Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume III/Apologetic/The Shows, or De Spectaculis/Chapter XVIII

Chapter XVIII.

But if you argue that the racecourse is mentioned in Scripture, I grant it at once. But you will not refuse to admit that the things which are done there are not for you to look upon: the blows, and kicks, and cuffs, and all the recklessness of hand, and everything like that disfiguration of the human countenance, which is nothing less than the disfiguration of God&#8217;s own image. You will never give your approval to those foolish racing and throwing feats, and yet more foolish leapings; you will never find pleasure in injurious or useless exhibitions of strength; certainly you will not regard with approval those efforts after an artificial body which aim at surpassing the Creator&#8217;s work; and you will have the very opposite of complacency in the athletes Greece, in the inactivity of peace, feeds up. And the wrestler&#8217;s art is a devil&#8217;s thing. The devil wrestled with, and crushed to death, the first human beings.&#160; Its very attitude has power in it of the serpent kind, firm to hold&#8212;tortures to clasp&#8212;slippery to glide away.&#160; You have no need of crowns; why do you strive to get pleasures from crowns?