The Things of Man

I am learning the most interesting things about Easter. For instance, did you know that for several hundred years, Easter was not even called "Easter." Prior to the fourth century, Christians observed Pascha, or Christian Passover, in the spring of the year. Adapted from Jewish Passover, Pascha was a festival of redemption. As Jews, these early followers of Jesus celebrated both their liberation from slavery in Egypt, and their new liberation from the power of death itself.

As Christianity spread throughout the Roman world, however, the celebration became more and more a distinctly Christian one. But there also developed some disagreement about when and how the holiday should be observed. One of the principle reasons for organizing the council of Nicea in 325 CE was to set a firm date for the celebration.

There was a few problems with this however. There is a historic comtempt, and blatantly un-Biblical misunderstanding in regards to the Jews which led the papacy to change, not only the Sabbath to Sunday, (Biblically it is Saturday; the seventh day of the week) but also Passover to Easter. The reason? To ensure that Easter would not be celebrated at the same time of the Jewish Passover. The council of Nicea (A. D. 325) decreed that if the Jewish Passover fell on a Sunday, then Easter was to be celebrated the following Sunday in order to have "nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd." (Constantine the Great.)

Easter, or Eostre, which was the original spelling, was actually a holiday to celebrate the return of spring and the balance between light and dark around the time of the Spring Equinox. It was named after Eostre, the pagan goddess of dawn, fertility and new beginnings (and this worship was started in Babylon, of which we are constantly warned throughout scripture!). Eostre gave a rabbit the power to lay eggs once a year, on the Spring Equinox to symbolize new beginnings. The rabbit symbolized fertility. The Christian celebration of Christ's death and resurrection did, in fact, get its name from Eostre.

Interesting. There's more, of course, which I may post on later. Right now my prayer is that the things of man will stay the things of man and not replace the things of God.