EASTER DATE! == WHERE DID IT COME FROM?
MOST REASONABLY INFORMED CHRISTIANITY ARE WELL AWARE THAT MANY OF THE
TRADITIONS THAT SURROUND CHRISTMAS AND EASTER HAVE PAGAN ORIGINS AND
LITTLE CORRELATION WITH THE ACTUAL EVENTS RECORDED IN THE BIBLE.
Most before called are surprised when we discovered that some of what we had been taught about
"Easter" is not only in error, but deliberately so! Many, of course, are aware that the name "Easter" actually
originates with the pagan worship of Ishtar (or Astarte) that was traditionally observed at the time of the vernal
equinox, nominally about March 21 or 22. Traditional pagan fertility symbols of both rabbits and eggs continue
to be associated with this holiday.
Ashtar, some times called Astarte, is a ancient Babylonian goddess of love
and later war.
However, the name as commonly used is also currently associated with the events surrounding the
Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which actually occurred on the Passover and is clearly defined in
the Scriptures as the 14th of Nisan.
The Quartodeciman Controversy:
It may come as a shock to learn that the early church deliberately committed to separating itself from the
explicit record of Scripture. The practice of those Christians insisting on celebrating Passover on the fourteenth
day of Nisan from the Old Testament calendar, known as Quartodecimanism ("fourteenism," as derived from
Latin). It is nothing short of astonishing to discover that not only was this a major emotional controversy within
the early church, but that the commitment to deviate from the Scriptures was driven by a deep anti-Semitism!
The controversy, surrounding this issue was a principal topic at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.
Emperor Constantine presided over this council--note his own words: "It was, in the first place, declared
improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival because their hands having been
stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded... Let us, then, have nothing in
common with the Jews, who are our adversaries ... avoiding all contact with that evil way ... who, after having
compassed the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an
unrestrained passion, wherever their innate madness carries them, a people so utterly depraved. Therefore, this
irrebnelarity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides
and the murderers of our Lord ... no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews."
The early church father Eusehius also records Emperor Constantine as writing: "It appeared an unworthy
thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously
defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul ... Let us then
have nothing in common, so we have received from our Savior a different way°
Setting a Date for Easter:
The council unanimously ruled that the Easter festival should be celebrated throughout the Christian
world on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox; and that if the full moon should occur
on a Sunday, and thereby coincide with the Passover festival, Easter should be commemorated on the following
Sunday. As a result of the Council of Nicea, and amended by numerous subsequent meetings, the formal church
deliberately attempted to design a formula for "Easter" which would avoid any possibility of it falling on the
Jewish Passover, even accidentally!
A principal astronomical problem involved was the discrepancy between the solar year and the lunar year,
and thus, the Julian calendar then in use. Numerous alternatives for fixing the date of the feast were tried by the
church but proved unsatisfactory, so Easter was celebrated on different dates in different parts of the world. In
387, for example, the dates of Easter in France and Egypt were 35 days apart.
By about 465, the church adopted a system of calculation proposed by the astronomer Victorious, who
had been commissioned by Pope Hilarius to reform the calendar and fix the date of Easter. Elements of his
method are still in use, although the Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus made significant adjustments to the Easter
cycle in the 6th century.
Refusal of the British and Celtic Christian churches to adopt the proposed changes led to a bitter dispute
between them and Rome in the 7th century. Reform of the Julian calendar in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, through
adoption of the Gregorian calendar, eliminated some of the difficulties in fixing the date of Easter and in
arranging the ecclesiastical year. Since 1752, when the Gregorian calendar was also adopted in Great Britain and
Ireland, Easter has been celebrated on the same day in the Western part of the Christian world.
The Eastern churches, however, which did not adopt the Gregorian calendar, to commemorate Easter on
a Sunday preceding or following the date observed in the West. Occasionally the dates coincide; the most recent
times were in 1865 and 1963.
In 1928 the British Parliament enacted a measure allowing the Church of England to commemorate Easter
on the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April. Despite these steps toward a consolidation, Easter
continues to be a "movable" feast. In the church's zeal to separate itself from the Biblical text, confusion has
continued.
Notes adapted from: 1. The Easter Story: What really happened. 2. Writings from Irenaeus 3. Epistle of Emperor
Constantine-Theodoret's Ecclesiastical History. 4 Eusebius, Life of Constantine.