A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 07

by Voltaire

"Before our Lord was taken by the Jews," says this well-beloved apostle of Jesus, "He assembled us all together, and said to us: 'Let us sing a hymn in honor of the Father, after which we will execute the design we have conceived.' He ordered us therefore to form a circle, holding one another by the hand; then, having placed Himself in the middle of the circle, He said to us: 'Amen; follow me.' Then He began the canticle, and said: 'Glory be to Thee, O Father!' We all answered, 'Amen.' Jesus continued, saying, 'Glory to the Word,' etc. 'Glory to the Spirit,' etc. 'Glory to Grace,' etc., and the apostles constantly answered, 'Amen.'"

After some other doxologies, Jesus said, "I will save, and I will be saved, Amen. I will unbind, and I will be unbound, Amen. I will be wounded, and I will wound, Amen. I will be born, and I will beget, Amen. I will eat, and I will be consumed, Amen. I will be hearkened to, and I will hearken, Amen. I will be comprehended by the spirit, being all spirit, all understanding, Amen. I will be washed, and I will wash, Amen. Grace brings dancing; I will play on the flute; all of you dance, Amen. I will sing sorrowful airs; now all of you lament, Amen."

St. Augustine, who begins a part of this hymn in his "Epistle to Ceretius", gives also the following: "I will deck, and I will be decked. I am a lamp to those who see me and know me. I am the door for all who will knock at it. Do you, who see what I do, be careful not to speak of it."

This dance of Jesus and the apostles is evidently imitated from that of the Egyptian Therapeutæ, who danced after supper in their assemblies, at first divided into two choirs, then united the men and the women together, as at the feast of Bacchus, after swallowing plenty of celestial wine as Philo says.

Besides we know, that according to the Jewish tradition, after their coming out of Egypt, and passing the Red Sea, whence the solemnity of the Passover took its name, Moses and his sister assembled two musical choirs, one composed of men, the other of women, who, while dancing, sang a canticle of thanksgiving. These instruments instantaneously assembled, these choirs arranged with so much promptitude, the facility with which the songs and dances are executed, suppose a training in these two exercises much anterior to the moment of execution.

The usage was afterwards perpetrated among the Jews. The daughters of Shiloh were dancing according to custom, at the solemn feast of the Lord, when the young men of the tribe of Benjamin, to whom they had been refused for wives, carried them off by the counsel of the old men of Israel. And at this day, in Palestine, the women, assembled near the tombs of their relatives, dance in a mournful manner, and utter cries of lamentation.

We also know that the first Christians held among themselves agapæ, or feasts of charity, in memory of the last supper which Jesus celebrated with his apostles, from which the Pagans took occasion to bring against them the most odious charges; on which, to banish every shadow of licentiousness, the pastors forbade the kiss of peace, that concluded the ceremony to be given between persons of different sexes. But various abuses, which were even then complained of by St. Paul, and which the Council of Gangres, in the year 324, vainly undertook to reform, at length caused the agapæ to be abolished in 397, by the Third Council of Carthage, of which the forty-first canon ordained, that the holy mysteries should be celebrated fasting.

It will not be doubted that these feastings were accompanied by dances, when it is recollected that, according to Scaliger, the bishops were called in the Latin Church "præsules," (from "præsiliendo") only because they led off the dance. Heliot, in his "History of the Monastic Orders," says also, that during the persecutions which disturbed the peace of the first Christians, congregations were formed of men and women, who, after the manner of the Therapeutæ, retired into the deserts, where they assembled in the hamlets on Sundays and feast days, and danced piously, singing the prayers of the Church.

In Portugal, in Spain, and in Roussillon, solemn dances are still performed in honor of the mysteries of Christianity. On every vigil of a feast of the Virgin, the young women assemble before the doors of the churches dedicated to her, and pass the night in dancing round, and singing hymns and canticles in honor of her. Cardinal Ximenes restored in his time, in the cathedral of Toledo, the ancient usage of the Mozarabian mass, during which dances are performed in the choir and the nave, with equal order and devotion. In France too, about the middle of the last century, the priests and all the people of the Limoges might be seen dancing round in the collegiate church, singing: "Sant Marcian pregas pernous et nous epingaren per bous"—that is, "St. Martian, pray for us, and we will dance for you."

And lastly, the Jesuit Menestrier, in the preface to his "Treatise on Ballets", published in 1682, says, that he had himself seen the canons of some churches take the singing boys by the hand on Easter day, and dance in the choir, singing hymns of rejoicing. What has been said in the article on "Calends," of the extravagant dances of the feast of fools, exhibits a part of the abuses which have caused dancing to be discontinued in the ceremonies of the mass, which, the greater their gravity, are the better calculated to impose on the simple.