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jmcrae
Guest
Actually, it’s an interesting theory, but it’s far more likely that we call it Easter because the sun rises in the East, and there is a pun in English about “sun rise” and “son rise.”
I don’t think Eostre enters into it at all, because her holidays, if she even had any (and if she even existed - the people who supposedly worshipped her died out without leaving anything in writing), would have been long out of use by the time there were Christians in Britain, being as the Romans got there first.
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QuasiCatholic
Guest
I’d like to see what timeline you’re basing that on.
The Roman Empire had largely converted to Christianity by 330 A.D.
The Roman-Germanic wars lasted from about 100 B.C. to about 600 A.D. in mainland Europe. The Romans didn’t even build Hadrian’s wall (to separate Roman held land from Celtic held land in the British Isles) until about 125 A.D. I believe.
And St. Patrick, who was responsible for converting pagans in Ireland, lived sometime in the 5th Century A.D.
I think it’s pretty clear that traditional Celtic / other pagan practices were still alive and kicking when Christianity got to those areas.
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QuasiCatholic
Guest
P.S. The source of this interesting “theory” is an 8th century Catholic scholar, “Doctor of the Church” and saint – americancatholic.org/features/saints/saint.aspx?id=1394
See also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre#De_temporum_ratione
See also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre#De_temporum_ratione
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boomerang
Guest
Wiccans must have gotten the elements of culture you listed above from observing Catholic practices. And no wonder they chose to emulate Catholic culture. Most protestant culture is boring. Satanist “black masses” are an imitation of Catholicism also. Wicca can’t trace it’s culture back more than a century or so. But you are right about having tidbits of this and that mixed in to our religion. All cultures (including Christianity) unless they existed on an undiscovered island somewhere, are a mishmash of all kinds of influences.
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jmcrae
Guest
You do realize that Wicca is a very recent religion, right? It didn’t exist prior to my high school graduation, never mind during pre-Christian times in Britain.
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QuasiCatholic
Guest
I do, that’s why I said it in my very first post on this thread – exactly one paragraph above where you conveniently chose to start quoting me when asking if I was aware of it. While also, I note, ignoring my previous post pointing out that the Easter/pagan link was explained in writing by a noted 8th century Catholic scholar-turned-saint and not just something society made up in the last 50 years or so as you like to think.
I’ll say it again – YOU CAN’T REWRITE HISTORY JUST BECAUSE YOU FIND THE TRUTH INCONVENIENT.
That goes for linguistics and thread quotes
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VeritasLuxMea
Guest
Wait… Ishtar was worshiped in the middle east. How are Britain and Germany coming into this?
Edit: actually, I think I might have misunderstood your post. Certainly there were seasonal celebrations and certainly the pagans that joined the Church would have influenced it in various ways.
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QuasiCatholic
Guest
Ishtar = babylonion sex/fertility goddess – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar
Eastre (Or Eostre) = germanic sun/spring goddess – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre
Again, probably some cultural / linguistic linkage there, but not actually portrayed as the same goddess from one culture to the next.
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VeritasLuxMea
Guest
Oh, wow. I can’t even begin to unwrap that. I figured for sure that we were talking about Ishtar but with a different spelling, especially since they are both associated with the spring and fertility. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Christians would celebrate Easter when they do, especially if they didn’t know the actual date of the resurrection, since all cultures presumably had some type of rebirth mythos.
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Xantippe
Guest
Also, bear in mind that Easter moves with the lunar calendar, not the solar calendar. I was just looking at Wikipedia, and they say that Easter can fall on any one of 35 days of the calendar year. That timing for Easter makes it a lousy solar holiday. And of course we do have very good reason to fix the timing of Easter as we do, given that Jesus died right around the time of Passover.
Christmas is very different–you can make a much better case for the dating being inspired by the solar calendar, as it is fixed on December 25, which is right around the time where days start getting longer again.
Christmas is very different–you can make a much better case for the dating being inspired by the solar calendar, as it is fixed on December 25, which is right around the time where days start getting longer again.
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Razanir
Guest
:bigyikes: I guess the Israelites also stole Passover from the pagans…
But English didn’t necessarily exist as a language yet.
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Nan_S
Guest
Long, long before anything on earth was pagan it all belonged to God. And long after paganism has ceased to be a memory in the minds of men, it will all still belong to God. We need to keep this in mind.
Pagans didn’t invent eggs. God did.
Pagans didn’t invent the cycle of the seasons. God did.
Pagans didn’t invent celebration of rebirth. God did.
Pagans didn’t invent stones, or moss, or flowers, or fresh new grass, or sunrises. God did.
True, the pagans used and worshipped all these things according to their own purposes. They still do today. Is that a reason for us to shun them, knowing that they are really from God instead?
It’s time for Christians to stand up and reclaim what was ALWAYS God’s from the very beginning. To act otherwise, to treat these things originally from God as pagan-tainted filth, would be to believe paganism has power over God!
That is one admission I am not willing to make. These things are of God. They always were. And I, for one, am going to recognize their true maker and celebrate Him with all the wonderful gifts He has given.
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EasterJoy
Guest
Nobody gives out Easter eggs at Mass. Eggs are unparalleled for making rich festival foods, and it ought to be no surprise that they show up in festival food in essentially every civilization that raises poultry for their eggs. Go to the library and read “Saveur” magazine, and you’ll find that rich and rare foods are a part of festival traditions in every culture, all over the world.Hi All!
I have a question regarding paganism and Easter bunnies!!! Should churches be giving out Easter eggs to young Catholics at mass? Bunnies/eggs is a Pagan tradition so to me it should not be done at all… I believe that the Pagan and Catholic times of the year are very similar… What should we therefore be careful of during these times to ensure that we are not being a pagan?!I also heard that yoga is not a Catholic thing and some people were doing this in England to celebrate the sun coming up - oh gosh! Also, does anyone know of any cool books or websites in which I can read up about Catholics and Paganism?
I am a young Catholic man and I will be marrying next year before having a Catholic family!I will certainly be researching Catholicism in great detail and trying to be the most knowledgeable and best Catholic man that I can be and this query is part of that
Cheers
Dylan
You cannot get all “pure” about this stuff without essentially rejecting the liturgical calendar and just the way humans observe the sacred. Why? Because non-Christian religions use concrete things like fire, water, precious colors, garments, and ornamentation to evoke the solemnity of the sacred. They use special foods and special meals, and they connect their liturgical observances to the seasons of the year.
As to the things coming in from other traditions, whether previously or now, you have to test whether the thing has theological problems with it as it is observed now. If some prayer method is teaching you that you are a god or you can conjure up God by some “technique,” then you reject that–not because it has some coincidental connection to a non-Christian religion way back when, but because it is incompatible with good theology right now. If your Christmas observance makes what ought to be a holy day reminding you of the Incarnation into a materialistic and self-centered excuse for nothing but self-indulgence, overspending, and exhaustion, then change your own family traditions. Don’t make what everybody else does into something wrong because it was wrong for you, though.
IOW: You can remake the one true God into a false god by twisting what you do and believe away from the revealed truth taught by the Church. You can’t accidentally become a pagan by putting a Christian meaning on a thing that other people at other times have understood differently.
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Xantippe
Guest
Yes–eggs used to be very expensive compared to today.
aei-ideas.org/2013/03/happy-easter-enjoy-your-cheap-eggs-and-food-theyre-more-affordable-now-than-ever-before/
According to that post, using 2013 dollars, a dozen eggs would cost $11 in the early 20th century, so very nearly $1 each.
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Kal2012
Guest
There’s nothing wrong with Easter Eggs. As long as you are clear about what is church teaching and what’s not church teaching. We don’t worship the Easter Bunny.
Same with Christmas trees. We don’t worship Christmas trees and Santa. And the kids enjoy it when St. Nicholas comes to visit them at the parish Christmas Party. However, Nicholas was a Saint, not our Lord, by any stretch. It is clear from Church teaching why we celebrate Christmas (Jesus’s birth).
If you feel Christmas trees and Easter eggs will cause you to sin, then don’t do them and explain to the kids why you feel this is so.
Part of evangelizing a culture is understanding the culture and participating in it (as long as it doesn’t cause you harm or sin). So, why is it such a shocker that some of our traditions have pagan origins? Christianity came into the world when Rome was the dominant power. It’s not everyone became automatically became Christian after Jesus died on the Cross.
Culture matters. Western Christianity is a lot different than Christianity in Asia and the Middle East and Africa. We might have the same beliefs, but practices vary even between parishes in our local towns. (We all know which parish is the liberal parish, right? for example.)
I think we take the conversation about what is pagan and what isn’t way too far in Christian circles.
History is important, but if the action doesn’t cause you to sin and you think it’s fun for the kids and you are clear about your theology, then don’t sweat it. Have fun at the Easter Egg hunt and decorating the Christmas tree. They are fun traditions.
Same with Christmas trees. We don’t worship Christmas trees and Santa. And the kids enjoy it when St. Nicholas comes to visit them at the parish Christmas Party. However, Nicholas was a Saint, not our Lord, by any stretch. It is clear from Church teaching why we celebrate Christmas (Jesus’s birth).
If you feel Christmas trees and Easter eggs will cause you to sin, then don’t do them and explain to the kids why you feel this is so.
Part of evangelizing a culture is understanding the culture and participating in it (as long as it doesn’t cause you harm or sin). So, why is it such a shocker that some of our traditions have pagan origins? Christianity came into the world when Rome was the dominant power. It’s not everyone became automatically became Christian after Jesus died on the Cross.
Culture matters. Western Christianity is a lot different than Christianity in Asia and the Middle East and Africa. We might have the same beliefs, but practices vary even between parishes in our local towns. (We all know which parish is the liberal parish, right? for example.)
I think we take the conversation about what is pagan and what isn’t way too far in Christian circles.
History is important, but if the action doesn’t cause you to sin and you think it’s fun for the kids and you are clear about your theology, then don’t sweat it. Have fun at the Easter Egg hunt and decorating the Christmas tree. They are fun traditions.
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PaulGH
Guest
Even if that’s true about the name “Easter” (I don’t know if it is or not), try checking the name of the holiday “Easter” in other languages. In all but two of the languages that I have checked (which includes most of the major European languages), the name for this holiday is based on the Hebrew or Greek or Latin word for Passover. Only in English and German is the name of this holiday not based on the word for Passover, of quite a few languages that I have checked.Also, for what it’s worth, the Easter egg thing has nothing to do with Lent. Even the name Easter is a reference to a pagan goddess – Eastre (which can be spelled a couple different ways) – who is a goddess of spring. And eggs are a fertility symbol which is why they go with spring since that’s the beginning of the fertile season.
If it was about what you couldn’t eat at Lent, we’d have decorated Easter steaks too
I’m just saying this because some people (though not you, as far as I know) will argue that Easter is completely pagan because of the origin of the name. But those people (again not referring to you) don’t seem to acknowledge that not everyone speaks English, and that there are a huge number of Christians who don’t call it “Easter” or anything similar to that.
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HollyDolly
Guest
Not sure on the whole Easter deal. However, St.Boniface,who is a popular saint in Germany gave us the Christmas tree.he was a briton or celt who came to Germany as a missionary.The ancient german tribes worshipped the sacred oak tree amonsgt other things. St.Boniface took that and used it in regards to Christmas for the pagans there.
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, husband of Queen Victoria is said to have made the Christmas tree popular in England.
Going along this line,you might look up St.Guinefort. Stephen of Bourbon who wasa french inquistor and a dominican, visited a village in France. It was there he heard about St.Guinefort.
he assumed it must have been a saintly man or woman,but no,it was a dog.
The local legend went that there was a wealthy man or lord who had a dog named Guinefort.
One day the family was out of the home, but left the baby sleeping alone in its cradle.
They came home to find the baby on the floor and blood on the dog’s mouth. So the man killed the dog .When they picked the baby up,the parents discovered that the dog was innocent.inside the cradle was a dead snake,that Guinefort had killed. The family buried the dog and was very sorrowful that they killed their faithful friend.The burial spot then later on became a sort of shrine to the dog and even into the 19th century and early 20th people would still come there to pray to St.Guinefort.
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, husband of Queen Victoria is said to have made the Christmas tree popular in England.
Going along this line,you might look up St.Guinefort. Stephen of Bourbon who wasa french inquistor and a dominican, visited a village in France. It was there he heard about St.Guinefort.
he assumed it must have been a saintly man or woman,but no,it was a dog.
The local legend went that there was a wealthy man or lord who had a dog named Guinefort.
One day the family was out of the home, but left the baby sleeping alone in its cradle.
They came home to find the baby on the floor and blood on the dog’s mouth. So the man killed the dog .When they picked the baby up,the parents discovered that the dog was innocent.inside the cradle was a dead snake,that Guinefort had killed. The family buried the dog and was very sorrowful that they killed their faithful friend.The burial spot then later on became a sort of shrine to the dog and even into the 19th century and early 20th people would still come there to pray to St.Guinefort.
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EasterJoy
Guest
Oh, I just meant yum-wow-that-is-good rich, as in don’t-hold-the-butter and fatted-calf festive. Easter breads are typically chock full of eggs, with dough similar to challah or brioche. I think these traditions start with the grandmas all adopting something that everyone really loves for particular holidays and the “why” follows after. Usually it is because a) a feast day merits a splurge, and b) the particular foods of the season are the seasonal best or the first time, some really great ingredient is available for the year, or the weather conditions provide the temperature or humidity needed to make some special food at the time coinciding with the traditional feast day that features it.
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jmcrae
Guest
Or perhaps the God who created everything that is, made it so that the foods that symbolize His great love and mercy in various different ways just happen to be fresh at that season of the year when His Church celebrates those particular feasts.
I think we tend to think of the world, and the cycles of harvest and planting, as being separate from God, or just kind of doing their own thing without His intervention, when in fact it is God who is causing the growth and making the seasons come and go.
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