What is the origin of Easter?

[Hobie]

Take a closer look, "Easter is a pagan festival. If Easter isn't really about Jesus, then what is it about? Today, we see a secular culture celebrating the spring equinox, whilst religious culture celebrates the resurrection. However, early Christianity made a pragmatic acceptance of ancient pagan practises, most of which we enjoy today at Easter. The general symbolic story of the death of the son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and his rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well worn story in the ancient world. There were plenty of parallel, rival resurrected saviours too.

The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus. Born on 25 December, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome.

In an ironic twist, the Cybele cult flourished on today's Vatican Hill. Cybele's lover Attis, was born of a virgin, died and was reborn annually. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, rising to a crescendo after three days, in rejoicing over the resurrection. There was violent conflict on Vatican Hill in the early days of Christianity between the Jesus worshippers and pagans who quarrelled over whose God was the true, and whose the imitation...So, eventually Christianity came to an accommodation with the pagan Spring festival. Although we see no celebration of Easter in the New Testament, early church fathers celebrated it, and today many churches are offering "sunrise services" at Easter – an obvious pagan solar celebration. The date of Easter is not fixed, but instead is governed by the phases of the moon...https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/03/easter-pagan-symbolism

[Hobie]

As for Easter, the name "Easter" never appears in the Greek New Testament. Easter is not a Christian name. It is Chaldean (Babylonian) in origin - the name Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven. By the 8th century this name had come to be applied to the anniversary of Christ's resurrection. With the passage of time the connection with the goddess was lost, the only remaining meaning being associated with Christ's resurrection. Unquestionably the resurrection was of enormous importance to the apostolic church, for it figures prominently in the evangelistic messages from the apostles as recorded in the book of Acts. No issue is made about the date when it occurred, however, other than to note in a factual manner that the resurrection occurred on the first day of the week.

The apostolic church never gave attention to either the date of Christ's birth or the date of His resurrection, other than to note that the latter occurred on a Sunday. Neither of these days was observed by early Christians but as the pagan influence came into the church so did its festivals. In the third and fourth centuries a tremendous debate arose among Christian churches as to when Easter was to be observed. For the Roman Catholic branch it was largely settled at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) with a formula still followed to this day, which cannot possibly be commemoration of the actual resurrection. In current practice Easter always falls on a Sunday and the Sunday chosen wanders over a period of four weeks ranging from March 22-April 25. The eastern branch of Christendom selected a different system, so that in the Eastern Orthodox tradition both Christmas and Easter fall on different dates from those in the Western Catholic and Protestant tradition. The point is that the early Christians gave no attention to commemorating the resurrection day of Christ. If they had been serious they would be observing the 17th day of the Jewish month, Nisan, which begins with the first new moon following the spring solstice. Passover among the Jews begins with the 14th day of Nisan. It would not be possible to commemorate the actual day of the month and have it always on Sunday, so the choice was made to have it on Sunday, adjusting the day of the month for convenience.

The origin of the Easter egg, was from ancient times were they were used in religious rituals throughout Egypt and Greece. Eggs were hung for mystic purposes in temples. These sacred eggs can be traced to the banks of the Euphrates and Babylon paganism. Pagan priests were celibate, tonsured, and received the power of sacrificing for the living and the dead. The goddess in ancient religions was worshipped as the life giver and nurturer and as such, this religion was imbued with sexual undertones. Easter is nothing else but Ashtarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the Queen of Heaven. The Easter "buns" were used in the worship of the queen of heaven, the goddess of Easter. As early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens, fifteen hundred years before the Christian era. The prophet Jeremiah takes notice of this offering and we see what he says:

Jeremiah 7:18 King James Version (KJV)

18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

[Hobie]

The issue of "Easter celebration" began early in the life of the Church, disputes arose as the bishop of Rome allowed the celebration of the Pasch or Passover to continue till the following Sunday so Christians could also celebrate Spring Equinox festival as they had done before.

Now the danger of allowing the Christians to join in pagan solstice celebrations was overlooked as the new pagan 'converts' joined the church and swelled the numbers under the bishop of Rome. But other Christian leaders saw the danger of worship according to the old pagan festivals and tried to stop it in what came to be known as Paschal/Easter controversies. The first recorded such controversy came to be known as the Quartodeciman controversy.

Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History, V, xxiii) wrote:
"A question of no small importance arose at that time [i.e. the time of Pope Victor I, about A.D. 190]. The dioceses of all Asia, according to an ancient tradition, held that the fourteenth day of the moon [of Nisan], on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should always be observed as the feast of the life-giving pasch (epi tes tou soteriou Pascha heortes), contending that the fast ought to end on that day, whatever day of the week it might happen to be. However it was not the custom of the churches in the rest of the world to end it at this point, as they observed the practice, which from Apostolic tradition has prevailed to the present time, of terminating the fast on no other day than on that of the Resurrection of our Saviour." So the bishop of Rome began the practice of fixing the celebration of Passover for Christians on Sunday and it spread through the old areas of the Empire.Polycarp the disciple of John the Apostle who was now the bishop of Smyrna, came and confronted Anicetus, the Bishop of Rome who had allow the changes in the Passover and other changes to bring in converts.According to Irenaeus, around the 150s or 160, Polycarp visited Rome to discuss the differences that existed between the other centers of Christianity in Asia and Rome "with regard to certain things" and especially about the time of the Pasch or Passover which in Rome were now the Easter festivals.

Irenaeus says that Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, observed the fourteenth day of the moon, whatever day of the week that might be, following therein the tradition which he derived from John the Apostle. Irenaeus said that on certain things the two bishops speedily came to an understanding, while as to the time of the Pasch and the change to Easter, each adhered to his own custom. Polycarp following the eastern practice of celebrating Passover on the 14th of Nisan, the day of the Jewish Passover, regardless of what day of the week it fell while the bishop of Rome let it be observed on Sunday.

So the Bishop of Rome ignore the warning and continued to allow the Passover to be observed on Sunday at the pagan Spring Equinox festival connected to the goddess Eostre the "goddess of sunrise" so this is how the Pasch was change to the festival of Easter. But not only was it just the festival but had been elevated as more pagan converts came in, they were allowed to worship on the pagan day of worship which they were used to, while Christians continued to worship on Sabbath.

When Polycarp was martyred for standing against the pagan worship, the Smyrnaean letter known as the Martyrdom of Polycarp states that Polycarp was taken on the day of the Sabbath and killed on the Great Sabbath, so we see that he observed the Sabbath.Scholar William Cave wrote, "...the Sabbath or Saturday (for so the word sabbatum is constantly used in the writings of the fathers, when speaking of it as it relates to Christians) was held by them in great veneration, and especially in the Eastern parts honoured with all the public solemnities of religion. But in the Western part of the Empire, Sunday had entered in through the back door celebration of the Pasch or Passover.

Now lets look at the historical breakdown of what occurred that led to the pagan festivals such as Easter and pagan belief's that entered the church in the early centuries. Most originated in Alexandria or Rome and from those two locations they gradually spread to many of the western churches, and thence to some of the eastern ones. Until the fourth century and some time beyond, the eastern churches, being farther from Rome, tended to remain closer to the teachings of the Apostles.

Pagan sun worship continued to be the official religion of the empire until Constantine would make the changes that would allow it to be 'christianized'. The early church compromised and began to let pagan sun worship creep in and there was no one to stop it as most of the disciples were gone by 65 A.D. John, the last of the Apostles, died just before 100 A.D.

By the year 200, pagan compromises and practices were beginning to come into the church in a decided way. By 250, pagan beliefs were sweeping into the early church in an flood. About the year 154 A.D., Anticetus, bishop of the church at Rome, authorized a Sunday festival to correspond with the Attis fertility festival. This was a combining of Mithra, Attis and Christ and would better appeal to the heathen, he thought. Polycarp who was a close friend of the Apostle John before his death, the same one who tried to win Anticetus back to the true Sabbath, also tried to dissuade him from keeping the pagan festivals. But he failed in his efforts and returned with a sad report to the brethren in the eastern churches. The Roman church instituted the new Easter Sunday to avoid appearing to be "Judaizers" to the Roman authorities. There is a direct relationship between observing an Easter Sunday and a weekly Sunday as a day of worship. Each Sunday is held to be a "mini Easter" in commemoration of the (supposed) resurrection of Christ.

[Hobie]

But it gets even worse, as later, one of the bishops of Rome, around 195, which some call Pope Victor I attempted to excommunicate the Christians who continued correctly to celebrate the the Pasch or Passover, turning the divergence of practice into a full-blown ecclesiastical controversy. According to Eusebius, synods were convened and letters were exchanged, but in the end, having over-stepped his mark Pope Victor was rebuked and backed down.

Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History, V, xxiv) notes:
"But this did not please all the bishops. And they besought him to consider the things of peace, and of neighborly unity and love. Words of theirs are extant, sharply rebuking Victor. Among them was Irenæus, who, sending letters in the name of the brethren in Gaul over whom he presided, maintained that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be observed only on the Lord's day. He fittingly admonishes Victor that he should not cut off whole churches of God which observed the tradition of an ancient custom."

So now you see where the 'Lord's day' comes in and it wasnt from the disciple of John the Apostle or John himself.

[beam]

You should be sending all that history to the hierarchy of the SDA church Hobie.  They should care.  We who celebrate the resurrection of our Savior are blessed.  It is a very special time of year to reflect on the plan of salvation.   Several years ago we attended the Passion Play at Southern University (Adventist) during the Easter celebration.  It was a very inspiring play that was well planned and attended by thousands of people.   Now you come along and tell us how wrong it is to celebrate the thing that makes Christianity real because it happens to fall on a pagan holiday???  You make it sound like all the other churches that promote Easter are nothing but heathen.  Maybe you should step back and take another look at your esteemed prophet, the one that has convinced you to write such "stuff", and the church that supports her.

[Amo]

Yes, the facts of history are such a bothersome thing when they rub against our grain. It was the evil one's exact intention to ruin the celebration of this most climactic event in history, with the preemptive strike of attaching it to false pagan religions and practices before our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ established its reality unto our salvation. Then the evil one used a false apostate "Christian" entity to further entwine the false with the true in the continued and on going amalgamation of "Christianity" and paganism. How sad that this momentous event has been so polluted by the efforts of the evil one. Nevertheless, the truth should be known, that those of the truth may separate themselves from false worship and show, unto biblical and Godly worship of the true.

[beam]

Yes, the facts of history are such a bothersome thing when they rub against our grain. It was the evil one's exact intention to ruin the celebration of this most climactic event in history, with the preemptive strike of attaching it to false pagan religions and practices before our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ established its reality unto our salvation. Then the evil one used a false apostate "Christian" entity to further entwine the false with the true in the continued and on going amalgamation of "Christianity" and paganism. How sad that this momentous event has been so polluted by the efforts of the evil one. Nevertheless, the truth should be known, that those of the truth may separate themselves from false worship and show, unto biblical and Godly worship of the true.

Boy, if that is not a bunch of blather I don't know what is. 

Should we not use this time to celebrate the wonderful event that makes Christianity alive?   If it is so false why hasn't someone stepped up and started a true resurrection celebration?   Complaining about what is and not fixing it is just so much blather.  Millions of Christians are blessed each year because of the churches continued celebration of this, in your mind, terrible event.

[Amo]

Boy, if that is not a bunch of blather I don't know what is. 

Should we not use this time to celebrate the wonderful event that makes Christianity alive?   If it is so false why hasn't someone stepped up and started a true resurrection celebration?   Complaining about what is and not fixing it is just so much blather.  Millions of Christians are blessed each year because of the churches continued celebration of this, in your mind, terrible event.

As usual, you have completely misread my intentions, and backed up your faulty premise with accusatory remarks associated with the same. Blah blah blah.

[beam]

As usual, you have completely misread my intentions, and backed up your faulty premise with accusatory remarks associated with the same. Blah blah blah.

Come on Amo, we are not so stupid that we can't read between the lines.  You criticize other religions with all your blather and yet make no attempt to provide an alternative for "this most climactic event in history".

[current occupant2]

These Easter and Christmas whiners decry the remembering of the Christian events associated with these holidays .....

YET they never think twice about using the pagan demarcations of the months and the new year as well as the placing of the Sabbath on the day honoring the god Saturn. 

[Hobie]

Well, when you find the entrance of pagan worship and even worse what God forbid, Baal and sun worship, it matters..