Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Will he really think about God at that moment, planted somewhere where nothing of God is present? He will keep his mind at peace, I suppose, while shouting for a charioteer; he will study chastity, transfixed, in the mime-shows! No, in every kind of show, nothing will strike him as a greater scandal than the studied, provocative dress of the men and women themselves. That very togetherness, that shared enthusiasm—whether joined in cheering or split in rivalry over the business at hand—fans the sparks of lust between them. In short, no one, on entering a show, thinks first of anything but to see and to be seen. Yet let the tragic actor start declaiming, and this same man will replay to himself some prophet's cries of anguish; among the strains of the effeminate flute-player he will privately hum a psalm; and while the athletes are grappling, it is he who will be ready to declare that one ought never to strike back! So can a man really be moved to mercy while riveted on bears mauling flesh and on the sponges of the net-fighters mopping up blood? May God turn such a ruinous appetite for pleasure far from his own people! For what is it, to make for the devil's assembly straight out of the church of God, out of heaven, as they say, into the mud? Those hands you lifted up to God—will you afterward wear them out applauding an actor? From that mouth by which you uttered "Amen" over the Holy One, will you cheer for a gladiator, cry "for ages upon ages" to anyone at all but God and Christ?