Ten-Stringed Lyre of the New Israel: To Light a Candle on Hallows' Eve

An article that looks at the Christian character of Halloween - All Hallows' Eve - as the vigil of All Saints Day. Discussing the influence of pagan Celtic practices, its secularisation, and the re-inculturation of what is in and of itself a Christian celebration.

Halloween is a centuries old Scottish abbreviation of Allhallow-Even, Hallow E’en, or simply All Hallows’ Eve – which means All Holy Eve or All Saints Eve: the eve before All Hallows’ Day which is All Saints' Day. Halloween is thus the evening celebration of the Solemnity of All Saints’ Day on which the Church traditionally celebrates the souls of the blessed who are in heaven. This in turn is followed by All Souls’ Day, a day on which the Church especially prays for all the souls who, having died in God’s grace but who weren’t yet perfect to be able to enter the bliss of beatitude, tarry in purgatory. The Church in continuum with Judaism, carries the torch of this belief, which is part and parcel with a belief that through prayers, penance, and alms giving the time of these souls’ purification can be quickened. Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls together form what is known as Allhallowtide, Hallowtide, Hallowmas or the Day of the Dead or in Spanish Dia de los Muertos. A three-day period dedicated to commemorating the dead.

The equivalent of All Saints’ Day was the 13^th May which was a day dedicated to celebrating the martyrs which we know was at least somewhat commonplace before c.373 when St. Ephraim speaks of it. Sometime between c.731-741, moving and expanding the scope of the May celebration, the 1^st November was dedicated by Pope Gregory III to a commemoration that celebrated all the saints. “This date became popularly adopted as ‘All Saints Day’ in Ireland and Britain.”[i] A century later the commemoration was extended to a feast for the Western churches. The vigil of All Saints’ Day or Halloween, is thus a 1300-year-old Christian celebration that unfolds in a context of honouring the mortally dead – who are alive in God (Rom 6:11; Mk 12:27) – in the eternity of heaven, or the transitory realm of purgatory.

Eventually, as it is supposed, out of superstition that the damned in hell would wreak havoc if they were not commemorated with their own day, the Irish peasants began a custom of banging pots and pans on the 31^st October, Halloween – namely to ward off malign influence. Halloween, as a day for those in hell – no doubt informed by their Celtic heritage if it is true – was thus by no means an officially sanctioned or universal practice grounded in what Halloween was, and as its name itself indicates: the eve of All Saints.

It is without a doubt that certain Halloween traditions have drawn their influence from pagan Celtic traditions surrounding the end of harvest festival called Samhain, which was celebrated from sundown of what equates to the 31^st October to sundown of the 1^st November.

During this festival, Celts believed the souls of the dead-including ghosts, goblins and witches-returned to mingle with the living. In order to scare away the evil spirits, people would wear masks and light bonfires.

When the Romans conquered the Celts, they added their own touches to the Samhain festival, such as making centerpieces out of apples and nuts for Pomona, the Roman goddess of the orchards. The Romans also bobbed for apples and drank cider[ii]

Wearing masks, lighting bonfires and carving turnip heads in the form of the deceased were perhaps the most assailant customs adopted and Christianised. The latter custom of which was translated into jack-o'-lanterns – which were initially made from turnips in the British Isles, and from pumpkins in the nineteenth century in the Americas, believed by some to help ward away demonic spirits.

However, despite the influence certain Halloween customs have drawn from ancient Celtic pagan customs, the principle beliefs that form the heart of the celebration of All Saints and All Souls were in no way informed by Celtic beliefs. Since the veneration of holy men and women, and praying for the dead, are beliefs predating Christianity’s arrival in the European Continent and British Isles. Nevertheless, they are beliefs inherited from Judaism, which for centuries upon centuries held such beliefs as exampled by the awareness of the power of God working through the relics of Elijah (2 Kings 13:21) and the prayers and penances offered for the dead (2 Macc 12:44-45; 1 Sam 31:13; 2 Sam 1:12). Acts which were always considered wholly distinct from the forbidden practice of divination – of seeking to summon and thus commune with the dead by practices of the dark arts (Deut 18:10-11; Is 19:3).

Yet notwithstanding the fact that the beliefs which All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day are occasions of expressing are intrinsically Christian and non-pagan, it is not an indictment against Christianity’s authenticity that certain pagan customs, and maybe even dates, have been adopted to mark the Christian faith. In fact, it is quite the opposite, since Christianity is culturally transcendent and yet, because of the Mystery of the Incarnation, it is a faith which can wear the clothes of any culture and which can adopt the system of patterns and symbols employed by any given culture – provided false meanings are replaced with true meanings, and unethical practices with ethically sound, but culturally congruent alternatives. This is the dynamic process of inculturation.

By the 17^th century various forms of Protestantism had come to resist and/or reject certain beliefs which surrounded Halloween, such as purgatory, praying for the dead, and 'outright veneration' of the saints. Such resistance was fuelled by abhorrence for superstitions, yet the baby of ancient doctrine ended up being thrown out with the bath water of superstition. Without these positive-doctrines, Halloween, although generally celebrated, tended in Protestant circles to increasingly emphasise the diabolic and the need to ward against evil spirits. This hostility climaxed in 18^th- 19^th century Puritan antagonism, especially in the Americas, against Catholicism and its beliefs. Whereby Halloween was branded as an un-Christian celebration.

The initial separation of Halloween from Catholic/Ancient Christian beliefs, followed by Puritanical rejection of the celebration of traditional Christian celebrations from Christmas to Halloween, led in large part to Halloween’s conceptual and practical divorce from an explicit Christian context, thus slowly de-Christianising Halloween in a process of secularisation. A secularisation which was reinforced by 19^th century folklorists who extrapolated the link between Halloween and pagan Celtic practices. And eventually capitalised by greeting card companies from the 19^th century onwards; who propagated the occultist imagery of witches, ghosts and ghouls, which Halloween, torn from its Catholic roots, came to be reduced to, and because of which, is largely rejected as a diabolic occasion by many Christians.

Eucharistic 'Jack-O'-Lantern'

However, despite the form Halloween has been reduced to today, it remains a deeply Christian celebration commemorating those who’ve died in God’s favour. As such, as opposed to outright resistance and a condemnation of what Halloween has become – an excuse to party, dress up, beg for lollies, and revel in the fantasy of dark creatures like vampires and werewolves for most; and for a few occultists and satanists, a time for summoning evil spirits – what is called for is a re-inculturation of Halloween, of All Hallows’ Eve into Christian belief and practice. After all, Halloween really belongs to the Church. Some carry out this re-inculturation by hosting parties where people dress up as saints – since Halloween is literally in name, origin and date the eve of All Saints. In Mexico many do so by holding mortality plays, and dressing up as skeletons or rotting corpses, as a reminder of death and the necessity to live upright lives. This is in similitude to the Danse Macarbe - French for the Dance of Death - which is a Medieval artistic genre, bearing influence to this day, involving depictions of the rotting or skeletal dead, who beckoned mortals to dance with them to the grave. Depictions which endeavoured to awaken people to their mortality, and thoughts of preparing for hereafter. (Read more here).

Hallows Eve': Bangladeshi Christians lighting candles on a headstone

There is also the medieval practice of attending cemeteries to pray for the dead which is still carried on today, and the custom of distributing bread cakes – called ‘soul cakes’ – which used to be handed out to those who knocked on the door, who in turn would pledge to pray for the souls of their benefactor’s relatives.

These such customs can be adopted and adapted to today as a means of being in the world, but not of the world; of being open to the seeds of truth in all things, as opposed to being so vehemently hostile to what is false that one closes themselves off to what is good and true, and thus come to leave such specks of gold unharvested. Specks within our secular culture, within the secular practice of Halloween, which can be extracted for the glory of God and the salvation and relief of souls.

Thus whilst people throughout the world light candles in hollowed pumpkins on this Halloween night for the sheer sake of it, and perhaps some for awry ends; we might do the opposite. Perhaps with a literal candle or lantern, or a fitting All Hallows' celebration of some sorts, to serve as a sign – but what really matters is spiritually, by keeping alight our hearts with prayer on this Hallows’ Eve – for those traversing the mortal plains here below; for those in purgatory, and for those who’ve made it to the Promised Land who can help us get there too.

It seems fitting to end this article on this start of the Day of the Dead, with the fifteenth century anonymous poem and funeral-chant, ‘Lyke Wake Dirge’:

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,

Every nighte and alle,

Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,