"In the name of Christ, Stop!!!"
Suzanne Ennis
On January 1st in 404 A.D., an angry Roman gladiator stabbed to death the monk Telemachus because he tried to stop a brutal gladiatorial duel. The martyrdom of ...Telemachus led to Emperor Honorius declaring an end to the duels. To an audience in February 1984, President Ronald Reagan shared this account of what happened:
"It was at a time of a festival in Rome. They were celebrating a triumph over the Goths. And he followed a crowd into the Colosseum, and then there in the midst of this great crowd, he saw the gladiators come forth, stand before the Emperor, and say, 'We who are about to die salute you.' And he realized they were going to fight to the death for the entertainment of the crowds. And he cried out, 'In the name of Christ, stop!' And his voice was lost in the tumult there in the great Colosseum.
"And as the games began, he made his way down through the crowd and climbed over the wall and dropped to the floor of the arena. Suddenly the crowds saw this scrawny little figure making his way out to the gladiators and saying, over and over again, 'In the name of Christ, stop.' And they thought it was part of the entertainment, and at first they were amused. But then, when they realized it wasn't, they grew belligerent and angry. And as he was pleading with the gladiators, 'In the name of Christ, stop!' one of them plunged his sword into his body. And as he fell to the sand of the arena in death, his last words were, 'In the name of Christ, stop!'
"And suddenly, a strange thing happened. The gladiators stood looking at this tiny form lying in the sand. A silence fell over the Colosseum. And then, someplace up in the upper tiers, an individual made his way to an exit and left, and others began to follow. And in the dead silence, everyone left the Colosseum. That was the last battle to the death between gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. Never again did anyone kill or did men kill each other for the entertainment of the crowd.
"One tiny voice that could hardly be heard above the tumult. 'In the name of Christ, stop!' It is something we could be saying to each other throughout the world today."
"And as the games began, he made his way down through the crowd and climbed over the wall and dropped to the floor of the arena. Suddenly the crowds saw this scrawny little figure making his way out to the gladiators and saying, over and over again, 'In the name of Christ, stop.' And they thought it was part of the entertainment, and at first they were amused. But then, when they realized it wasn't, they grew belligerent and angry. And as he was pleading with the gladiators, 'In the name of Christ, stop!' one of them plunged his sword into his body. And as he fell to the sand of the arena in death, his last words were, 'In the name of Christ, stop!'
"And suddenly, a strange thing happened. The gladiators stood looking at this tiny form lying in the sand. A silence fell over the Colosseum. And then, someplace up in the upper tiers, an individual made his way to an exit and left, and others began to follow. And in the dead silence, everyone left the Colosseum. That was the last battle to the death between gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. Never again did anyone kill or did men kill each other for the entertainment of the crowd.
"One tiny voice that could hardly be heard above the tumult. 'In the name of Christ, stop!' It is something we could be saying to each other throughout the world today."
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