Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan

generally given to 175sacrificial rites in Europe when Christianity came into conflict with paganism. It is, however, held by many scholars that the original purpose of s

in Europe of sacrifices that were not offerings, but solemn feasts of communion in the flesh and blood of a worshipful animal.?{35} That the idea of sacrificial communion preceded the sacrifice-gift is suggested by the fact that in many customs which appear to be sacrificial survivals the body of the victim has some kind of sacramental efficacy; it conveys a blessing to that which is brought into contact with it. The actual eating and drinking of the flesh and blood is the most perfect mode of contact, but the same end seems to have been aimed at in such customs

stom of beast-masking gave the ecclesiastics. Its pr

tantly bears on his body the token of his religion, and which is itself a charm and a means of divine protection.... When the dress of sacrificial skin, which at once declared a man's religion and his sacred kindred, ceased to be used in ordinary life, it was still

be that animal sacrifice originated at a stage of religion before the idea of definite "spirits" had arisen, when man was conscious rather of a vague force like the Melanesian mana, in himself and in almost everything, and "constantly trembling on the verge of personality."?{38} "Mana " better than "god" or "spirit" may express that with which the partaker in the communal feast originally sought contact. "When you sacrifice," to quote some words of Miss Jane Harrison, "you build as it were a bridge between your mana, your will, your desire, which is weak and impotent, and 177that unseen outside mana which you believe to be strong and efficacious. In the fruits of the earth which grow by some unseen power there is much mana; you want that mana. In the loud-roaring bull and the thunder is much

of the sacred, inviolable character of certain creatures: they may originally have been spared not for reasons of convenience but because it was deemed a crime to kill them?-except upon certain solemn occasions?-and may have become friendly towards man through living by his side.?{41} On the other hand it is

flesh and blood of 178an animal victim. Benediction by external contact, again, is suggested by the widespread use in various ways of branches or sprigs or whole trees. The Christmas-tree and evergreen decorations are the most obvious examples; we shall see others in the course of our survey, and in conn

. Other animals, apparently, were held too sacred to be slain, except upon rare and solemn occasions, and hence, as we have seen, may have arisen domestication and the pastoral life which, with its religious rites, was the affair of the men. To women, on the other hand, belonged agriculture; the cult of Mother Earth a

ot be provided without a sacrifice. For a feast is not complete without flesh, and in early times the rule that all slaughter is sacrifice was not confined to the Semites. The identity of religious occasions and festal seasons may indeed be taken as the determining characteristic of the type of ancient religion generally; wh

arker for note {44} was no

lace of this, so that on the day of the dedication of the churches, or the nativities of the holy martyrs whose relics are placed there, they may make for themselves tabernacles of branches of trees around those churches which have been changed from heathen temples, and may celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting. Nor let them now sacrifice animals to the Devil, but to the praise

ves. Yet the festivity and merrymaking to which it gave occasion were to be left to the 180people, for a time at all events. The policy had its advantages, it made the Church festivals popular; but it had also its dangers, it encouraged the intrusion of a pagan fleshly element into t

arious similar figures during the Christmas season?-the "King of the Bean," for instance, and the "Bishop of Fools." If the theories about human sacrifice set forth in "The Golden Bough" be accepted, we may regard these personages as having once been mock kings chosen to suffer instead of the real kings, who had at first to perish