The origins of the Easter Bunny

various ^ | April 9, 2006 | Dangus

[dangus]

Well, here comes another religious holiday, and with it another slew of slanders and lies against the church; wild accusations put forth first by pagans, Satanists, and anti-Christian atheists, but popularized in Christian circles by greedy preachers trying the practice of “market differentiation” to continuing their money-making.

This time, it’s Easter.

The truth is that we don’t really know why Easter is called Easter. It’s unique to the English-speaking peoples of the Earth. The rest of Christendom calls it “passover,” or some similar word, such as “pasqua.” The Christ-haters teach that Easter is a pagan festival, really. But men such of these speak the words of Satan, who desires to weaken our faith, confuse us and divide us. How wretched it is that slanderers and thieves who, for their lust of money and power, call themselves Christian while they slander the saints and martyrs who celebrated the resurrection of Christ!

Passover, of course, is the Jewish festival, which records when the Jews, at the command of God through Moses, marked their households with the blood of a lamb, so that the Angel of Death would pass them by. So as to show His great love for man, On the day of Passover (March 25th), he was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, Mary, and became Man. And 30 or so years later, on the day of Passover, he became the lamb whose blood saves us all from destruction. This was a God who literally had compassion for his people, and who suffered as they did so they would know that their suffering did not mean that they were unloved, but, instead, could help them appreciate just how great God’s love for them is. On that great and horrible night, He took on all our suffering and sin.

But He did not stay buried; He could not, for he is life itself. On the third day, he was resurrected, and demonstrated that he had conquered death itself: we need not fear death, for we, too, shall rise. The Heavens and the Earth proclaim the glory of the LORD. Behold, it is in that wondrous season that all the world comes to life anew! The flowers erupt from their bulbs, the trees sprout new life, and many forms of animals rise from their death-like winter slumber! The pagans saw such wonders, and knew their source not, so attributed them to pagan gods. But let not their wickedness defame the true religion, for Our God is a God of Life and Resurrection, not of war and lust (like Eostre, Aprhrodite, and Astertis).

Now, as it so happens, the pagans named their seasons after their gods. They even named their directions after their seasons. Meanwhile, all the churches of the West orient their churches to face East, towards the rising sun, and towards the Rising Son. Thus, on Passover, the People Look East, towards the Rising Sun, to see He Who Comes From the East, the Easter.

If the word “East” comes from the false god, “Eostre,” does that mean that the Easter is a false God? No. It may mean that those who named the god(dess) “Eostre” also noticed that when the sun passed the equinox, it brought a new season of life and of hope. But we do know that the ancient Jews knew not of the god(dess) Eostre. Nor did the early Christians who have celebrated Easter since the first century. So let’s rebut some of the lies:

Lie #1: That Easter has only been celebrated since 325 AD. Truth: Easter has been celebrated since the dawn of the Church. However, because the many peoples to whom the Good News was preached had many different calendars, for about two centuries, the church did not celebrate Easter in unison. But they did celebrate Easter, and all on what they considered to be the anniversary of the resurrection.

Lie #2: That the “Easter Egg” comes from a pagan symbol. New life comes from an egg! What an amazing thing to behold! And, sure enough, many cultures were fascinated by this fact, and expressed this fascination in their false myths. But that’s not where the Easter Egg comes from.

Since the inception of passover, and egg has been one of the central foods of a passover seder. If you’ve ever been to a passover seder, you know you can sit around for hours, staring at food, growing hungrier. The egg is the first real protein of a seder.

Catholic tradition required a forty-day fast, interrupted only on Sundays and Holy days, during which meat is not eaten. Eggs were for a long time included in such a fast.

Now, you can choose when to kill a cow, or a pig, or a chicken. But you can’t choose when a chicken is going to lay an egg. So, during times of fasting, the chicken eggs were saved up until Passover. And because the fast was broken with them, you can imagine they were quite anticipated. And hence, these “Easter eggs” were decorated and fancied.

There is also a tradition during the seder that children go find a hidden treasure. More recently, chocolate has been used. Incidentally, the Eostrogen is named for eggs, (“egg-generator”), and has absolutely nothing to do with Eostre!

Lie #3: Easter is a pagan tradition.

For thousands of years before England was Christianized, the Jews, unaware of the religious customs of the English, celebrated their deliverance from Egypt at the start of the first lunar month after the Spring Equinox. Coincidentally, that lunar month was named in England, after a pagan goddess of war. That month, in turn, by God’s hand, became associated with new life. Hence, the pagan goddess, even though of war, became associated with fertility.

Easter was not part of any fertility celebration. That was the MAY pole. And the time period named for the English goddess was a month long. Easter is but a day.

Lie #3 and a half: The Easter Bunny is pagan.

This is the closest to truth of any of the myths; the truth is that the Easter Bunny is Protestant. (Wait a second... that came out wrong. But it amuses me, a Catholic, so I’ll leave it in. :^D)

After the German Protestants did away with fasting before Easter, children (and their parents, I’m sure) missed the Catholic tradition of Easter eggs. So they simply hid away eggs for a while, and then brought them forth on Easter.

Now, there exists in Germany a kind of bird whose nest looks like a hare’s. It’s been suggested that the Easter Hare (yes, Hare, not Bunny!) Was used as a playful explanation for where all the eggs came from, since what were thought to be hare’s nests were often found full or eggs.

But there is also a myth about a bird which was turned into a rabbit, and which was granted the ability to lay eggs in the springtime. And the goddess who supposedly did this was associated with Oester in the nineteenth century by a German humanist, Jacob Grimm. So it may be possible that German parents mixed a little bit of mythology into Easter to continue a tradition whose meaning had lost its Christian roots.

THE IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE is that it is only recently that assertions of pagan origins have really taken hold. This is done by a media which aims to alienate people and their festivities from the religion which sustains and nourishes them. Dividing the simple means of celebrating the Lord’s resurrection from the purpose in celebrating them only serves the Evil One. When your children (inevitably) enjoy Easter, do you want to teach them that such joy comes from a good and holy mirth, or from the perversions of the devil? And do you really want to slander all the good, noble, and even saintly people who celebrated Easter with the accusation of being pagan?

[jocon307]

Happy Easter BUMP!

[Servant of the 9]

What a pathetic attempt.

So9

[JimKalb]

It's not just English speakers who call it Easter instead of Pascha. The Germans call it Ostern. (All this stuff about how it's all really pagan etc. is of course unbelievably stupid.)

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Dear Lord,
Lent is nearly over.
Be with us as we celebrate
the anniversary
of what you were willing to do
for love of us,
how large a price
you were willing to pay,
how heavy the cost
you chose to give
so that we might live.

Beloved Master,
kindle in us
the reality of your love,
and from it,
help us to respond in love as well.

May we find the glory
of your resurrection
a time of joy,
as we celebrate your breaking death's shackles,
so that we might come home with you at last.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Origin of Easter
Easter and the early Christian Church
There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the apostolic fathers. However, an Easter Homily does survive from the 2nd century which indicates that the practice arose quite early in the history of the Church.

In the mid second century (c. A.D. 155) Anicetus became bishop of the Roman Christians. Shortly thereafter, Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, traveled to Rome to discuss with Anicetus various practices in the Roman congregation; among these was the discussion of observing the resurrection of Christ in deference to his sacrifice and death.

Polycarp cited the teachings of the Apostles, while Anicetus cited the traditions of the earlier bishops of the Roman church. The historian Eusebius reports that Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon (c. 176)(in a letter to Victor, bishop of Rome A.D. 189 - 198 -- see Pope Victor I), listed bishops of Rome back to Sixtus (or Xysyus -- c. 116 - c. 125) who celebrated the resurrection, but tolerated those who continued to observe the Passover; thus the practice can be traced to very early in the second century, but had not yet displaced the observance of Passover by Christians. Polycarp and Anicetus parted without coming to any agreement on this issue. (Samuele Bacchiocchi (2003). From Sabbath to Sunday. Retrieved 21 June 2005)
Establishment of Easter
After Anicetus, Soter became bishop of Rome. Under him Easter was established as an annual festival. The celebration was to be "the Sunday following the 14th of the Jewish month Nisan (the day of the Passover)." (J.N.D. Kelly (1986). The Oxford Dictionary of Popes. p. 11).

This ruling by the bishop of Rome was widely, but not universally, accepted. A rift developed, primarily between the eastern (Asian) and western churches. It became known as the Quartodeciman Controversy (see Quartodecimanism).

The observance of any special holiday throughout the Christian year is an innovation postdating the early church. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates Scholasticus attributes the observance of Easter by the church to the perpetuation of local custom, "just as many other customs have been established", stating that neither Jesus nor his apostles enjoined the keeping of this or any other festival (of course, the Bible states that Jesus and the Apostles did indeed observe Festivals). Nowhere in his history did Socrates Scholasticus state that the observance of Easter was due to pagan influences, however. In addition, if one wishes to take this specific sentence prima faciae, one could just as easily invent a justification for rejecting weekly worship services on Sunday, Saturday, or any other day, rejecting the ownership of church buildings by religious organizations, and rejecting the participation of Christians in any sort of political process, as none of these activities were specifically enjoined by Jesus or the Apostles, either. Furthermore, the entirety of the chapter renders the statement in the context of defending diversity of dates for the holiday, without rejecting or denigrating the celebration.

Many commentators, however, have interpreted the last supper as a Passover seder at which Jesus presided. In addition, Jesus and the Apostles were observing Sukkot (the "Feast of Booths") when the Transfiguration occurred, indicating that he was not immediately opposed to the observance of annual holidays. As the far more common worldwide name of the holiday, "Pascha" (or variations thereof), indicates, the holiday arose from the Passover celebrations, but with emphasis upon the Resurrection of Jesus.


Reference.com
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Easter

[Oztrich Boy]

The Christ-haters teach that Easter is a pagan festival, really. But men such of these speak the words of Satan, who desires to weaken our faith, confuse us and divide us. How wretched it is that slanderers and thieves who, for their lust of money and power, call themselves Christian while they slander the saints and martyrs who celebrated the resurrection of Christ!

Now. is that a nice thing to say about The Venerable Bede?

[dangus]

>>>>The Christ-haters teach that Easter is a pagan festival, really. But men such of these speak the words of Satan, who desires to weaken our faith, confuse us and divide us. How wretched it is that slanderers and thieves who, for their lust of money and power, call themselves Christian while they slander the saints and martyrs who celebrated the resurrection of Christ!
>>Now. is that a nice thing to say about The Venerable Bede?

Bede only noted that the British referred to the same lunar month which the Jews established began with Passover, as Eostremonath. He was equally clear that the former pagan religion was quite dead for some long time, and that the celebrations which occured were quite definitely Christian in origin.

Incidentally, Bede's reference to Eostre is the only reference known of this goddess, and it is very possible that he was completely misinterpreting something. Eostre meant "East," an odd name for a goddess. Perhaps the Grimm's tying of Eostre to Ostara was simply repeating a mistake Bede had made, for whereas the notion of Ostara left quite a mark on the people who worshipped such a goddess, there is little trace of an Eostre.

Pagans, satanists, and pseudo-Christian charlatains have supposed Eostre to be Ashtoreth, a Palestinian goddess related to Ishtar, a Babylonian deity. No-one has ever linked any evidence between the worship Ishtar/Ashtoreth and Eoster, or even Ostra, the Germanic God supposed by Grimm to have been what Bede was referring to.

The neopagan association of Eoster to trappings associate with Easter is "fakelore."

Some possible things that Bede might have been thinking of:

Oestrus meant frenzy to Romans, and long-dead springtime rituals among the English seem to have been quite frenzied and goddess-oriented. It is the word from whence we get "Oestrogen," the female hormone. Perhaps Bede, coming from a Latin culture construed some English word (East-month would make calendar sense, and fit the spelling perfectly!) to refer to the worship of some female goddess he knew not of.

Perhaps he *meant* to refer the German goddess, Ostara. England had already been subject to German invasions, and he might have presumed, like Grimm would a millennium later, Eostre to be related to Ostara.

In any event, he certainly reached none of the conclusions that modern Christ-haters have.

[Oztrich Boy]

Perhaps he *meant* to refer the German goddess, Ostara. England had already been subject to German invasions,

As an Anglo-Sazon, I don't think the Bede would have considered then "invasions"

[pravknight]

Simply call just it Pascha.

[dangus]

Ping the Catholic list?

[Conservative til I die]

Good post. Of course the silly Judaizers and other fringers (not even sure what their grave errors should be called) will ignore it, since they have to push their special gimmick so that we know they're "the real truth".

[Conservative til I die]

What a pathetic attempt.

Care to clarify? Wait, who am I kidding.

[Conservative til I die]

Simply call just it Pascha.

It's sad that it has to come to that, isn't it? There are some so unbelievably ignorant that they actually think that a name, made up of 6 letters determines what the Holiday is about. As if changing the Germanic "Easter" to "Pascha" somehow changes the legitimacy of the holiday.

[dangus]

Thanks. I'm afraid most of the Judaizers and paranoids are unreachable, but I just'd like to point out to the normal people the truth, so they don't perpetuate slander and lies out of ignorance. If only the slanderers speak up, only slander will be heard.

[Oztrich Boy]

Simply call just it Pascha.

Or Spring Break

[maryz]

I'll ping what I have.

[escapefromboston]

William Townly creator of Paas egg dye was a satan worshipping pagan/ 33 degree freemason. Its all true!! its in the Bible.

[Calabash]

Incidentally, Bede's reference to Eostre is the only reference known of this goddess, and it is very possible that he was completely misinterpreting something. Eostre meant "East," an odd name for a goddess.

Eostre is suspiciously like Ashteroth and Ishtar.

Not that any of them have anything to do with Easter, or the name Easter, which is uniquely Teutonic.

[AnalogReigns]

Good stuff! (even if from a Papist... ;) )

Finally a good refute to the cultists!