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| Saint Mellitus refuses communion to the sons of Sabert, king of the East Saxons. Etching by Hubert François Bourguignon Gravelot, 1743. |
There are two facile and credulously accepted claims that make the rounds of Late Roman-interest online fora and social media with some frequency. They are roughly as follows:
“Christianity sought to destroy the art, architecture and culture of classical civilization.”
and
“Modern Christian holidays are nothing more than ancient pagan holidays with a Christian overlay.”
Both of these declarations are treated uncritically as fact by those who use the outmoded Gibbon as their sole guide to Late Antiquity. The second is also used by those of a Protestant persuasion who wish to prove that Catholicism (and Orthodoxy to a lesser extent) are little better than warmed-over paganism.
Context has been added to the first statement on numerous occasions on this blog, including here, here, and here. The second has been dealt with as well, here and here.
Interestingly, there is a 1,400 year-old letter from Pope Saint Gregory the Great that addresses both of these claims rather directly. Recalling this letter to the attention of our readers is also especially fitting for this season of Thanksgiving in the United States as St. Gregory specifically calls out in his letter one of the reasons for the institution of feasts as to “return thanks to the Giver of all things”.
The letter was recorded by Saint Bede the Venerable as part of his great work, the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, which was written shortly before Bede’s death ca. AD 735. By that time, Gregory's letter was over a century old. It was addressed to the abbot Mellitus (later, Saint Mellitus), a missionary who would go on to become the bishop of London and archbishop of Canterbury. In the letter, Gregory offers advice to Mellitus, then still in France, about how to conduct himself as a missionary among the heathen barbarians who ruled over formerly Christian Britain.
Here is the letter in full, with some comments interspersed:
Chapter XXX: A Copy of the Letter Which Pope Gregory Sent to the Abbot Mellitus, then going into Britain
The aforesaid messengers being departed, the holy father, Gregory, sent after them letters worthy to be preserved in memory, wherein he plainly shows what care he took of the salvation of our nation. The letter was as follows:
To his most beloved son, the Abbot Mellitus; Gregory the servant of the servants of God.
We have been much concerned since the departure of our congregation that is with you, because we have received no account of the success of your journey. When, therefore, Almighty God shall bring you to the most reverend man our brother bishop, St Augustine, tell him what I have, upon mature deliberation on the affair of the English, determined upon, viz. that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed. Let holy water be made, and sprinkled in the said temples; let altars be erected, and let relics be deposited in them. For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of the devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may the more familiarly resort to the same places to which they have been accustomed.
Here we see Gregory advising Mellitus to preserve and reconsecrate pagan temples as Christian churches. To anyone familiar with late Roman history, this advice should come as no great surprise. While certainly a few celebrated examples exist of Christian populations actively tearing down their local pagan temples, examples of pagan temples converted into Christian churches abound, including the Pantheon in Rome which, under Gregory’s successor Pope Boniface IV, became the Church of Saint Mary and the Martyrs. Another famous example was the Parthenon at Athens, which became the Church of Maria Parthenos in the late 6th century AD. A scholarly article written in 2017 by Dutch classicist Feyo Schuddeboom goes into considerable detail about the pagan temples in the city of Rome that were reconsecrated as churches, counting eleven examples. The list may be found in this excellent article by Sarah Bond that appeared in Forbes: Were Pagan Temples All Smashed Or Just Converted Into Christian Ones?
The trend among contemporary scholars seems to view the shift from paganism to Christianity in Late Antiquity as less an abrupt and violent clash of cultures and more a gradual transition that involved, as the Apostle Paul would famously recommend, “the proving of all things, holding fast that which is good, but refraining from all appearances of evil.” [1 Thessalonians 5:21]. Gregory’s letter, though written regarding the pagan temples in Britain rather than Rome, supports that thesis.
The second section of Gregory’s letter deals with the replacement of pagan feasts with those particular to Christianity:
And because they have been used to slaughter many oxen to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged for them on this account, as that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs, whose relics are deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees, about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer feasts to the Devil, but kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating, and return thanks to the Giver of all things for their sustenance, to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of God. For there is no doubt that it is impossible to efface every thing at once from their obdurate minds; because he who endeavors to ascend to the highest place, rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps.
Thus the Lord made himself known to the people of Israel in Egypt; and yet he allowed them the use of the sacrifices which they were wont to offer to the Devil, in his own worship; so as to command them in his sacrifice to kill beasts, to the end that, changing their hearts, they might lay aside one part of the sacrifice, whilst they retained another; that whilst they offered the same beasts which they were wont to offer, they should offer them to God, and not to idols; and thus they would no longer be the same sacrifices.
This it behooves your affection to communicate to our aforesaid brother, that he being there present, may consider how he is to order all things. God preserve you in safety, most beloved son.
Given the 17th of June, in the nineteenth year of the reign of our lord, the most pious emperor, Mauritius Tiberius, the eighteenth year after the consulship of our said lord. The fourth indiction. (AD 601).
Taken from Giles: The Complete Works of Venerable Bede, Vol. II, The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, Book I, Chapter XXX, page 141
Note that Gregory is not calling for Mellitus to take pagan festivals and simply rename them as Christian feasts. Rather, he is suggesting that new feasts be instituted on the date of a particular martyr’s birth or death, or the date upon which a church is consecrated. Numerous such feast days may be found in ancient Catholic martyrologies and missals, including dates for remembering revered local saints as well as those celebrated by the universal Church. Again, Gregory is following the advice of St. Paul – pagan festal practices which are neutral and universal, such as holding banquets, decorating, and celebration may be incorporated into Christian holy days. Those practices, however, which are specific to pagan superstitions such as idol-worship, astrology, gluttony, sinful revels, and the like, must be done away with.
It is interesting to note that the same approach was used by the Jesuits of the 17th century when evangelizing the native tribes of America in New France. I outlined some of the pagan practices which the Jesuit missionaries considered incompatible with Christianity in a previous post—When the Jesuits were Catholic. That post also includes an insightful quote drawn from St. Jean Brebeuf’s speech to the elders of the Huron nation which distinguishes those neutral customs and practices of all nations from those which concern superstitious beliefs:
“As for our ways of doing things, [Fr. Brebeuf] said that it was quite true they were altogether different from theirs—that we had this in common with all nations; that, in fact, there were as many different customs as there were different peoples upon the earth; that the manner of living, of dressing, and of building houses was entirely different in France from what it was here, and in other countries of the world, and that this was not what we found wrong. But, as to what concerned God, all nations ought to have the same sentiments; that the reality of a God was one, and so clear that it was only necessary to open the eyes to see it written in large characters upon the faces of all creatures.”
Echoes of St. Gregory’s advice may be discerned in this statement, and in the Jesuits' mode of evangelizing the tribes of New France.
It’s worth mentioning as a final word that things fell out poorly for St. Mellitus and the pagans of London. Bede records in his History that King Sabert of the East Saxons was baptized by Mellitus and permitted a bishopric to be set up in London. Upon Sabert’s death in AD 616, however, his three sons looked with scorn upon Mellitus and returned to paganism. The dramatic confrontation between Mellitus and the sons of Sabert, as depicted in the etching at the top of this post, is described by Bede as follows:
This confusion was increased by the death of Sabert, king of the East-Saxons, who departing to the heavenly kingdom, left three sons, still pagans, to inherit his temporal crown. They immediately began to profess idolatry, which, during their father's reign, they had seemed a little to abandon, and they granted free liberty to the people under their government to serve idols. And when they saw the bishop, whilst celebrating mass in the church, give the eucharist to the people, they, puffed up with barbarous folly, were wont, as it is reported, to say to him, "Why do you not give us also that white bread, which you used to give to our father Saba (for so they used to call him), and which you still continue to give to the people in the church?"
To whom he answered, "If you will be washed in that laver of salvation, in which your father was washed, you may also partake of the holy bread of which he partook; but if you despise the laver of life, you may not receive the bread of life."
They replied, "We will not enter into that laver, because we do not know that we stand in need of it, and yet we will eat of that bread."
And being often earnestly admonished by him, that the same could not be done, nor any one admitted to partake of the sacred oblation without the holy cleansing, at last, they said in anger, "If you will not comply with us in so small a matter as that is which we require, you shall not stay in our province." And accordingly they obliged him and his followers to depart from their kingdom.
Taken from Giles: The Complete Works of Venerable Bede, Vol. II, The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, Book I, Chapter XXX, page 191
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