HIstorical Roots of Easter

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ok simple question, I’m not talking about the historical roots of the resurrection of Christ I have faith in this and it has also been historically explained to me. But what about the traditions of easter.

why is it a movable date?
why do we call it easter and not passover or the paschal feast or something similar?
are there any pagan roots to Easter?

may ask more later if they come to mind.
 
catholictiger said:
ok simple question, I’m not talking about the historical roots of the resurrection of Christ I have faith in this and it has also been historically explained to me. But what about the traditions of easter.

why is it a movable date?
why do we call it easter and not passover or the paschal feast or something similar?
are there any pagan roots to Easter?

may ask more later if they come to mind.
Click to expand...
It’s movable because it’s tied to the lunar calendar and always falls on the first Sunday after the full moon after the spring equinox, and thusly will always be linked with Passover which always begins on the first full moon after the spring equinox, also called the Paschal or Passover moon. These festivals are linked in many ways - both are celebrations of freedom and new beginnings, and yes, Easter can also be called a Paschal feast. In Italian, the greeting is Buona Pasqua. Both Easter and Passover culminate 50 days later with the festival of Booths (or Tabernacles), aka Pentecost, when the Jews celebrate the receiving of the Torah from Mt. Sinai, and Christians celebrate the receiving of the Holy Spirit.
 
In most languages it is called something along the lines of Pascha. English and German names (the German name is, I think though I’m not sure, derived from the English one) come from the Anglo-Saxon Eastre/Eostre. St. Bede the Venerable claimed that this had been the name of an pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess whose feast had been held around the same time. His account is still accepted by most scholars, although I’ve seen some people cast doubt upon it and suggest the name may simply have referred to the time of year, with the idea of a goddess having been honored at that time being a false legend invented by later generations of Christian Anglo-Saxons like St. Bede.

The association with eggs probably comes not from paganism but from the Medieval custom of not eating eggs (or meat) during the whole of Lent. Chickens of course wouldn’t stop laying eggs in Lent, so by the time Easter came around people had a lot of eggs that needed to be eaten fast.

The Easter bunny is of more or less early modern German origin, arising out of earlier use of rabbits and hares as Christian symbols. They were Medieval Christian symbols of fertility and especially of virginal fertility (and hence of the Virgin Mary) due to the mistaken belief that they could reproduce without mating. The fact that they especially breed around this time of year was also presumably significant
 
catholictiger said:
ok simple question, I’m not talking about the historical roots of the resurrection of Christ I have faith in this and it has also been historically explained to me. But what about the traditions of easter.

why is it a movable date?
why do we call it easter and not passover or the paschal feast or something similar?
are there any pagan roots to Easter?

may ask more later if they come to mind.
Click to expand...
  1. Can’t remember, but I think something to do with the moon.
  2. Most countries call it something like the “Paschal feast”. But I think (I’m not trusting the Venerable Bede on this one–I think he may have just been hypothesizing, since there is no other historical information about a pagan goddess named “Eostre”) it has something to do with the word “eastern”. The German “Ostern” means eastern, and comes from the Old Germanic word for “resurrection”. Perhaps the English said “Easter” instead of “Eastern”, learning from their German brothers
 
CrossofChrist said:
  1. Can’t remember, but I think something to do with the moon.
  2. Most countries call it something like the “Paschal feast”. But I think (I’m not trusting the Venerable Bede on this one–I think he may have just been hypothesizing, since there is no other historical information about a pagan goddess named “Eostre”) it has something to do with the word “eastern”. The German “Ostern” means eastern, and comes from the Old Germanic word for “resurrection”. Perhaps the English said “Easter” instead of “Eastern”, learning from their German brothers
Click to expand...
I think the date of Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.

The Germans are more likely to have learned from their English relatives (such as St. Boniface) than the other way around.
 
catholictiger said:
why is it a movable date?
Click to expand...
The Jewish Calendar was lunar, and implemented “leap months” (adding whole months to certain years) to stay roughly in sync with the solar cycles. As a result, the date of Passover, 15th day of Nisan, shifts back and forth on the solar cycle (Julian/Gregorian calendars).

Basically, if you look at the jewish calendar, it is possible for the same day to occur twice within the same solar year. Pagan Rome took offense to this idea, and made the solar calendar the standard for the empire. As a result, the Christians converted to the solar calendar outright, and created rules for when the Christian Passover would occur which would always place our Passover close to the original Jewish Passover (15 Nisan).
why do we call it easter and not passover or the paschal feast or something similar?
Click to expand...
😛 You are missing something if you think the entire world of Chrisendom calls Easter by the word “Easter”. MOST of the Catholic church calls it Passover, and it is only in English Speaking countries that we refer to it as Easter. This is because the word easter comes from the old english word for Spring (Eostre).
Latin: Pascha
French: Paques
Italian: La Pasqua
Spain: Pascua
are there any pagan roots to Easter?
Click to expand...
No. Not in the holiday itself. There is the controversial claim that the word Eostre comes from the germanic goddess’ Ostara’s name… but the evidence that there even was such a goddess or that she was worshipped is highly suspect. In fact, the ONLY source that claims that Ostara was a goddess who was worshipped was the historical writings of the Venerable Bede… who was writing hundreds of years after the death of the tribe he was referring to and made no mention of how he arrived at the idea that such tribe had a goddess named Ostara. Many recognize that Bede was probably wrong, and that ostara is simply a formerly used word for spring.

Others claim that the word Easter comes from Ishtar, an egyptian goddess. However, that would only make sense if the word Easter had NOT originated in old English rather than in Latin. There is no evidence that the English pagan tribes EVER had any communication with Egyptians or worshipped the same gods and goddesses. There are literally tens of thousands of presumed pagan deities because of the localization of pagan faiths.

That being said, while the holiday itself DOESN"T have pagan roots, some of the secular traditions practiced in English speaking countries (such as the bunny and the eggs) probably do. Do note: bunny and eggs are NOT universal traditions of the church.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
I think the date of Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.

The Germans are more likely to have learned from their English relatives (such as St. Boniface) than the other way around.
Click to expand...
I suppose that makes more sense, doesn’t it? But I still think it has something to do with “eastern”. :cool:
 
Actaeon said:
The Jewish Calendar was lunar, and implemented “leap months” (adding whole months to certain years) to stay roughly in sync with the solar cycles. As a result, the date of Passover, 15th day of Nisan, shifts back and forth on the solar cycle (Julian/Gregorian calendars).

Basically, if you look at the jewish calendar, it is possible for the same day to occur twice within the same solar year. Pagan Rome took offense to this idea, and made the solar calendar the standard for the empire. As a result, the Christians converted to the solar calendar outright, and created rules for when the Christian Passover would occur which would always place our Passover close to the original Jewish Passover (15 Nisan).

😛 You are missing something if you think the entire world of Chrisendom calls Easter by the word “Easter”. MOST of the Catholic church calls it Passover, and it is only in English Speaking countries that we refer to it as Easter. This is because the word easter comes from the old english word for Spring (Eostre).
Latin: Pascha
French: Paques
Italian: La Pasqua
Spain: Pascua

No. Not in the holiday itself. There is the controversial claim that the word Eostre comes from the germanic goddess’ Ostara’s name… but the evidence that there even was such a goddess or that she was worshipped is highly suspect. In fact, the ONLY source that claims that Ostara was a goddess who was worshipped was the historical writings of the Venerable Bede… who was writing hundreds of years after the death of the tribe he was referring to and made no mention of how he arrived at the idea that such tribe had a goddess named Ostara. Many recognize that Bede was probably wrong, and that ostara is simply a formerly used word for spring.

Others claim that the word Easter comes from Ishtar, an egyptian goddess. However, that would only make sense if the word Easter had NOT originated in old English rather than in Latin. There is no evidence that the English pagan tribes EVER had any communication with Egyptians or worshipped the same gods and goddesses. There are literally tens of thousands of presumed pagan deities because of the localization of pagan faiths.

That being said, while the holiday itself DOESN"T have pagan roots, some of the secular traditions practiced in English speaking countries (such as the bunny and the eggs) probably do. Do note: bunny and eggs are NOT universal traditions of the church.
Click to expand...
I thanks for the long response one question why does the English church use the translation of spring instead of pasche or Passover?
 
catholictiger said:
I thanks for the long response one question why does the English church use the translation of spring instead of pasche or Passover?
Click to expand...
Because the month in which Pascha typically falls was originally called “Eosturmonath” and involved the Eostre (spring celebration). There’s nothing wrong with inheriting the local name for a celebration and then applying that name to authentic catholic worship, so the name was probably kept within England to make the transition to Christianity easier for locals.

Shrug I can’t say for sure, my research on the subject of why they didn’t force the name to be Pascha has never turned up a good answer…
 
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