Last movie you saw?

[Mono no aware]

Um... St. Justin Martyr's Discourse to the Greeks is entirely about their gods... (and thus culture), so yeah, that does fall under paganistic worship. The NWE article on St. Justin Martyr categorizes his Discourse to the Greeks as: "Discourse to the Greeks - a discussion with Greek philosophers on the character of their gods;" Also, the section/chapter title is an add-in. It's not what he titled it, but the translator. So basing an argument off of that is like some Protestant touting a verse numbering difference as proof of Catholic destruction of the Scriptures. It's just asinine.

You're losing me here, Gardener.  I wasn't using the section heading alone to contend that St. Justin disdained dancing and sensuous music.  The actual denouncement comes within that section itself.  Even if it had been titled nothing other than "Chapter IV," it would still contain his condemnation of these practices.  Do you honestly think St. Justin was only repulsed by "excessive banquetings and subtle flutes which provoke to lustful movements" in the context of pagan holidays, and that he felt these things were perfectly okay for Christians?  Because a.) it would put him at odds with the other Church Fathers who hated revelry and dancing, and b.) it wouldn't even be coherent against his own work, as he doesn't elsewhere betray that level of rank permissiveness.  So I'm left unclear as to what you're claiming here in your appeal to the context.  We can agree on this much: yes, the context of the condemnation regards pagan practices.  Am I correct, though, in reading you as saying that the condemnation only applies to pagan practices?  It would be the mother of all nuances, I think, to conclude that St. Justin only hated parties and bodily gyrations when the pagans did them, and didn't care a fig if Christians did them.  It seems pretty clear from the passage that he hates those things unequivocally.

It would seem to me that there is a danger of viewing the condemnations of the past through the rose colored glasses of what we imagine that past to be. People tend to think of the past as some far more innocent time, so surely those condemnations are of things more innocent than we see today. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I'd say the past was far worse in a sense, and we are only now coming up to a reiteration of it.

I certainly don't think of the past as a necessarily more innocent time.  Chester and I covered this in another thread.  The interesting thing is that the era in which the Early Church Fathers found themselves was massively hedonistic and debauched.  (I do commend Greg on his excellent phrase, "tits and bums a-plenty"—but he has always been a wordsmith without even trying for it).  And so the thing is, even in an age where the prevailing culture was so awful that you would think the Church Fathers would've made some concessions toward it, and been "nuanced" and lax like everyone thinks we should be now, instead they doubled down on austerity.

[Maximilian]

This is Irish hard shoe/step dancing from 1963:

This is the same tune as the song in "Darby O'Gill and the Little People":

[Maximilian]

Although he does not discuss it, I'm convinced he thought 'his own' would receive correction in humility.  It's obvious he's astounded at the worldliness of many traditional Catholics, thus, "commendable zeal" is an excellent description, PDR.

Lol, I like you, PED, but this just makes me laugh.

"He thought they'd listen to a random crank!  Why are they so worldly!"

To connect the Jerome question to the movie theme, very often we think that we are judging a work of art, but in reality it is judging us. We think that we are in a position to evaluate its merits and flaws, when really it is evaluating us, whether our souls have the capacity to appreciate its beauty.

Like if we went to an art museum and stood in front of a painting by Raphael, we might think that it is our prerogative to criticize it, but in actuality it is testing us.

I think of the movie "Tree of Wooden Clogs" in that category. I have heard people criticize it, but those criticisms tell me nothing about the movie, they only reveal things about the person.

https://gloria.tv/video/RQ9iajSrCftM4AokeeXjEoW9C

[This video is from Gloria.tv, so I don't think there is any way to embed a live link.]

[Maximilian]

I think of the movie "Tree of Wooden Clogs" in that category. I have heard people criticize it, but those criticisms tell me nothing about the movie, they only reveal things about the person.

https://gloria.tv/video/RQ9iajSrCftM4AokeeXjEoW9C

[This video is from Gloria.tv, so I don't think there is any way to embed a live link.]

Speaking of which, I clicked on a random spot in the movie, and it was the scene at 1:25:53 where the mother comes into the group of people dancing at a festival and slaps her daughter, saying "So this is how you go to 'Vespers,' you liar. You said you were going to church, and here you are dancing."

Then to the others she says, "You laugh, but you're on the verge of hell. You won't laugh anymore when you're burning in the flames. Liars, you have no fear of God."

[PerEvangelicaDicta]

I now have this bookmarked.  Thank you Maximilian. 

Interesting trivia:

All the actors were real peasants from the Bergamo province, in Italy. They had no acting experience at all.

From IMDB, note this comment excerpt from someone who loved the movie and, representative of the modern world, hasn't a clue what our faith is about.  Indeed, they are brainwashed that we were/are superstitious peasants.  I especially cringe at his use of the phrase "of course" !

You get a fascinating look at what to us now of course seems a backward combination of ancient religious myths and medieval magic, all believed in the hope of a better life in what is a difficult existence

[Lynne]

This is Irish hard shoe/step dancing from 1963:


Hardly invoking to lust. Laughter, maybe... lust not so much.

That's lovely! Why would someone laugh at that?

[Mono no aware]

I now have this bookmarked.  Thank you Maximilian. 

From IMDB, note this comment excerpt from someone who loved the movie and, representative of the modern world, hasn't a clue what our faith is about.  Indeed, they are brainwashed that we were/are superstitious peasants.  I especially cringe at his use of the phrase "of course" !

You get a fascinating look at what to us now of course seems a backward combination of ancient religious myths and medieval magic, all believed in the hope of a better life in what is a difficult existence

I, too, haven't seen the film, and am grateful to Max for recommending it.  The comments on IMDb are interesting; there is one person who says "I would pronounce myself an atheist if that didn't suggest the arrogance of certainty, but this movie comes as close to touching the soul as any I've ever seen."  What's fascinating to me, especially in these discussions about worldliness, is that it seems more often to be the lives and behavior of Christians that impresses people more than the intellectual apologetics.  (It's a matter of actions speaking louder than words: even the emperor Julian, who despised the faith, admitted that he was humbled by the charity and discipline of the Christian community).  I think what a lot of people tend to miss is that a rustic simplicity and asceticism have a quiet eloquence all their own, much more so than the trumpeting of doctrines.  It reminds me of the episode of Elijah where the Lord was not in a storm or an earthquake or a fire, but in a "gentle breeze," or when Pilate asked Christ, "what is truth?" and he confounded him by keeping silent: the answer was right in front of him.  As you said of your friend Jerome, he "walks the talk."

I'm looking forward to watching The Tree of the Wooden Clogs, but looks like I will need to set aside an afternoon: it's three hours long.

[Gardener]

This is Irish hard shoe/step dancing from 1963:
[removed for PDR's trimming preference]
Hardly invoking to lust. Laughter, maybe... lust not so much.

That's lovely! Why would someone laugh at that?

Because I don't see how such a thing would provoke to lust, but I can see laughter. I dunno why someone would laugh. But I certainly cannot see lust.

[PerEvangelicaDicta]

... it seems more often to be the lives and behavior of Christians that impresses people more than the intellectual apologetics.

I'd not thought of that as a modern world possibility, but you're absolutely correct. It seems to be true even today. 
A book that greatly influenced a moment by moment conscious effort to stay close to Him was Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange's Our Savior and His Love for Us, wherein the preface beautifully set the stage with an emphasis on non-coincidental nature of God's Will in our daily encounters, even the most <what appears to be> banal.  Our responsibility to comport ourselves as Catholic at all times is critically important, since it is an instrument in conversion. 

"Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words."

Love your comments, PDR.

[Mono no aware]

I don't see how such a thing would provoke to lust, but I can see laughter. I dunno why someone would laugh. But I certainly cannot see lust.

According to St. John Chrysostom (and yes, it was in a sermon which used the dance of Salome as a starting point), it is not just lustfulness that is the problem with dancing.  He says it has an animalistic unseemliness.  He said, "God gave us feet that we might walk in an orderly fashion, not that we might jump about like camels."  Again, this is more about keeping one's dignity and composure than stripteasing.  If you think of the spindly limbs and gangly movements of a camel, you can realize that he is talking in general about the idiotic and herky-jerky gestures of almost any dance, not just the sensuous hip-swinging and belly-dancing of the seven veils.  Irish step dance isn't lustful, but it's certainly exhilarating.  I think we can be fairly sure that St. John would've seen it as being a part of an atmosphere of foot-stomping, hand-clapping, and revelry.  "Where there is dance," he said, "there is the devil."

[Lydia Purpuraria]

I don't see how such a thing would provoke to lust, but I can see laughter. I dunno why someone would laugh. But I certainly cannot see lust.

According to St. John Chrysostom (and yes, it was in a sermon which used the dance of Salome as a starting point), it is not just lustfulness that is the problem with dancing.  He says it has an animalistic unseemliness.  He said, "God gave us feet that we might walk in an orderly fashion, not that we might jump about like camels."  Again, this is more about keeping one's dignity and composure than stripteasing.  If you think of the spindly limbs and gangly movements of a camel, you can realize that he is talking in general about the idiotic and herky-jerky gestures of almost any dance, not just the sensuous hip-swinging and belly-dancing of the seven veils.  Irish step dance isn't lustful, but it's certainly exhilarating.  I think we can be fairly sure that St. John would've seen it as being a part of an atmosphere of foot-stomping, hand-clapping, and revelry.  "Where there is dance," he said, "there is the devil."

I think it's interesting that according to this writing of a belly dancer ("Oriental dance artist") she has found no proof of Salome's dance being a striptease or intending to be necessarily lust-inspiring at all.  She claims that, "the original Greek word used in the New Testament account used to refer to Salomé is korasion, meaning a little girl not yet old enough to have breasts or menstruate. Also, the word used for the dancing done by Salomé in the original Greek is orxeomai, which not only means dance, but playful goofing off of young children. Based on this, Qan-Tuppim concludes that Salomé was probably just an adorable small child, the Shirley Temple of her day."  She goes into more on the history of dancing in the Middle East and where the modern idea of the 'seven veils striptease' comes from, that you can read by clicking on the link.  But it's basically summarized by her statement that, "The "dance of the seven veils" has never been a part of Middle Eastern dance traditions, and is not performed in the Middle East today. It was invented by European minds, and has been preserved by the entertainment industry."

Does anyone know offhand if some of her claims are correct (especially the Greek she referred to)?  I don't have time at the moment to look more thoroughly into some of her claims to verify, and she's clearly not coming at this from a Catholic perspective so she could be way off.   I thought it was kind of interesting, in part, for for that reason, too.  That she's a belly dancer and not trying to justify dancing from a Christian perspective.  (And I was actually already thinking about this topic before the thread due in part to my husband being part Lebanese and the local Maronite Church having dancers at their festival.  He told me they were not at all sensuous in their manner of dancing (in the way we generally think of belly dancers) and they were fully clothed.  But they had still introduced some of the western elements that the linked article discusses.  Which is sad, in my opinion.  And, according to St. John Chrysostom, none of it should have been going on at all!  Those early Church Fathers weren't messing around!) 

[DominusTecum]

The Fathers got it wrong sometimes.

Ideas were percolating among certain Church Fathers that if we're being honest are very clearly proto-Islamic, as uncomfortable as that fact might make us as Christians. The affinity is in their iconoclastic spirit which extends far beyond opposition to the creation of artistic images to penetrate deep into other areas of human life and into the human soul. The result is a kind of cultural and spiritual deconstructionism that reduces the person and society to its bare functionality and threatens to strip away the unique God-given nature of each individual. That distasteful tendency among certain Fathers is one of the reasons I don't view them as a higher authority than later Saints and Doctors of the Church who, as far as I'm concerned, actually course-corrected in some significant ways. Consider the Christian artistic tradition - the fact is, many of the Church fathers were simply wrong about sacred images. The Medievals got it right. And if so many Fathers can be wrong about images, they can be wrong about dancing, especially since the arguments against both art forms are often predicated on near identical assumptions. At the root of this iconoclasm there seems to be a profound rationalistic hostility to physical symbolic gestures or representations of any kind, almost certainly rooted in Neoplatonic idealism and apophatic theology. It still amazes me that Orthodox Christians refuse to recognise the radical incompatibility between the apophatic theology they champion and the Icons they venerate. The Byzantine iconoclasts (all apophatic neoplatonists) were simply honest about the impossibility of sacred images within an apophatic Neoplatonic framework. If Orthodox practice followed Orthodox theology with any consistency, they'd be as iconoclastic as the wahhabists.

God bless him, but I have to take issue with Chrysostom's claim that we were given feet so that we would walk in an orderly fashion, not to leap or to dance with. Apply his thought consistently and even physical exercise becomes a grave violation of God's intended order. The fact is that even the ritualistic symbolic gestures of the liturgy are close to dance in some respects. You could do a real number on the Mass using the same corrosive logic. Try this: "God gave us mouths that we might eat with them, not kiss altars"

Measure Christians throughout the ages according to the opinions of some of the Church Fathers and only one conclusion is possible: Muslims have been the better Christians all along. I'm not buying it.

[Mono no aware]

I think you have it backwards.  Islam stole from Christianity, not "the Early Church Fathers were proto-Islamic."

It's an oversimplification to say St. John Chrysostom meant that feet have only one function.  Obviously it might be necessary to kick something or stomp something, and this deviates from mere walking.  Your mention of mouths being able to kiss altars besides just eat food is indicative of what he would've found as a commendable secondary function: a reverent and meaningful gesture.  Dancing is not reverent, unless I guess you're talking about the realm of "liturgical dance," which I think is anathema to traditional Catholics.

[Gardener]

The Fathers got it wrong sometimes.

Ideas were percolating among certain Church Fathers that if we're being honest are very clearly proto-Islamic, as uncomfortable as that fact might make us as Christians. The affinity is in their iconoclastic spirit which extends far beyond opposition to the creation of artistic images to penetrate deep into other areas of human life and into the human soul. The result is a kind of cultural and spiritual deconstructionism that reduces the person and society to its bare functionality and threatens to strip away the unique God-given nature of each individual. That distasteful tendency among certain Fathers is one of the reasons I don't view them as a higher authority than later Saints and Doctors of the Church who, as far as I'm concerned, actually course-corrected in some significant ways. Consider the Christian artistic tradition - the fact is, many of the Church fathers were simply wrong about sacred images. The Medievals got it right. And if so many Fathers can be wrong about images, they can be wrong about dancing, especially since the arguments against both art forms are often predicated on near identical assumptions. At the root of this iconoclasm there seems to be a profound rationalistic hostility to physical symbolic gestures or representations of any kind, almost certainly rooted in Neoplatonic idealism and apophatic theology. It still amazes me that Orthodox Christians refuse to recognise the radical incompatibility between the apophatic theology they champion and the Icons they venerate. The Byzantine iconoclasts (all apophatic neoplatonists) were simply honest about the impossibility of sacred images within an apophatic Neoplatonic framework. If Orthodox practice followed Orthodox theology with any consistency, they'd be as iconoclastic as the wahhabists.

God bless him, but I have to take issue with Chrysostom's claim that we were given feet so that we would walk in an orderly fashion, not to leap or to dance with. Apply his thought consistently and even physical exercise becomes a grave violation of God's intended order. The fact is that even the ritualistic symbolic gestures of the liturgy are close to dance in some respects. You could do a real number on the Mass using the same corrosive logic. Try this: "God gave us mouths that we might eat with them, not kiss altars"

Measure Christians throughout the ages according to the opinions of some of the Church Fathers and only one conclusion is possible: Muslims have been the better Christians all along. I'm not buying it.

I'd wondered where you'd gone. We had a bit of head butting before, but your more recent posts have been positively indicative of a sharp mind. Makes me want to revisit those post to which I took umbrage and investigate if I was being too harsh.

I saw this video today and it made me think of you:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8utmmWoBSBY[/yt]

[Chestertonian]

I don't see how such a thing would provoke to lust, but I can see laughter. I dunno why someone would laugh. But I certainly cannot see lust.

According to St. John Chrysostom (and yes, it was in a sermon which used the dance of Salome as a starting point), it is not just lustfulness that is the problem with dancing.  He says it has an animalistic unseemliness.  He said, "God gave us feet that we might walk in an orderly fashion, not that we might jump about like camels."  Again, this is more about keeping one's dignity and composure than stripteasing.  If you think of the spindly limbs and gangly movements of a camel, you can realize that he is talking in general about the idiotic and herky-jerky gestures of almost any dance, not just the sensuous hip-swinging and belly-dancing of the seven veils.  Irish step dance isn't lustful, but it's certainly exhilarating.  I think we can be fairly sure that St. John would've seen it as being a part of an atmosphere of foot-stomping, hand-clapping, and revelry.  "Where there is dance," he said, "there is the devil."

I haven't spent much time around camels, so I got curious and searched youtube for "jumpingcamels" and this is what came up.  There were more videos of people jumping over camels than there were videos of jumping camels

I'd disagree that every dance can be compared to camels jumping around.  It would be really interesting to see a video of the type of dancing St. John Chrysostom was warning us about but it's safe to say he hasn't seen Irish step dancing or "Sleeping Beauty" at the Metropolitan Ballet or country line dancing.  I will agree that there is a real animalistic/tribal element to a lot of modern dance music.  I've never understood the point of a song that is simply about dancing and having a good time and it seems like in the past 10 years or so songwriters can't even bother writing a chorus anymore, it's just "oh-whoa-o-o-o-oh" stuff.  they call it "the millennial whoop"



I remember talking to my dad about going to my junior prom a few months before I died.  he said, "horrible music, gentile women dressed like tramps, food that isn't kosher, what could possibly go wrong"  We weren't allowed to do any kind of mixed gender dancing, although I do remember parties where all of the men got up and danced in a big circle.  I was allowed to go to my Reform cousins' bar mitzvah dances but had to sit out during the mixed gender stuff.  So after he died and I was 18 I decided I was going to take my gentile ballerina girlfriend to my senior prom and it was just as he said--horrible music, gentile women dressed like tramps, and overstimulating strobe lights and flashing colored lights.  What I do remember fondly was watching my wife and her dancer friends attempting to copy the typical gyrating dance moves everyone else was doing.  There's something endearing about a bunch of classically trained ballet dancers attempting to "shake it like a polaroid picture"  but failing because they are too graceful.