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This is why we celebrate the Pagan Feast of Easter:

Constantine, august, to the churches. ...

When the question arose concerning the most holy day of Easter, it was decreed by common consent to be expedient, that this festival should be celebrated on the same day by all, in every place. ... it seemed to every one a most unworthy thing that we should follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this most holy solemnity, who, polluted wretches! having stained their hands with a nefarious crime, are justly blinded in their minds. It is fit, therefore, that, rejecting the practice of this people, we should perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of this rite, in a more legitimate order, which we have kept from the first day of our Lord’s passion even to the present times. Let us then have nothing in common with the most hostile rabble of the Jews. We have received another method from the Saviour. A more lawful and proper course is open to our most holy religion. In pursuing this course with a unanimous consent, let us withdraw ourselves, my much honored brethren, from that most odious fellowship. ... As it is necessary that this fault should be so amended that we may have nothing in common with the usage of these parricides and murderers of our Lord; and so that order is most convenient which is observed by all the churches of the West, as well as those of the southern and northern parts of the world, and also by some in the East, it is judged therefore to be most equitable and proper, and I pledged myself that this arrangement should meet your approbation, viz. that the custom which prevails with one consent in the city of Rome, and throughout all Italy, Africa and Egypt, in Spain, Gaul, Britain, Lybia, the whole of Greece, the diocese of Asia, Pontus and Cilicia, would be gladly embraced by your prudence, ... and to have no fellowship with the perjury of the Jews. And, to sum up the whole in a few words, it is agreeable to the common judgment of all, that the most holy feast of Easter should be celebrated on one and the same day (A Historical View of THE COUNCIL OF NICE; with a TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENTS by Rev. Isaac Boyle, D.D.; T Mason and G Lane, New York, 1839; pp. 51-54).

This post-Nicean letter from the emperor, Constantine I (306-337 CE), should further illustrate the kind of calendrical problem with which we are confronted.

From

http://www.ccg.org/english/s/p195.html

B’shem Y’shua

chuck

It's quite a loaded translation, with loaded editing and context.

Basically, Most of the churches (as he puts it in the passage, the West, North, South, and much of the East) had been celebrating Easter as we presently do. But there were some churches in the East who used a separate date to calculate it, and others who argued it should be done according to the calendar the Jews of his day were using.

Reading the passage by focussing on what you put in bold text, and in your context, it sounds as if Constantine is making up some arbitrary day. In reality, he is simply telling the minority of churches to adopt the calendar used by the majority of churches.

He argued, "Why should we do as the Jews do?"

Jesus celebrated the Essene Passover, not the one of the Pharisees or Saducees, which became the Talmudic Passover of Constantine's day. The fact that Jesus himself did not celebrate the Talmudic Passover is evident in the scriptures: He celebrates the Passover, but the next day, the Pharisees are still preparing for the Passover.