Origins of Halloween
On the evening of the 31st October, between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice, the Celts in Britain held a festival called “Samhain” (“Summer’s end”). It was the first day of the Celtic New Year and the beginning of winter, a time when, the Druids claimed, the natural and the supernatural worlds merged, and demons and lost souls roamed freely among the living.
People tried to protect themselves from attack by disguising themselves as witches, devils and ghosts, and carved grotesque faces in things like pumpkins, which they kept illuminated by candlelight, to ward off evil spirits. They also left out treats, like cakes, as a peace offering. When the Romans came to Britain (43AD) they added the traditions of their own harvest festival, “Pomona”, to Samhain, such as bobbing for apples in water barrels and putting nuts in the fire to watch where they jump to. Some of these games were about divination, the prediction of future events.
Meanwhile, after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus in 30AD, the “new” controversial religion, Christianity, spread to Asia Minor, Greece and to Rome, and so through the Roman Empire, largely as a result of persecuted Christians having to flee Jerusalem. As Christians were killed for preaching about Jesus and standing up for their beliefs, those surviving chose to commemorate the death of these martyrs or saints by celebrating “martyrs days” or “saints days”.
Most Saints Days were local affairs, with only the martyrdom of some of the apostles being more widely celebrated. To try to tidy up the church calendar, Pope Gregory III (Pope from 731 – 741AD) instigated a single festival to commemorate all martyrs or saints, known as the “Feast of All Saints” or “All Saints’ Day” or “All Hallows’ Day” (hallow is old English for saint or holy person). This was always to be on the 1st of November.
The 1st of November was chosen as the date to establish a Christian rival to the pagan Samhain, and mirrored the traditions of this earlier festival by incorporating wearing fancy dress -as a saint, angel or a devil- and holding a parade. However, All Hallows’ Day did not supersede Samhain, so in the ninth century the church established a sister festival called “All Hallows Even” on the 31st of October itself. Samhain, a Gaelic word pronounced something like “sow-in” or “sow-een”, and All Hallows Even were morphed into one festival with the name “Halloween.”
Because of it’s Celtic origins, Halloween is only enthusiastically observed in the UK, Ireland, the USA and Canada, taken there by the Irish (who emigrated to America in their tens of thousands after the 1845 potato famine) and Scottish immigrants, and is growing in popularity in New Zealand and Australia.
The creation of All Hallows Day and All Hallows Even was a largely failed attempt to replace all-things ghoulish and creepy with a reverent day for commemorating martyred Christians, as, for the majority of people, Halloween is still about ghosts and witches. Although some evangelical Christians use it as an opportunity to commemorate the lives of Christians who made an impact on the world around them, evangelicals do not accept that the established church has any authority to choose which Christians will be remembered as extra-special and declared “Saints” and do not celebrate saints’ days anyway.
Although Halloween is not about, and has never been about, satanic worship, most evangelical Christians would still choose not to celebrate Halloween. This is because Halloween encourages a focus on fear and black arts and has nothing to say about the freedom and joy of life with Jesus.