RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Eadfrid Easter
I. The Celebration.
1. Names and their Significance.
2. Origin of the Celebration. Testimony of the Ante-Nicene
Period (§ 1). Testimony of the Post-Nicene
Period (§ 2). Conclusions (§3).
EASTER.
3. The Day of Celebration.
4. Rites of Celebration. Prior to 300 a.d. (§ 1).
In the Post-Nicene Period and Middle
Ages (§ 2). In Modern Times (§ 3). II. The Paschal Controversies.
The Quartodecimans of Asia Minor (§1).
Documentary Bases and Harmonistic
Calculations (§ 2). Controversy in the Second Century
(§3). The Nicene Decision as to Date of
Celebration (§ 4). III. The Easter Cycle.
1. The Celebration. — 1. Names and Their Significance: Easter, the festival of our Lord's resurrection is, with Christmas, the most joyous festival observed by the Church. The English Easter and the German equivalent Ostern, are derived from the Anglo-Saxon Ostard or Edstre, the name of the goddess of spring and the dawn (cf. Skeat's Etymological Dictionary ; Bede, De ratione temporum, xv.). The French pdques and the terms used in the other Romance languages are derived from the Hebrew pesah, " Passover." In the early Church the term pascha was used for the festival next preceding Pentecost, whatever it was that that festival commemorated (see Pentecost). It remains to show whether the term stood only for the festival of the death of Christ, or for both the festivals of the death and resurrection, or for the festival of the resurrection alone. It is certain that if the resurrection of Christ was annually commemorated, the festival of commemoration was called pascha and by no other distinctive term. The word pascha was at first derived from Gk. paschein, " to suffer " (so Tertullian, adv. Jud.; Irenaeus, Hot., iv. 23, etc.). Later the true derivation from the Hebrew pesah was recognized and the meaning diabasis, transitus, " passing over " was given to it (e.g., by Gregory Nazianzen, Sermo xlv., MPL, xxxvi. 636; Augustine, Epist., Iv., MPL, xxxiii. 205). After the year 300 the day of the resurrection was called the " day alone great " by Leo I. {Sermo de resurrectione Domini, MPL, liv. 498), " the most royal day of days," by Gregory Nazianzen (MPG, xxxv. 1017); "the festival of festivals," "the happiest of days," and by other designations which show that it was looked upon after that date, if not before, as the most joyous and important festival of the year. John of Damascus has given expression to the devout feelings of the ancient Church in regard to Easter in his resurrection hymn:
The day of resurrection, earth, tell it out abroad, The passover of gladness, the passover of God.
2. Origin of the Celebration: Two questions present themselves: (1) When did the custom of the yearly commemoration of the resurrection begin? (2) on what day of the week and what day of the year was the festival celebrated? For the period after the Council of Nicsea (325), the difficulty largely vanishes. The comparatively lengthy statement of Eusebius (Hist. eccl. V., xxiiixxv.) does not relieve the difficulty for the ante- Nicene period, but by its vagueness, growing out of what Eusebius assumes to be known, rather increases the difficulty. If we were in possession of the lost tracts called forth in the third century by the paschal controversies (see below, II.), to which
Eusebius makes reference, all uncertainty might be removed.
The only possible allusion in the New Testament
to the observance of a Christian Passover, or festival
of the death of Christ, is I Cor. v. 7,
1. Testi- where " Christ our Passover " is said "f'th'' *° nave been sacrificed for us. That Ante- *^e Jewisn Christians continued to Nicene keep the Jewish festivals is altogether Period, probable, if not certain, from Paul's habit. On the other hand, Paul seems to disparage the observance of special festivals except the first day of the week (I Cor. xvi. 2). What was the custom of the Gentile Christians ? Did they also keep the season devoted to the Jewish Passover, putting into it Christian ideas? And if so, did they observe it as a commemoration of the resurrection of Christ as well as of his death and burial? In the literature of the subapostolic age, (excepting Justin Martyr) there is no reference to a celebration of a yearly festival of the resurrection or pascha. There is no hint of anything of that kind in the Didache. Trypho charged the Christians with not keeping the Jewish feasts or the Sabbaths; the reply was that Christians did not place any virtue in keeping such festivals (Justin Martyr, Trypho, x.). From Tertullian it seems to be evident that there was a struggle between the Jewish and Gentile elements in the Church over what was included under the feast of the pascha and a struggle within the Gentile portion of the Church as to whether any yearly festivals were to be observed. Tertullian says: if the Apostle set aside all special reverence for days and months and years, why do we celebrate the pascha in the first month of each year? (De jejuniis, xiv., ANF, iv. 112). It is evident from this that the pascha was observed. But that there was a difference in respect to what was included under the term pascha is evident from Tertullian. In his De oratione (viii.) he refers to it as Friday the day of the Lord's death, and in De corona (iii., ANF, iii. 94) he says: " we count fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord's day to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Whitsunday." Similarly in De baptismo (xix., ANF, iii. 678) he says that they did not fast on the Lord's Day and that the period between the day of the pascha and Pentecost the Christian spent in joy. From this it seems to be apparent that the whole season of the pascha was observed with sadness and grief. So far then it would appear that the pascha observance was a time of grief and it is left uncertain whether the resurrection was observed annually by a special day, or, if observed at all, whether it was observed separately from the festival of the death of Christ.
The next point of approach is through Eusebius
Easter