Note 45 — Chapter I · THE FALL OF THE THEATRES

D. C. A. s. vv. Actor, Theatre; Bingham, vi. 212, 373, 439; Alt, 310; Prynne, 556. Some, however, of the pronouncements of the fathers came to have equal force with the decrees of councils in canon law. The Code of Gratian (†1139), besides 3 Conc. Carth. c. 35 ‘scenicis atque ystrionibus, ceterisque huiusmodi personis, vel apostaticis conversis, vel reversis ad Deum, gratia vel reconciliatio non negetur’ (C. I. Can. iii. 2. 96) and 7 Conc. Carth. (419) c. 2 (Mansi, iv. 437) ‘omnes etiam infamiae maculis aspersi, id est histriones ... ab accusatione prohibentur’ (C. I. Can. ii. 4. 1. 1), includes two patristic citations. One is Cyprian, Ep. lxi. (P. L. iv. 362), which is ‘de ystrione et mago illo, qui apud vos constitutus adhuc in suae artis dedecore perseverat,’ and forbids ‘sacra communio cum ceteris Christianis dari’ (C. I. Can. iii. 2. 95); the other Augustine, Tract. C. ad c. 16 Iohannis (P. L. xxxv. 1891) ‘donare res suas histrionibus vitium est immane, non virtus’ (C. I. Can. i. 86. 7). Gratian adds Isidorus Hispalensis, de Eccl. Off. ii. 2 (P. L. lxxxiii. 778) ‘his igitur lege Patrum cavetur, ut a vulgari vita seclusi a mundi voluptatibus sese abstineant; non spectaculis, non pompis intersint’ (C. I. Can. i. 23. 3).