On the Shows 19

Shall we now wait to seek from the Scriptures a repudiation of the amphitheatre too? If we can claim that cruelty, impiety, and savagery are permitted us, let us go to the amphitheatre. If we are such as we are said to be, let us delight in human blood. It is good when the guilty are punished. Who but a guilty man will deny this? And yet the innocent ought not to rejoice at another's punishment, since it rather befits the innocent to grieve that a man, his equal, has become so guilty as to be spent so cruelly. But who guarantees to me that it is always the guilty who are sentenced to the beasts or to any other punishment, so that it is not inflicted on innocence too, through the vengefulness of the judge, or the weakness of the defense, or the pressure of torture? How much better, then, not to know when the wicked are punished, lest I also know when the good perish, if indeed they have any taste of good. Certainly innocent gladiators are sold into the training school to become victims of public pleasure. Even as for those condemned to the school, what kind of thing is it that for a lighter offense they should be improved into murderers? But these answers I have given to the heathen. For the rest, God forbid that a Christian should need any further teaching about his aversion to this show. Though no one can describe all these things more fully than one who still watches. I would rather leave it incomplete than remember.