Posted on 04/16/2006 9:07:24 AM PDT by The Lumster
I love these kind of folks, though. The one's who think Halloween is the work of the Devil. Always good for a laugh. Satan's bunny is comin' for ya!
True, Lawdoc! May the Lord be with you!
F
Rubbish.
First, the name Easter, or OEstre, was simply the name of the month of the Anglo-Saxon calendar in which the Feast of Our Lord's Resurrection, called Pascha in Greek, always fell. (Note, the same consonants as the Hebrew Pesach, meaning Passover--I've wondered whether the medieval rabbis who added vowel points didn't change the vowels to avoid having the name be the same as the Christian feast). It has no connection whatever to any Babylonian mythology, and is found only in English. All other languages have a name for the Feast of Our Lord's Resurrection derived from the Greek name, Pascha.
Using it no more makes the feast pagan than does calling Good Friday, Good FRIday, a reference to the Norse pagan goddess Freya, or calling the first day of the week Sunday makes the weekly celebration of Our Lord's Resurrection into a feast of Julian the Apostate's bizarre solar paganism.
Second, decorating eggs is an elaboration of the ancient Christian custom of using red eggs to symbolize the blood of Christ, and recall a miracle wrought in testimony of Our Lord's Resurrection by St. Mary Magdalene: when she brought news of the Resurrection to Pilate (or in some tellings, Caesar in Rome), she was carrying a basket of eggs (white or brown), and Pilate scoffed that he would no more believe that a man would rise from the dead than that the eggs the saint carried would turn red, where upon, they did. We Orthodox have always had red eggs at Pascha, even from the times when there were no Angles or Saxons in Britain or in the Church.
A joyous Feast of the Resurrection to our separated Latin and protestant bretheren, who insist on celebrating early (whether you call it Easter or Pasque): Pascha, following the decision of the First Ecumenical Council and Great Church of Alexandria, to which the Holy Council referred details for final decision, is next Sunday.
Learn Church history. Santayana's dictum doesn't seem to apply to Church history: in Church history, it seems, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to make it up.
Ping
Sorry, couldn't resist!
Well at least it wasn't another Jesus Seminar article in Newsweak or Time telling us some reinvented detail of their neo-Christianity. The news media really loves them and I bet this guy will make Time next Easter.
There has always been too much made of this and its too often for cynical reasons (not an accusation of your post). Of course, we only have four seasons. So the likelihood of correspondence of season is really good. If the Pagans had Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall festivals, the odds are 100% for correlation. Choosing Winter for the Birth of Christ (when you don't otherwise know) is a logical use of symbolism. The celebration of Christ's resurrection, however, has always been well known on the calendar, as it relates to Passover. The origin of the word "Easter" certainly corresponds with the WGMnc word for a fertility goddess, but the use of the name is more likely from their general use of the word to describe the "promise of life".
I personally dont care whether our customs were based out of pagan festivals or created for the celebration by early christians, the simple fact of the matter is that this time is a celebration of our Saviour.
That being said its not quite as simple as you state, to ignore the pagan customs that assimilated themselves through necessity into early christian history is to ignore history itself. Estre,Oester,Ostra are all variations of a Fertility Goddesses NAME not a month, the months name was usually followed by a tag such as Easter-monadh.
As far as your contention that Mary Magdalene carrying eggs, that is entirely extra-biblical and in fact a (fairly)modern MYTH. What is known is that pagans of the period had celebrated the spring equinox through the fertility goddess of there particular region by using eggs (and rabbits) as a symbol of that celebration well before Christianity existed.
Now all of this being said does it matter? Do we celebrate a rabbit over our Saviour? Is egg hunting more precious than remembrance? No of course not but to go against history to make origins of festivities change to fit a religion is doing yourself a disservice.
Anyways thats my 2 cents.
He Has Risen.
I was really confused in my youth with the rabbits, eggs and chicks part. I knew that chicks came from eggs and rabbits were prolific, but why is the season of fertility tied in with Christ's death and resurrection?
There HAD TO HAVE BEEN other images of re-birth to put forth besides chickens and rabbits, even in the pagan times. Maybe not.
Good Friday and Easter are the CRUX, the soul, the essence and core of the Christian faith....not Christmas, Halloween or Valentine's Day. Sigh. I know--that's just the way it is. Very sad.
It wasn't until I was an adult before I understood the candy and cards bit with Easter. That's just mercantilism.
The whole "easter bunny" scene with the mall-bunny and photos is really just stupid. But, then, I think the entire "x-mas" scene with EVERYTHING ELSE but the birth of Christ, the Holy Family and the three Kings is just stupid too.
Somewhere along the line we Christians made Christmas a season for just children and toy$. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Well, we in the Christian East have good recollection of lots of 'extra Biblical' facts: the Scriptures aren't an axiom system from which everything which is true about Christ and God are derived, but the primary written part of Holy Tradition.
St. Lazarus, whose resurrection by Christ's command the Christian East celebrated yesterday, went on to be Bishop of Cyprus, his tomb is inscribed (in Greek) "Lazarus of the four days, friend of Christ", and his bones were moved to Constantinple by the Emperor Leo the Wise; The Samaritan woman at the well was named Photini, and died as a Christian martyr; the child whom Christ called to Himself, when He told His disciples to 'become as a little child', was named Ignatius, and grew up to be the third Bishop of Antioch, and to die as a martyr, fed to lions by the Romans; St. James, who presided over the Apostolic Council, recorded in Acts, was the first Bishop of Jerusalem (hence his presidency), and is titled "Brother of the Lord", because along among St. Joseph's children by his first wife, he would acknowledge Jesus as his brother, and shared both the exile in Egypt and his inheritance from his father with Christ. These are 'extra Biblical', too, but nonetheless true.
Like I said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to make it up."
I understand where protestants are coming from, but your spiritual forebearers threw out a good deal that was true and holy when they decided to get rid of papal corruptions by tossing out all of Christian tradition except for a shortened version of the Scriptures.
What a waste of bandwidth.
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