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To: Between the Lines

The early Church tried to co-opt Pagan holidays to make it easier to assimilate pagans. The Celts and Germans celebrated the Yule Solstice. The Romans had a two week drunk called Saturnalia. Hence, Christmas is in December.

Interestingly they failed by having All Saints Day on 1 Nov. Samhaine morphed intop Halloween. And it’s still with us today.


18 posted on 12/10/2008 11:26:48 AM PST by PzLdr ("The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am" - Darth Vader)
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To: PzLdr

The early Irish Church apparently celebrated All Saints on April 20. It was the Romans who set the date at November 1st and the Romans didn’t celebrate Samhain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints

Neo-pagans put out a lot of sloppy scholarship trying to take credit for feast days! :)


27 posted on 12/10/2008 11:35:29 AM PST by Claud
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