The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE EQUINOX (now) inspiring it, at one time in processional hymns, at another in standing songs, turning and re-turning in the dance. “Then when each band has feasted (that is, has sung and danced) apart by itself, drinking of God-pleasing (nectar), just as in the Bacchic rites men drink the wine unmixed, then they join together, and one chorus is formed of the two bands, in imitation of the joined chorus on the banks of the Red Sea, because of the wonderful works that had been there wrought. For the sea at God’s command became for one party a cause of safety and for the other a cause of ruin. [Philo here refers to the fabled dance of triumph of the Israelites at the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, when Moses led the men and Miriam the women in a common dance ; but the Therapeuts all over the world could not have traced the custom to this myth.] “So the chorus of men and women Therapeuts, being formed as closely as possible on this model, by means of melodies in parts and harmony—the high notes of the women answering to the deep tones of the men—produces a harmonious and most musical symphony. The ideas are of the most beautiful, the expressions of the most beautiful, and the dancers reverent; while the goal of the ideas, expressions, and dances is piety. “Thus drunken unto morning’s light with this fair drunkenness, with no head-heaviness or drowsiness, but with eyes and body fresher even than when they came to the banquet, they take their stand at dawn, when, catch- ing sight of the rising sun, they raise their hands to