Did You Know Easter History

          Did you know that Easter has a long history steeped in a myriad of traditions that stem from pagan and Christian beliefs? Here is a brief illumination into a few of the historical traditions of Easter.

Spring, a Time of Celebrations

Since the beginning of time, humans have enjoyed the arrival of spring after a long cold winter. The Earth was seen as coming to life once again or being reborn at this time. The vernal or spring equinox, “the 24-hour period when day and night are equal,” [1] has long been celebrated by many groups of people throughout history as a special event and takes place between March 21 and April 25 each year.

The pagans celebrated the spring equinox with a feast to honor the goddess of spring. Known by the name of Oestre or Eastre by the Anglo-Saxons and Ostara by the Germanic pagans, the goddess of spring received her name from the word, dawn, or light that rises from the east. The “Teutonic moon goddess Ostara”[2] was a goddess of love and fertility that “had a passion for new life.”[3] Today, the name that we associate with the holiday of Easter is originates from this goddess.

Another springtime celebration that occurs around this time of year is the Jewish holiday of Passover. The eight day celebration and feast starts “on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan,” and commemorates the House of Israel’s escape from Egyptian servitude and bondage.[4] The Christian holiday of Easter celebrates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which occurred just after the Jewish Passover and the two have been entwined ever since. One hundred years after the resurrection of Christ, the Catholic Church was divided on the dates when to celebrate Easter, with one group wanting to following the Passover tradition for a weekday observance, while the other group favored celebrating Easter on Sunday.[5] The problem was solved in 325 A.D., when Emperor Constantine had an assembly at the Council of Nicaea decide the official date, which they concluded would be “on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring.”[6]  

 

The Easter Bunny

The rabbit was seen as a sacred animal by the pagans, especially considering the animal’s ability to create new life rapidly; and the goddess of spring Ostara was often worshiped through a representation “of a hare.”[7] However, the Easter Bunny as we now know him hops into this holiday tradition from sixteenth century Germany. German children came to believe that the Easter bunny, much like the platypus indigenous to Australia, laid eggs. Before the Easter bunny brought baskets full of candy and toys for children or hid their colorfully decorated eggs, he laid eggs in nests built for him by the children.[8] The Oschter Haws, as he was called, only laid his eggs for the good boys and girls. Like a fury varmint version of St. Nicolas, the Easter Bunny was also known to have the power of flight. It is possible that the legend of an egg laying and flying Easter Bunny originated from the old pagan belief that Ostara had once saved a bird whose wings had been frozen by changing it into a rabbit.[9] As German families immigrated to the New World and settled in Pennsylvania, they brought with them their Easter traditions and the legend of what would become our Easter Bunny.  

The Easter Egg

Even before the Oschter Haws or Easter Rabbit laid his Easter eggs for all good boys and girls, the egg was seen as a symbol of resurrection or new life throughout ancient cultures around the world. Both the rabbit and the egg shared a similar symbolism of virgin birth. Chickens are capable of laying eggs without the aid of a rooster; and in some pagan cultures, the rabbit were believed to be able to “conceive without a male, and even give birth without losing its virginity.”[10] For this reason, the two have been adopted into the Christian observance of Easter to represent the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary and resurrection of Christ.   

The tradition of hardboiled eggs date back to the Medieval Ages and have ties to the Lent. During Lent, eggs were not consumed, so the eggs were collected, boiled, and given as gifts to friends and family during the Easter season. The painting of Easter eggs, which were once multicolored to represent “the sunlight and spring”[11] by the pagans, started to be painted “bright red to symbolize the blood of Christ” by Orthodox Christians located in the Middle East and Greece.[12]  

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[1] Bethanne Kelly Patrick and John Milliken Thompson, An Uncommon History of Common Things, (Des Moines: National Geographic, 2009), 54.

[2] Susan E. Davis and Margo DeMello, Stories Rabbits Tell: A Natural and Cultural History of a Misunderstood Creature, (New York: Lantern Books, 2003), 138.

[3] E.A. Jensen, Manipulating the Last Pure Godly DNA: The Genetic Search for God’s DNA on Earth, (Victoria: Trafford Publishing, 2012), 221.

[4] Patrick and Thompson, An Uncommon History of Common Things, 53.

[5] Ibid, 54.

[6] Davis and DeMello, Stories Rabbits Tell,139.

[7] Ibid, 138.

[8] Ibid, 140.

[9] Patrick and Thompson, An Uncommon History of Common Things, 54.

[10] Davis and DeMello, Stories Rabbits Tell, 140.

[11] Gregory K. Moffatt, The Parenting Journey: From Conception Through the Teen Years, (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2004), 282.

[12] Ellen L. Diggs, On the Road to the Cross: Meditations and Scriptures for the Lenten and Easter Season, (Bloomington: CrossBooks, 2011), 67.