Wounded at the Theatre

by John Chrysostom
(AD 349-407)

If you see a shameless woman in the theater, who treads the stage with uncovered head and bold attitudes dressed in garments adorned with gold, flaunting her soft sensuality, singing immoral songs, throwing her limbs about in the dance, and making shameless speeches ... do you still dare to say nothing human happens to you then?

Long after the theater is closed and everyone is gone away, those images still float before your soul their words, their conduct, their glances, their walk, their positions, their excitation, their unchaste limbs -- and as for you, you go home covered with a thousand wounds! But not alone -- the shameless woman goes with you -- although not openly and visibly but in your heart, and in your conscience, and there within you, she kindles the Babylonian furnace in which the peace of your home, the purity of your heart, and the happiness of your marriage will be burnt up! "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8).