Don’t Relent! Ash Wednesday, And the Image to the Beast

Of all the world empires of human history one name stands above all the rest for its cruel brutality and extreme public debauchery: Rome. At the height of its dissipation, up to a full third of its annual financial expenditures were made to create public spectacles for its citizens. Fights between wild beasts. Deadly gladiator battles. Gruesome public executions of religious or civil dissenters. The spectacles were more than mere entertainment – they were a political strategy to help control the overpopulated capital. Thus panem et circenses – bread and circuses. A well entertained mob is less inclined to political involvement or protest. The bloodiest place in the wicked, degenerate empire was the Roman Colosseum. It seated 50,000 people, comparable to many modern sporting stadiums. 9000 animals were slaughtered at its inauguration to pagan deities. It was inaugurated with the blood of animals. It was then soaked in the blood of men. It is almost forgotten history that it was named after the depraved and notorious tyrant Nero, who murdered thousands upon thousands of Christians, and killed the Apostle Paul. The very same Nero who killed his own mother and then his wife. History records that a giant statue of the notoriously degenerate Caesar called the Colossus of Nero once stood near the Colosseum. The bronze statue has been lost to history – but some sources say that it stood over 120 feet tall. It is fitting that the most bloodthirsty venue, in the most bloodthirsty empire in history should be named for such a man. Gladiator battles were a regular occurrence in the Colosseum, and in other parts of the Roman Empire. The fights were bloody, with real weapons, but often not deadly because gladiators were too expensive for every match to be fatal. The fighters were highly specialized, with trainers and owners. The bouts had rules and referees similar to modern combat sports and historians estimate only 1 in 8 fights ended in the death of one of the combatants. The violence was the entertainment. Gambling, or what we would call sports betting, was a central part of the entertainment experience. And the pagan mob of Rome loved every minute of it. Gladiator fighting lasted for a period of nearly 700 years, from 264 BC to 404 AD, when the fights were permanently banned by the Emperor Honorius in 404. The sudden and surprising end of the violent entertainment was the direct result of not just Christian influence, but direct Christian intervention. The story of Telemachus is the stuff of legends and was once well known in the Christian world, but like much of Christian history is being forgotten or replaced as so-called Christian culture goes back to paganism, and back to Roman paganism in particular. Telemachus was a monk who lived in a small monastic community and who spent his time studying the Bible, praying and gardening. Little is known of his quiet existence. It was his death during a trip to Rome that he is remembered for. Nothing could quite prepare a quiet Christian farmer for the shock of the capital of the ancient world. It was not just the wild debauchery and feasting, or the political corruption. At the time Telemachus arrived in the city of Rome, the gladiator games were taking place to celebrate another military victory. Rome was constantly at war with this vassal or that, or this barbarian or that, and when it wasn’t fighting external enemies its generals and its emperors were fighting each other. Telemachus witnessed the incredible excitement in the city. The citizens discussed the upcoming combats, their favorite gladiators, the placing of their bets. On that fateful day in 404 AD, Telemachus followed the mob into the Colosseum to observe what would take place. Christians for some centuries publicly opposed the games, which endeared them neither to the masses nor the government. The early church father Turtullian some two centuries earlier had written a treatise on the subject discussing the pagan origins of the spectacles, which can be read here: https://www.pseudepigrapha.com/LostBooks/tertullian_spectacles.htm In this treatise, Turtullian described the history of this entertainment, it's relationship to the celebration and worship of pagan gods and goddesses in various cultures, and the arguments that pagans made to justify the events in the face of Christian criticism. Tertullian's conclusions in Spectacles are stark and direct: he called the gladiator games idolatry, and murder, born out of pagan honoring of the dead, and consecrated with the costumes, rites, and names of deities of pagan religion. No Christian, he says, should have any confusion about involvement or participation in these pagan events, where men made in the image of God fought and died. A few notable and compelling excerpts are footnoted here.[1] His arguments are worth reading. On that fateful day when Telemachus entered the Colosseum, he saw the gladiators turn and salute and declare, “We who are about to die salute you!” He saw the seething masses gathered to watch the violence with breathless anticipation, and a sense of horror overwhelmed him. He could not sit quietly and passively witness the violence without doing something. As the fighting started, Telemachus climbed onto a wall, and yelled, “In the name of Christ stop this! Stop this now!” Nobody paid any attention to him. The mob was transfixed by events in the arena. So Telemachus entered the arena. And suddenly the eyes of fifty thousand people were fixed on him. He approached the warring gladiators, shouting, “In the name of Christ, stop this! Stop it!” At first they ignored him, intent on their battle. But then the crowd's cheers changed to murmuring - who was this man interfering in their entertainment? Telemachus attempted to interpose physically between the gladiators, and was pushed back. The citizens in the seats quickly grew angry. Suddenly, a voice in the crowd shouted, “Kill him! Kill him!” The rest of the mob joined in. The chant went up – “kill him!”. The gladiators turned and began to stab Telemachus. History records that some of the Roman citizens pelted him with rocks. He was mortally wounded and collapsed on the sand, dying. Telemachus looked up at the gladiators, and with his dying breath said once more, “In the name of Christ, stop.” And then he lay still. A hush fell over the crowd which a moment before had been seized with the spirit of violence and murder. The gladiators stood over the body of Telemachus. Silence overtook the arena. Soon one citizen quietly left the Colosseum. Then another. Every person who had witnessed the death of the innocent man was forced by the Holy Spirit to feel that their blood lust and love of violence had been the cause of his death. Soon afterward, and as a result of that day's events, Emperor Honorius banned the gladiator games permanently. Fast forward to our day, to the modern western world. To our Christian modern world. On June 14, 2026, an arena was set up on the White House grounds and an event dedicated to everything that the Roman Colosseum stood for was held for the viewing pleasure of the supposedly Christian nation. Men made in the image of God bloodied each other before the politicians and soldiers of the new Rome. People cheered. Wagers were made. Millions changed hands. The event was streamed on Paramount+ and while there has been no official release of the number of viewers, commentators speculate the event drew a Super Bowl size online crowd. Tell me, Reader, as you think about these things. Does the Christian west love Christ and the principles of His kingdom? Does it love mercy and kindness and peace and good will toward all men? Or does it love violence, blood and debauchery? What does it mean when the leaders of the supposedly Christian nation sit mere feet from the violence and the blood, in the midst of the maddened throng? When Telemachus gave his life to stop the gladiatorial games, Christianity in its simple, self-sacrificing power stopped the frenzied pagan mob. But who will rebuke the blood thirsty mob when it gathers under the pretended cloak of Christianity? Revelation 13 says that the power which looked like a lamb will speak like a dragon. The dragon was Rome. Look around you and consider. Are we not living in the new Rome? ======================== Tertullian's Letter on Spectacles www.pseudepigrapha.com https://www.pseudepigrapha.com/LostBooks/tertullian_spectacles.htm [1] Now let us also point out that the other characteristics of the things which are going on at the spectacles are all opposed to God. God has given us the command both to deal with the Holy Spirit in tranquillity, gentleness, quiet, and peace, inasmuch as, in accordance with the goodness of His nature, He is tender and sensitive, and also not to vex Him by frenzy, bitterness of feeling, anger, and grief. How, then, can the Holy Spirit have anything to do with spectacles? There is no spectacle without violent agitation of the soul. For, where you have pleasure, there also is desire which gives pleasure its savor; where you have desire, there is rivalry which gives desire its savor. And where, in turn, you have rivalry, there also are frenzy and bitterness of feeling and anger and grief and the other effects that spring from them, and, moreover, are incompatible with our moral discipline. For, even if a man enjoys spectacles modestly and soberly, as befits his rank, age, and natural disposition, he cannot go to them without his mind being roused and his soul being stirred by some unspoken agitation. No one ever approaches a pleasure such as this without passion; no one experiences this passion without its damaging effects. These very effects are incitements to passion. On the other hand, if the passion ceases, there is no pleasure, and he who goes where he gains nothing is convicted of foolishness. Since, then, frenzy is forbidden us, we are debarred from every type of spectacle, including the circus, where frenzy rules supreme. Look at the populace, frenzied even as it comes to the show, already in violent commotion, blind, wildly excited over its wagers. Accordingly, from such beginnings the affair progresses to outbursts of fury and passion and discord and to everything forbidden to the priests of peace. Next come curses, insults without any justified reason for the hatred, and rounds of applause without the reward of affection. You have, therefore, the theater prohibited in the prohibition of uncleanness. Again, if we reject the learning of the world's literature as convicted of foolishness before God, we have a sufficiently clear rule also concerning those types of spectacles which, in profane literature, are classified as belonging to the comic or tragic stage. Now, if tragedies and comedies are bloody and wanton, impious and prodigal inventors of outrage and lust, the recounting of what is atrocious or base is no better; neither is what is objectionable in deed acceptable in word. Now, if you maintain that the stadium is not mentioned in the Scriptures, I will admit at once that you have a point. But as for what is done in the stadium, you cannot deny that it is unfit for you to see--punches and kicks and blows and all the reckless use of the fist and every disfiguration of the human face, that is, of God's image. Never can you approve the foolish racing and throwing feats and the more foolish jumping contests ; never can you be pleased with either harmful or foolish exhibitions of strength nor with the cultivation of an unnatural body, outdoing the craftsmanship of God; you will hate men bred to amuse the idleness of Greece.