Anf-02 vi.iv.ii.xviii Pg 12.1
Anf-03 iv.iv.xvi Pg 3
Tertullian should have added, “and a man’s on a woman.” See Deut. xxii. 5. Moreover, the word “cursed” is not used there, but “abomination” is.
for “cursed,” saith He, “is every man who clothes himself in woman’s attire.” The toga, however, is a dress of manly name as well as of manly use.289 289 Because it was called toga virilis—“the manly toga.”
God no more prohibits nuptials to be celebrated than a name to be given. “But there are sacrifices appropriated to these occasions.” Let me be invited, and let not the title of the ceremony be “assistance at a sacrifice,” and the discharge of my good offices is at the service of my friends. Would that it were “at their service” indeed, and that we could escape seeing what is unlawful for us to do. But since the evil one has so surrounded the world with idolatry, it will be lawful for us to be present at some ceremonies which see us doing service to a man, not to an idol. Clearly, if invited unto priestly function and sacrifice, I will not go, for that is service peculiar to an idol; but neither will I furnish advice, or expense, or any other good office in a matter of that kind. If it is on account of the sacrifice that I be invited, and stand by, I shall be partaker of idolatry; if any other cause conjoins me to the sacrificer, I shall be merely a spectator of the sacrifice.290 290
Anf-03 iv.v.xxiii Pg 4
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 cæstus-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.