Re: Passover/Easter (was: Italogallic in Zera,and other languages.)

On Wed, 26 Apr 2000, Raymond Brown wrote:

> This begs a few questions IMHO.  Old English for Easter is 'éastre', with
> initial _long_ e; like the modern German 'Ostern' it is clearly cognate
> with the word for 'east', 'éast' in Old English; 'Ost' in modern German.
And then there's the Greek for "Easter":  Pascha, from the Hebrew
"Pesach"--Passover.  That's always one to set some heads a-scratchin'

> We have IIRC only the Venerable Bede's authority to connecting 'éastre'
> with the name of the goddess Eostre (or Eastre) whose name begins with a
> short e.  Do we have any independent accounts or evidence about this
> goddess.  Is here name really derived from the same root as East, Latin &
I have yet to find any at all.

> Do we have, indeed, independent evidence about this goddess - other than
> what Bede tells us?  What exactly was she goddess of?  When was her
> festival?  Was it actually at the Vernal Equinox itself or was the moon
> also used in calculating the exact date?
The method of calculating the date of Pascha (called "Easter" in English)
was set by the First Council of Nicea, with NO known input from Saxons.
The Canons of that Council specify two things:  That it be calculated
according to the Alexandrian method.  That it not be celebrated "with the
Jews".  The Alexandrian method (named for Alexandria in Egypt--pretty far
from Britain by foot) is the first Sunday after the first full moon after
the Vernal Equinox, which was fixed at March 21 for ease of calculation.
(Remember that this was March 21 of the Julian calendar, and was roughly
correct at the time the calculation was made.)  To avoid "with the Jews",
a proviso was added delaying the festival to the next Sunday should it
coincide with Passover.  Likewise, a proviso was added to delay until the
next Sunday after the next full moon should the first fall before Passover.

The whole question arose because Anatolian Christians were celebrating
Pascha on the 14th of Nisan, the then-current date of Jewish Passover, but
others were using a pre-Diaspora calculation for Passover, based upon not
only the moon but also on the Vernal Equinox.

There is some question over whether or not the prohibition against
celebrating "with the Jews" referred to the date or to the use of Jewish
synagogues for holding the ceremonies.

> These are genuine questions.  I don't know the answers.  But the older I
> get, the more Bede's etymology seems to me like a perpetuation of 'folk
> etymology' of his day.
From what I recall of the passage (in translation), I get a sort of "Old
Jim-Bob tells us that his great-grandpappy remembered that HIS
great-great-great-grandpappy worshipped some goddess or another by that
name." feel from it.