Chapter 23
TERTULLIAN
Chapter 23 (1) Since, then, man reflecting on these matters, even over against the protest and appeal of pleasure, comes to the con clusion that these people should be deprived of the benefits of posts of honor and exiled to some island of infamy, how much more will divine justice inflict punishment on those who follow such professions? (2) Or will God take pleasure in the charioteer, the disturber of so many souls, the minister to so many outbursts of frenzy, flaunting his rostral crown as a priest wears his wreath, dressed up in gay colors like a pimp,1 attired by the Devil as a ludicrous counterpart of Elias to be swept away in his chariot?2 (3) Will God be pleased with the man who alters his features with a razor, belying his own countenance and, not content with making it resemble that of Saturn or Isis or Liber, on top of that submits it to the indignity of being slapped,3 as if in mockery of the Lord's commandent?4 (4) The Devil, to be sure, also teaches that one should meekly offer his cheek to be struck. In the same way, he also makes the tragic actors taller by means of their
1 Tertullian refers to the crown of victory and the many-colored attire of the charioteer. The latter displayed the color of his party in his tunic, the harness, and the adornment of his horses, while the remaining articles of his dress were often of different colors.
2 Cf. 4 Kings 2.11. While Elias was conversing with Eliseus on the hills of Moab, 'a fiery chariot and fiery horses parted them both asunder, and Elias went up by a whirlwind into heaven.' This scriptural passage was used by Christian devotees of the circus to defend the chariot-races (cf. Ps.-Cyprian, Be spectaculis 2-3).
3 Tertullian means the actor who played the part of the bald-headed and fat-cheeked booby in the mime. Resounding slaps on his ears were regular incidents of the buffoonery. The passage also proves that the travesties of the myths of the gods were favorite subjects of the mime
4 Cf. Matt. 5.39; Luke 6.29.
SPECTACLES
high shoes, because 'no one can add a single cubit to his stature/0 He wishes to make Christ a liar. (5) Again, I ask whether this whole business of masks is pleasing to God, who forbids the likeness of anything to be made—how much more of His own image? The Author of truth does not love any thing deceitful; all that is counterfeit is a kind of adultery in His eyes. (6) Accordingly, He will not approve the man who feigns voice, sex, or age, or who pretends love, anger, groans, or tears, for He condemns all hypocrisy. Moreover, since in His law He brands the man as accursed who dresses in woman's clothes,5 6 what will be His judgment upon the pan tomime who is trained to play the woman? (7) No doubt, also, the artist in punching will go unpunished. For those scars and wales, marks left by boxing gloves and blows, and those growths upon his ears7 he got from God when his body was being fashioned; God gave him eyes to have them blinded in fighting! (8) I say nothing of the man who pushes another to the lion lest he seem less a murderer than the fellow who after wards cuts the same victim's throat.8
5 Cf. Matt. 6.27; Luke 12.25..
6 Cf. Deut. 22.5.
7 These marks of injury received in fighting are realistically reproduced in the famous bronze figure of the resting pugilist in the Museo delle
Terme in Rome. The figure wears the caestus, the boxing-glove of ancient pugilists, consisting of strong leather bands loaded with balls of lead or iron, wound around the hands and arms.
8 Tertullian refers to two performers in the venatio (animal-baiting) .
The first, an experienced fighter, shoves the victim (a person sentenced to death) ahead of himself toward the lion. The second, a novice in the profession, gives the victim the finishing stroke on the platform in the middle of the arena (see above, Ch. 21 n 3). A description of such a scene in the amphitheater of Carthage is found in the Passion of SS. Perpetua and Felicitas 19-21.