Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
The pagans, among whom there is no fullness of truth, because God, the teacher of truth, is not among them, interpret good and evil at their own pleasure and appetite: what is good in one place is bad in another, and what is bad in one place is good in another. So it happens that a man who will scarcely lift his tunic in public, and only under the compulsion of nature, will strip in the circus in no half-measure, thrusting the whole of his shame into everyone's face; and the man who shields his unmarried daughter's ears against any coarse word will lead her himself into the theater, straight to those very voices and gestures. And the man who breaks up or curses a brawl fought hand-to-hand in the street will, in the stadium, cast his vote for still heavier blows; and the man who shudders at the corpse of someone who died a natural death will, in the amphitheater, lean down with the most tolerant of eyes upon bodies gnawed and scattered and caked in their own blood. Indeed, that same fellow who attends the exhibition to watch a murderer justly punished will himself, with whips and rods, drive an unwilling gladiator on to commit murder; and the man who demands a lion for some especially notorious killer will, for a savage gladiator, beg the wooden sword and the cap of freedom as his prize—and will even ask to see that same man's face again once he has been finished off, recognizing up close, and with greater relish, the man he wished dead at a distance, and all the harsher on him if he did not wish it.