{"product_id":"2940013161221","title":"Christmas In Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan","description":"INTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Origin and Purpose of Festivals--Ideas suggested by\u003cbr\u003e    Christmas--Pagan and Christian Elements--The Names of the\u003cbr\u003e    Festival--Foundation of the Feast of the Nativity--Its Relation to\u003cbr\u003e    the Epiphany--December 25 and the _Natalis Invicti_--The Kalends of\u003cbr\u003e    January--Yule and Teutonic Festivals--The Church and Pagan\u003cbr\u003e    Survivals--Two Conflicting Types of Festival--Their Interaction--Plan\u003cbr\u003e    of the Book.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt has been an instinct in nearly all peoples, savage or civilized, to\u003cbr\u003eset aside certain days for special ceremonial observances, attended by\u003cbr\u003eoutward rejoicing. This tendency to concentrate on special times answers\u003cbr\u003eto man's need to lift himself above the commonplace and the everyday, to\u003cbr\u003eescape from the leaden weight of monotony that oppresses him. \"We tend to\u003cbr\u003etire of the most eternal splendours, and a mark on our calendar, or a\u003cbr\u003ecrash of bells at midnight maybe, reminds us that we have only recently\u003cbr\u003ebeen created.\"[1]{1} That they wake people up is the great justification\u003cbr\u003eof festivals, and both man's religious sense and his joy in life have\u003cbr\u003egenerally tended to rise \"into peaks and towers and turrets, into\u003cbr\u003esuperhuman exceptions which really prove the rule.\"{2} It is difficult\u003cbr\u003eto be religious, impossible to be merry, at every moment of life, and\u003cbr\u003efestivals are as sunlit peaks, testifying, above dark valleys, to the\u003cbr\u003eeternal radiance. This is one view of the purpose and value of festivals,\u003cbr\u003eand their function of cheering people and giving them larger perspectives\u003cbr\u003ehas no doubt been an important reason for their maintenance in the past.\u003cbr\u003eIf we could trace the custom of festival-keeping back to its origins in\u003cbr\u003eprimitive society |18| we should find the same principle of\u003cbr\u003especialization involved, though it is probable that the practice came\u003cbr\u003einto being not for the sake of its moral or emotional effect, but from\u003cbr\u003eman's desire to lay up, so to speak, a stock of sanctity, magical not\u003cbr\u003eethical, for ordinary days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first holy-day-makers were probably more concerned with such material\u003cbr\u003egoods as food than with spiritual ideals, when they marked with sacred\u003cbr\u003edays the rhythm of the seasons.{3} As man's consciousness developed, the\u003cbr\u003esubjective aspect of the matter would come increasingly into prominence,\u003cbr\u003euntil in the festivals of the Christian Church the main object is to\u003cbr\u003equicken the devotion of the believer by contemplation of the mysteries of\u003cbr\u003ethe faith. Yet attached, as we shall see, to many Christian festivals,\u003cbr\u003eare old notions of magical sanctity, probably quite as potent in the\u003cbr\u003eminds of the common people as the more spiritual ideas suggested by the\u003cbr\u003eChurch's feasts.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47079299809520,"sku":"2940013161221","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013161221_p0.jpg?v=1763588753","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013161221","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}