asserted, imply a well-known and usual custom, otherwise it would be commented upon as something out of the ordinary. (2) The sacred dance also takes the form of _encircling a sacred object_, either an idol, or a sacrificial victim, or an altar; in this last case the sacrificial victim would, of course, be included. The form of this type of dance was either a march-like step or a running step or else the worshippers held hands and danced round. This latter is nowhere specifically mentioned in the Old Testament; but it is such an obvious form for a dance to take that we can scarcely doubt its having existed among the Israelites. Besides, interesting examples of a concrete kind have been found depicting this form of dance round sacred objects which quite possibly owe their origin to Semitic inspiration; some of these are described in Chapter VI below. This encircling dance was undoubtedly an act of worship; it is also possible that in some cases it was intended to have a consecrating effect either upon the worshippers or upon the sacrificial victim; in the example given by Nilus (see p. 95) the latter would seem to have been the case. The theory of some scholars that the circle dance was a symbolic representation of the movement of the heavenly bodies has also a good deal to commend it. As a funeral rite this form of the sacred dance served some other purposes (see below). (3) The _ecstatic dance_ is that which has received most attention from scholars, and deservedly, for it is one of the most curious phenomena in the history of religious ritual. In the exuberance of emotion engendered by it the performers experienced what appeared to them to amount, for the time being, almost to a metamorphosis; they believed themselves to be infused and permeated by the influence—perhaps it would be truer to say the essence—of the deity in whose honour they were dancing. Thus came about what was conceived to be in some mystic, but wholly inexplicable way, a union with the deity adored. In the Old Testament we have the well-known example of the prophets performing this dance in 1 Sam. x. 5 ff.; its contagious character is graphically illustrated by the case of Saul, whose condition becomes such that the people ask: “Is Saul also among the prophets?” and he is spoken of as having been “turned into another man” because as a result of the ecstatic dance the spirit of Jahwe came mightily upon him. The language implies that when once the required condition has been reached it is then Jahwe Who takes the initiative; the body as such remains a passive instrument, but it becomes a Beth-el, a temporary house of God from which He speaks forth through the medium of the voice of the possessed. As in the case of other types of the sacred dance, there cannot be anything unique about this even though it is only referred to once or twice in the Old Testament; its incidental mention without further comment stamps it as being nothing out of the ordinary.