Post by JaniPost by Steve HayesB- Heh...no far from it ....try living the life and not just reading about
it. I do.
What, the life of new-fangled "old country customs" that you've just made
up?
Investigating the history and development of those which *aren't* made up,
and tracing the actual syncretism of Christianity with pre-Christian faiths,
is a lot more interesting and rewarding, to my mind. But it's always
entertaining to watch people insisting that their customs are "old" whilst
simultaneously refusing to look at any evidence as to whether they actually
are or not ;)
The trouble is that the number of people who want to investigate the actual
historical interactions of religions seems to be far smaller than the number
who like to compare newfangled creations that people have just sucked out of
their thumbs -- witness the popularity of "The da Vinci code". The other is
indeed far more interesting, but separating the wheat from the chaff is
difficult.
Hallowe'en isn't a particularly good example, though. But still, here's
something I wrote about it before. Perhaps I can toss it into the pot. But you
might ciome up with some more interesting examples.
This is the time of year when I read all kinds of things about
Halloween. It comes up on mailing lists, various BBS conferences,
newsgroups and the "coinherence" mailing list for discussing the
works of Charles Williams (where his book "All Hallows Eve" has
been discussed). Sop perhaps it is worth repeating this.
Some Christians think Halloween is wicked because it's "pagan".
Some pagans get resentful of Christians for "stealing" their
festival. People seem to get all worked up about it.
Most of this I observe as an outsider. As far as I can tell,
Halloween is an American cultural festival, which is interpreted
in various ways by different people. I've had no firsthand
experience of it from that point of view. I used to be an
Anglican a long time ago, and back in those days Halloween was
observed with a "first evensong" for All Saints Day, which was
kept with an Octave, but when Vatican II dropped the Octave, the
Anglicans followed suit (when Rome turns, we all turn) and
observance of it seemed to die out among most Anglicans, and it
passed unnoticed.
Now I'm an Orthodox Christian, and our Halloween is the Saturday
after Pentecost, so the 31st October isn't of much interest, as
it's a purely Western phenomenon.
But since there are so many comments and arguments and dis-
cussions and observations, here's my 2c worth, as a very detached
outsider.
Here in South Africa, as I said, Halloween isn't a big deal at
all. The newspapers made a far bigger fuss about Diwali
(Deepavali), the Hindu festival of lights, symbolising the tri-
umph of good over evil. There are pictures of children holding
lighted lamps and things like that. South Africa has more Hindus
than Irish, perhaps, so it's certainly a more prominent festival
here than Halloween. Halloween doesn't go entirely unnoticed,
however - there were a few advertisements for Halloween parties
in the newspapers, but they would be purely adult affairs. There
are no customs of children going around soliciting gifts or
anything like that, as there seem to be in America. If any kids
did that here they'd be greeted with blank incomprehension, and
told not to be cheeky, or they'd be street kids who do that all
the year round.
I believe the American celebrations of Halloween developed from
Irish immigrants, and that before it was exported, it was a more-
or-less uniquely Irish thing.
I read a very interesting book about it, though - "The Stations
of the Sun" by Ronald Hutton (Oxford University Press, Oxford,
1996). Hutton is a British historian, and his book is a very
well-researched study of seasonal festivals in Britain. Some of
his observations may be of interest to those who get their
knickers in a knot over Halloween -- either pagans who think
Christians "stole" it, or Christians who think it must be
"demonic".
"At the end of the nineteenth century , two distinguished
academics, one at Oxford and the other at Cambridge, made
enduring contributions to the popular conception of Samhain. The
former was the philologist Sir John Rhys, who suggested that it
had been the 'Celtic' New Year.... Rhys's theory was further
popularized by the Cambridge scholar, Sir James Frazer. At times
the latter did admit that the evidence for it was inconclusive,
but at others he threw this caution overboard and employed it to
support an idea of his own: that Samhain had been the pagan
Celtic feast of the dead. He reached this belief by the simple
process of arguing back from a fact, that 1 and 2 November had
been dedicated to that purpose by the medieval Christian Church,
from which it could be surmised that this had been a Chris-
tianization of a pre-existing festival. He admitted, by
implication, that there was in fact no actual record of such a
festival, but inferred the former existence of one from a number
of different propositions: that the Church had taken over other
pagan holy days, that 'many' cultures have annual ceremonies to
honour their dead, 'commonly' at the opening of the year, and
that (of course) 1 November had been the Celtic New Year. He
pointed out that although the feast of All Saints or All Hallows
had been formally instituted across most of north-west Europe by
the emperor Louis the Pius in 835, on the prompting of Pope
Gregory IV, it had already existed, on its later date of 1
November, in England at the time of Bede. He suggested that the
pope and emperor had, therefore, merely ratified an existing
religious practice based upon that of the ancient Celts.
"The story is, in fact, more complicated. By the mid-fourth
century Christians in the Mediterranean world were keeping a
feast in honour of all those who had been martyred under the
pagan emperors; it is mentioned in the _Carmina Nisibena_ of St
Ephraem, who died in about 373, as being held on 13 May. During
the fifth century divergent practices sprang up, the Syrian
churches holding the festival in Easter Week, and those of the
Greek world preferring the Sunday after Pentecost. That of Rome,
however, preferred to keep the May date, and Pope Boniface IV
formally endorsed it in the year 609. By 800 churches in England
and Germany, which were in touch with each other, were
celebrating a festival dedicated to all saints upon 1 November
instead. The oldest text of Bede's Martyrology, from the eighth
century, does not include it, but the recensions at the end of
the century do. Charlemagne's favourite churchman Alcuin was
keeping it by then, as were also his friend Arno, bishop of
Salzburg, and a church in Bavaria. Pope Gregory, therefore, was
endorsing and adopting a practice which had begun in northern
Europe. It had not, however, started in Ireland, where the
_Felire_ of Oengus and the _Martyrology of Tallaght_ prove that
the early medieval churches celebrated the feast of All Saints
upon 20 April. This makes nonsense of Frazer's notion that the
November date was chosen because of 'Celtic' influence: rather,
both 'Celtic' Europe and Rome followed a Germanic idea...."
For what it's worth, the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian
Church notes that Pope Gregory III of Rome (d. 741) dedicated a
chapel in the basilica of St Peter to "All the saints", and
Gregory IV ordered its universal observance. Sixtus IV (d. 1484)
added an Octave, which was suppressed in 1955.
The idea that Christians "stole" it, therefore, seems pretty far-
fetched.
What about the accusation by some that it is "satanic",
"demonic", or "evil"?
Well, I've never seen it in action, but from reading descriptions
of it, and seeing films about it, the idea of kids going around
saying "give us sweets or we'll do something nasty to you" sounds
a bit like a juvenile protection racket to me, and that is
potentially, if not actually, evil. It's only one step from that
to going round to shop keepers with a gun and saying "give us X,
and we'll protect you from Y".
Now I've been told by many Americans that it is not like that at
all, and that it is all harmless fun, so I must have been misled
by the films and the books I've read. But the idea still makes me
a bit uneasy. I'm glad there was no tradition of that sort here
when my kids were growing up. And I suspect that if they'd tried
it in our neighbourhood the neighbours would have been astounded
at the cheek of it, and probably offended when they had second
thoughts. But that's just our culture.
--
The unworthy deacon,
Stephen Methodius Hayes
Contact: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Orthodox mission pages: http://www.orthodoxy.faithweb.com/