Origin of All Souls’ Day and

the Day of the Dead

Ancient ‘Days of the Dead’
began as a remembrance who
died in the worldwide deluge:
“In the six hundredth year of
Noah’s life, in the second
month, on the seventeenth day
of the month, on this day all the
springs of the vast watery deep
were broken open and the
floodgates of the heavens were
opened. And the downpour
upon the earth went on for forty
days and forty nights” (Genesis
7:11, 12; New World). Since
ancient calendars began around
the middle of September of our
calendar, the 17th day of the 2nd
month would be around the 1st
of November.
“The mythologies of all the
ancient nations are interwoven
with the events of the Deluge …
The force of this argument is
illustrated by the fact of the
observance of a great festival of
the dead in commemoration of
the event, not only by nations
more or less in communication
with each other, but by others
widely separated, both by the
ocean and by centuries of time.
This festival is, moreover, held
by all on or about the very day
on which, according to the
Mosaic account, the Deluge
took place, viz., the seventeenth
day of the second month—the
month nearly corresponding
with our November’ (Worship
Dead p. 4).
The Greeks believed their day
of the dead started as a
memorial for those who died in
the global deluge. An ancient
Greek writer noted that it was in
imitation of those who survived
the flood and who made
sacrifices for the ones who died
therein: “ A festival at
Athens; on a single day both the
Pitchers and the Pots used to
be held; in it they would boil
every [kind of] seed in a pot and
sacrifice it to Dionysus and to
Hermes. Theopompus [4th C.
BCE] says that those who had
been saved from the flood
boiled a pot of every kind of
seed, whence the festival is thus
named, and that they sacrificed
in the Pitchers [festival] to
Chthonic Hermes; but that no
one eats from the pot. [He says]
those who had been saved did
this, propitiating Hermes on
behalf of those who died also”
(Suda under ).
“Chytri, festum Atheniensium
Baccho consecratum; celebralur
hanc ob causam, quam
Theopompus quoque exponit,
ita scribens: ‘Homines e diluvio
servatos nomine ejus diei, quo
animos erexissent, appellasse
totum festum: tum morem iis
esse, ut Olympiorum quidem
deorum sacrificent omnino nulli;
Mercurio vero Inferno. Atque
chytram (ollam), quam omnes
coquunt in urbe, nemo gustat
sacerdotum. Hoc faciunt eo die,
et qui tum adsunt pro mortuis
placant Mercurium.’ ” “Chytri, an
Athenian festival sacred to
Dionysius, is celebrated, as
Theopompus himself explains,
for the following reason: The
men who survived the flood,
were moved by Dionysius to
name the entire festival after
him, and that thereafter, their
custom would be to sacrifice to
no other Olympian god but
Hermes of the Underworld. Yet
none of the priests ate from the
city’s common cooking pot.
Therefore, they made this day
for the living to appease Hermes
in behalf of the dead”
(“Theopompi Fragmenta”
[“Fragments of Theopompus”]
342 [Scholia of Aristophanes’
Frogs vs 220] in Grk Historians).
“Anthesteria, one of the four
Athenian festivals in honour of
Dionysus (collectively the
Dionysia), was held annually for
three days, the eleventh to
thirteenth of the month of
Anthesterion (the
January/February full moon) …
The Anthesteria also have
aspects of a festival of the dead
who freely roamed the city …
The third day was named
Chytroi (‘feast of pots’, from
, ‘a pot’), a festival of the
dead. Cooked pulse was offered
to Hermes Chthonios, Hermes
in his capacity of a god of the
lower world, and to the souls of
the dead, who were then bidden
to depart” (Wikipedia under
“Anthesteria”).
Origin of the Catholic festival:
Roman Catholic All Souls’ Day
is for the same purpose of
praying for the dead: “All Souls’
Day, the day set apart in the
Roman Catholic Church for the
commemoration of the faithful
departed. The celebration is
based on the doctrine that the
souls of the faithful which at
death have not been cleansed
from venial sins, or have not
atoned for past transgressions,
cannot attain the Beatific Vision,
and that they may be helped to
do so by prayer and by the
sacrifice of the mass. The feast
falls on the 2nd of November …
The practice oflsetting apart a
special day for intercession for
certain of the faithful departed is
of great antiquity; but the
establishment of a feast of
general intercession was in the
first instance due to Odilo, abbot
of Cluny (d. 1048) … a pilgrim
returning from the Holy Land
was cast by a storm on a
desolate island where dwelt a
hermit. From him he learned
that amid the rocks was a
chasm communicating with
purgatory, from which rose
perpetually the groans of
tortured souls, the hermit
asserting that he had also heard
the demons complaining of the
efficacy of the prayers of the
faithful, and especially of the
monks of Cluny [and their
abbot], in rescuing their victims.
On returning home the pilgrim
hastened to inform [Odilo] the
abbot of Cluny, who forthwith
set apart the 2nd of November
[his biography says the 1st of
November] as a day of
intercession on the part of his
community for all the souls in
purgatory … From Cluny the
custom … spread thence
throughout the Western Church”
(Britan 1911 under “All Souls’
Day”).
The biography of Odilo states
this as to what the stranded
man did after leaving the island:
“Aliquanto post homo regressus
in patriam, quidquid ex viri Dei
relatione didicerat, beato patri et
sanctae congregationi fileliter
narrat. Tunc vererabilis pater
Odilo per omnia monasteria sua
constituit general decretum ut,
sicut primo die mensis
Novembris, juxta universalis
Ecclesiae regulam, omnium
Sanctorum solemnitas agitur, ita
sequenti die in psalmis et
eleemosynis et praecipue
missarum solemniis omnium in
Christo quiescentium memoria
celebretur.” “Sometime after
returning home, this man
faithfully related to the blessed
father [Odilo] and the holy
congregation whatever he had
learned from that told him by the
man of God [the hermit on the
island]. Thereupon the
venerable father Odilo
established a general decree
throughout all his monasteries
that, just as on the first day of
November a solemn observance
for all the Saints is held,
following worldwide Church
regulation, so also on the
following day the memory of all
those resting in Christ [the
Christian dead] may be
celebrated by hymns, alms, and
especially by annual Masses”
(“S[ancti] Petri Damiani …
Sanctorum Historiae. Vita Sancti
Odilonis” [“Biographies of the
Saints by St. Peter Damiani:
The Life of St. Odilo”] in
Patrologia Latina vol. 144, col.
935-937).
“All Saints' Day (also known as
All Hallows, Solemnity of All
Saints or The Feast of All
Saints) is a solemnity celebrated
on 1 November by the Catholic
Church … All Souls' Day, also
known as the Commemoration
of All Faithful Departed, is
observed … on November 2”
(Wikipedia under “All Saints’
Day” and “All Souls’ Day”).
“A comparison of these
European customs [of
welcoming and feeding the dead
on All Souls’ Day] with the
similar heathen rites can leave
no room for doubt that the
nominally Christian feast of All
Souls is nothing but an old
pagan festival of the dead which
the Church, unable or unwilling
to suppress, resolved from
motives of policy to connive at.
But whence did it borrow the
practice solemnizing the festival
on that particular day, the
second of November? In order
to answer this question we
should observe, first, that
celebrations of this sort are
often held at by the beginning of
a New Year, and, second, that
the peoples of North-Western
Europe, the Celts and the
Teutons, appear to have dated
the beginning of their year from
the beginning of winter, the
Celts reckoning it from the first
of November … recognition was
first accorded at the end of the
tenth century in France, a Celtic
country, from which the Church
festival gradually spread over
Europe. It was Odilo, abbot …
of Clugny, [France,] who
initiated the change in 998 A.D.
… Thus the festival of All Souls
gradually established itself
throughout Christendom, though
in fact the Church has never
formally sanctioned it by a
general edict nor attached much
weight to its observance …
These facts are explained very
simply by the theory that an old
Celtic commemoration of the
dead lingered in France down to
the end of the tenth century, and
was then, as a measure of
policy and a concession to
ineradicable paganism, at last
incorporated in the Catholic
ritual. The consciousness of the
heathen origin of the practice
would naturally prevent the
supreme authorities from
insisting strongly on its
observance” (Golden Bough vol.
6, pp. 81-82).

References:
Britan 1911 Encyclopedia
Britannica edition of 1911;
http://www.1911encyclopedia.or
g
Golden Bough The Golden
Bough: A Study in Magic and
Religion, Third Edition by James
George Frazer, London,
Macmilland and Co., Limited,
1920
Grk Histor Fragmenta
Historicorum Graecorum
[Fragments of Greek Historians]
edited by Theodore Muller, Karl
Muller, and Victor Langlois,
Paris, Royal French Institute of
Typography, 1841-1873
New World New World
Translation of the Holy
Scriptures – With References by
the New World Bible Translation
Committee, New York,
Watchtower Bible and Tract
Society of New York, Inc., 1984
Patro Latina Patrologia
Latina [Works of the Latin
Fathers] edited by Jacques-Paul
Migne, 1844-1855
Suda Suda edited by
Ada Adler, Leipzig, Germany,
B.G. Tuebner, 1928-1938;
translation at
http://www.stoa.org/sol/;
Byzantine encyclopedia of 9th C.
CE
Wikipedia Wikipedia,
http://www.wikipedia.org
Worship Dead The Worship of
the Dead by J. Garnier, London,
Chapman & Hall, Limited, 1909