On the Shows 16

Since, then, frenzy is forbidden us, we are removed from every show, and from the circus too, where frenzy properly presides. Look at the people coming to that show already in a frenzy, already in an uproar, already blind, already excited over their bets. The praetor is too slow for them; their eyes are forever rolling in his urn along with the lots. Then they hang anxiously on the signal; one madness has one voice. Recognize the madness from its folly: “He has thrown it!” they say, and they announce to one another what all have seen at once. I hold the evidence of their blindness: they do not see what has been thrown. They think it a napkin; but it is the figure of the devil cast down from on high. From that, then, they go on into rages, passions, and quarrels, and whatever is unlawful for priests of peace. Then come curses and abuse without the justice of hatred, and cheers without the merit of love. For what will those gain of their own who act there, when they are not their own? Unless perhaps this alone, through which they are not their own: they are saddened by another's misfortune and glad at another's good fortune. Whatever they desire, whatever they loathe, is foreign to them; so their love is idle and their hatred unjust. Or is it perhaps more lawful to love without cause than to hate without cause? God certainly forbids us to hate even with cause, for he commands us to love our enemies; God does not allow us to curse even with cause, for he commands us to bless those who curse. But what is more bitter than the circus, where they do not spare even their rulers or their fellow citizens? If any of the things at which the circus rages befits the saints anywhere, it will be allowed in the circus too; but if nowhere, then not in the circus either.