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?

[afraidfortherepublic]

Ahem. The English language has Germanic roots.

[Utah Girl]

Thanks for posting this article. I've always wondered where the Easter Bunny came from.