—Doug
As far as I can tell from my research, dance was not part of worship in
the early church. Jewish culture featured dancing at weddings and the
Feast of Tabernacles, and of course there are numerous references to
David dancing in the Old Testament, but such dancing was spontaneous and
celebratory, not liturgical. As a result, early Christians from Jewish
backgrounds probably lacked a tradition of dance during formal worship.
Dancing only appears in the New Testament in two contexts: Herod's
banquet (Mark 6:21-22, with disastrous results for John the Baptist) and
the celebration of the Prodigal Son's return (Luke 15:22-27).
By contrast, dance played a prominent role in many pagan cults, such as
the orgiastic cult of Dionysius. Because early Christians in no way
wished to be associated with such rites, they most likely avoided
dancing in church, though their intense, sometimes ecstatic worship (see
Acts 2:43, 1 Cor. 14:26 for examples) may well have included motions of
some sort. Christians avoided social dancing, too, as it was usually
associated with drinking and sexual immorality in Roman culture.
The church fathers paint a generally bleak view of dancing but do not
wholly preclude sacred dance. Clement of Alexandria, writing circa 195,
interpreted Old Testament Scriptures in such a way as to excise
reference to literal dancing: " 'Praise with the timbrel and the dance.'
This refers to the church meditating on the resurrection of the dead in
the resounding skin." Commodius, writing around 240, associated dancing
with worldliness: "You are rejecting the law when you wish to please
the world. You dance in your houses. Instead of psalms, you sing love
songs." Cyprian, though, writing about a decade later, makes some
distinction between godly and ungodly dance: "The fact that David led
the dances in the presence of God is no sanction for faithful Christians
to occupy seats in the public theater. For David did not twist his
limbs about in obscene movements. He did not depict in his dancing the
story of Grecian lust."
For more on this topic, see the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on "dancing"
Quotes from church fathers taken from A Dictionary of Early Christian
Beliefs, edited by David W. Bercot (Hendrickson, 1998). I also found
information in Everett Ferguson's Backgrounds of Early Christianity (2nd
ed., Eerdmans, 1993).
By contrast, dance played a prominent role in many pagan cults, such as the orgiastic cult of Dionysius. Because early Christians in no way wished to be associated with such rites, they most likely avoided dancing in church, though their intense, sometimes ecstatic worship (see Acts 2:43, 1 Cor. 14:26 for examples) may well have included motions of some sort. Christians avoided social dancing, too, as it was usually associated with drinking and sexual immorality in Roman culture.
The church fathers paint a generally bleak view of dancing but do not wholly preclude sacred dance. Clement of Alexandria, writing circa 195, interpreted Old Testament Scriptures in such a way as to excise reference to literal dancing: " 'Praise with the timbrel and the dance.' This refers to the church meditating on the resurrection of the dead in the resounding skin." Commodius, writing around 240, associated dancing with worldliness: "You are rejecting the law when you wish to please the world. You dance in your houses. Instead of psalms, you sing love songs." Cyprian, though, writing about a decade later, makes some distinction between godly and ungodly dance: "The fact that David led the dances in the presence of God is no sanction for faithful Christians to occupy seats in the public theater. For David did not twist his limbs about in obscene movements. He did not depict in his dancing the story of Grecian lust."
For more on this topic, see the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on "dancing"
Quotes from church fathers taken from A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, edited by David W. Bercot (Hendrickson, 1998). I also found information in Everett Ferguson's Backgrounds of Early Christianity (2nd ed., Eerdmans, 1993).
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