mount of sun, which was common to be worshipped as a God itself. The factor of the waning sunlight was important to Christians because the doctrines held that Jesus was born during the darkest hour of the year. By drawing upon the existing pagan belief that the solstice was sacred and melding it with the Christian belief that the darkest hour gave birth to the light of Christ, the Christians decided that December 25th would be the appointed day for the celebration of Christs birth.(Murray p.32)The choice of this date was very significant in the effort to draw people away from paganism and towards Christianity. The decided date was "symbolically suitable, and represented the strategic high ground of the pagan calendar" (Murray p.32). The winter solstice was also the point of the pagan new year celebration and therefore one of their most important holidays. By establishing a holiday on the same date as the already existing pagan one, Christianity in a sense nullified the pagan holiday and replaced it with Christmas. "Christian Christmas was on a march, then, in a negative way, as churchmen variously execrated, amputated, tolerated, allegorized, adapted and incorporated existing pagan customs" (Murray p.36). In this sentence Murray hits the nail on the head when looking at the factors which helped the Christian Church to gain influence during these times. It is interesting that Murray would use the words amputated and tolerated in the same sentence when describing this adaptation. It seems to imply that whatever elements of pagan practices which were not tolerated by the Christian Church were amputated, or cut off and eliminated. When aspects of paganism were not able to be conformed to Christianity they were often discredited and proclaimed as false. The word "superstition" was often used by Christians in reference to pagans to achieve this purpose. In this context superstition can be defined as "a judgemental term traditional...
