The Instructor 3.11.76

Nor, he says, shall you eat “the kite, or the swift-winged bird, or the eagle,” saying, You shall not come near those who get their living by plunder; and the rest is allegorized in the same way. With whom, then, should we associate? With the righteous, he says, again allegorizing. For everything that “parts the hoof and chews the cud” is clean, because parting the hoof signifies righteousness, which is evenly balanced and chews the cud of its own food of righteousness: the Word, which enters from outside like food through catechesis, but is brought back up from within, as from the stomach of the mind, into rational recollection. The righteous man chews the cud of spiritual food, having the Word in his mouth; and righteousness fittingly parts the hoof, sanctifying here and escorting us on to the age to come. So the Instructor will not lead us to the shows either; and one might not unfittingly call the stadiums and theaters “the seat of pestilences”; for there is evil “counsel” there too, as there was against the Righteous One, which is why the assembly against him is cursed. At any rate these gatherings are full of great disorder and lawlessness, and the pretexts for meeting are a cause of indecency, men and women coming together promiscuously to look at one another. There the assembly already shows off its vanity.