Easter: The Pagan Conspiracy

I meant to write this post in the weeks leading up to last Easter, but I’m afraid it completely slipped my mind. Unfortunately, this meant that when Easter Sunday rolled around and all the “Easter is a pagan festival!” comments started to appear on Facebook and on blogs, I was repeatedly forced to write some off-the-cuff comments in response, rather than having something prepared here to which I could link.

I was reminded that I had intended to do this post a couple of days ago while reading an article in the Telegraph. The article in question was talking about how the Church of England has plans to create a new Pagan church to attract new people . Inter-faith dialog is one thing, but this sounds like something quite different. I’m intrigued as to what this’ll end up looking like. We’ll just have to wait and see…

So, I know Easter Sunday has long since passed. In fact, Pentecost has also been and gone and we’re even nearing the end of the Apostles’ Fast. However, I’ve decided to write a quick blog entry here in preparation for next year so that when we’re in the run up to Easter I’ll be ready 🙂

A festival by any other name…

The main thrust of most the comments I saw this year was over the word “Easter” itself. It was pointed out, ad nauseam, that the word “Easter” is most likely etymologically related to the word “Eostre”, a Germanic deity from paganism. The “logic” goes that, since the word “Easter” has pagan roots, the celebration itself must also be pagan. Makes sense, right? Err….no.

I’ll admit that when I see such comments I get a little irritated because I don’t think they’ve really thought through what it is that they’re saying nor have they applied their position consistently.

Easter: Part & Paschal of Christianity

When meeting the accusations of “Pagan Easter”, I like to make two main points:

1. Virtually no other languages follow this etymology
In all the countries where I’ve lived (England and the USA), it has been widely accepted that English is the greatest language in the world. You’ll find no argument from me there; it is the Queen’s English, after all… 😉

However, this English-centric worldview often blinds us to the fact that English is not the only language out there. This is particularly true of the religious festival which, in English, we usually call “Easter”. Here are the words used in other languages:

French: “Pâques”
Spanish: “Pascua”
Latin: “Pasqua”
Catalan: “Pasqua”
Dutch: “Pasen”
Danish: “Påske”
Greek: “Πάσχα”
Latin: “Pascha”

In fact, English and German are the only languages I’ve seen which have a link to “Eostre”. These two languages are the exception, not the rule. Instead of deriving from “Eostre”, all the languages listed above derive their word from “Passover”. In fact, in these languages the same word is used for both “Passover” and “Easter”.

This points us to the true origin of Easter: Passover. The Early Christians celebrated Easter because they saw the Jewish Passover fulfilled in Jesus, the “lamb of God”, who was slain who “takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).

It is also worth pointing out that English-speaking Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox both refer to Easter not as “Easter”, but “Pascha”. Even in the Western Church, the link between Easter and Passover is clearly present, emphasized again and again in the Easter liturgy, from the “Paschal Candle” to the Old Testament Passover readings to the Eucharistic prayers.

2. Word doesn’t mean worship
Having said all that, although they stand alone in this regard, it does appear that English and German do, in fact, derive their word for a Christian festival from the name of a Pagan God. However, I’ve got to ask…so what?!

Let’s try an experiment. What do you call the first day of the work week? “Monday”?! Pagan! Why are you worshiping the Moon (“Moon Day”)?!  What do you call the next day? “Tuesday”?! Pagan! Why are you worshiping the Norse god Tiw (“Tiw’s Day”)?!  In fact, all the days of the week in English come from the names of either Norse or Graeco-Roman gods:

Monday: The Moon
Tuesday: Tiw
Wednesday: Woden
Thursday: Thor
Friday: Frig
Saturday: Saturn
Sunday: The Sun

Let’s try some other names. What do you call the first month of the year? “January”?! Pagan! Why do you worship the Roman god Janus?! As with the days of the week, I could go on and on, but the point is clear: the complaint about “pagan origins” is rarely applied consistently to all the places where pagan words are still used.

Protesting Paganism

Often the charges of paganism come from anti-Catholic Protestants. Because of this, I would like to finish this article by discussing some ways to respond to that specific group. When charged with paganism by other Christians I usually respond by making two additional points:

1. The Good News of Paganism
I’ll usually begin by asking those making the charges if they know what the Greek word is for the very important New Testament term “Gospel”. The word in Greek is “evangelion”. However, this word was originally used for edicts of the (pagan) Emperors. If present day Christians aren’t allowed to repurpose words then neither should the New Testament authors.

2. Wedding Paganism and Christianity
When these conversations happen in person, I immediately look to see if the person speaking to me has a wedding ring. If I find one, I ask if they knew that the exchanging of wedding rings was a Pagan custom. Additionally, I inquire as to whether the bride carried a bouquet of flowers on the wedding day. Why do I ask this? Yup, you’ve guessed it, bridal bouquets are also a pagan tradition.

So, here we have two customs widely adopted by non-Catholic Christians, yet I doubt that anyone would assert that they secretly worship some other god.

Conclusion

So should we be concerned that the English word “Easter” comes from the name of a pagan god? Not at all. The feast of “Eostre” fell around the same time as Passover. It therefore fell around the same time as Easter. So, in a twist of language development, this pagan name was retained to describe that time of year, much in the same way that “Lent” is derived from the Old English word for “springtime”.

There are many words and practices which did, at one time, have pagan associations. However, as the Gospel was preached and people converted to Christianity, these words and practices were “baptized” so to speak, washed clean of their pagan roots. They were  repurposed and put to the service of the Faith, thus demonstrating Christ’s victory over the pagan gods.

The article Easter: The Pagan Conspiracy first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net