Objection: Easter is a pagan holiday (as even its very name, being pagan in origin, indicates), and therefore no Christian should celebrate it.
There is a small but vocal group of Christians who maintain that Easter is pagan in origin, and as such should not be celebrated by Christians at all. In addition, there are other Christians who, while not going to that extreme, nevertheless are uncomfortable with the actual name "Easter". They would agree with the objection above to the extent that the name, at least, is pagan in origin, and therefore inappropriate to be given to a Christian holiday. As a result, they have renamed the day "Resurrection Sunday". Is there any validity to such objections?
First, let's start with the name itself. Is the name Easter pagan in origin (even thereby indicating the holiday itself has pagan roots), as some maintain? Not at all! For one thing, such an objection would not even make sense to most Christians throughout the world. This is because in most languages (most significantly those in the Mediterranean culture in which the celebration of Easter first arose) the name of the holiday is derived from the Hebrew word pesach (i.e. passover). Thus, as Catholic writer Jimmy Akin points out, in Greek and Latin both it is called Pascha, in Italian it is Pasqua, in French it is Paques, in Spanish it is Pascua, and so forth.
This is because Christ's death and resurrection, the paschal mystery (which the holiday commemorates) took place at Passover, and is its fulfillment. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast... (1 Cor 5:7)As we see, therefore, the names of the festival in the very culture where it first arose quite clearly are biblical in origin. In fact, it is only in a couple European languages, i.e., English (Easter) and German (Ostern) that the name has a different etymological origin. Now, it is true some have claimed that these names, at any rate, are derived from pagan sources, but that theory suffers major difficulties [1], to say the least. Rather, as the link I provide in the note below states:
In reality, the prefix eostur probably has more to do with the Indo-European root word aus, which means "to shine." In Germanic languages, this has always had a connection with the dawn; the Indo-European word for dawn is in fact austron [...] Themes such as dawn, light, and east should definitely call to mind our Lord's Resurrection, in which the Light of the World rose, in a liturgy facing east, which was celebrated at dawn.If that is in fact the case, as appears likely, then there is nothing "pagan" in the etymological origins of the name even in those two exceptions, much less in the other languages.
Ironically enough, however, "Resurrection Sunday", which some Christians recommend as a substitute name due to concerns about "paganism", does make reference to a pagan god in its very name. As is well known, the names of the days of the week in English (such as Sunday) are derived from the names of pagan gods. Generally speaking, however, most people do not object to the names of the days of the week due to their etymological origin. This is because they realize (correctly) such an origin is irrelevant, and that it is a fallacy to argue otherwise.
After all, just imagine how ludicrous it would be if someone came up with the theory that the name "Resurrection Sunday" is "pagan." Or even (if they were more extreme) not only the name, but the holiday itself was pagan in origin, as "one can see from its name." Such a person might argue that it is really a pagan feast celebrating the fact that the sun rises again in the sky every morning after "dying" in the night. ("Look at its name! 'Resurrection Sunday'. Of course it is the day which celebrates the rising of the sun god into the sky!") They would refuse to believe that instead of referring to the sun rising in the sky, it really refers to the Son rising from the tomb! That theory is laughable, of course, but it is no more absurd than arguing against the name Easter as "pagan" even if we were to concede (solely for the sake of argument) that the name has pagan etymological roots. But it does not, in fact, have such an origin, as we have seen.
So much for the name of Easter. Still, what about the holiday itself? Is it pagan in origin? Again, the answer is no.
It is true that the holiday is not mentioned in Scripture. But then again, neither are a million other things (such as church buildings or Wednesday night Bible studies), which are nevertheless legitimate. However, obviously the holiday is a commemoration of the event which is the central event of the New Testament, and is therefore quite appropriate to celebrate.
In fact, Easter has been celebrated since the first century, having been established by the Apostles themselves, according to the testimony of the earliest Christians. There was indeed a controversy in the early Church concerning Easter, but it concerned when to celebrate the feast, not if it should be celebrated. (It appears that the Apostles did not all celebrate it on the same day, which led to disagreements among the various churches later on.)
Thus, in the year 154, Polycarp, the aged bishop of Smyrna, came to Rome to meet Anicetus, who was the pope at that time, to discuss the controversy. (Incidentally, Polycarp, who in his youth had known and been a disciple of the Apostle John personally, would shortly afterwards be martyred by the authorities in Smyrna. One is reminded that in the book of Revelation, the church at Smyrna received nothing but praise; cf. Rev 2:8-11. Assuming the traditional dating of Revelation, Polycarp would have been a young man at the time the Apostle John wrote the book.)
Describing this visit, historian Warren Carroll writes:
Another reason for Polycarp's journey- and of this reason we are explicitly told- was to discuss the question of the proper date for celebrating Easter. Polycarp's own church, like all those which had been closely associated with the Apostle John, had always celebrated Easter on the 14th day of the old Jewish month Nisan, the day of the Crucifixion, regardless of the day of the week on which it fell; they fasted during the day and celebrated the Eucharist commemorating the Resurrection in the evening. Elsewhere the Church uniformly celebrated Easter on the first Sunday following the 14th Nisan, with the Crucifixion commemorated the preceding Friday. For Polycarp, the practice of the Apostle John was sacrosanct, and the Pope did not at this time insist on his conforming, though not persuaded by his arguments in favor of the "quartodeciman" practice.
-The Founding of Christendom, pp. 460-461(Later on, in the pontificate of Pope Victor, 189-198, the controversy would flare up temporarily before the influence of Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons, helped calm things down, but there would not be a uniform practice throughout the entire church until the year 325.)
Such early testimony makes it clear that Easter was not derived from "pagan sources", but the Apostles themselves. And, of course, a Christian origin is only what we would expect. After all, should anybody really believe that the early Christians, who endured the most excruciating torments (and even death itself) rather than offer just a pinch of incense to Caesar, would turn around and then betray their Lord by celebrating what is really a thinly-veiled pagan holiday in honor of another god as the "pagan origin of Easter" theory implies? Of course not.
Now, there are still other objections many make to alleged "pagan" practices that have made their way into the celebrations of Easter. Generally speaking, these "pagan" practices are, in fact, nothing of the sort. However, even if they were, that gets into the more general question of whether or not Christians can "baptize" otherwise legitimate practices to which no objection exists except they were first used by pagans. That question is beyond the scope of this piece. Suffice it to say for now, however, that neither Easter itself nor the name of it are pagan in origin, and that no Christian should have any qualms about celebrating it.
Notes
____________
No comments:
Post a Comment