Evidence for the Gregory IV / Samhain connection?

[Earthworm_Jim]

The fact that Gregory IV set All Saints Day as 1 November is readily available on the web. Additionally, the “fact” that All Saints Day was set to 1 Nov in order to commandeer (if you will) the old Celtic holiday of Samhain is readily available. However, I could find no evidence, in the form of historical record or official church doctrine, that states this is so. Everyone is saying it, but I can’t find any actual evidence.

The question: Is there any record that Gregory IV chose 1 Nov because of Samhain, or could it be merely coincidence that the two holidays happen at the same time?

[Captain_Amazing]

Well, here’s what the Catholic Encyclopedia said about All Saints Day (in 1907).

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01315a.htm

They seem to suggest that Gregory IV was just universalizing the celebration honoring the saints on Nov. 1 by Gregory III, which was strictly a Roman festival.

[Earthworm_Jim]

In fact, the Cathoic Encyclopedia is the website I was thinking of when I wrote the OP. In all honesty, I didn’t expect there would be anything in the way of an official church statement saying “Gregory chose 1 November because of those Irish pagans.”

I’m beginning to think it’s one of those “facts” that everyone knows, but isn’t actually true.

[Earthworm_Jim]

I’ve also looked into a couple of the other Halloween History threads and found some interesting notes. At the History Channels site, The History Of Halloween says:

In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday.

Beyond the fact that the Pope named doesn’t seem to jibe with that given in the Catholic Encyclopedia, the article doesn’t give any reason why this is beleived.

In the What is the real history of Halloween? thread, dave316 seems to have found some indication that the connection is mostly speculation on the part of a couple of history professors, though the “cite” is of fairly dubious origin.

The quest continues.

[APB]

The cite which dave316 posted is hardly of ‘fairly dubious origin’ - it is, in fact, an accurate extract from a major academic monograph on the subject, The Stations of the Sun: a History of the Ritual Year in Britain, by one of the leading authorities on the subject, Ronald Hutton of the University of Bristol, published by Oxford University Press in 1996. As I pointed out in the previous thread, Professor Hutton’s interpretations have been widely accepted by other historians working in the many fields covered by his work. Unsurprisingly, Hutton’s arguments are only now very slowly filtering out from the confines of the academic literature. His comments on the subject are worth repeating.

**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 was been a Christianization of a preexisting 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… **

Note that Hutton doesn’t just argue that there is no evidence for the Samhain theory, but also that there is some circumstantial evidence against it.

It of course unfair to expect the proponents of the Samhaim theory to provide documentary evidence from the ninth century specifically mentioning Gregory’s intentions. There is however a fairer way of putting the question. Is there any reason, circumstantial or otherwise, to believe that the Samhain theory isn’t just a circular argument (we know that it was a pre-Christian festival co-opted by the Church in the ninth century because the Church in the ninth century co-opted pre-Christian festivals)?

[Earthworm_Jim]

My apologies, APB, I completely missed the post in which you’d (firmly)connected his post with the book - I was referring to the deja-search as the dubious origin. I’ll try to be more careful next time.

There is however a fairer way of putting the question. Is there any reason, circumstantial or otherwise, to believe that the Samhain theory isn’t just a circular argument (we know that it was a pre-Christian festival co-opted by the Church in the ninth century because the Church in the ninth century co-opted pre-Christian festivals)?

I’d agree with this. So far, I don’t think I’ve seen any reason that indicates this intentional co-opting took place. I’ve only, thus far, seen assertations that it happened that way without any evidence.

[Earthworm_Jim]

It seems that I’ll be obliged to conced the point: Halloween was not stolen, as it were, from those Godless pagans.

[dave316]

Beelzebubba says
In the What is the real history of Halloween? thread, dave316 seems to have found some indication that the connection is mostly speculation on the part of a couple of history professors, though the “cite” is of fairly dubious origin.

dubious! dubious!
my research cleared the druids name
little Christian kids can now go trick or treating
and all I get is dubious
I also found a cure for cancer but now thanks to beelzebubba I am keeping it to myself