Tertullian, de Spectaculis (23):
“Since human memory, even while the charm of pleasure still lingers, considers that those people should be condemned onto the crag of infamy with all of their honors taken away, how much more savagely would divine justice take notice of artificers of that sort? Will God be pleased by that charioteer, the man who stirs up so many souls, that minister of so much madness, crowned like a priest or painted like a pimp, whom the devil decked out to be taken by a chariot against Elijah? Will God be pleased by the man who alters his countenance with the razor, an infidel to his own face, who – not content to make it look like the face of Saturn and Isis and Bacchus – subjects it to the abuse of beating, as if he were making fun of the order of our Lord? To be sure, the devil teaches us to patiently offer our jaw to this abuse. Thus, too, he elevated the tragic actors upon their boots, because ‘no one is able to add a cubit to his height.’ He wishes to make Christ a liar. Indeed, I ask whether the creation of actors’ masks pleases God, who prohibits the making of any likeness – how much more the likeness of his own image? The author of truth does not love falsehood. Every fiction is like adultery to him.”
cum igitur humana recordatio etiam obstrepente gratia voluptatis damnandos eos censeat ademtis bonis dignitatum in quendam scopulum famositatis, quanto magis divina iustitia in eiusmodi artifices animadvertit? an deo placebit auriga ille tot animarum inquietator, tot furiarum minister, ut sacerdos coronatus vel coloratus ut leno, quem curru rapiendum diabolus adversus Elian exornavit? placebit et ille, qui voltus suos novacula mutat, infidelis erga faciem suam, quam non contentus Saturno et Isidi et Libero proximam facere insuper contumeliis alaparum sic obicit, tamquam de praecepto domini ludat? docet scilicet et diabolus verberandam maxillam patienter offerre. sic et tragoedos cothurnis extulit, quia “nemo potest adicere cubitum unum ad staturam suam”: mendacem facere vult Christum. iam vero ipsum opus personarum quaero an deo placeat, qui omnem similitudinem vetat fieri, quanto magis imaginis suae? non amat falsum auctor veritatis; adulterium est apud illum omne quod fingitur.
