Complete Works of Cyprian

but so that a greater urgency might be excited in our minds for beneficial
things, while such is the case among the heathens for non-beneficial
things.
3 The argument is, therefore, for the excitation of virtue, not a permission
or liberty to watch Gentile error, so that through this the mind might be
more inflamed toward evangelical virtue on account of divine rewards,
5 since it struggles to arrive at earthly gains through the calamity of all
labors and sorrows. For the fact that Elias is the charioteer of Israel does
not provide patronage for watching the games of the circus: for he ran in no
circus. And the fact that David performed dances in the sight of God does
nothing to assist Christian faithful sitting in the theater: for he did not
10 dance the story of Greek lust by distorting his limbs with obscene
movements. Harps, citharas, pipes, cymbals, and lyres sang to God, not to
an idol. It will not, therefore, be prescribed that illicit things be
watched. By the artifice of the devil, things have been changed from holy to
illicit. Let shame, therefore, prescribe to these people, even if the holy
15 scriptures cannot. For in some matters, scripture provides more by
commanding: having suffered shame, it forbade more because it was silent, so
that truth—lest it descend even to these things—might not have sensed the
worst about its faithful: for often in precepts some things are more
usefully kept silent. They warn often while they are forbidden. Thus, also
20 they are kept silent while they are written in divine scriptures, and in the
place of precepts, severity speaks, and reason teaches what the scripture
kept silent. Let each person deliberate with himself alone and with the
person of his profession...