of their indignant ascription of these similarities to the work
of devils; but we need not dwell over them. There is no
need for US to be indignant. On the contrary we can now
see that these animadversions of the Christian writers are
the evidence of how and to what extent in the spread of
Christianity over the world it had become fused with the
Pagan cults previously existing.

[1] The Zodiacal sign of Capricornus, iii.).


It was not till the year A.D. 530 or so--five centuries after
the supposed birth of Christ--that a Scythian Monk, Dionysius
Exiguus, an abbot and astronomer of Rome, was
commissioned to fix the day and the year of that birth.
A nice problem, considering the historical science of the
period! For year he assigned the date which we now adopt,[2]
and for day and month he adopted the 25th December
--a date which had been in popular use since about
350 B.C., and the very date, within a day or two, of the
supposed birth of the previous Sungods.[3] From that
fact alone we may fairly conclude that by the year 530
or earlier the existing Nature-worships had become largely
fused into Christianity. In fact the dates of the main
pagan religious festivals had by that time become so
popular that Christianity was OBLIGED to accommodate itself
to them.[1]

[1] As, for instance, the festival of John the Baptist in June
took the place of the pagan midsummer festival of water and