The History of All Saints Day
It was the custom of the earliest church to celebrate the oneness of the Body of Christ (past and present) the believer’s victory over death, and the resurrection of the faithful by meeting in catacombs (be it by necessity or theology). In turn, it was also the custom to celebrate martyrs on the anniversaries of their death. However, as the number of martyrs grew due to widespread persecutions it became difficult to assign a specific day to each witness who died for the Faith. Therefore, by the mid 300s the Church established a common day to honor all martyrs. This original day was May 13, which fell during the Easter season due to Easter’s assurance of the resurrection of all believers.
In the year 609 or 610, Pope Boniface IV moved many bones of martyrs to the Pantheon Church in Rome and consecrated the church to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all martyrs, Later, Pope Gregory III (731-741) dedicated a chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica to all saints and moved the celebration of all saints and martyrs to November 1. Finally, Pope Gregory IV (827-844) made November 1 the official date for the Feast of All Saints throughout the entire Western Church. Subsequently, it is believed by many that the transition of All Saints day to November 1 was actually begun by the Church in Ireland (thus the Celtic tie/influence) in or around the time of St. Patrick ( ~500 AD) and eventually made its way to the Rome and then the wider Church via Gregory III and IV.
2. Why October 31 – November 1st and 2nd (Hollows Eve, All Saints, All Souls)
Why did the greater Church prefer these dates for the celebration over the original spring/Easter season date? What was the appeal that prompted the Church-wide move?
Our Answer begins with a 19th century Canadian anthropologist named RG Haliburton
Commonalities
-Death and stars falling auxiliary god pouring out flood Pic#1a &1b
-Zeus as Bull, young woman riding him, in the sky she stabs him in the shoulder (Pleiades), blood falls to earth as flood Pic#2
-Epic of Gilgamesh the 7 God’s of death (Pleiades) whose headdresses have 7 bull horns, send fire then flood to earth at the time of the new year.
– 25K old French cave art with Bull and Pleiades Pic#3-4
3. But What About the Bible’s Witness
A] In Scripture Oct 31- Nov 2 occurs in the 8th month called Marcheshvan (it is not the New Year). However, Marcheshvan was not always the 8th month.
Exodus 12:1 Now the LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month (Abib/Nisan) shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.
Importance: prior to the Passover, the Hebrew calendar (like that of the surrounding world) took its point of reference from Noah and the deluge (just as our calendar today takes its point of reference from the birth of Christ: thus BC and AD). However, prior to Passover, the first month of the year was Tishri, thus making Marcheshvan the second month. Notice the result: with the Passover God resets His people’s time according to deliverance not deluge and judgment. In other words, God makes His people odd (like Arizona today). He sets them on a completely different timeline and trajectory than the rest of humanity. As such, God’s people never had a central day of the dead. Instead, theirs was always a celebration of salvation and life. Bottom line: Marcheshvan was originally the second month of the year.
B] However, there is more: the name Marcheshvan was not the original name of the month (the original name was Bul meaning produce/harvest). Instead, Cheshvan is a Babylonian name, which like the rest of the current calendar names were brought back with Israel from their time in captivity. However, the Hebrews altered the name. They added to it the prefix Mar which means bitter (c.f. Ruth 1:20). Why? Many Jewish scholars say that this month (Oct- Nov) is bitter because it was the month of the flood! Does Scripture actually say this? Yes it does!
Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.
Notice the Result: we know when the flood occurred. We have always known (along with the world). It began on October 31st (Halloween) (along with the world), and have always known.
However, because God changed our focus from deluge to deliverance, the flood and the warning of those swept away by it (the dead) never held the central focus that it did for the world.
3. Resolve: The True Pagan Roots of Halloween
Christians didn’t hijack a pagan feast. Instead, they affirmed it. Not only that as God’s witnesses they brought the rest of the story: the gospel (good news) of deliverance from coming judgment through Christ and a celebration of life, victory, and deliverance (not death, doom, and fear).
Not only that, this witness was so effective in Ireland that the transfer of the feast from May 13th and the Easter season (so fitting to its theology) to November 1st was quickly adopted by the rest of the western church, in light of the pagan cultures around them who held the same flood and day of the dead observances.
Footnotes
1] Partial List of Ancient Cultures Observing the Feast of the Dead in late Oct- Nov
Celtic
Anglo-Saxons, Dutch, Swedes
Assyria
Persia
Peru
Polynesia
Mexico
Ancient Greece and Rome
India
Mayans
Aborigines (Australia)
Japan
*Note: I am indebted to the YouTube channel “After School” for this list and many of the visual references referred to in this paper.
2] When To See ‘Halloween Fireballs’ This Weekend As Taurid Meteors Peak
Bright “Halloween fireballs” — or Taurids — are a common sight in the night sky from mid-October until mid-November.
Extremely bright meteors, such as fireballs from the Taurids, will appear to radiate from the constellation Taurus but can occur anywhere in the night sky.
3] Festival of the Dead or Feast of Ancestors
In many cultures around the world a single event, the Festival of the Dead, lasting up to 3 days, was held at the end of October and beginning of November; examples include the Peruvians, the Pacific Islanders, the people of the Tonga Islands, the ancient Persians, ancient Romans, and the northern nations of Europe to name but a few.
Historians have thought that the three-day festival of the dead is a ritualistic remembrance of the deluge in which Halloween the first night is depicting the wickedness of the world before the flood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_of_the_Dead
Pictures
#1a (Note god of death falling and to the left the flood being poured out)
#1b (Pre-Columbian Codex Borgia calendar section- On this day the god of death fell to earth heralded by flaming stars
#2
#3 (Note the Pleiades cluster above the Bull’s shoulder)
#4 (Here is a picture of the Pleiades for comparison)
