St.
Chrysostom says:--"The feet were not given for dancing, but to walk
modestly; not to leap impudently like camels."
One of the dogmas of the ancient church reads: "A dance is the devil's
possession; and he that entereth into a dance, entereth into his
possession. The devil is the gate to the middle and to the end of the
dance. As many passes as a man makes in dancing, so many passes doth
he make to hell." Elsewhere, these old dogmas declare--"The woman
that singeth in the dance is the princess of the devil; and those
that answer are his clerks; and the beholders are his friends, and
the music are his bellows, and the fiddlers are the ministers of the
devil; for, as when hogs are strayed, if the hogs'-herd call one,
all assemble together, so the devil calleth one woman to sing in the
dance, or to play on some instrument, and presently all the dancers
gather together."
This wholesale and indiscriminate denunciation grew out of the utter
dissoluteness of those ancient plays. So great at one time was the
offence to all decency, that the Roman Senate decreed the expulsion of
all dancers and dancing-masters from Rome.
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