The Pagan Origins of Easter

How should we view Easter?

To some it means a few extra days off work or school.

But to many, Easter is the most important religious festival of the year, one celebrating the resurrection to life of Jesus Christ three days after he had been put to death.

But how does God view Easter?

Is the celebration of Jesus resurrection and thus Easter, a God given command or a man-made tradition?

Lets start by looking at what the Bible says.

It tells us that on the evening before his death, Jesus met with his disciples in a large room to observe the Jewish Passover. This was an annual festival held to celebrate Jehovah’s deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, in the time of Moses. Matt 26: 17-19. It was after this that Jesus instituted what is known as the Lord’s Evening Meal (“Memorial”). Then he gave this command to his disciples: Luke 22:19

This Lord’s Evening Meal, which was to be celebrated once a year, was in remembrance of Jesus’ death. The apostle Paul said regarding this anniversary: 1 Corinthians 11:25, 26.

In obedience to this, true Christians held this observance every year on the 14th day of Nisan. It is the only event Scripturally commanded to be memorialized by Christians.

When Jesus early followers had this annual feast, it was not to celebrate a Christian version of the Jewish Passover. The Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions states: “The primitive observance was actually the anniversary of Jesus’ death, on 14th Nisan.”

However, in time, people also began to honour Jesus’ resurrection, besides his death.

Without doubt, Christ’s resurrection is vitally important to Christian belief. The apostle Paul emphasized that by writing: 1 Corinthians 15:14, 17. So for our worship to be pleasing to God, we must show faith and respect for the resurrection of Jesus.

But how was it turned into a festival?

There was growing hostility between so-called Christians and the Jews. Consequently, some leaders of Christendom did not want their most important holiday to match exactly in date with the most important Jewish holiday. This attitude led to a change. In time most of Christendom began to celebrate instead, the resurrection of Jesus on the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the spring equinox (the date when the night and day are equally long, i.e. approx 20 March) and made this its most important religious celebration. In effect, they downgraded the celebration of

Jesus’ death to a lower position.

The Christian Century magazine stated in an article on Easter: “Early Christians began celebrating the resurrection in the second century.” Hence, early Easter celebrations were introduced long after the death of all the apostles and after the Bible was completed. So the tradition of Easter is man-made rather than God-given.

However, Easter has been described by some as the successor to the Jewish Passover. The book

Curiosities of Popular Customs tells us that “in the early Church, Easter was identical in date with the Passover.”

But there is more to Easter than celebrating the resurrection of Christ. Men have added symbols and customs that originate from ancient peoples who served false gods. The Easter-time use of hot cross buns, rabbits and brightly coloured eggs has its origin in pagan religion.

The New Encyclopedia Britannica says: “At Easter popular customs reflect many ancient pagan leftovers — in this instance, connected with spring fertility rites, such as the symbols of the

Easter egg and the Easter rabbit.” The Catholic Encyclopedia says: “The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility.”

Hot cross buns (Encyclopedia Britannica): “Like the Greeks, the Romans ate bread marked with a cross at public sacrifices. Also, crossed bread was eaten by pagan Saxons in honour of Eostre, their goddess of light.”

Concerning the custom of making hot cross buns the book Easter and Its Customs states: “The cross was a pagan symbol long before it acquired significance from the events of the first Good

Friday, and bread and cakes were sometimes marked with a cross before Christian times.”

An explanation for the use of eggs at Easter is found in The Catholic Encyclopedia: “The custom may have its origin in paganism, for a great many pagan customs, celebrating the return of spring, transferred to Easter celebrations. The egg is the emblem of the developing life in early spring.”

“Eggs were said to be painted and eaten at the spring festivals in ancient Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome.”— Celebrations.

The very name Easter relates to a pagan goddess. The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible states that “Easter was originally the spring festival (held at the spring equinox) in honour of the pagan goddess of fertility, light and spring known in Anglo-Saxon as Eostre. By the 8th century the name was transferred by the Anglo-Saxons, to the Christian festival designed to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.”

Springtime was sacred to the sex worshipers of the ancient Mediterranean world. Their fertility goddess, Astarte (another ancient name for Eostre), had as her symbols the egg and the rabbit.

She had an unquenchable thirst for blood and immoral sex. In Canaan, the sex goddess was the wife of Baal. She was honoured by drunken sex orgies, the worshipers believing that their sexual activities helped to bring about the full awakening and mating of Baal with his wife.

Beneath memorials to her in Carthage (Tunisia, North Africa), brightly coloured urns were discovered containing the burnt bones of little children. Their parents had sacrificed them to seek the blessing of the gods.

The American Book of Days: “There is no doubt that the Church in its early days adopted the old pagan customs and gave a Christian meaning to them. As the festival of Eostre was in celebration of the renewal of life in the spring it was easy to make it a celebration of the resurrection from the dead of Jesus.”

The book Curiosities of Popular Customs tells us: “It was the policy of the early Church to give a

Christian significance to existing pagan ceremonies that could not be up-rooted. In the case of

Easter the change was fairly easy. Joy at the rising of the natural sun, and at the awakening of nature from the death of winter, became joy at the rising of the Sun of righteousness, at the resurrection of Christ. Some of the pagan ceremonies which took place in the Spring were also shifted to correspond with the celebration of Easter.”

Rather than steer clear of popular pagan customs and magical rites, the religious leaders made allowances for them and gave them “Christian significance.”

Giving some background to its paganism, the book Easter and Its Customs observes:

“It was in spring, in the season of new life and revival when, from ancient times, the pagan peoples of Europe and Asia held their Spring Festivals, performing magical and religious ceremonies to make the crops grow and prosper. Pagan Springtime rituals connected with Gods such as Tammuz

(Babylonian), Osiris (Egyptian) and Adonis (Greek), flourished in the Mediterranean world, and farther north and east there were others practising similar rituals. Inevitably, some of their custom and symbols were carried forward into the Easter customs.”

In conclusion, Easter is definitely not for true Christians.

References: AW70 12/8 pg 5; AW86 3/8 pg 16-17; AW92 4/8 pg 3 -9; AW93 11/22 pg 13;

WT96 4/1 pg 3-4