, Bishop of Rome,
appointed the 25th December as the festival day for the whole Church, an
edict which was universally obeyed. As was to be expected, many of the
ceremonies and superstitious beliefs emanating from the Saturnalia were
merged in the customs of the Christian feast, and do still survive in
modified forms till the present day. In many of our Christmas customs we
can thus perceive the influence of the self-preservation policy of the
early Roman Christians, and in the survival of many other pagan customs
in this and other of our festivals, we can trace the influence of
another policy, the worldly-wise policy of the Roman Church.
At the close of the sixth century, Pope Gregory sent St. Augustine, or
Austin, to this country as a missionary, and by his preaching, many
thousands of the people were converted to Christianity. This Pope's
instructions to Augustine concerning his treatment of heathen festivals,
were that "the heathen temples were not to be destroyed, but turned
into Christian churches; that the oxen killed in sacrifice should still
be killed with rejoicing, but their bodies given to the poor, and that
the refreshment booths round the heathen temples should be allowed to
remain as places of jollity and amusement for the people on Christian
festivals, for it is impossible to cut abruptly from hard and rough
minds all their old habits and customs.
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