THE drinking-parties on the graves of the saints represent something
more than a coarse popular custom. There was a good bit of pagan
superstition in them, and this pagan superstition threatened to turn
into a Christian superstition. There were many such remains of paganism and
Augustine forbade them one after the other. "The old superstition cannot be
submerged deep enough, the new faith cannot be sufficiently perfected." ¹ That
was his dominant theme when he was called upon to pronounce judgement
on this kind of thing. He did not want the faithful to light bonfires on the
eve of 24 June, for "if they do not do this in actual honour of the demons,
it is nevertheless done in the same fashion as it would be were such honour
being rendered" -- this though the honour was nominally being done to John
the Baptist. "Yesterday evening the whole town glowed red with these stink-
ing fires. If you care little for the scandal of religion, then at least think
of the damage that is caused. We know of course that the whole thing was
the work of young scalliwags, and these most certainly did not bother their
heads about the summer solstice, but their elders should put a stop to it." ²

On the actual feast many went to the sea in order there to baptize them-
selves -- a practice which Augustine once used particularly stern words to
forbid, although his people assured him that they did not take this self-baptism
seriously, and merely did it to honour John the Baptist and the baptism of
Christ. Yet because there was some murmuring in the town, because his priests
had put some people who had been guilty of the practice under the ban of
the Church, he took the precaution of warning his congregation some six
months in advance. ³ He had to concede, however, that the pagan survivals had
been given a certain modest Christian covering and that with every year they
tended to become less noticeable.

A much more serious consideration was that there were still so many
erroneous ideas on the meaning and use of the sacraments, so that a real
Christian superstition was taking the place of the pagan one. And how could
it be otherwise? The very real and strong faith of these simple people had
expressed itself, as it was bound to do, in very primitive conceptions. In the

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