MaltaToday previous editions

13 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 2 NOVEMBER 2022 OPINION lief-systems (for rather self-ev- ident reasons) didn't define 'Good' and 'Evil' in quite the same black-and-white terms, as the Judeo-Christian religions that would supplant them. For unlike the Christians, Jews and Muslims of later millennia: those people were under no illusion whatsoever, that the world they inhabit- ed was 'created by a benevo- lent Deity'; and as such, that it must have been inherently 'good', from the moment of Creation… until Nasty Old Nick suddenly came along, to screw everything up. Simply put: there is no direct equivalent, anywhere in the pagan canon, of the Biblical verse that: 'God looked up- on his creation, and saw that it was Good'. As such, those pagans had no motivation to even account for the existence of 'Evil' in the world, at all…. still less, to come up with the idea that 'God's perfect crea- tion must, perforce, have been CORRUPTED.' Hence the most glaring irony of them all: if there is no con- nection whatsoever, between 'paganism' and 'satanism' (a concept which, by the way, on- ly makes sense in a monothe- istic religion, to begin with)… why are so many people so utterly convinced that those two words refer to one and the same thing? Honestly: do I need to even answer that? Because Christi- anity forged the link itself, of course! In its bid to phase out all those archaic, pre-Chris- tian beliefs… early Christians did pretty much exactly the same thing Fr David Muscat – and so many others – are doing today: they literally 'de- monised' all those mythical gods and monsters… to make them all fit neatly into the new, approved (and monothe- istic) paradigm, that they were trying to impose. Even so, however: little of this has much to do with Hal- loween, anyway; because par- adoxically enough, Halloween is one of the very, very few Christian festivals that CAN'T be traced to pagan times; nor even remotely close, for that matter. Not just because the festi- val itself (in its present form, at any rate) doesn't even date back to the 19th century: still less, to any pagan tradition that would have completely died out, in Europe, way over a thousand years earlier… but also because there is no con- nection whatsoever, between the 'Halloween' tradition we so recently imported from America – and even then, mostly through cinema and television - and the 'Celtic, druidic origins' that have been erroneously attributed to it, ever since. Here, I shall have to resort to a spot of well-intentioned plagiarism… and invite you to consider the research of Fr Augustine Thompson, O.P.: an associate professor of reli- gious studies at the University of Virginia, who wrote a semi- nal essay on the origins of Hal- loween in 2000. Not only is Fr Thompson (unlike myself) clearly an ex- pert in the field; but he is al- so (like Fr Muscat) a Catho- lic priest; and – much more importantly, from a sceptic's point of view – his conclusions happen to tally perfectly, with all other accepted research in- to the same question. In any case: Thompson be- gins by pointing out that, "We've all heard the alle- gations: Halloween is a pa- gan rite dating back to some pre-Christian festival among the Celtic Druids that escaped church suppression. […] If you let your kids go trick-or-treat- ing, they will be worshipping the devil and pagan gods." Sounds kind of familiar al- ready, huh? But he also goes on to state: "Nothing could be further from the truth. The origins of Halloween are, in fact, very Christian and rather American…" What follows is a detailed explanation of how most of what we now associate with this festival – including its 'ghoulish' character, and all the associated iconography: the Jack O'Lanterns, etc. – can all be traced to traditions im- ported to America, by mostly Irish and French immigrants, from the 1700s onwards; and more compellingly still, that these early variations bore no resemblance whatsoever, to anything we would recognise as 'Halloween' today. The name itself is (or should be) a dead giveaway: Hallow- een is an abbreviation of 'All Hallows Even'… which trans- lates roughly into: "the night before the (very Christian) feast we celebrate here in Mal- ta as 'All Saints'." But the most conspicu- ous detail is the date: which was moved from the original March 13, to the current No- vember 1, on the (entirely ar- bitrary) whim of Pope Grego- ry, back in the eighth century; and as Thompson notes, "In those days Halloween didn't have any special significance for Christians or for long-dead Celtic pagans…" As for everything else that was added later: some of it (for instance, 'Trick or Treat') has origins that can be traced back to the Middle Ages, at the very earliest; while others – like the addition of 'witch- es', to Halloween's ghoulish parade – came about because: "The greeting card industry added them in the late 1800s"; presumably, to further com- mercialise a festival, that was fast becoming as popular – and lucrative – as Christmas… And well, that's the extent of it, really. There is nothing you can remotely describe as 'pa- gan', 'satanic', or 'evil', about Halloween. Such a pity, that I can't quite say the same for a few of the other views ex- pressed by Fr David Muscat – and others like him – over the years... The original March 13 was moved to the current November 1, on the (entirely arbitrary) whim of Pope Gregory, back in the eighth century; "In those days Halloween didn't have any special significance for Christians or for long-dead Celtic pagans…"

• Cover