The road to hell, in a quote generally attributed to Samuel Johnson or St Bernard of Clairvaux, is paved with good intentions.
Whether you’re a UK believer organising a ‘Light Party’, an evangelical Christian running a ‘hell house’1 in America, an avid trick-or-treater pounding the streets, or one of the 11,766 people in England and Wales identifying as Wiccans in the 2011 Census, Halloween is an issue that’s hard to avoid.
While some Christians have nothing to do with Halloween and others seek to provide wholesome alternatives to trick-or-treating, bobbing for apples or wearing demonically inappropriate costumes, others claim it’s a bit of ‘harmless fun’ or try to reclaim it as a supposedly Christian festival.
Although Phil Wyman – author of The Reformation of Halloween: rethinking Christianity’s relationship to Halloween – describes Halloween as ‘the most Christian holiday on our calendar’, it isn’t!
The festival, with its macabre dressing up and ‘money-with-menaces’ trick-or-treating, has its roots in ancient Roman festivals such as Feralia and Lemuria and the Celtic festival Samhain. All three focused on appeasing the spirits of the dead in order to prevent them from troubling the living.
All the Roman Catholic Church did was to create a variety of festivals with a supposedly Christian veneer as an attempt at replacing the original pagan ones. Since the earlier festivities were entirely unbiblical, it wasn’t so much a case of finally seeing the light as a frantic attempt at whistling in the dark.
The process officially began on 13 May 609 when Pope Boniface IV established the Feast of All Holy Martyrs, consecrating the Pantheon at Rome to honour the Virgin Mary and the many Christians martyred by the Roman empire.
Later, in 837, Pope Gregory IV ordered its general observance – the feast having already been expanded to honour everyone who had died in the faith, including martyrs. (According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it was during Gregory III’s reign that a chapel was dedicated in St Peter’s, Rome, and the festival – now held in honour of all saints – moved from 13 May to 1 November.)
In medieval England, the Feast of All Saints – also known as All Saints’ Day – eventually became known as All Hallows. (The word ‘hallow’, which means ‘holy’, also referred to Christian ‘saints’.)
The night before All Hallows – 31 October – became known as All Hallows’ Eve or Halloween, and was originally the date of the pagan festival Samhain. This Celtic festival was a time when the spirit world was said to make contact with the physical world. A time when, because people were frightened of encountering ghosts when they left their homes, fearsome masks were worn so that the ghosts would mistake those in disguise for fellow evil spirits.
Later still, another feast was founded, this time on 2 November. It was called All Souls’ Day and was said to have originally been established by Odilo, Abbot of Cluny from 994 to 1049. It was a day to not only commemorate Christians who had died but to pray them out of purgatory!
Eventually, the commemoration of Christians who had died for the faith led to prayers for those who had died in the faith, prayers to the dead and – ultimately – the canonisation of dead ‘saints’, of whom Cardinal John Henry Newman is a fairly recent example.
Rather than following a faith that took Scripture as its guide and the Lord Jesus as its head, Roman Catholicism – despite Scripture’s many warnings – created what many evangelical Christians regard as another gospel.
Chickens, Dickens, eggs and red herrings
As with the past, so with the present. Today, gender, sexuality and the role of men and women have all become a casualty to the dangerous worldly currents that threaten to engulf us.
Christmas’ commemoration of the birth of the prophesied Christ is, for many, a mere celebration of materialism, gifts, Father Christmas and Charles Dickens. Easter’s empty tomb appears to have been supplanted by eggs, chicks, rabbits and hares, whilst Halloween – a time when the restless spirits of the dead supposedly need placating – has become something misguided Christians encourage us to celebrate.
The festival, with its unhealthy focus on the ‘undead’, was seen as a time when the spirits, fairies or souls of the dead returned to earth. To prevent unquiet spirits from causing mischief, those taking part attempted to appease them by putting out offerings of food and drink – not unlike the ancient practices carried out in Rome during Feralia and Lemuria.
But it isn’t just the dead who supposedly cause mischief. The 3rd-century writer Athenaeus of Naucratis referred to children on the Greek island of Rhodes going from door to door, carrying a live swallow or the wooden effigy of a bird. They sang songs, demanded that the home owner give them food, and threatened to cause trouble if he didn’t!
In Scotland, accounts of ‘guising’ (the wearing of costumes at Hallowmas) involved youths going from house to house with masked, painted or blackened faces. They recited rhymes and threatened homeowners if they weren’t welcomed. In parts of Wales, peasant men visited houses dressed as fearsome beings called gwrachod (hags or witches) or presented themselves as the cenhadon y meirw (representatives of the dead). In southern Ireland, men who were dressed as a Láir Bhán (white mare) led youths from home to home, reciting verses in exchange for food. The houses that provided succour were told to expect good fortune. Those that refused expected trouble.
Today’s trick-or-treaters do more or less the same thing. A friend recalls how, some years ago, ‘Wearing costumes you wouldn’t normally be seen dead in, some expensively clad vampires and zombies threw eggs at my home because I wouldn’t answer the door or give them anything!’
Eventually, as Christianity replaced paganism in the West, practices such as guising began to decline. But, thanks to the Roman Catholic Church’s syncretistic tendencies, they didn’t actually die out. During the Middle Ages a new church custom, that of sharing ‘soul cakes’ at Allhallowtide (31 October – 2 November), was introduced.
In a practice intended to replace that of leaving food and wine out for roaming spirits, or having strangely garbed people wandering around demanding food, people visited houses and, in return for praying for the souls of dead family members, they received cakes from members of the household.
It’s clear, therefore, that the origins of today’s supposedly harmless trick-or-treating go back centuries and that, whatever else one might say about Halloween, it is certainly not Christian!
This October, let’s pray that none of God’s children depart from the path of life made known to us by God (Ps. 16:11). While some celebrate Halloween and others avoid it, let’s remember that it was on 31 October 1517 that Martin Luther fired the first shots of what became the Protestant Reformation by nailing his colours to the mast, and his Ninety-five Theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral.
So let’s lighten our hearts with the life-giving truths of God’s word rather than taking an inappropriate interest in ‘ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night.’2
After all, as our study of Halloween shows, it’s a festival that leads, quite literally, to a dead end!
Gary Clayton is Copywriter and Editor at Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), www.maf-uk.org
FOOTNOTES
1. Hell houses involve frightening presentations warning people of the dangers of hell
2. A traditional Cornish or Scottish litany
