{"id":12579,"date":"2009-06-18T18:50:02","date_gmt":"2009-06-18T18:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/18\/alypius-and-the-gladiators-4\/"},"modified":"2009-06-18T18:50:02","modified_gmt":"2009-06-18T18:50:02","slug":"alypius-and-the-gladiators-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/18\/alypius-and-the-gladiators-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Alypius and the Gladiators"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the time of the <\/font>Nicholas Berg<\/font><\/a> beheading, a correspondent wrote to say that he watched the video only up to the point where the knife was applied to the neck, but refused to view the severing. He did right, for reasons given in Book Six, Chapter Eight of Augustine\u2019s Confessions<\/strong>.<\/font><\/p>\n

 Alypius was a student of Augustine, first in their hometown of Thagaste, and later in Carthage. In the previous chapter, Augustine writes that in \u201cthe maelstrom of Carthaginian customs\u201d Alypius was \u201csucked down into a madness for the circus.\u201d Later, when Alypius preceded Augustine to Rome to study law, some friends persuaded him against his will to attend a gladiatorial show. Alypius thought he could observe the scene calmly and resist the temptation to blood lust. But he was wrong. When a gladiator fell in combat, and a mighty roar went up from the crowd, Alypius, overcome by curiosity, opened his eyes, drank in the sight, \u201c…and was wounded more deeply in his soul than the man whom he desired to look at was wounded in his body.\u201d Augustine continues:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

As he saw that blood, he drank in savageness at the same time. He did not turn away, but fixed his sight on it, and drank in madness without knowing it. He took delight in that evil struggle, and became drunk on blood and pleasure. He was no longer the man who entered there, but only one of the crowd that he had joined, and a true comrade of those who had brought him there. (Tr. J. K. Ryan)<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In our decadent culture, we are not yet at the nadir of Roman brutality. But we are at the point where vast numbers of people find entertainment in, and see nothing wrong with, blood lust by itself or in permutation with sexual lust. For such people, and the legal sophists who misuse the First Amendment, the story of Alypius and the Gladiators can mean nothing. To borrow a line from a 1997  Dylan song<\/a>, \u201cIt ain\u2019t dark yet, but it\u2019s gettin\u2019 there.\u201d <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the time of the Nicholas Berg beheading, a correspondent wrote to say that he watched the video only up to the point where the knife was applied to the neck, but refused to view the severing. He did right, for reasons given in Book Six, Chapter Eight of Augustine\u2019s Confessions.  Alypius was a student … Continue reading “Alypius and the Gladiators”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[335],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-augustine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}