of course, included the throwing of criminals, especially Christians, to wild beasts and gladiatorial
76 SAINT A UGUSTINE - SERMONS is, however, not called a sollemnitas, but the faithful are observed to have gathered quasi sollemniter. So the pagan festivities still need to be preached against, but many of the faithful are spontaneously turning the day into a kind of Christian celebration; and in a year or two the Church authorities—that is, Augustine and his clergy—will in Hippo at least have followed up this lay initiative, and made New Year's Day the feast of the Circumcision.
2. "Gentiles" is really Gentes, the nations. I normally prefer to translate it "nations" ; but here the context calls for a word which is in contrast with the faithful themselves.
3. See 1 Jn2:16. 4. Possibly celebrated, to judge from the more detailed description given later, in honor of the goddess Fortuna, or Luck; but perhaps on this occasion she was known as Strena, about which see note 5.
5. Strenae, described by Sextus Pomponius, a second century lawyer, as presents "given for the sake of a good omen"; Strena was also the name of the goddess who presided over the occasion. Perhaps the habit survives in the Christmas cracker, which you pull while making a wish, and in the bits and pieces hidden in the Christmas pudding.
6. More, presumably, than you would have spent on your good luck presents. 7. Literally, of the circus; which was the race track. The cruelty of the amphitheater had once, of course, included the throwing of criminals, especially Christians, to wild beasts and gladiatorial combats to the death. At the time Augustine was speaking, such things had been abolished by Christian emperors. The cruelty now consisted largely in the cruelty to the animals now "hunted" in the amphitheater by professional "hunters" about whom he goes on to speak, and in the serious risks these hunters ran.