De Spectaculis

Concerning Spectacles

By Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus

30

What kind of spectacle shall be the coming of the Lord at hand, already unquestionable, already magnificent, already triumphant!  What shall be that exalting of angels, that glory of the rising saints!  What kind of kingdom thereafter shall be for the just!  What kind of city shall be a New Jerusalem!  For while other spectacles are in excess, that is the greatest and everlasting Day of Judgment, that day unexpected by the nations, that mocked day, when the long existence of time and his many births shall be exhausted by one fire.  Then what an extent of spectacle shall be!  What may I admire, what may I ridicule, when may I rejoice, when may I exalt, observing so many kings, who were said accepted into heaven, groaning with that Jupiter himself and themselves witnesses in utter darkness, likewise the guards, persecutors of the Lord’s name with savage flames, how they raged insulting against the burning Christians, afterwards those wise philosophers in the presence of their own disciples reddening, burning together in the fires, to whom they suggested that nothing pertains to God, to whom they asserted either did not exist or did not return to their bodies, also the poets shaking not before Rhadamanthis', not before Minos’, but at the unexpected Christ’s very tribunal?  Then more the actors must be heard, certainly more audible in their very own calamity; then must the mimes be recognized, much more fluid by the fire; then must he charioteer be observed, reddening entirely on a flaming wheel; then the athletes must be observed not in the gymnasium, but thrashed in the fire, except that I could wish not even then were they seen, as I rather wish to gather an audience unsatisfactory to they who raged against the Lord.  This is that man; let me say, the son of a workman or a prostitute, the destroyer of the Sabbath, spending time with Samaritans and demons.  This is that man whom you redeemed from Judas, this is that man struck with a rod and a punch, dishonored with spitting out, consumed with gall and vinegar.  This is that man whom teachers secretly stole that he may be said to have risen, whom rather the gardener removed, lest his lettuce be injured by the frequent visitors.  So you may see such things, so you may exalt in such things, what praetor, consul, quaestor, or priest, is preferable to you from his own kindness?  Still we have these things represented by the spirit imagined in a certain way through faith.  Furthermore, what sort are these things which the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, and which does not rise into the heart of men?  I believe that these things are more pleasing than the circus, the theater, and every stadium.