quantus ad Datalem Sponsi tui populus convenerit, ut nemo impastus recedit ? " ^ 0pp. ii. 384. 396 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. already calls it, notwithstanding its recent introduction (some ten years before), the fundamental feast, or the root, from which all other Christian festivals grow forth. The Christmas festival was probably the Christian transfor- mation or regeneration of a series of kindred heathen festivals — the Saturnalia, Sigillaria, Juvenalia, and Brumalia — which were kept in Rome in the month of December, in commemora- tion of the golden age of universal freedom and equality, and in honor of the unconquered sun, and which were great holi- days, especially for slaves and children.' This connection ac- counts for many customs of the Christmas season, like the giv- ing of presents to children and to the poor, the lighting of wax tapers, perhaps also the erection of Christmas trees, and gives them a Christian import ; while it also betrays the origin of the many excesses in which the unbelieving world indulges at this season, in wanton perversion of the true Christmas mirth, but which, of course, no more forbid right use, than the abuses of the Bible or of any other gift of God. Had the Christmas festival arisen in the period of the persecution, its derivation from these pagan festivals would be refuted by the then reign- ing abhorrence of everything heathen ; but in the Nicene age this rigidness of opposition between the church and the world was in a great measure softened by the general conversion of the heathen. Besides, there lurked in those pagan festivals themselves, in spite of all their sensual abuses, a deep meaning and an adaptation to a real want ; they might be called uncon- scious prophecies of the Christmas feast. Finally, the church fathers themselves'* confirm the symbolical reference of the feast of the birth of Christ, the Sun of righteousness, the Light ' The Saturnalia were the feast of Saturn or Kronos, in representation of the golden days of his reign, when all labor ceased, prisoners were set free, slaves went about in gentlemen's clothes and in the hat (the mark of a freeman), and all classes gave themselves up to mirth and rejoicing. The Sigillaria were a festival of images and puppets at the close of the SatumaUa on the 21st and 22d of December, when miniature images of the gods, wax tapers, and all sorts of articles of beauty and luxury were distributed to children and among kinsfolk. The Brumalia, from bruma (brevissima, the shortest day), had reference to the winter solstice, and the return of the Sol invictus. ° Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Leo the Great, and others. § 77. THE CHRISTMAS CYCLE. 397 of the world, to the birth-festival of the unconqnered sun,' which on the twenty-fifth of December, after the winter solstice, breaks the growing power of darkness, and begins anew his heroic career. It was at the same time, moreover, the prevail- ing opinion