HALLOWEEN & ALL SAINTS DAY
WE KNOW THAT CHRISTMAS is the holiday which
brings the most income to business, but do you know which holiday is second
most profitable? Valentine's day? -- No. Easter? -- No. Thanksgiving? -- No
again. The answer is Halloween. Halloween has become both very popular and
very profitable in the US So where did Halloween come from?
"Hallow" in Old English means "holy" or "sacred" (as in the Lord's
Prayer, "Hallowed by Thy Name"). "Hallow's Eve" or "Halloween" simply means
the "evening of holy persons" and refers to the evening before All Saints
Day, which is November 1 on both Anglican and Roman Catholic calendars.
In the early years when Rome persecuted Christians, so many martyrs died
for the faith that the Church set aside special days to honor them. In 607
Emperor Phocas presented to the Pope the beautiful Pantheon temple in Rome.
Originally built in 27 BC by Agrippa in honor of Augustus' victory at Actium
and dedicated to Jupiter and the planetary divinities, the Pantheon was one
of the few remaining old heathen temples. Pope Boniface IV quickly removed
the statues of Jupiter and the pagan gods and consecrated the Pantheon
to "all saints" who had died from Roman persecutions in the first three hundred
years after Christ. During the dedication on May 13 in the year 609
or 610, a procession of twenty-eight carriages brought the bones of martyrs
from the various cemeteries to the church. In following years, a festival
of All Hallows or All Saints Day honoring all martyrs spread throughout the
western part of the Roman Empire.
Pagan Practices
In the eighth century Pope Gregory II moved the church festival of All Saints
to November 1. The move in part offered a substitute for the popular pagan
celebration of the Celtic New Year, which honored both the Sun god and Samhain,
Lord of the Dead. The Celts believed at the New Year the dead came back
to mingle among the living. As the ghosts thronged about the houses
of the living, they were greeted with tables loaded with food. After feasting,
masked and costumed villagers, representing the souls of the dead, paraded
to the outskirts of the town leading the ghosts away. Horses, sacred to the
Sun god, were often sacrificed, and there are some records of human sacrifice
during the festival.
Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) moved to restrict such pagan practices
and told the people that "They are no longer to sacrifice beasts to the Devil,
but they may kill them for food to the praise of God, and give thanks to the
giver of all gifts for His bounty." Many, however, held on to pagan beliefs
along with Christianity. Sometimes ancient gods were transformed into
Christian saints, angels, and heroes. Scriptures were allegorized to
allow for many of these beliefs. Even into the eleventh century, many pagan
beliefs were accepted by Christians--beliefs such as the fear of Fate, the
use of medicinal herbs with incantations, sacrifices at springs and crossroads
to the spirits of the place (still observable in Mexico, for example), and
the night flight or Wild Ride of the spirits, led by Diana. The devil became
absorbed into the magical world of fairies, goblins, dwarfs and imps. Demons
were said to appear in animal forms. Such beliefs, of course, diverged markedly
from the Scriptural account of the devil and his demons as cosmic personalities
conquered by Christ on the cross.
In the tenth century, Abbot Odilo of Cluny began celebrating the November
2nd following "All Saints' Day" as "All Souls' Day" to honor not just the
martyrs, but all Christians who had died. People prayed for the dead,
and many other superstitions continued. Food was offered to the dead, and
it was often believed that on these two festivals souls in purgatory would
take the form of witches, toads or demons and haunt people who wronged them
during their lifetimes.
Though the church was able to destroy the pagan temples, it never fully
eradicated pagan beliefs. In the Middle Ages, witchcraft and the worship
of Satan continued to find followers, even in some places of "Christian"
Europe.
Banned in Boston
During the first two hundred years in America, Halloween was not
observed; many of the Protestant settlers rejected the holiday along with
other feasts on the calendar of the Roman Church.
With the large Irish immigration in the 1840's, the holiday became more
popular. Many of the old Celtic beliefs and practices were perpetuated in
its celebration. Now at the end of the twentieth century, Halloween has become
an important holiday to the growing number of believers in Satanism and practitioners
of the occult.
WHERE DID IT COME FROM?
• Jack o'lantern --Druid priests instructed followers to extinguish their
fires and light and make sacrifices to the Lord of Death. They gathered around
a fire of sacrifice--thought to be a sacred fire--and took fire from that
to rekindle their own hearths. A vegetable was carved out and used to carry
the fire home.
• And there is a strange tale of Mr. Jack O' Lantern. For Halloween Irish
children would carve large rutabagas, turnips or potatoes and place candles
inside of them. (In America, the pumpkin became the vegetable of choice.)
The legend goes that a drunken man named Jack tricked the Devil into climbing
into an apple tree to get some fruit, then carved a sign of the cross into
the trunk of the tree to prevent the devil from coming down. Jack made the
devil swear he would never come after his soul. But, when Jack died, he wasn't
good enough to go to heaven, and the Devil wouldn't take him to hell, so Jack
was left to wander about. The Devil had thrown Jack a coal, and Jack put
it in a turnip he had to help light his way as he searched for a place to
rest.
• "Trick or treat" is derived from the Druid superstition that souls of
the dead in the world of darkness were hungry on the festal day, and the
souls had to be appeased or else risk the tricks and curses of Samhain.
• Costumes reflect the pagan belief that the god Samhein allowed the souls
of the dead to return on that festal night, and the living entered a ritual
imitation of them by dressing up to wander about with them.
• Popular superstitions have deemed that children born on Halloween had
unique powers of contacting and conversing with supernatural beings.
LUTHER'S HALLOWEEN BOMBSHELL
The sixteenth century Reformation was in part a call to put aside the pagan
beliefs and practices which people had long accepted. It was a call to purify
the Church and its doctrines. Martin Luther's nailing of his 95 theses
on the church door is often noted as a pivotal point in the Reformation. The
timing and place of Luther's posting is significant -- Halloween -- October
31, 1517, on the Castle Church in Wittenberg.
That Church held one of the largest collections of supposed relics outside
of Rome. Pieces of bones from saints, locks of hairs from martyrs, a piece
of the true cross, a twig from Moses' burning bush, bread from the Last Supper,
a veil sprinkled with the blood of Christ -- all were venerated and held in
holy awe. The relics were kept in special reliquaries, ornamented with gold,
silver, and precious stones. They were exhibited on All Saints Day. By 1518,
17,443 pieces were on display in twelve aisles! The church taught that paying
the special fee and viewing the relics would shorten a soul's stay in purgatory
by 1,902,202 years and 270 days! This was one teaching Luther challenged
in his 95 theses. On Halloween, the day before All Saints Day when the relics
would be specially exhibited, Luther nailed his theses on the church door,
challenging scholars to debate the virtue of indulgences, the church's teaching
that by certain works a person could hasten his entrance into heaven. Luther
publicly professed the free and gratuitous remission of sin, not by relics,
papal pardons, or indulgences, but by faith in Jesus Christ.
A CONFESSION and an ALTERNATIVE BY KEN CURTIS
(EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK)
"So what are we, as Christians, to make of Halloween? Are we to be spoilsports
and deprive children of fun enjoyed on Halloween?
First, I will confess that my wife and I allowed our children to participate
in the usual custom of dressing up, going door to door for candy, and living
through the necessary regiment of regulating the consumption of goodies gathered.
We also enjoyed, as I would expect most of you do, having the neighborhood
children come to our front door, trying to guess who was behind the masks,
and giving them some candies.
All harmless fun, or at least it seemed so to me until editing this issue
(done at the time of the mass suicide of the Heaven's Gate cult). Thus, we
include a sober warning from an Orthodox publication.
We at Christian History Institute mourn the loss (in many of our Protestant
churches at least) of any meaningful celebration of the earlier observance
of Hallow's Eve. Our mission is to remind the Body of Christ of our heritage,
and surely a day a year to recall the great leaders and martyrs of the faith
is one small way to celebrate how God has worked across the ages, surely more
important than encouraging kids to gorge themselves on candy.
It's one thing to complain, another to do something. We have prepared a
new series of video programs, "Children's Heroes from Christian History."
These would serve well for a "Hallow's Eve" gathering for kids as an alternative
to Halloween. Besides, it would be better for their teeth.
One final thought: The All Hallow's background to Halloween was set forth
in recognition, celebration, and gratitude for all of God's saints, known
and unknown. We can only rejoice in their wisdom of realizing many of the
Lord's choicest servants live in obscurity only to be revealed at the last
day." --Ken Curtis
SOME CHRISTIANS JUST SAY "NO."
[A periodical from the Eastern Orthodox Church cautioned its readers to
have nothing to do with Halloween, saying:]
With regard to our non-participation in the pagan festival of Halloween,
we will be strengthened by an understanding of the spiritual danger and history
of this anti-Christian feast. The feast of Halloween began in pre-Christian
times among the Celtic peoples of Great Britain, Ireland and northern France.
These pagan peoples believed that physical life was born from death. Therefore,
they celebrated the beginning of the "new year" in the fall (on the eve of
October 31 and into the day of November 1), when, as they believed, the season
of cold, darkness, decay and death began. A certain deity, whom they called
Samhain, was believed by the Celts to be the lord of Death, and it was he
whom they honored at their New Year's festival.…
From an Orthodox Christian point of view, participation in these practices
at any level is impossible and idolatrous, a genuine betrayal of our God and
our holy Faith. For if we participate in the ritual activity of imitating
the dead by dressing up in their attire or by wandering about in the dark,
or by begging with them, then we have willfully sought fellowship with the
dead, whose lord is not Samhain, as the Celts believed, but Satan, the Evil
One who stands against God. Further, if we submit to the dialogue of "trick
or treat," we make our offering not to innocent children, but rather to Samhain,
the lord of Death whom they have come to serve as imitators of the dead,
wandering in the dark of night. (From Orthodox Life, Vol. 43, No. 5, Sept.-Oct.
1993.)
From Pantheon to Pumpkins
It feels almost like you are inside a gigantic pumpkin in the awesome Pantheon
in Rome. It was originally built before Jesus and rebuilt by the Roman Emperor
Hadrian in the second century. You can still visit it today. Its name means
"to all gods." This pagan temple was taken over by the church and dedicated
to "all saints" or "all hallows" from which Halloween was derived as explained
in this article.