The queen of feasts, the celebration of our Lord's Resurrection, which most English speaking Christians know as Easter, is the center of a surprising amount of controversy. The date on which it is to be celebrated has caused arguments and excommunications, and was one of the historical sources of division between Celtic Catholicism and what later became Roman Catholicism. For a short commentary on the spiritual meaning of Easter, _read this article_ (http://www.celtic-catholic-church.org/oak_tree/meaning_of_easter.html) . Not only the date, but even the very name, has also been a source of controversy and disagreement. In Hebrew, the Passover is called Pesach. In most languages, the Christian Resurrection feast is called by a name based on this Hebrew word. Most Orthodox call it Pascha or a similar sounding name. Only in English is it called Easter. According to some, this name is derived from that of an ancient pagan goddess of spring. It is becoming common among some Protestant groups in the U.S. to refer to the day as "Resurrection Day," rather than use the name of the pagan goddess. In the Celtic Catholic Church, you will generally find the Feast referred to in print as Cáisc, an Irish equivalent of Pasch, although in conversation you will often hear many of us say Easter. ection, which most English speaking Christians know as Easter, is the center of a surprising amount of controversy. The date on which it is to be celebrated has caused arguments and excommunications, and was one of the historical sources of division between Celtic Catholicism and what later became Roman Catholicism. For a short commentary on the spiritual meaning of Easter, _read this article_ (http://www.celtic-catholic-church.org/oak_tree/meaning_of_easter.html) . Not only the date, but even the very name, has also been a source of controversy and disagreement. In Hebrew, the Passover is called Pesach. In most languages, the Christian Resurrection feast is called by a name based on this Hebrew word. Most Orthodox call it Pascha or a similar sounding name. Only in English is it called Easter. According to some, this name is derived from that of an ancient pagan goddess of spring. It is becoming common among some Protestant groups in the U.S. to refer to the day as "Resurrection Day," rather than use the name of the pagan goddess. In the Celtic Catholic Church, you will generally find the Feast referred to in print as Cáisc, an Irish equivalent of Pasch, although in conversation you will often hear many of us say Easter. Our guest contributor, Caedmon Parsons, an Eastern Orthodox and scholar of the Middle Ages, clarifies the true history of the word Easter. To reply to this article, you may e-mail him at [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) ____________________________________ Apart from one mention in the Venerable Bede's scientific treatise, De Temporarum Ratione, there is absolutely no evidence for a Germanic goddess with a name in any way resembling the word Easter. Every other recorded use of the term is in a Christian context. Rather than the term being derived from a goddess, the supposed goddess is derived from the term. She was postulated by certain 19th century Germanic scholars in an attempt to explain the etymology of the word. These same scholars (foremost among them the Grimm brothers, famous for their folk-tale collections and less well-known as the discoverers of the "Indo-European" linguistic family) had a very definite nationalist/ethnic agenda in which they were trying to rediscover the "real" roots of German culture. Thus the folk-tale collection's avowed purpose was to search for "survivals" of pre-Christian Germanic religion and culture. For an interesting take on the alleged "pagan-ness" of Easter, read _this sensible article_ (http://www.wcg.org/lit/church/holidays/easter.htm) from a surprising source. The later connection of this invented figure to Astarte was sheer fundamentalist propaganda based on a coincidental similarity in sound. Having dismissed Nativity/Christmas because it's timing coincides with a number of pagan solar festivals, those fundamentalist groups which criticize all celebration of "holy days" thereby sought to discredit Easter whose general timing is well laid out in the Bible. If there was a connection, it would be the only case of a Sumerian/Canaanite word coming into the Germanic languages without first passing through Hebrew and/or Greek into Latin and then into Germanic via the medium of Christianity. It is to be noted that there is no other Old English word for Passover or Pascha. There is some by no means conclusive evidence of a festival or holy day connected to the spring solstice. However, every recorded instance of the word's usage has clear Christian connotations (i.e., if it ever was a pagan festival, it had effectively disappeared by the time people wrote using the term Easter). As to why this word is used in English and German: It is used in German for the simple reason that the pagans of modern-day Germany were missionized by Anglo-Saxon Christians such as St. Willibrord or the two St. Hewalds. The Germans thus got Easter the same way the Russians got Pascha. In England itself, this is the type of theoretical issue Anglo-Saxonists enjoy arguing. There appears to have been a very strong cultural bias among the Anglo-Saxons against other languages. While their Latin missionaries and then their own churchmen obviously knew and used Latin, there was remarkably little borrowing from Latin into English at this time. In almost every instance, the English Church took existing English words to express ecclesiastical terms (thus sanctus was translated by haelig [holy, healthy, whole], and Old English uses haelige John not St. John, and haeliged [hallowed] rather than sanctified, etc.) rather than simply borrowing the Latin (the modern preponderance of Latin loan words for ecclesiastical terms is a product of the post-1066 Norman invasion). In addition to Latin books, Old English had the most active vernacular literature (primarily Christian) of any Western area prior to the millenium. There is an extant translation of the gospel of John which is the oldest translation of the Bible into a western vernacular with the exception of Bishop Wulfilas Arian translations into Gothic (itself another Germanic language). In other words, the presence of the word Easter is actually a product of the vibrant "Orthodoxy" of the Anglo-Saxon Church which unlike later periods did not suppress the resident culture in favour of an all-embracing Latinism but rather transformed (in accord with the guidelines given to St. Augustine of Canterbury by St. Gregory the Great) the entire language and culture. Although I myself generally use Pascha because it is the common usage among Orthodox now, I find attempts to dismiss as "pagan" a true survival of English Orthodoxy very problematic. Furthermore, there does not seem to be any English form of the word Pascha; Orthodox England never called the feast anything but Easter. (http://www.celtic-catholic-church.org/cgi-bin/birdcast/birdcast.cgi) ____________________________________ For the true logo-phile, this word-list, from J. R. Clarke Hall's A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, will prove fascinating: Anglo-Saxon words related to the word Easter Anglo-Saxon Modern English east I. adj. east, easterly. II. adv. eastwards, in an easterly direction, in or from the east eastan from the east, easterly eastanwind east wind eastcyning eastern king eastdael eastern quarter, the East easte the East eastende east-end, east quarter Eastengle the East Anglians: East Anglia Easteraefen Easter-eve Easterdaeg Easter-day, Easter Sunday Easterfaestan Easter-fast, Lent Easterfeorm feast of Easter Easterfreolsdaeg the feast day of Passover Eastergewuna Easter custom (appears only in the 9th century sermons of Aelfric where he is refering to Christian Easter practices) Easterlic belonging to Easter, Paschal Eastermonath Easter-month, April Easterne east, eastern, oriental Easterniht Easter-night Eastersunnandaeg Easter Sunday Eastersymble Passover (lit. Easter gathering) Eastertid Eastertide, Paschal season Easterthenung Passover Easterwucu Easter Week
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