what I tell you is even as I say, and that
you have no doubt of the truth of my words, nevertheless an actual
proof will also attest the reality of the matter. For my
affection (for you) is proved, when absolutely no opportunity (of
writing) is passed over. However certain I may be, then, that you
are no less respectable in the conduct of your life than faithful in
respect of your sacramental vow;4819
still, since there are not wanting
smooth-tongued advocates of vice, and indulgent patrons who afford
authority to vices, and, what is worse, convert the rebuke of the
heavenly Scriptures into an advocacy of crimes; as if the pleasure
derived from the public exhibitions might be sought after as being
innocent, by way of a mental relaxation;—for thereby the vigour
of ecclesiastical discipline is so relaxed, and is so deteriorated by
all the languor of vice that it is no longer apology, but authority,
that is given for wickedness,—it seemed good in a few words not
now to instruct you, but to admonish you who are instructed, lest,
because the wounds are badly bound up, they should break through the
cicatrix of their closed soundness. For no mischief is put an end
to with so much difficulty but that its recurrence is easy, so long as
it is both maintained by the consent, and caressed by the
excuses4820
of the
multitude.
2. Believers, and men who claim for
themselves the authority of the Christian name, are not
ashamed—are not, I repeat, ashamed to find a defence in the
heavenly Scriptures for the vain superstitions associated with the
public exhibitions of the heathens, and thus to attribute divine
authority to idolatry. For how is it, that what is done by the
heathens in honour of any idol is resorted to in a public show by
faithful Christians, and the heathen idolatry is maintained, and the
true and divine religion is trampled upon in contempt of God?
Shame binds me to relate their pretexts and defences in this
behalf. “Where,” say they, “are there such
Scriptures? where are these things prohibited? On the contrary,
both Elias is the charioteer of Israel, and David himself danced before
the ark. We read of psalteries, horns,4821
trumpets, drums, pipes, harps, and
choral dances. Moreover, the apostle, in his struggle, puts
before us the contest of the Cæstus, and of our wrestle against
the spiritual things of wickedness. Again, when he borrows his
illustrations from the racecourse, he also proposes the prize of the
crown. Why, then, may not a faithful Christian man gaze upon that
which the divine pen might write about?” At this point I
might not unreasonably say that it would have been far better for them
not to know any writings at all, than thus to read the
Scriptures.4822
| 4822
[In Edin. trans. needlessly “the writings of the
Scriptures.”] | For
words and illustrations which are recorded by way of exhortation to
evangelical virtue, are translated by them into pleas for vice; because
those things are written of, not that they should be gazed upon, but
that a greater eagerness might be aroused in our minds in respect of
things that will benefit us, seeing that among the heathens there is
manifest so much eagerness in respect of things which will be of no
advantage.
3. These are therefore an argument to
stimulate virtue, not a permission or a liberty to look upon heathen
error, that by this consideration the mind may be more inflamed to
Gospel virtue for the sake of the divine rewards, since through the
suffering of all these labours and pains it is granted to attain to
eternal benefits. For that Elias is the charioteer of Israel is
no defence for gazing upon the public games; for he ran his race in no
circus. And that David in the presence of God led the dances, is
no sanction for faithful Christians to occupy seats in the public
theatre; for David did not twist his limbs about in obscene movements,
to represent in his dancing the story of Grecian lust.
Psalteries, horns, pipes, drums, harps, were used in the service of the
Lord, and not of idols. Let it not on this account be objected
that unlawful things may be gazed upon; for by the artifice of the
devil these are changed from things holy to things unlawful. Then
let shame demur to these things, even if the Holy Scriptures
cannot. For there are certain things wherein the Scripture is
more careful in giving instruction. Acquiescing in the claim of
modesty, it has forbidden more where it has been silent. The
truth, if it descended low enough to deal with such things, would think
very badly of its faithful votaries. For very often, in matters
of precept, some things are advantageously said nothing about; they
often remind when they are expressly forbidden. So also there is
an implied silence even in the writings of the Scripture; and severity
speaks in the place of precepts; and reason teaches where Scripture has
held its peace. Let every man only take counsel with himself, and
let him speak consistently with the character of his
profession,4823
| 4823
“Cum persona professionis suæ loquatur.” | and then he
will never do any of these things.4824
| 4824
Baluzius reads with less probability “indecorum,”
“anything unbecoming.” The reading adopted in the
text is, according to Fell, “inde eorum.” | For that conscience will have
more weight which shall be indebted to none other than
itself.
4. What has Scripture interdicted?
Certainly it has forbidden gazing upon what it forbids to be
done. It condemned, I say, all those kinds of exhibitions when it
abrogated idolatry—the mother of all public amusements,4825
| 4825
Vid. Ovid’s Fasti, lib. v. | whence
these prodigies of vanity and lightness came. For what public
exhibition is without an idol? what amusement without a sacrifice? what
contest is not consecrated to some dead person? And what does a
faithful Christian do in the midst of such things as these? If he
avoids idolatry, why does he4826
| 4826
The Oxford text here has the reading, “Why does he speak of it?
why does he,” etc. | who is now sacred take pleasure in
things which are worthy of reproach? Why does he approve of
superstitions which are opposed to God, and which he loves while he
gazes upon them? Besides, let him be aware that all these things
are the inventions of demons, not of God. He is shameless who in
the church exorcises demons while he praises their delights in public
shows; and although, once for all renouncing him, he has put away
everything in baptism, when he goes to the devil’s exhibition
after (receiving) Christ, he renounces Christ as much as (he had done)
the devil. Idolatry, as I have already said, is the mother of all
the public amusements; and this, in order that faithful Christians may
come under its influence, entices them by the delight of the eyes and
the ears. Romulus was the first who consecrated the games of the
circus to Consus as the god of counsel, in reference to the rape of the
Sabine women. But the rest of the scenic amusements were provided
to distract the attention of the people while famine invaded the city,
and were subsequently dedicated to Ceres and Bacchus, and to the rest
of the idols and dead men. Those Grecian contests, whether in
poems, or in instrumental music, or in words, or in personal prowess,
have as their guardians various demons; and whatever else there is
which either attracts the eyes or allures the ears of the spectators,
if it be investigated in reference to its origin and institution,
presents as its reason either an idol, or a demon, or a dead man.
Thus the devil, who is their original contriver, because he knew that
naked idolatry would by itself excite repugnance, associated it with
public exhibitions, that for the sake of their attraction it might be
loved.
5. What is the need of prosecuting the subject
further, or of describing the unnatural kinds of sacrifices in the
public shows, among which sometimes even a man becomes the victim by
the fraud of the priest, when the gore, yet hot from the throat, is
received in the foaming cup while it still steams, and, as if it were
thrown into the face of the thirsting idol, is brutally drunk in pledge
to it; and in the midst of the pleasures of the spectators the death of
some is eagerly besought, so that by means of a bloody exhibition men
may learn fierceness, as if a man’s own private frenzy were of
little account to him unless he should learn it also in public?
For the punishment of a man, a rabid wild beast is nourished with
delicacies, that he may become the more cruelly ferocious under the
eyes of the spectators. The skilful trainer instructs the brute,
which perhaps might have been more merciful had not its more brutal
master taught it cruelty. Then, to say nothing of whatever
idolatry more generally recommends, how idle are the contests
themselves; strifes in colours, contentions in races, acclamations in
mere questions of honour; rejoicing because a horse has been more
fleet, grieving because it was more sluggish, reckoning up the years of
cattle, knowing the consuls under whom they ran, learning their
age, tracing their breed, recording their very grandsires and
great-grand-sires! How unprofitable a matter is all this; nay,
how disgraceful and ignominious! This very man, I say, who can
compute by memory the whole family of his equine race, and can relate
it with great quickness without interfering with the
exhibition—were you to inquire of this man who were the parents
of Christ, he cannot tell, or he is the more unfortunate if he
can. But if, again, I should ask him by what road he has come to
that exhibition, he will confess (that he has come) by the naked bodies
of prostitutes and of profligate women, by (scenes of) public lust, by
public disgrace, by vulgar lasciviousness, by the common contempt of
all men. And, not to object to him what perchance he has done,
still he has seen what was not fit to be done, and he has trained his
eyes to the exhibition of idolatry by lust: he would have dared,
had he been able, to take that which is holy into the brothel with him;
since, as he hastens to the spectacle when dismissed from the
Lord’s table, and still bearing within him, as often
occurs, the Eucharist, that unfaithful man has carried about the holy
body of Christ among the filthy bodies of harlots, and has deserved a
deeper condemnation for the way by which he has gone thither,
than for the pleasure he has received from the exhibition.
6. But now to pass from this to the
shameless corruption of the stage. I am ashamed to tell what
things are said; I am even ashamed to denounce the things that are
done—the tricks of arguments, the cheatings of adulterers, the
immodesties of women, the scurrile jokes, the sordid parasites, even
the toga’d fathers of families themselves, sometimes stupid,
sometimes obscene, but in all cases dull, in all cases immodest.
And though no individual, or family, or profession, is spared by the
discourse4827
| 4827
[It is painful to recognise, in the general licence of the press in our
country, this very feature of a corrupt civilization,—a delight
in scandal, and in the invasion of homes and private affairs, for the
gratification of the popular appetite.] | of these
reprobates, yet every one flocks to the play. The general infamy
is delightful to see or to recognise; it is a pleasure, nay, even to
learn it. People flock thither to the public disgrace of the
brothel for the teaching of obscenity, that nothing less may be done in
secret than what is learnt in public; and in the midst of the laws
themselves is taught everything that the laws forbid. What does a
faithful Christian do among these things, since he may not even think
upon wickedness? Why does he find pleasure in the representations
of lust, so as among them to lay aside his modesty and become more
daring in crimes? He is learning to do, while he is becoming
accustomed to see. Nevertheless, those women whom their
misfortune has introduced and degraded to this slavery, conceal their
public wantonness, and find consolation for their disgrace in their
concealment. Even they who have sold their modesty blush to
appear to have done so. But that public prodigy is transacted in
the sight of all, and the obscenity of prostitutes is surpassed.
A method is sought to commit adultery with the eyes. To this
infamy an infamy fully worthy of it is super added: a human being
broken down in every limb, a man melted to something beneath the
effeminacy of a woman, has found the art to supply language with his
hands; and on behalf of one—I know not what, but neither man nor
woman—the whole city is in a state of commotion, that the
fabulous debaucheries of antiquity may be represented in a
ballet. Whatever is not lawful is so beloved, that what had even
been lost sight of by the lapse of time is brought back again into the
recollection of the eyes.
7. It is not sufficient for lust to make use
of its present means of mischief, unless by the exhibition it makes its
own that in which a former age had also gone wrong. It is not
lawful, I say, for faithful Christians to be present; it is not lawful,
I say, at all, even for those whom for the delight of their ears Greece
sends everywhere to all who are instructed in her vain arts.4828
| 4828
[Compare Clement, vol. ii. p. 248, note 5, and p. 249, notes 2,
11.] | One
imitates the hoarse warlike clangours of the trumpet; another with his
breath blowing into a pipe regulates its mournful sounds; another with
dances, and with the musical voice of a man, strives with his breath,
which by an effort he had drawn from his bowels into the upper parts of
his body, to play upon the stops of pipes; now letting forth the sound,
and now closing it up inside, and forcing it into the air by certain
openings of the stops; now breaking the sound in measure, he endeavours
to speak with his fingers, ungrateful to the Artificer who gave him a
tongue. Why should I speak of comic and useless efforts?
Why of those great tragic vocal ravings? Why of strings set
vibrating with noise? These things, even if they were not
dedicated to idols,4829
| 4829 [This touches a point important to
the modern question. It is said, “Oh! but these Fathers
denounced only those heathen spectacles of which idolatry was
part,” etc. The reply is sufficiently made by our
author.] | ought not to be approached and
gazed upon by faithful Christians; because, even if they were not
criminal, they are characterized by a worthlessness which is extreme,
and which is little suited to believers.
8. Now that other folly of others is an
obvious source of advantage to idle men; and the first victory is for
the belly to be able to crave food beyond the human limit,—a
flagitious traffic for the claim to the crown of gluttony: the
wretched face is hired out to bear wounding blows, that the more
wretched belly may be gorged. How disgusting, besides, are those
struggles! Man lying below man is enfolded in abominable embraces
and twinings. In such a contest, whether a man looks on or
conquers, still his modesty is conquered. Behold, one naked man
bounds forth towards you; another with straining powers tosses a brazen
ball into the air. This is not glory, but folly. In fine,
take away the spectator, and you will have shown its emptiness.
Such things as these should be avoided by faithful Christians, as I
have frequently said already; spectacles so vain, so mischievous, so
sacrilegious, from which both our eyes and our ears should be
guarded. We quickly get accustomed to what we hear and what we
see. For since man’s mind is itself drawn towards vice,
what will it do if it should have inducements of a bodily nature as
well as a downward tendency in its slippery will? What will it do
if it should be impelled from without?4830
| 4830
There is much confusion in the reading of this passage, which in the
original runs, according to Baluzius: “Nam cum mens hominis
ad vitia ipsa ducatur, quid faciet, si habuerit exempla naturæ
corporis lubrica quæ sparta corruit? Quid faciet si fuerit
impulsa?” | Therefore the mind must be
called away from such things as these.
9. The Christian has nobler exhibitions, if
he wishes for them. He has true and profitable pleasures, if he
will recollect himself. And to say nothing of those which he
cannot yet contemplate, he has that beauty of the world to look upon
and admire.4831
| 4831
[Compare Clement, vol. ii. p. 256, and note 1.] | He may
gaze upon the sun’s rising, and again on its setting, as it
brings round in their mutual changes days and nights; the moon’s
orb, designating in its waxings and warnings the courses of the
seasons; the troops of shining stars, and those which glitter from on
high with extreme mobility,—their members divided through the
changes of the entire year, and the days themselves with the nights
distributed into hourly periods; the heavy mass of the earth balanced
by the mountains, and the flowing rivers with their sources; the
expanse of seas, with their waves and shores; and meanwhile, the air,
subsisting equally everywhere in perfect harmony, expanded in the midst
of all, and in concordant bonds animating all things with its delicate
life, now scattering showers from the contracted clouds, now recalling
the serenity of the sky with its refreshed purity; and in all these
spheres their appropriate tenants—in the air the birds, in the
waters the fishes, on the earth man. Let these, I say, and other
divine works, be the exhibitions for faithful Christians. What
theatre built by human hands could ever be compared to such works as
these? Although it may be reared with immense piles of stones,
the mountain crests are loftier; and although the fretted roofs glitter
with gold, they will be surpassed by the brightness of the starry
firmament.4832
| 4832
[De Maistre, who is a Christian, with all his hereditary
prejudice and enslavement, has a fine passage in the opening of his
Soirées de St. Pétersbourg, which the reader will
enjoy. It concludes with this saying:
“Les cœurs pervers n’ont jamais
de belles nuits ni de beaux jours.” P. 7. vol.
i. See vol. iv. p. 173, this series.] | Never
will any one admire the works of man, if he has recognised himself as
the son of God. He degrades himself from the height of his
nobility, who can admire anything but the Lord.
10. Let the faithful Christian, I say,
devote himself to the sacred Scriptures,4833
and there he shall find worthy
exhibitions for his faith. He will see God establishing His
world, and making not only the other animals, but that marvellous and
better fabric of man. He will gaze upon the world in its
delightfulness, righteous shipwrecks, the rewards of the good, and the
punishments of the impious, seas drained dry by a people, and again
from the rock seas spread out by a people. He will behold
harvests descending from heaven, not pressed in by the plough; rivers
with their hosts of waters bridled in, exhibiting dry crossings.
He will behold in some cases faith struggling with the flame, wild
beasts overcome by devotion and soothed into gentleness. He will
look also upon souls brought back even from death. Moreover, he
will consider the marvellous souls brought back to the life of bodies
which themselves were already consumed. And in all these things
he will see a still greater exhibition—that devil who had
triumphed over the whole world lying prostrate under the feet of
Christ. How honourable is this exhibition, brethren! how
delightful, how needful ever to gaze upon one’s hope, and to open
our eyes to one’s salvation! This is a spectacle which is
beheld even when sight is lost. This is an exhibition which is
given by neither prætor nor consul, but by Him who is alone and
above all things, and before all things, yea, and of whom are all
things, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and
honour for ever and ever. I bid you, brethren, ever heartily
farewell. Amen.4834
| 4834 [There is much in the above
treatise which is not unworthy of Cyprian. As to questions of
authenticity, however, experts alone should venture upon an
opinion. Non nobis tantas componere lites.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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