This continued an earlier Roman tradition of melding holidays of conquered peoples into the Roman pantheon (the Church coopted cooptation itself, from the experts):

By 43 A.D., Roman armies had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. During the course of the following 400 years that Rome ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first of these was known as Feralia, a day in late October when Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second Roman festival to be incorporated into the Celtic Samhain festivities was one which honored Pomona, Roman Goddess of Fruit and Trees.

And I guess that takes me back to Antinous, and the age-old struggle between religion and sex.

The cult of Antinous was extremely problematic for the early church, because not only did if offer life after death, and resurrection through the spirit of a idealized young man, but the sexually attractive nature of Antinous presented problems not easy to coopt, and which would not go away.

Some readers may find this as unbelievable as I did, but there was a serious attempt to transform the stubbornly resilient Antinous into a Christian icon! This Fourth Century statue (scroll down a bit) depicts Antinous holding a Christian cross. Not only that, but the city built to honor Emperor Hadrian's lover, Antinoopolis, became a major center for Christian monastic life, and remained so right up until the Muslim conquest.

And as I discussed previously, Antinous persisted as a major influence on Western art and culture, helping to define male beauty through the centuries, and even influencing Christian iconography to this day:

Antinous also had an effect on the shaping of early Christianity. The early church fathers, deeply disturbed by the resemblance of the dying savior god Antinous to the dying savior god Jesus, went to great pains to create some significant distance between them. Thus, Antinous influenced not only early church writings, but perhaps also the iconography of Jesus himself. (195) There is also some evidence that devotees of Antinous were among the last pagan holdouts as Rome converted to Christianity.

Cultural icons like this are tough to stamp out by any standard, even by determined church authorities. Even I was touched to read about how the statues were considered too beautiful to be destroyed, and were carefully preserved in the Vatican. (Hell, I even saw one at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville! Sadly, I must refuse to say exactly where it is located, or provide any link to the hotel, lest some misguided Christians show up and demand the statue's removal. Such dangerous beauty is best left undisturbed and unsuspected....)