On Hallowe'en

The name Hallowe'en is an abbreviation of All Hallows' Evening, the evening before All Hallows' Day which corresponds to the German Allerheiligen. It designates the evening before All Saints' Day, which is the first of November. Hallowe'en then is the evening of the last day of October. The celebration of Hallowe'en long antedates Christianity. We know particularly that in Celtic cults November first was the day, including the preceding night, that was especially devoted to the dead and their memory. On this day the dead were supposed to have freedom to return to the homesteads which they had inhabited while alive, and all superstitions, customs, and magical practices manifested at this occasion served the single purpose of warding off the dead souls, or appeasing them, so that the living could pass through the dangerous night and day unharmed. Even then, according to folkloristic custom and belief, the evil spirits of the dead designate one person of the family or clan to die within the year, and indicate this through certain signs (as, for example, a marked pebble that cannot be found in the ashes of a bonfire after a person had thrown it in the bonfire the night before, and others).

After Christianization of the originally Druidic countries the Church exerted vigorous efforts to extinguish the pagan custom of Hallowe'en, which was in contradiction with the Christian tenet that God alone is the avenger of evil and that in general no return of the dead is possible before the day of the last judgment. As early as 837 A.D. Pope Gregory IV tried to replace the festival of the dead by the festival of All Saints. But this attempt to extinguish the old pagan superstition failed. After all, the saints themselves are dead people; no living person can be canonized. Therefor the festival of All Saints actually only enhanced one aspect of the relationship to the dead, namely the worship of them and the expectation of their assistance to the living. And afterwards, around the y