← Skirnir Studios

Latin · AI translation

Tertullian, De Spectaculis

English for the 1 passage of this work that the Atlas of Ancient Myth, Magic in the Ancient Texts and a study of demons and angels quote or cite, and which the library holds in no published English. The numbers are the edition's own references.

26.1.1

Cur ergo non eiusmodi etiam daemoniis penetrabiles fiant? Nam et exemplum accidit domino teste eius mulieris, quae theatrum adiit et inde cum daemonio rediit. Itaque in exorcismo cum oneraretur immundus spiritus, quod ausus esset fidelem aggredi, constanter: "et iustissime quidem," inquit, "feci: in meo eam inveni." Constat et alii linteum in somnis ostensum eius diei nocte, qua tragoedum audierat, cum exprobratione nominato tragoedo nec ultra quintum diem eam mulierem in saeculo fuisse. Quot 1 utique et alia documenta cesserunt de his qui cum diabolo apud spectacula communicando a domino exciderunt. "Nemo enim potest duobus dominis servire." "Quid luci cum tenebris? Quid vitae et morti?"

Why then should such people not also become open to demons? For there is also the case, the Lord is witness, of the woman who went to the theatre and came back from there with a demon. So when, in the exorcism, the unclean spirit was being pressed hard because it had dared to attack a believer, it said boldly: “And I did it with every right: I found her on my own ground.” It is also well known that to another woman a linen cloth was shown in her sleep, on the night of the day on which she had heard a tragic actor, with a reproach in which the tragic actor was named, and that this woman was no longer in the world after the fifth day. How many other proofs, surely, have come from those who, by keeping company with the devil at the shows, have fallen away from the Lord! “For no one can serve two masters.” “What has light to do with darkness? What has life to do with death?”

Translator's note. The “1” after Quot is a stray footnote number. linteum, “linen cloth”, may mean a shroud.

The whole original: Perseus's Scaife Viewer.