Theater in Debate
Between Lucian of Samosata and Tertullian
By Todd Farley (1994)
Characters:
Narrator
Lucian of Samosata
Tertullian
Notes:
This account is created to illustrate the thinking of opposing factions on the topic of the theatre.
Most of the quotes are from their own writings: however, at times they quote people who lived after their time and before the 700 A.D.
Quotes from Lucian’s “the Dance” and Tertullian’s “The Show’s” are in italics.
Narrator: Come into the grave, where two unlikely figures met on the way. The ancient satirist Lucian has been looking for early church father Tertullian, having just read Tertullian’s book entitled “The Shows,” Lucian has a bone to pick with him. Tertullian is familiar with Lucian, having read his book called “The Ass” and thinks little better of him.
Lucian: Tertullian! There you are. I've been looking all over for you. I've had the opportunity of reading over the indictment that you have so laboriously prepared against the theatre. I was hoping you'd spare me a moment to give me the pleasure of testing your thoughts. For is seems to me you have missed the mark, like Crato, and condemned to Hades that which is most noble in life. [1]
Tertullian: I'm afraid we have already divided paths, the only thing noble in Life is our Lord. I know of your speeches and your logic is not mine. You will win no debate with me, not with your foolish words and twisting. I will not play your fool or be your donkey.[2]
Lucian: Tell me, Tertullian do you pass judgment on me because I am not a Christian? Have you lost all your ability to talk on Human levels? Well, if that is so, we indeed have no grounds for conversation: for I am earth bound and not as heavenly as you. If you could condescend to my level for but a moment, we might even grow in our conversation.
Tertullian: I will talk to you as we are so oddly met, if only to convert your mind to true thoughts and from this devilry. Perhaps I shall deliver your soul from the clutches of Satan, whom you undoubtedly serve.[3]
Lucian: Heracles![4] You'd have me serve a god I don't even know. Well, you Christians are like that. Anyway, my first argument is this—dance and theatre are birthed by the gods: Rhea danced to save Zeus from Cronus,[5] the Indian God of Day danced and was danced to, [6] the Muses danced,[7] Dionysius and Aphrodite joined in the dance,[8] Ares learned to dance as a child-god,[9] the list goes on. To dance is to touch the art of the gods!
Tertullian: You point out your own falsity and perversion, and by your own words condemn yourself to fire! You claim your gods created dance. Listing the Titan Rhea as the first goddess that danced to save Zeus (the Devil Himself) from none other than Cronus (Satan himself) [10]—of whom even the other demon/gods expressed hatred![11] Dionysius or Bacchus, Aphrodite or Venus, These two evil spirits are in sworn confederacy with each other as patrons of drunkenness and lust; Venus wanton by her sex, and Bacchus with his phallic drapery.[12] While to dance's service is the voice, song, lute, and pipe which are the talents of Apollos, Muses, Minervas, and Mercuries.[13] These are names we execrate[14] from our midst, damned[15] names of evil idols!
Lucian: By Zeus,[16] your stubborn! I will change my argument to include your God. As I understand it[17] your God made the heavens[18] and your songs (Psalms) tell of the earth dancing (trembling or spinning) in awe of God,[19] our poets agree! They tell us, “the very Heavens dance in an interlacing of errant planets with fixed starts, their rhythmic agreement and timed harmony[20]are proofs that Dance was primordial. Dance then grew in stature until by the days in which we lived, she had reached a height of perfection and high diversification that was harmonious, a rich musical boon to mankind.”[21] Even your christian writers, in the Acts of John, speak of your Jesus as the dancer of the Universe, "I will pipe, Dance, all of you—to the Universe belongs the dancer—amen. He who does not dance does not know what happens—follow my dance, see yourself in Me who am speaking -- you who dance, consider what I do, for yours is this passion of Man which I am to suffer."[22] It sounds to me like your God even supports the dance![23]
Tertullian: Gods! Gods and heretics![24] With these you would support your claim. You must do better.
Lucian: Oh, but I can. Your Jesus uses references to dance: he and John piped to the Pharisees[25]—sounds like my Apollo![26] He also used dance in the story of the lost son.[27] I believe these stories meet your approval?
Tertullian: Don't profane the Lord’s name with comparisons to demons.[28] However, you surprise me with your knowledge of our Holy writings; or maybe I shouldn't be surprised at one who uses God's Words against humanity; so did the serpent in the garden! Your ignorance is also clear. These words were spoken as an allegory not as fact. Jesus never played the pipe nor condoned dance, He used it as a teaching tool.
Lucian: It seems strange that your God would use a teaching tool if it were evil. I would fear it would contaminate him—that is—if it were bad. I say, “all things were created by God, and given to man for his use, and that they must be good, as coming all from so good a source.”[29]
Tertullian: Yes, and the sun too, pours down his rays into the common sewer without being defiled.[30] God looks down on everything and every sin and is not polluted, that doesn't justify sin. Jesus used many strange illustrations such as storms and cruel judges; storms are not holy as allegories are not truth, they rather speak of truth.
Lucian: If you will not consider the gods, then consider humanity. Homer enumerates the dances with all that is sweetest and best, with dance alone blameless. A gift from God! "One man getteth from God the gift of achievement in Warfare. One, the art of dance, and song that stirreth the heart strings.”[31] The Delphic Oracle stated that whosoever beholds dancing must be able to understand the mute and hear the silent dancer.[32] Socrates in the Symposium commends dancing as a good exercize which he wants to learn.[33] Plato's Laws praises dance which is pleasurable and profitable and pyrrhic dances good for teaching form. Plato divided the human into three parts, with reason being disseminated through every potion of the dance. [34] Herodotus states that what is apprehended through the eyes is more trustworthy than hearing, theatre, therefore, appealing to the eye and ear is so much the better![35]
Tertullian: A gift from God! A tool of education? An expression of the spirit? Thedemons, predetermining in their own interests from the first, among other evils of idolatry, the pollutions of the public shows, danced with the object of drawing man away from his Lord and binding him to their own service, carried out their purpose by bestowing on him the artistic gifts which the shows require.[36] If these gifts were ever from God (which I doubt), then we must not only consider by whom all things were made, but by whom they have been perverted. There is a vast difference between the corrupted state and that of primal purity, just because there is a vast difference between the Creator and the corrupter. The theatre and dance in offending God, ceases to be His, it is in His eyes an offending thing for the creature has misused the creation.[37]As far as all of your philosophers and literature, we despise the teaching of secular literature as being foolishness in God's eyes.[38] Dance, as an expression of the Spirit, which gives pleasure? Pleasures as offered by this world are those of which we should abstain. We, being called to a higher Holy Call, strive imperfectly to be separated from this world's pleasures and embrace God's.[39]
Lucian: Did not your king David dance,[40] and what of Miriam?[41] Of this your holy brothers testified: Chrysostom said, “of those in heaven, those on earth, a unison is made, one General Assembly, one single service of thanksgiving, one single transport of rejoicing, one joyous dance.” Ambose wrote, “Everything is right when it springs from the fear of the Lord. Let's dance as David did. let's not be ashamed to show adoration of God. Dance uplifts the body above the earth into the heavenlies. Dance bound up with faith is a testimony to the living grace of God. He who dances as David danced, dances in grace.” The Bishop of Caesarea (407 A.D) asked, “could there be anything more blessed than to imitate on earth the ring dance of angels and saints? To join in our voices in prayer and son to glorify the risen creator.” Theodoret said, “I see dance as a virtue in harmony with power form above.” The Bishop of Milan (600 A.D.) taught to “dance as David danced.” St Gregory of Nazianzus expressed that to “dance as David to true refreshment of the Ark which I consider to be the approach to God, the swift encircling steps in the manner of mystery.”[42] With such a great cloud of witnesses how can you condemn dance?
Tertullian: As you will note, each made reference to David's dance with qualification: ‘Dance as David danced’—suggesting that to do otherwise is to invite error. As Augustine said, “to keep the sacred dances, discipline is most severe,”[43] David danced to God. The dances you've mentioned and the dances of theatre are to gods and humanity! They are acts of idolatry not praise and are therefore sinful and should be cast out. Judged as the Children of Israel before the Golden Calf,[44] they should be swallowed in judgment by the earth andperish in eternal fire![45]
Lucian: Can you fail to see the nobility of the theatre? When people go away form the theatre they have learned that they should choose and what to avoid, and have been taught what they did not know before.[46] Homer says, you know, of the golden wand of Hermes that he charmeth the eyes of man with it, whomsoever he wishes, and others he wakes that are sleeping—Odysseus ... says that dancing does just that: it charms the eyes and makes them wide awake, and it rouses the mind to respond to every detail of its performances.[47]Pantomime is such a science of imitation and portrayal, of revealing what is in the mind and making intelligible what is obscure.[48] Athenaeus said of Memphis, the dancer, “he discloses what the Pythagorean philosophy is, revealing everything to us in silence more clearly than those who profess themselves teachers of the art of speech.”[49] The praise of theatre will be consummate when each of those who behold him recognizes his own traits, or rather sees in the dancer as a mirror his very self, with his customary feelings and actions. Then by so seeing oneself, follow the Delphic monition to 'know thyself’.”[50]
Tertullian: I grant that you have there things that are pleasant, thing both agreeable and innocent in themselves; even some things that are excellent. Nobody dilutes poison with gall and hellebore: the accursed thing is put into condiments well seasoned and of sweetest taste. So, too, the devil puts into the deadly draught which he prepares, things of God most pleasant and most acceptable. Everything there, then, that is either brave, noble, loud-sounding, melodious, or exquisite in taste, hold it but as the honey drop of a poisoned cake; nor make so much of your taste for its pleasures, as of the danger you run from its attractions.[51]
Lucian: You argue well, and I fear I cannot win you over either with my words or words of your saints. I have piped and you would not dance!
Tertullian: Don't blaspheme![52]
Lucian: I'll save it until we meet again!
Narrator: And there you have it. A debate with no real resolution, for indeed neither one would seem to bend. Thus it is for you to decide the winner. Should the theatre be admitted into our churches, or do we too fear that in attending the theatres—or the cinemas—of our present world, that we are entering into the domain of demons who lurk in the isles? Shall we open our ears to the piping-song of a Siren or Christ?
[1] Crato is the antagonist in Lucian’s The Dance. This dialogue opens in the manner found in The Dance, by quoting parts of Crato’s condemnation of dance (pantomime).
[2] Lucian was a famous satirist who was well known for his satire The Ass,wherein the protagonist is portrayed as a donkey. It is possible that Tertullian would be acquainted with Lucian’s works.
[3] Tertullian repeatedly states that the actor and those who go to the theatre are in the devil’s kingdom and serve his realm, see chp XXVI.
[4] Crato in The Dance, par., 4.
[5] The Dance, par., 8. Cronus was a titan and father to Zeus. A prophecy had been given to Cronus that one of his children would kill him, thus, Cronus ate all of his children in an effort to stop the fulfillment of the prophecy. When his wife Rhea (mother of heaven) gave birth to Zeus, she hid him in the midst of dancing women. These women danced with swords and shields in a pyrrhic dance called the Curetes. The clashing of the shields covered the noises of the crying baby god, saving him from his fathers Cronus.
[6] The Dance, par., 17. The natives of India where said to welcome their god with silent dancing and mimetic movement in imitation of “the god of Dance” in honor of the “god of Day.”
[7] Lucian is quoting from Hesiod’s Theogony
[8] Ibid., par., 22.
[9] The goddess Hera was called the queen of Heaven and was the wife of the god Zeus. Her son was named Ares (the god of war, Latin: Mar). Hera had Ares trained in the dance to better his skills of war. She had him learn the dance and art of war from the titan Priapus.
[10] Throughout The Shows, Tertullian mentions the gods as personifications of demons and “the Devil.” In chapter XXIII Tertullian refers to Satan as the creator/director of the theatre, the ludi. In consideration of Tertullian’s penchant to ascribe parallel the gods with demons, I have paralleled Zeus to “the Devil” and Cronus to Satan.
[11] Cronus is hated by the other gods because he devoured them, they continued to live in his stomach until delivered by Zeus.
[12] The Shows, chp X
[13] ibid.
[14] ibid.
[15] ibid., Tertullian states that the theatrical arts, artists and god/demons of the theatre are all damned.
[16] The Dance, par., 85
[17] Lucian is thought to have converted to Christianity for a brief period in his life and could have be familiar with Christian teachings: evidence of this is found in Lucian’s book The Passing of Peregrinus.
[18] Gen. 1; Isa. 42:5; 45:18; Rev. 10:6
[19] Ps. 18:7; 68:8; 77:28; 96:11; 114:7
[20] The Dance, par., 7
[21] ibid., paraphrased from Lycinus’ arguments.
[22] Ron Cameron, ed., The Other Gospels, “The Acts of John,” p 91-93, lines 94-96. The Acts of John is a Gnostic gospel rejected by later orthodox Christianity for its presentation of Christ as having only “appeared” human in the body of Jesus. However, it was in circulation during the times of the early church and is quoted by St. Augustine. What is interesting in this quote is that a “dancing Christ” is pictured without outrage from the church.
[23] Ps. 149; 150; Luke 15
[24] “God’s” referring to Zeus, Bacchus, et al., “heretics” referring to the writers of The Acts of John. Tertullian would have been against this Gnostic presentation of Christ.
[25] Matt. 11:17; Luke 7:32
[26] The Shows, chp X, Tertullian correctly states that it was believed that Apollo played the pipe (flute).
[27] Luke 15
[28] Tertullian would have seen the mention of Apollo being compared to Jesus as a comparison of a Demon to Christ. It is ironic that in the Renaissance Apollo will be compared to Christ and used as a “symbol” of that which is good, see Leoni de Somi’s dialogue on theatre.
[29] This is a paraphrase from Tertullian, The Shows, chp XX.
[30] Ibid.
[31] The Dance, par., 23
[32] ibid., par., 62
[33] ibid., par., 25
[34] ibid., par., 34
[35] ibid., par., 80
[36] The Shows, chp X
[37] ibid., chp II
[38] ibid., chp
[39] ibid., chp I
[40] II Sam. 6:14-16, I Chr. 15:29, David danced “before the Lord” manifest in the Art of the Covenant.
[41] Exo. 15:20, Miriam leads the women of Israel in a antiphonal chorus—mimetic dance—in praise to God after the crossing of the sea and the death of Pharaoh’s army. Victory dances were traditional in the lives of the Israelites; also see Jdg 11:34; I Sam 18:6.
[42] These quotes of early Church fathers are cited by Sam Sasser in “The Dance: to be or not to be,” a paper presented to the faculty of ORU, 1984. pp 10-11
[43] ibid.
[44] Exo. 32
[45] The Shows, chp XXX
[46] The Dance, par., 81
[47] ibid., par., 85
[48] ibid., par., 36
[49] ibid., par., 72
[50] ibid., par., 81
[51] The Shows, chp XXVII
[52] The blaspheme here is Lucian comparison to his own truths as parallel to those “piped” by Jesus. Lucian is stating that Tertullian is as closed minded to the truth as the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.
