Games, shows, and the theatre in the early church

The theatre, games, circus, gladiators, and gambling. Part of Ethics.

Oration to the Greeks 22Tatian · ca. 165–172 · The pantomime actor, playing gods and heroes on stage, teaches vice to the audience, including children.
Oration to the Greeks 23Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Tatian condemns athletic contests and, far more, the gladiatorial games, in which the rich buy men to be killed for entertainment.
A Plea for the Christians 35Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Christians cannot be murderers: they will not even watch gladiatorial shows, and they condemn abortion and the exposure of infants as murder.
The Instructor 2.4.40Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Revels and all-night drinking parties with flutes, dances, and cymbals have no place at a Christian feast; we should walk decently as in the day.
The Instructor 3.11.76Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The food laws allegorically teach us to avoid plunderers and keep company with the righteous, who ruminate on the Word; Christians should not attend the games and theaters, which are full of disorder and lust.
The Instructor 3.11.77Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The shows inflame lust and fill the mind with shameful images; spectacles that kill without pity, waste wealth, and provoke riots are not harmless play.
Exhortation to the Greeks 2.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The great Greek games are funeral rites for dead men and a serpent, and the phallic processions of Dionysus commemorate an obscene myth.
Miscellanies 7.12.74Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows labors in the Lord's vineyard, is tested only for the good of others, prays for those who hate him, shuns the cruel spectacles of the arena, and does God's will, holding future things more present than things at hand.
Octavius 12.5Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Romans prosper without the Christian God, while Christians shun public festivities connected with the gods.
Octavius 37.11Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians avoid the public games, rooted in idolatry and full of violence.
Apology 15Tertullian · ca. 197 · Mimes, plays, and the arena make sport of the gods, and temples serve as places of vice, so the pagans insult their gods more than Christians do.
Apology 38Tertullian · ca. 197 · Christians should be counted a lawful association, since they take no part in politics or partisan strife and abstain from the public shows.
To the Nations 1.10Tertullian · 197 · Tertullian turns the charge of neglecting the gods back on the pagans, who sell, tax, mock, and parody their own gods and give the same honors to their dead.
To the Nations 1.18Tertullian · 197 · Christians are called obstinate for despising death, yet pagans praise the same courage in their heroes and still hire themselves out daily to the sword, the beasts, and the fire.
On the Shows 1Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Tertullian writes to catechumens and baptized Christians to show that the faith forbids attending the public shows, rejecting the pagan claim that such pleasures do God no harm.
On the Shows 2Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · It is argued that the materials of the shows are God's good creation, but everything God made can be perverted by the devil, who corrupted man and his use of creation from the beginning.
On the Shows 3Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Though Scripture does not forbid the shows by name, the first psalm's blessing on the man who does not sit in the council of the ungodly applies to the crowds of the theatre and circus.
On the Shows 4Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · At baptism Christians renounce the devil, his pomp, and his angels, and since the shows are bound up with idolatry, that vow covers them too.
On the Shows 5Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Pagan writers trace the games to Lydian religious rites in Etruria and to festivals of Liber, Neptune-Consus, Mars, and Jupiter, so the games were idolatrous from their origin.
On the Shows 7Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The circus procession, with its images, sacred wagons, and priests, is itself idolatry, and even a modest provincial procession shares the guilt of Rome's.
On the Shows 8Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Every part of the circus is dedicated to some god, yet places defile no one of themselves; what defiles is taking part in what is done there, as a spectator or worshipper.
On the Shows 9Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Chariot racing, once simple horsemanship, became idolatrous when dedicated to the gods, and even the racing colors are consecrated to gods and the seasons.
On the Shows 10Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The theatre is a shrine of Venus and Liber, gods of lust and drunkenness, and the stage arts were inspired by demons who hide behind the names of their supposed inventors.
On the Shows 12Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Gladiatorial shows began as human sacrifices to the dead, and so remain idolatry, even when given in honor of magistrates; the amphitheatre is a temple of demons.
On the Shows 15Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The Holy Spirit is to be kept in peace, but every show stirs up eagerness, rivalry, anger, and grief, and Christians must not keep company with those who do such things.
On the Shows 16Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The circus breeds frenzy, partisan passion, curses, and hatred, all of which contradict Christ's commands to love enemies and bless those who curse.
On the Shows 17Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The theatre is a school of unchastity; what is shameful to say or do is also shameful to hear and watch, for what enters through the eyes and ears defiles the spirit.
On the Shows 19Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The amphitheatre delights in human blood; even when the guilty die, the innocent should grieve, and innocent men too are killed there.
On the Shows 21Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Pagans judge good and evil inconsistently: modest and gentle in daily life, they applaud nakedness, filth, violence, and killing at the shows.
On the Shows 23Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · God cannot be pleased by charioteers, masked actors, cross-dressing pantomimes, boxers, or beast-fighters, who deface his image and counterfeit what he made.
On the Shows 25Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · No one can think of God at the shows, which stir lust and passion; the hands and mouth used in worship should not applaud actors and gladiators.
On the Shows 27Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Christians should shun the shows, where God is blasphemed and persecution is demanded, and should see their pleasant parts as honey on poison.
On the Shows 29Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Christians have their own better shows: forgiveness, freedom, victory over demons, the race toward the end, and the contests of virtue, in which they are crowned.
Didascalia 2.61Anonymous · first half of the third century
Didascalia 2.62Anonymous · first half of the third century
Apostolic Tradition 16Hippolytus of Rome · early third century
On Dice-Players 5Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Gambling is one of the devil's snares, and it is monstrous that a hand that receives the Eucharist and makes the sign of the cross should play at dice.
On Dice-Players 6Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Gambling breeds perjury, quarrels, and ruin, squanders inherited wealth, and is joined with nights spent with prostitutes.
On Dice-Players 7Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · The inventor of dice, an adulterer later worshiped as a god, set up his own image with the dice board and required players to sacrifice to him.
On Dice-Players 8Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Gambling involves sacrifice to the inventor of dice, so a Christian gambler shares in idolatry and receives the Eucharist unworthily.
On Dice-Players 9Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Gamblers rave, perjure themselves, and ruin their inheritance, and in playing they take part in the devil's sacrifice.
On the Crown 13Tertullian · 211 · Every occasion for crowns, civic offices, public festivals, pagan weddings, manumission, and the games, belongs to the world and to idolatry, which Christians renounced at baptism; their citizenship, freedom, and honours are in Christ.
Homilies on Jeremiah 14.15Origen · ca. 240 · The prophet's joy in God's word lies in the future, after suffering; like him, Christ refused to sit in the “council of players” and left it to form the church from the nations.
Instructions 2.16Commodian · 3rd century (disputed) · Christians must shun the shows and pleasures they renounced at baptism, whatever lax teachers allow for gifts.
On the Shows 1Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · The writer explains why he is writing: some Christians are defending attendance at the pagan shows, even from Scripture, and he wants to warn the faithful.
On the Shows 2Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · The writer reports the defenders' arguments from Scripture (Elijah's chariot, David's dancing, Paul's athletic images) and says they misread the texts.
On the Shows 3Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · Scripture's images of athletes and music do not license the shows; Scripture forbids some things by modestly leaving them unsaid, and conscience should do the rest.
On the Shows 4Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · All the shows descend from idolatry and are the devil's inventions, so a baptized Christian who attends them goes back on his renunciation of the devil.
On the Shows 5Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · The writer describes the bloodshed and the idle fanaticism of the games, and a Christian who carries the Eucharist through the brothel district on his way to the circus.
On the Shows 6Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · The stage plays and pantomimes teach adultery and shamelessness in public, so a Christian who may not even think of vice cannot watch them.
On the Shows 7Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · Even musical and dramatic performances not tied to idols are too vain for Christians to attend.
On the Shows 8Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · Boxing, wrestling, and athletics are displays of gluttony and shamelessness, and Christians must guard their eyes and ears from them.
Against Celsus 5.42Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus, Origen praises the ancient Jewish commonwealth: no games or prostitution, children taught to seek God beyond the material world and to believe in the soul's immortality and judgment, and prophecy instead of divination.
To Donatus 7Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · The gladiatorial games teach killing as an art and make spectators accomplices in murder.
To Donatus 8Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · The theatre keeps ancient crimes alive, teaches adultery and effeminacy, and makes vice religious by showing the gods' immorality.
Letter 2.1Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Cyprian answers Eucratius that an actor who still trains boys in the theatre's effeminate art may not be in communion with the church.
On Works and Almsgiving 22Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 253 · Cyprian imagines the devil taunting Christ that pagans spend fortunes on worthless games for him, while Christians, promised eternal life, will scarcely give to the poor.
Canon 62Anonymous · ca. 306 (disputed, ca. 295–314) · Charioteers and actors must give up their trades before being received.
Canon 79Anonymous · ca. 306 (disputed, ca. 295–314) · A Christian who gambles at dice is excluded for a year after he stops.
Against the Nations 4.35Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · In the theaters, before the priests and magistrates, actors portray Venus as a harlot, the Great Mother in lust, Hercules in agony, and Jupiter as an adulterer.
Against the Nations 7.33Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · Games and plays, often obscene and performed by men legally marked with infamy, cannot honor or appease the gods.
Against the Nations 7.41Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · A god who delighted in chariot races and was angered by a slave's punishment at the games is unworthy of the name.
Against the Nations 7.44Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · The histories show gods delighting in games and angered by trifles; and the Aesculapius brought to Rome to end a plague was simply a large snake.
Canons of Hippolytus, canon 12Anonymous · 4th century · Actors, gladiators, diviners, beast-fighters, and idol-sacrificers must abandon these works before instruction and baptism; a schoolmaster may continue if he confesses the pagan gods to be demons and teaches the faith.
Homilies 4.19Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Greek myths, theatres, and books should be avoided, for they spread their corruption like rabies.
Divine Institutes 1.20.6Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Flora, a rich harlot, left money for games in her honour, the Floralia.
Divine Institutes 1.20.10Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The Floralia are celebrated with obscene speech and naked prostitutes performing.
Divine Institutes 5.20.13Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Gods adored in temples are mocked in theaters.
Divine Institutes 6.11.22Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Spending fortunes on public shows is madness.
Divine Institutes 6.11.23Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Public shows win only brief favor or even offense.
Divine Institutes 6.12.20Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Public shows are not true gifts.
Divine Institutes 6.20.9Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Christians must shun public spectacles.
Divine Institutes 6.20.10Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Watching executions for pleasure defiles the conscience.
Divine Institutes 6.20.11Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Gladiatorial "games" are bloodshed.
Divine Institutes 6.20.12Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Spectators demand death and mutilation.
Divine Institutes 6.20.14Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The arena destroys humanity.
Divine Institutes 6.20.27Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The theater corrupts through eloquent depictions of vice.
Divine Institutes 6.20.29Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Actors' gestures incite lust.
Divine Institutes 6.20.30Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Mimes teach adultery.
Divine Institutes 6.20.32Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Chariot races incite frenzy.
Divine Institutes 6.20.33Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · All spectacles must be avoided.
Martyrs of Palestine (shorter recension) 6.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 311–314 · Imperial shows were expected to include extraordinary spectacles.
Preparation for the Gospel 2.2.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Dionysus was accompanied by Satyrs and founded the theater.
Preparation for the Gospel 2.6.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The great Greek games were all originally funeral rites.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 58.1Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · The public shows must be avoided because they corrupt and honour the gods.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 58.2Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Each kind of show belongs to a pagan god.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 58.3Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Gladiatorial shows make killing into entertainment.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 58.4Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Spectators share the bloodguilt of the killing.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 58.5Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · The theatre portrays immorality.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 58.6Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Actors' mimes teach vice.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 58.7Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · The young are trained in vice by the theatre.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 58.8Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · The circus inflames spectators to violence.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 58.9Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Shun all shows to keep a tranquil mind.
Canon 4Anonymous · 1 August 314 · Christian charioteers are excluded from communion while they race.
Canon 5Anonymous · 1 August 314 · Christian actors are excluded from communion while they act.
Theophany 2.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Canon 54Anonymous · ca. 343–381 · Clergy must leave weddings and banquets before the entertainers come in.
Catechetical Lecture 19.5Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The candidate renounced all Satan's works, that is, every sin, and his "pomp": the theater, horse races, and wild-beast shows.
Letter 209Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 360–390 · Gregory, keeping his Lenten silence, invites Eulalius to share their disciplines; then he writes to the judge Celeusius, rebuking him for not fasting and for putting on shameful shows.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.5.14Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalmist asks that his bodily and inward eyes be turned from the vanities of theater, circus, fine clothes, and gold.
Oration 36.12Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory closes by exhorting philosophers, the rich, the luxurious, and the whole city of Constantinople to virtue, generosity to the poor, and contempt for the games.
Hexaemeron 4.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · Instead of the theater and the races, Basil invites his hearers to the spectacle of God's works.
Hexaemeron 8.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · Basil closes the homily on birds, points to the silkworm's metamorphosis as an image of the resurrection, and urges his hearers to spend their fast on spiritual food rather than dice.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.21.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They eat idol sacrifices and attend pagan festivals and gladiator shows.
Apostolic Canon 42Anonymous · ca. 380 · Clergy who gamble or get drunk must stop or be deposed.
Apostolic Canon 43Anonymous · ca. 380 · Minor clergy and laymen who gamble or get drunk must stop or be excommunicated.
Apostolic Constitutions 2.61.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · Christians who attend pagan processions and theatres ignore the example of Jeremiah and Job.
Apostolic Constitutions 2.62.4Anonymous · ca. 380 · Believers must avoid the festivals and games of pagans, Jews and heretics, going to fairs only for necessary purchases.
Apostolic Constitutions 8.32.9Anonymous · ca. 380 · Actors, gladiators, soldiers, magicians, concubines and others are admitted only on giving up their practices; catechumens are instructed for three years.
On Virgins 3.5Ambrose · ca. 377 · Ambrose reads the bed watered with tears (Ps 6) both literally and of the body, explains the Lord’s “bed of pain,” urges that all be done in Christ’s name, and warns virgins against dancing, which cost John the Baptist his life.
On Virgins 3.6Ambrose · ca. 377 · Ambrose dwells on the death of John the Baptist at Herod’s birthday banquet, the reward of a dancing girl, to warn mothers against teaching their daughters to dance and men against the banquets of the wicked.
On Tobit 38Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Moneylenders profit from gamblers’ losses and rule over them like tyrants.
Exposition of Psalm 118 5.28.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The shows of the circus and theater are vanities from which the eyes must be turned.
Exposition of Psalm 118 5.29.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Fix your eyes on Christ, the prize, and turn them from worldly spectacles.
Letter 138.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Patience lives in the heart, but correction, like a father's or even a just war, may be applied with goodwill for the wrongdoer's good; the prosperity of vice is God's sharpest punishment.
Homilies on Matthew 2.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Moral exhortation: worldly cares cloud the soul like smoke; Christians know theater songs but not psalms; lay people need Scripture more than monks; hearing God's word reforms, as it reformed the Corinthians and David.
Homilies on Matthew 4.7John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The name Jesus, given from heaven, promises salvation from sins, which only God can give; moral section: the baptized must be recognizable by their life, but many live like the unbaptized, at races and theaters.
Homilies on Matthew 6.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ wept but never laughed; we will give account for every sin, so dissipation is folly; frivolity comes from the devil, who built the theaters; spectators who applaud blasphemous and lewd mimes are more guilty than the actors and dishonor marriage.
Homilies on Matthew 6.8John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Closing exhortation of Homily 6: the theater's mimed adulteries and naked performers corrupt spectators and households; nakedness began with disobedience; Chrysostom wounds his hearers deliberately to heal them.
Homilies on Matthew 7.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Moral section of Homily 7: Christians should leave worldly ways as the magi left Persia; unworthy communicants are like Herod; we should offer gold to Christ in the poor, sick, and imprisoned, yet many will not cross a street to church but run to the theater.
Homilies on Matthew 7.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Preferring the theater's naked swimming women to the eucharistic 'spring' is spiritual shipwreck, worse than Pharaoh's drowning; spectators sin by desire even without the act; Chrysostom sends men to learn from their wives, and even from the ant.
Homilies on Matthew 7.7John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Closing exhortation of Homily 7: Christ's command against lustful looking binds married laymen as much as monks; husbands owe their wives the same chastity they demand of them; Chrysostom threatens a sharper sermon until the theater is abandoned.
Homilies on Matthew 17.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Plucking out the offending eye means cutting off friends or relatives who lead us into sin, which serves both parties; the theater is condemned, and the next lemma on divorce is introduced.
Homilies on Matthew 32.8John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Virtue is greater than miracles, as Paul and Christ teach; the Christian who turns to almsgiving, leaves the theater, guards his eyes and sings psalms works the true signs.
Homilies on Matthew 37.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The threat against the cities applies also to Christians who shut their doors to strangers and their ears to the apostles; Chrysostom begins his attack on the theater, whose shameful songs defile the ears of the soul.
Homilies on Matthew 37.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom describes the lewdness of the theater and argues that it overturns marriages, makes adulterers and stirs up riots, so that those who attend it, not those who would close it, overturn the city.
Homilies on Matthew 37.7John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The theater breeds sorcery, licentiousness and the ruin of others, for which spectators share the blame; Christians should find their pleasure in gardens, martyrs’ shrines, wife and children, and flee the theater as Joseph fled Potiphar’s wife.
Homilies on Matthew 48.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Herod hears of Jesus and, from fear and vanity, thinks him the beheaded John risen; the evangelist recounts John’s imprisonment for rebuking Herod’s marriage to Herodias and his murder at the birthday banquet after the girl’s dance.
Homilies on Matthew 48.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom explains the law of levirate marriage, which permitted marrying a brother’s widow only when he had died childless, so that Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife who had a child was unlawful; he condemns the satanic banquet, the dancing at weddings and Herodias as the architect of the murder.
Homilies on Matthew 48.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Herodias’ murder only exposed her sin, which is hidden not by further sin but by repentance; the evangelist tells the story without abuse, teaching us not to revile sinners; Chrysostom condemns the banquets of his own day, with their dancers and ill-gotten luxury.
Homilies on Matthew 48.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ hungers and thirsts in the poor while the rich feast; Chrysostom rebukes those who spend their goods on parasites and buffoons rather than on Christ, who will be gentle as judge to those who share their table with him.
Homilies on Matthew 68.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom contrasts the theater’s choir of harlots, which inflames desire and ruins homes, with the monks’ choir of psalmody, their study of Scripture and their pure speech, and urges his hearers to visit the monks at once and to entrust their affairs to God.
On 1 Cor 7:2, section 2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom defends Paul's speaking about marriage, which Christ honoured at Cana, and attacks the immoral songs, dancers and processions of contemporary weddings, urging that the poor be invited instead.
On what sort of wives to marry, section 9John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom describes Rebekah's simple wedding journey and Isaac's love for her, and urges parents and bridegrooms to seek virtue and to banish wedding excesses, so that there will never be a bill of divorce or suspicion of adultery.
Hexameron (Exameron) 3.5Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The church, not the theatre, is the Christian's delight: a temple of the Trinity whose curtains cover sins.
On True Religion 22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · Augustine compares the passing of temporal things to the syllables of a verse, which are beautiful in sequence though the art that makes them is unchanging, and says that only the impious are displeased with the order of the universe.
Life of Hilarion 2Jerome · ca. 390–392 · Hilarion, born of pagan parents near Gaza, studied at Alexandria, became a believer, and shunned the games and theatre for the church.
Sermon 51.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine pays the debt deferred from Christmas morning, speaking to those who chose church over the games, and urges prayer for those who went to the amphitheatre.
Sermon 51.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ himself was made a spectacle on the cross, as his martyrs were; those who chose church over the amphitheatre chose a better spectacle and conquered the devil.
Sermon 88.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Good Christians must cry out to Christ amid bad Christians, for example by refusing the theater, and must not leave the Church for the heretics.
Sermon 159.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The first degree of loving righteousness is to let it delight us more than everything else, even lawful pleasures of the senses, which Augustine distinguishes from unlawful ones sense by sense.
Sermon 198.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christians are separated from pagans by what they believe, hope, and love, and must show it by giving alms, going to church, and fasting instead of joining the New Year revels.
Sermon 198.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Instead of New Year's gifts Christians should give to the poor, and they should keep away from the shows and spectacles in which demons delight.
Sermon 252.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Gentiles’ ship is weighed down by crowds of carnal Christians, as the riot over feasting in the basilica showed; heretics and schismatics in many lands broke the nets and went out, but only the bad go out, while good and bad remain.
Sermon 311.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s words ‘we sang and you did not dance’ need explaining, since until recently the martyr’s shrine was profaned by all-night dancing and lewd songs, which the bishop of Carthage ended by instituting holy vigils.
Homily 20.6 on EphesiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom tells wives not to reproach their husbands with poverty and husbands never to strike their wives, and urges a simple wedding without lewd songs and gentle instruction of the young bride.
Against Jovinianus 2.8Jerome · 393 · Jerome describes how the five senses serve as gates for vices to enter the soul.
Confessions 3.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine asks why theater audiences enjoy feeling grief at tragic fictions they would never want to suffer themselves.
Confessions 3.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine confesses that he loved the superficial grief of the theater, which, like scratching a sore, only inflamed his condition.
Confessions 6.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine introduces his friend Alypius, a former student from Thagaste, who had been caught up at Carthage in a passion for the circus games.
Confessions 6.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · A chance remark in Augustine's lecture cured Alypius of his passion for the circus, but Alypius then followed Augustine into Manichaeism, drawn by its apparent continence.
Confessions 6.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · At Rome Alypius, dragged unwillingly to the gladiatorial games, opened his eyes at a shout and was overcome by a passion for the bloody spectacle.
Confessions 10.56Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine has renounced theaters, astrology, and necromancy, but the enemy still tempts him to seek signs.
Tractates 8Gaudentius of Brescia · ca. 397-410 · On the wedding at Cana: Christ's presence blesses marriage against the Manichees while virginity is the better part; Gaudentius warns the newly baptized against debauched banquets and reads the 'third day' as the age of grace, when Christ takes the Gentile church as bride after Israel's 'divorce'.
On Catechizing the Uninstructed 16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–405 · Augustine begins his model address to an uneducated city dweller seeking eternal rest, showing that riches, honours, taverns, shows, and pleasures cannot give the rest that is found only in God.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.51Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The supposed decline in Christian times is the loss of shameful luxuries such as theaters and games, which even Cicero and the philosophers condemned.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 7.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Those who delight in the festival are like the delirious; Augustine laments especially that some women have gone to it instead of to church, and invites his hearers to the sweeter banquet of God's word.
City of God 1.31Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine traces the Roman lust for power to avarice and luxury born of prosperity, and recalls Nasica's success in stopping the building of a theater in Rome.
City of God 1.32Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine notes that the gods themselves ordered stage plays to end a plague, while the pontiff Scipio forbade theaters to protect morals, and that Roman refugees at Carthage still flocked to the theaters.
City of God 1.33Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine rebukes the Roman refugees who crowded the theaters while the whole world mourned Rome's fall, showing that calamity had not corrected them.
City of God 2.4Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that the pagan gods gave their worshippers no moral teaching, recalling from his youth the obscene songs performed before the Mother of the gods at her festival of washing.
City of God 2.8Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that the gods themselves demanded the stage plays that portrayed their vices, so they cannot be excused by blaming the poets.
City of God 2.9Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine quotes Cicero's Republic on the Roman law against defamatory verse, contrasting it with Greek comedy's license, which followed the gods' own pleasure in being ridiculed.
City of God 2.11Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine notes that the Greeks, consistently with their gods' tastes, honored actors and even made them statesmen and envoys.
City of God 2.13Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine sets Greek and Roman attitudes to actors against each other in a syllogism concluding that gods who demand stage plays should not be worshipped.
City of God 2.20Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine satirizes the kind of state his opponents want, one devoted to wealth, pleasure, and license so long as it is safe, and compares it to the house of Sardanapalus.
City of God 2.25Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine describes a vision of gods fighting on a Campanian plain before the civil wars, arguing that demons staged such sights to give divine sanction to civil war.
City of God 2.27Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine cites Cicero's own references to appeasing the gods with games, and argues that such obscene rites taught the whole city vice while any secret moral teaching remained hidden.
City of God 3.14Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine condemns Rome's war with Alba, its mother city, including the fight of the Horatii and Curiatii and the killing of the Horatian sister, as the fruit of the lust for domination.
City of God 4.26Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine recounts how the gods compelled the Roman senate, through the dreams of Titus Latinius, to renew the games in which Jupiter's crimes were acted, showing that they were demons, not givers of felicity.
City of God 6.6Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Addressing Varro directly, Augustine argues that fabulous and civil theology honor the same gods with the same shameful things and cannot lead to eternal life.
City of God 18.12Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine lists the rites and games instituted by Greek kings between the exodus and the death of Joshua and argues that the gods who delight in fabulous crimes are guilty of real ones.
City of God 18.13Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine lists the Greek fables invented in the period of the judges and blames the worshippers of Jupiter for accepting and staging the shameful stories told of him.
On Faith and Works 33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · Excluding the openly unrepentant from baptism is not new but the church's ancient custom for prostitutes and actors; where adulterers are carelessly admitted, the practice should be corrected, not extended.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 1.6.4Orosius · ca. 417–418 · The Romans care only for their games, not the Gothic sack.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 4.21.4Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Scipio Nasica stopped the building of a theatre.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 4.21.5Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Theatres, not Christian times, weakened Rome.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 4.21.6Orosius · ca. 417–418 · The demons who demanded games are to blame.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 4.21.7Orosius · ca. 417–418 · In the theatres virtues are sacrificed to luxury.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 4.21.9Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Let them blame the theatre that Nasica forbade.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 5.24.3Orosius · ca. 417–418 · The rebels force captives to fight as gladiators.
Chapter 4Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 437-450 · At the judgment the devil will claim as his own any baptized person who after renouncing him went back to the circus, theater, and amphitheater, so the candidates must keep their profession.
Sermon on the Barbarian Time 1Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 437-450 · God’s wrath shown in the barbarian invasion calls for repentance, yet the city still throngs the shows; all are guilty, preachers and hearers alike, and should stop slandering one another.
Sermon on the Barbarian Time 4Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 437-450 · The fathers of old put God before every human tie, from Phinehas and Moses to Daniel and the three youths, whereas the city now sacrifices souls by watching idolatrous night shows; let it fear eternal fire more than the barbarian sword and repent.
Part 5, chapter 14Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · The author explains the structure of the book (three parts of forty chapters, twenty on the end, thirteen on glory, making 153 like the fish caught after the resurrection) and offers it as a spiritual substitute for every worldly pleasure: games, hunting, shows, building, feasts, and music, ending with a prayer.