A similar displacement of
two days in the adjustment of Christian to heathen celebrations
occurs in the festivals of St. George and the Assumption of the
Virgin. However, another Christian tradition, followed by Lactantius
and perhaps by the practice of the Church in Gaul, placed the death
of Christ on the twenty-third and his resurrection on the
twenty-fifth of March. If that was so, his resurrection coincided
exactly with the resurrection of Attis.
In point of fact it appears from the testimony of an anonymous
Christian, who wrote in the fourth century of our era, that
Christians and pagans alike were struck by the remarkable
coincidence between the death and resurrection of their respective
deities, and that the coincidence formed a theme of bitter
controversy between the adherents of the rival religions, the pagans
contending that the resurrection of Christ was a spurious imitation
of the resurrection of Attis, and the Christians asserting with
equal warmth that the resurrection of Attis was a diabolical
counterfeit of the resurrection of Christ.
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