having retreated to his Sabine farm, from the uproarious excesses of the Saturnalia in the capital.1 Other classic writers abound in similar references to the unrestrained freedom of this festival of the "Golden Age." All social order was inverted in the licentious hilarity of this festival; feasting, gaming and revelry were the occupations of all classes, without discrimination of age, or sex, or rank. Processions crowded the streets, boisterous with mirth; these illuminated the night with lighted tapers of wax (cerei), which were also used as gifts between friends in the humbler walks of life. The season was one for the exchange of gifts of friendship, and especially of gifts to children. The latter was originally another festival (the Sigillaria), when images were given to children; but this, with other feasts that clustered about this season, was at length included in the grand period of the Saturnalia, which, beginning on the XIV. Kal. Jan. or the 17th of December, extended virtually to the commencement of the new year. The most complete account of the Saturnalia is that given by Macrobius; Conviviorum Saturnaliorum, in seven books, each book treating of a separate day of the festival. Of the antiquity of the festival, Macrobius writes as follows: "Excogitavit Janus honorum ejus augmenta. ac primum terram omnem ditioni suae parentem Saturniam nominavit: aram deinde cum sacris tamquam deo condidit, quae Saturnalia nominavit. tot saeculis Saturnalia praecedunt Romanae urbis aetatem."2 Concerning the license of the occasion, he says: Saturnalibus tota servis licentia permittitur." Of the usages and the duration of the festival, he thus speaks: "Pelasgos, postquam felicior interpretatio capita non viventium sed fictilia, et poros aestimationem non solum hominem sed etiam lumen significare docuisset, coepisse Saturno cereos potius accendere, et in sacellum Ditis arae Saturni cohaerens oscilla quaedam pro suis capitibus ferre; ex illo traditum ut cerei Saturnalibus missitarentur, et sigilla arte fictili fingerentur ac venalia pararentur; quae homines pro se atque suis piaculum pro Dite Saturno facerent. Ideo Saturnalibus talium commerciorum coepta celebritas septem occupat dies."" 1 "At ipsis Saturnalibus huc fugisti. Sobrius ergo," etc.-Liber II. Sat. III. 4. 2 Opera, London, 1694, p. 152, Lib. 1, Cap. 7. Ib. p. 168, Lib. 1, Cap. 11. In comparing this festival with that of Christmas, as the latter was kept for centuries at Rome, and also in "merrie old England," we find the following marked resemblances : (a) The season itself, the winter solstice, when the sun begins to turn his face again northward, corresponds in both, and is suggestive of life and joyousness. Even Roman Catholic authorities, such as Harduin and others, give prominence to this idea in the Christmas festival; and one of the early Popes said of the day, that it commemorated rather the return of the sun than the birth of Christ. The spiritual analogy here is so obvious, that it was easy to transfer the existing festival to the Christian calendar, by giving to it this higher significance. Yet, in the association of the masses, it would remain the old yearly rejoicing at the turning back of the sun. (b) Christmas, like the Saturnalia, has ever been a season of riotous indulgence, high feasting, and universal license; its characteristic, not a solemn religious joy, but unbridled mirth. Gross, sensual entertainments and boisterous sports are features of both festivals. Ben Jonson, in his Masque of Christmas, which was presented at Court in 1616, introduces Misrule and Wassel as principal characters; and parades before the royal family, cobblers, bugle-makers, smiths, and grooms, from Fishstreet, Pudding-lane, and like localities, to indulge their coarse wit and vulgar sports according to the license of the season.1 The following bill of fare of King Arthur's Christmas table, will show to what extent the Christmas feasting was carried in those good old times: 'They served up salmon, venison. and wild boars, By hundreds, and by dozens, and by scores. Hogsheads of honey, kilderkins of mustard, Muttons, and fatted beeves, and bacon swine; For porter, punch, and negus were not known." The inns of Court, those famous societies of the barristers. of London, vied with the Court itself in low masquerades and other devices for celebrating this festival. But the point of 1 Works, Boston edition, p. 717. nearest resemblance to the Saturnalia is thus given by Hervey:1 "The peasant, and even the pauper, were made, as it were, once a year, sharers in the mirth of their immediate lord, and even of the monarch himself. The laboring classes had enlarged privileges, during this season, not only by custom, but by positive enactment; and restrictive acts of parliament, by which they were prohibited from certain games at other periods, contained exceptions in favor of the Christmas-tide. Nay, folly was, as it were, crowned, and disorder had a license." He then quotes a proclamation, perhaps satirical, from a sheriff of York; wherein it is declared that " all thieves, dice-players, carders, etc., and all other unthrifty folke, be welcome to the towne whether they came late or early, att the reverence of the high feast of Youle, till the twelve dayes be passed." In this unbridled revelry of all classes, the Christmas and the Saturnalia festivals agree. Both represent a golden age of liberty. (c) The hymn of the nativity sung through the streets of Rome, and the Christmas carol of old England, correspond exactly to the hymn sung in praise of Saturn at his festival. (d) The interchange of presents between friends is alike characteristic of Christmas and the Saturnalia; and must have been adopted by Christians from the Pagans, as the admonition of Tertullian plainly shows. (e) Christmas is everywhere a festival for children. It is to them a day of gifts and merry-making; and, in this respect, it answers exactly to the festival of infants, which occupied one day of the Saturnalia. (f) The special use of candles and wax tapers, is another feature of the two festivals in common. We have seen that these were employed during the Saturnalia, both for purposes of illumination, and as gifts of friendship. The same usage has prevailed at Christmas, which was formerly called at Rome the "Feast of Lights." (g) A famous feature of Christmas anciently, was the choice of a "twelfth night" king, or a king of misrule, to direct the sports. He was chosen by a ring, or by a choice of beans or of straws, and did his utmost to promote lawless sports, whether in the house of king, noble, or peasant. Precisely in this manner a "king of sports" was chosen in the Saturnalia, even to 1 Book of Christmas. the election by beans. The one must have been taken from the other. In short, "Christmas succeeds the Saturnalia; the same time, the same number of holydays. Then the master waited upon the servant, like the Lord of Misrule." We may well imagine how these resemblances moved the holy indignation of the Puritan Prynne to say: "Our Christmas lords of Misrule, together with dancing, masques, mummeries, stage-players, and such other Christmas disorders, now in use with Christians, were derived from these Roman Saturnalia and Bacchanalian festivals; which should cause all pious Christians eternally to abominate them."" The more genial Neander, who is prone to recognize a Christian spirit wherever this is possible, says of the analogy of Christmas to the Saturnalia: "That Christian festival which could be so easily' connected with the feelings and presentiments lying at the ground of the whole series of Pagan festivals belonging to this season, was to be opposed to these latter; and hence the celebration of Christmas was transferred to the 25th of December, for the purpose of drawing away the Christian people from all participation in the heathen festivals, and of gradually drawing even the Pagans themselves from their heathen customs to the Christian celebration. This view of the matter seems to be particularly favored in a New Year's discourse by Maximus, bishop of Turin, near the close of the fourth century, where he recognizes a special Divine providence in appointing the birth of Christ to take place in the midst of Pagan festivals; so that men might be led to feel ashamed of Pagan superstition and Pagan excesses." In summing up the evidences of history, we find that the festival of Christmas is of Roman origin; that it grew out of the practice, common to Jews and Gentiles, of commemorating great moral and historical events by religious ceremonies; that it was prompted by the natural regard paid by ignorant and superstitious minds to the marvellous incidents of an event, rather than to the moral lesson of the event itself; and that toward the close of the fourth century, with a view to keeping Christians aloof from the current Pagan festivals, and to alluring Pagans from their Saturnalia, the Christmas festival was 1 Selden, quoted by Hervey. 2 Histrio-Mastix. See in Hervey. fixed in the midst of the Pagan festivals of the closing year, and gradually incorporated their usages with its own idea. While, therefore, we would not say with Prynne, that all pious Christians should abominate this festival, we do say that it has neither the historic dignity, the moral significance, nor the sacred associations, that every such institution should possess to command the approval of the Christian world. ARTICLE VII. THE PREEXISTENCE OF THE SOUL. Translated from Keil's Opuscula Academica. INTIMATELY Connected with the notion of the three parts of man, is that which admits a certain preëxistence of the human soul. And since those teachers of the early church who favored this opinion, are said to have borrowed it from the Platonic phi losophy, we propose to inquire not only which of them defended, and how they defined the same, but also from what fountains it was imbibed. 1 It cannot then be denied that this belief that the souls of men had existed before they were united to the body, was common, especially in the East. Thus JEROME says: "As to the origin of the soul, I remember your question, or rather, the question of the whole church: Whether it be fallen from heaven as Pythag oras, the Platonists, and Origen believe, or be of the proper substance of God, as the Stoics, Manichaeans and Priscillian heretics of Spain imagine; or whether they are kept in a repository formerly built by God, as some ecclesiastics foolishly believe; or whether they are daily made by God and sent into bodies, according to that which is written in the Gospel: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work;" or whether by traduction, as Tertullian, Apollinarius, and the greater part of the Westerns 1 Epist. ad Marcell. et Anapsych. Opp. T. I. p. 983. edit. Vallars. Epist. ad Demetriad, T. I. p. 987. |