"Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil ... feeling also that these usages had originally come from primitive revelations and from the instinct of nature, though they had been corrupted ... and that they were moreover possessed of the very archetypes, of which paganism attempted the shadows; the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, should the occasion arise, to adopt, to imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of the educated class." ... "are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church."
John Henry Newman, a cardinal by Pope Leo III in 1879
Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1878, p351-353
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/development/
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