Halloween 10-31-21 NYC. part 1 of 2 Where Did Halloween Come From?

Do you know that Halloween was introduced into the professing Christian world centuries after the death of the Apostles, yet it was celebrated by the pagans centuries before the New Testament Church was founded!

How did Halloween come to America? Here is the intriguing answer from history: “The American celebration rests upon Scottish and Irish folk customs WHICH CAN BE TRACED IN DIRECT LINE FROM PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES” — from paganism! “Although Halloween has become a night of rollicking fun, superstitious spells, and eerie games which people take only half seriously, its beginnings were quite otherwise. The earliest Halloween celebrations were held” — not by the inspired early Church, but — “by the Druids in honor of Samhain, Lord of the Dead, whose festival fell on November 1.” (From Halloween Through Twenty Centuries, by Ralph Linton, p. 4.)

Far from being Christian, this festival is an old pagan holiday, masquerading as though it was one of the customs of the Church. And yet professing Christians allow their children to get into the spirit of this pagan custom!
The Encyclopedia Americana states about Halloween that it “is clearly a relic of pagan times.

Now notice what the authoritative Encyclopedia Britannica says about Halloween: “It long antedates Christianity. The two chief characteristics of ancient Halloween were the lighting of bonfires and the belief that this is the one night in the year during which ghosts and witches are most likely to wander about. History shows that the main celebrations of Halloween were purely Druidical” — from the pagan Druids of Northwest Europe — “and this is further proved by the fact that in parts of Ireland October 31 is still known as OIDHCH SHAMHNA, ‘Vigil of Saman.’ “ Saman or Samhain was the pagan lord of the dead among the Druids.

So Halloween was celebrated among the pagans long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. This pagan holiday, however, was not celebrated alone among the Druids. It was also a Roman festival! The Britannica continues: “On the Druidic ceremonies were grafted some of the characteristics of the Roman festival in honour of Pomona held about November 1, in which nuts and apples, representing the winter store of fruits, played an important part.”

Notice the widespread pagan custom to celebrate this season of the year.