Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
So it should hardly seem a small kindness that this sect is classed among the unlawful factions, when nothing is committed by it of the sort ordinarily feared from unlawful factions. Unless I am mistaken, the whole reason for prohibiting factions rests on a concern for the public peace, so that the state should not be split into parties — a thing that easily disturbs elections, councils, assemblies, public meetings, even the games, through the rival clashings of partisan enthusiasm, once men had even begun to hire out their violence for profit. But we, cold to every burning ambition for glory and rank, have no need of assembly, and nothing is more foreign to us than public affairs. We recognize one commonwealth for all: the world. And we renounce your spectacles to just the degree that we renounce their origins, which we know were conceived in superstition, since we have no part even in the matters that are transacted at them. Nothing about the madness of the circus, the indecency of the theater, the atrocity of the arena, or the vanity of the athletic ground has anything to say to us in word, sight, or hearing. The Epicureans were free to define pleasure's true nature differently — as tranquility of mind. In what way do we offend you, if we set our sights on other pleasures? If in the end we refuse to be entertained, the loss, if there is one, is ours, not yours. But we do disapprove of what pleases you. And our pleasures do not delight you either.