Easter's Rabbit Hole, Part 1 (Of 2)

 

With the advent of another Easter upon us, and being in the throes of Lent one more time, I felt it would be good to spend a little time exploring the ancient origins of both customs. May I throw out this caveat, however: this is by no means a definitive or exhaustive treatment on Easter. Rather merely my gleanings from numerous works I’ve read coupled with my own observations.

When I was younger I gave Easter no thought, but just blindly accepted what I was told in regard to it: namely, that it was the memorial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In my young mind I found no disparity between the resurrection and its supposed symbolism in colorful eggs, rabbits, hot cross buns, the pomegranate, etc. As for Lent, not being raised Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Lutheran I likewise thought nothing of it. In fact, I knew nothing about Lent until I was out of high school, having not known anyone (that admitted to it) that partook in Lent.

 

It is no small secret that Easter does not derive from anything Christian. It follows the lunar cycle and the spring equinox and the return of life to the earth, making it rather a pagan, earth-worshiping day rather than something relating to Christ. Rabbits, being an ancient and universal symbol of fertility, have become the poster child for the holiday. When I began to consider these things I started to wonder: why does Easter move from Sunday to Sunday throughout March and April? For instance, this year Easter arrives on April 9^th. Next year it will be March 31^st. It landed in April the last several years prior, but again in 2019 it was March 24^th.  It was confusing. Christmas, another holiday surrounded by scandal, at least stayed on the same day commemorating the birth of the Savior: namely December 25^th. Yet like the proverbial rabbit that symbolizes the holiday, we just can’t pin Easter down. Why? If this holiday really is the memorial for the resurrection, it should be a specific, fixed day. The pat answer is that Easter follows the Jewish Passover, which Jerusalem was in the midst of when Jesus was arrested and crucified. A host of older authors (19^th century and prior) have much to say about Easter and Ishtar, queen of heaven.

 

We read in Gieseler, Ecclesiastical History volume I, that one of the church fathers, Tertullian (155 AD-220 AD) stated that from the 2^nd century the time of Christ’s crucifixion was believed to be the 23^rd of March, coinciding with the Jewish Passover. The date should have been concrete if it was truly known by Tertullian and fellow Christians in the 2^nd century. James Ussher, in his Annals of the World originally published mid-17^th century, traced the day of the crucifixion to April 3^rd, 33 AD. Sir Robert Anderson in his book, The Coming Prince, published 1894, traced the date of Jesus’ triumphal entry to April 6^th, 32 AD. This is not an argument for predicting an accurate date for the death of Christ. I only conjecture that if one was known so early in the church then that day should have been memorialized and observed, rather than the peculiar pattern we see today. Pasch, or Paschal, was a type of proto-Easter and was not preceded by Lent, (Gieseler, Ecclesiastical History volume I) in the time prior to Tertullian. Cassianus, a monk of Marseilles, wrote in the 5^th century, “It ought to be known that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of the primitive church remained inviolate,” (Gieseler, Ecclesiastical History volume II).

 

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops defines Lent. “Lent is a 40 day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday. It's a period of preparation to celebrate the Lord's Resurrection at Easter. The 40 days of Lent, prior to its appropriation by the Roman Catholic Church, hails from numerous geographical origins. The word Lent is simply a reference to the lengthening days of spring and comes from the word “lencten” meaning “to lengthen.” Layard, in “Nineveh and Babylon” writes that the Yezidis and devil-worshipers in Koordistan practiced 40 days of abstinence in the spring. Humboldt, in “Mexican Researches” wrote that the ancient people of Mexico observed 40 days of abstinence in honor of the sun during the spring. In Landseer’s “Sabean Researches” he wrote that the Egyptians held their forty-day abstinence for Osiris or Adonis, their mediatorial god. Hyslop writes, in “the Two Babylons” that the pagan nations celebrating this form of Lent commemorated a great festival after 40 days to honor the death and resurrection of Tammuz in June, in Palestine and Assyria, Mid-may in Egypt, and in ancient Britain some time in April. Tammuz, Ishtar’s consort, was betrayed by her and killed. Every autumn commemorated his demise when nature wilted, while spring represented his resurrection. Ezekiel witnessed the worship of Tammuz in his own time, circa 6^th century BC. “So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the Lord’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz,” Ezekiel 8:14.

 

Socrates Scholasticus, Greek Sokrates, (380AD- 450AD), Byzantine church historian, stated, “Those who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before Easter three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord’s-day.” Gieseler, when speaking of Paschal during the 2^nd century, wrote, “In [the Paschal feast] they eat unleavened bread, probably like the Jews, eight days throughout…There is no trace of a yearly festival of a resurrection among them, for this was kept every Sunday.” Bingham (Ecclesiastical origin Vol. IX) writes, “The solemnities of Pasch [are]  a week before and a week after Easter Sunday—one week of the cross, the other of the resurrection.” In Constantine’s time fifteen days appear to have been observed for the Paschal feast. Lent more or less as we know it today was brought into the Roman Catholic church in 519 by Hormisdas, bishop of Rome through a council held at Aurelia, according to Dr. Meredith Hanmer in “Chronographia.” Though the change of dates (40 days of Lent culminating in Easter) did not really begin to be accepted until the close of the 6^th century.

 

Having spent a little time on the history of Easter’s encroachment upon Christendom, we should turn to the various symbols employed by it.

 

Hot cross buns, in light of Easter’s pagan origins, seem to resemble the cakes baked by the Israelite women to the queen of heaven in Jeremiah’s day. “The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger,” Jeremiah 7:18 God said in Hosea that the Jews offered raisin cakes to other gods, quite possibly an offering to Ashteroth, another name for Ishtar, or the queen of heaven two centuries prior to Jeremiah. “Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans,” Hosea 3:1.

 Hot cross buns, made with currants and baked to “honor Christ,” seem strangely reminiscent of the cakes for Astarte that God condemned. Hot cross buns, bearing no name change, were used by the ancients as far back as quasi-legendary Cecrops was said to have founded Athens, 1500 years prior to the Christian era, as recorded in Bryant’s “Mythology.”