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Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo, 354-430

"The Confessions of St. Augustine"

" They, hearing this, led him on nevertheless, desirous perchance
to try that very thing, whether he could do as he said. When they were
come thither, and had taken their places as they could, the whole
place kindled with that savage pastime. But he, closing the passage of
his eyes, forbade his mind to range abroad after such evil; and
would he had stopped his ears also! For in the fight, when one fell, a
mighty cry of the whole people striking him strongly, overcome by
curiosity, and as if prepared to despise and be superior to it
whatsoever it were, even when seen, he opened his eyes, and was
stricken with a deeper wound in his soul than the other, whom he
desired to behold, was in his body; and he fell more miserably than he
upon whose fall that mighty noise was raised, which entered through
his ears, and unlocked his eyes, to make way for the striking and
beating down of a soul, bold rather than resolute, and the weaker,
in that it had presumed on itself, which ought to have relied on Thee.
For so soon as he saw that blood, he therewith drunk down
savageness; nor turned away, but fixed his eye, drinking in frenzy,
unawares, and was delighted with that guilty fight, and intoxicated
with the bloody pastime.


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