A Glimpse
of Theater History
The De Spectaculis of Tertullian
One of the more devastating attacks on the theatre by the church was penned by Tertullian (c. 150-c.220). Scholars differ as to the date of composition of the De Spectaculis (Concerning Spectacles), but we know that Tertullian converted to Montanism probably (according to Gonzalez) in 207AD as a sort of protest of the rising power of the hierarchy of the African Church and what he perceived as its too lenient treatment of repentant sinners.
Trained as a lawyer, Tertullian attacked the theatre using three basic arguments:
| 1] Spectacles are inherently idolatrous: |
| ...it is certain the thing springs from idolatry. For the Liberalia, clearly declared the glory of Father Bacchus; for to Bacchus these festivities were first consecrated by grateful peasants, in return for the boon he conferred on them, as they say, making known the pleasures of wine... You have festivals bearing the name of the great Mother and Apollo, of Ceres too, and Neptune, and Jupiter Latiaris, and Flora, all celebrated for a common end; the others have their religious origin in the birthdays and solemnities of kings, in public successes, in municipal holidays. There arealso testamentary exhibitions, in which funeral honors are rendered to the memories of private persons; ...If it is lawful to offer homage to the dead, it will be just as lawful to offer it to their gods: you have the same origin in both cases; there is the same idolatry; there is on our part the same solemn renunciation against all idolatry... |
| 2] The place where a spectacle is performed is forever defiled: |
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...we lapse from God...by touching and tainting ourselves with the world's sins. I shall break with my maker, that is, by going to the Capitol or the temple of Serapis to sacrifice or adore, as I shall also do by going as a spectator to the circus and the theatre. The places themselves do not contaminate, but that which is done in them, from which even the places themselves, we maintain, become defiled. The polluted things pollute us... ...we shall now direct our course...to those of the theatre, beginning with the place of exhibition. At first the theatre was properly a temple of Venus; and, to speak briefly, it was owing to this fact that stage performances were allowed to escape censure, and got a footing in the world...Pompey the Great, less only than his theatre, when he had erected that citadel of all impurities, fearing some time or other censorian conedemnation of his memory, superposed on it a temple of Venus; and summoning by public proclamatin the people to its consecration, he called it not a theatre, but a temple, "under which," said he, "we have placed tiers of seats for viewing the shows." So he threw a veil over a structure on which condemnation had been often passed, and which is ever to be held in reprobation, by pretending that it was a sacred place. |
| 3] Christians foreswore the theatre in their baptismal vows: |
