Bishop's Epistle: Defending Easter

Introduction

Is the word "Easter" taken from a pagan goddess?

Most likely not.

When Martin Luther translated his Bible into German he translated pascha as resurrection, which is "oster" in German. Tyndale followed Luther's lead and translated pascha as ester (the "a" was added later). The King James translators followed Tyndale (the KJV is 75% Tyndale) and we have Easter. The word is particular to the German and English Bibles. German and English are the only languages that actually translated the Greek pascha. Other translations simply transliterate the word. Luther used the German word for "dawn" "east, or “resurrection."

In the present essay our research follows three lines of discovery: First we will look at the source of the goddess connection, which is the Venerable Bede; second we will consider reliable etymology of the word Easter; and lastly we will review the early translators of the German and English Bibles, which are the only languages to actually translate the Greek pascha.

The Venerable Bede

There is one and only one reference to a goddess named Eostre/Eastre, and that is by the Venerable Bede. (Historian and Doctor of the Church, born 672 or 673; died 735. a priest of the monastery of the blessed apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, which is at Wearmouth and at Jarrow (in Northumberland), born in the territory of the monastery, and at the age of seven was, by the care of his relations, given to the most reverend Abbot Benedict [St. Benedict Biscop], and afterwards to Ceolfrid, to be educated. From that time he spent the whole of his life within that monastery, devoting all his pains to the study of the Scriptures.—Catholic Encyclopedia). Bede's statement concerning this Anglo-Saxon goddess is very forthright: "Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month," and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance" (The Reckoning of Time).

Scholars suspect Bede's story because there is no mention of such a goddess anywhere throughout history before Bede introduces her. Was he just spinning a yarn and employing a form of an ancient Germanic word for resurrection for a pagan deity that has no presence in history before the monk's account? Many scholars think that is likely.

Given the time Bede was writing one is left to guesswork as to what exactly he was writing about, or where (if anywhere) he came by the information concerning such a goddess. There can be little doubt that the Saxon monk did witness pagan British and Saxon rites connected to the Spring equinox; this is of course true since all peoples who exercised any amount of observation skills practiced such rituals. It is strange that the goddess Bede assigns to the Saxon month of Eosturmonath appears no where in the British Isles, nor anywhere else for that matter, previous to Bede’s mention. Stranger still, there is no reference to such an entity in Germanic history or lore, in spite of certain individuals taking Bede's comments and attempting to back engineer possibilities.

Moreover, the Brits were a literate people with their own scholars in the field of academia. The British Celtis had, 300 years earlier produced Patrick, the British Bishop of Irland; 200 years earlier, produced such intellectuals as Pelagius, who turned the Christian world on its ear with his teaching of free will; Columba of Iona, whose missionaries saved Europe from the dark ages and turned back the Muslim invasion; and 100 years earlier, Aidan of Lindisfarne. The main text of the Lindisfarne Gospels (7th century — 100 years before Bede) is written in Latin, the designs are influenced by Celtic art, and the marginal notes are written in Anglo-Saxon (Old English). This tells us that the spread of Christianity encouraged cross-cultural exchange. Then, in 432, the whole of Celtic Ireland was converted to Christianity by a Romanized Briton named Patricius (Patrick). From 432 to 750, while Europe and England sank into constant warfare, Ireland experienced a golden age. Monasteries served as centers of learning just as they would in the Middle Ages. The monks preserved not only the Greek classics but also some of the great works of popular literature such as Beowulf. Due to the Christian elements in the epic, scholars believe the poet who wrote down the version of Beowulf we have today was a monk. A very unique document called The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, most likely started by Alford the Great of Wessex (871-899), begins chronicling the events of Britannia and the known world at 60 B.C, the annal’s date for Caesar’s invasion of Britain. Multiple copies were made of that one original and then distributed to monasteries across England, where they were independently updated. In one case, the Chronicle was still being actively updated in 1154. So, it would seem that if there existed a pagan deity (British or Saxon) by the name of Eostre there would have been some independent record apart from the Venerable Bede.

Every extant reference we have of the Christian Easter being connected to a pagan goddess named Eostre goes directly to Bede. And all references since Bebe quote him as their source. Since Bede’s account of this goddess is not collaborated by any independent historical record, its weight as evidence is of doubtful worth. Biblically, the law of witnesses was established in Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15. According to this “Law of Witnesses,” any evidence for a matter must be confirmed by two or three witnesses. This rule of confirmation has been followed throughout Scripture (see Numbers 35:30, cf. Matthew 18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1; 1 Timothy 4:13; Hebrews 10:28). Thus, every and all reference to this goddess is unsound, since it cannot be proven she ever existed. Hence, any connection made between Eostre and Easter is questionable scholarship — and that is being kind. Moreover, the etymology of the word “Easter” as is found in the modern English dictionaries (which reference a pagan vernal festival) are questionable, if not outright fallacious, for the selfsame reason we are stating here: Bebe’s testimony cannot be validated.

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Reliable Etymology

The Lord God placed the heavenly bodies in the earth’s sky for signs of times of the earth’s seasons (Genesis 1:14), and these seasons He orchestrated to presage the great plan of salvation which was formulated in His divine forethought (1 Peter 1:18-20; Revelation 13:8). In this way the earth’s Spring season of returning to life after the winter of death was predicated on the foreordained resurrection of the Son of God—to presage that resurrection. So, no matter whether a people were pagans or worshippers of the One True God, observations were being made: times and seasons marked by feasts and religious rituals. So, then, at the time of the Spring equinox (aprox. March 21st), with new life bursting froth all around them, each group, whether pagans or true worshippers, would adopt symbols associated with their understanding of that new life: pagans with eggs and rabbits, etc.; the true worshippers with symbols of the resurrection of Christ. It is a mark of the true faith that the earth was resurrecting to new life at the time of the resurrection of the Savior, and not that Cristians celebrate Christ’s resurrection at the time the earth is re-awaking. It is important to understand what is predicated on what.

Jesus was crucified at Passover. He was the real passover Lamb that all the passover Lambs that were killed before Him represented. After His resurrection and the birth of the Church the Resurrection was commemorate each Lord's Day (Sunday). After a few hundred years the Christians began observing an annual "day" which they called Passover because the Resurrection took place during the Passover week. The Orthodox churches still call the day “Pascal.” The word “Easter,” meaning resurrection, comes into Christianity late, after the faith was established in the British Islands. So, the word "Easter" has supplanted “Passover” or “Pascal,” being a truer translation of the day of the resurrection.

Contrary to a connection to a Saxon goddess, the word Easter finds its root in the German word for resurrection— auferstehung. In a footnote to his translation of the work of Eusebius, Christian F. Cruse defended the usage of the word Easter: "Our English word Passover, happily, in sound and sense, almost corresponds to the Hebrew [pesach], of which is a translation. Exod. Xii. 27. The Greek pascha, formed from the Hebrew, is the name of the Jewish festival, applied invariably in the primitive church to designate the festival of the Lord’s resurrection, which took place at the time of the passover. Our word Easter is of Saxon origin, and of precisely the same import with its German cognate Ostern. The latter is derived from the old Teutonic form of auferstehn, Auferstehung, i. e. resurrection. The name Easter is undoubtedly preferable to pascha or passover, but the latter was the primitive name.”

Nick Sayers argued along these lines to suggest that the origin of Easter in English comes from the German: "Because the English Anglo/Saxon language originally derived from the Germanic, there are many similarities between German and English. Many English writers have referred to the German language as the "Mother Tongue!" The English word Easter is of German/Saxon origin and not Babylonian as Alexander Hislop falsely claimed. The German equivalent is Oster. Oster (Ostern being the modern day equivalent) is related to Ost which means the rising of the sun, or simply in English, east. Oster comes from the old Teutonic form of auferstehen / auferstehung, which means resurrection, which in the older Teutonic form comes from two words, Ester meaning first, and stehen meaning to stand. These two words combine to form erstehen which is an old German form of auferstehen, the modern day German word for resurrection.” (Italics in original)

In the Hebrew, Passover is Pesach. The Greek form is simply a transliteration and takes the form Pascha. Virtually all languages refer to Easter as either a transliterated form of pascha or use resurrection in the name. English and German stand apart in their use of Easter (Ostern) to refer to the celebration of the Resurrection.

Form of pascha;

Resurrection Day/Feast,

Bulgarian—Paskha,

Serbian—Uskrs or Vaskrs,

Slovak—Veľká Noc,

Dutch—Pasen,

Chinese—Fùhuó Jié,

Ukrainian—Velykden,

Italian—Pasqua,

Korean—Buhwalchol,

Polish—Wielkanoc,

Finnish—Pääsiäinen,

Vietnamese—Lễ Phục Sinh,

Indonesian—Paskah,

Portuguese—Páscoa

Biblical Translators

We should also consider the early translations by German and English scholars in this examination. John Wycliffe was the earliest translator to publish a complete New Testament in English (1382), though he did his translation from the Latin Vulgate. Wycliffe transliterated the word pascha to pask, rather than translating it. When Martin Luther translated the Bible into German (New Testament in 1522), he chose the word Oster to refer to the Passover references before and after the Resurrection. William Tyndale translated the Bible into English from the Greek and Hebrew. His New Testament (1525) uses the word ester to refer to the Passover. Moreover, we owe our English word Passover to Tyndale. When translating the Old Testament (1530), he coined the term to describe how the Lord would “pass over” the houses marked with the blood of the lamb (Exodus 12). The usage of ester was retained in the 1534 revision of the New Testament, and it was not until later that it was known as Easter, adding the a. Luther and Tyndale were the first to use a translation of pascha rather than a transliteration; in that sense they advanced the understanding of God’s Word by giving us a real translation in the vernacular.

The following are comparisons of the early translations by Wycliffe, Luther, Tyndale, and the translators of the 1611 King James Version (KJV), demonstrating the handling of pascha.

Luke 2:41—This passage refers to a Passover festival before the Resurrection, using pascha (πάσχα).

Wycliffe—And his fadir and modir wenten ech yeer in to Jerusalem, in the solempne dai of pask.

Luther—Und seine Eltern gingen alle Jahre gen Jerusalem auf das Osterfest.

Tyndale—And his father and mother went to Hierusalem every yeare at the feeste of ester.

KJV—Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.

Acts 12:4—This passage refers to a Passover festival after the Resurrection, using pascha (πάσχα).

Wycliffe—And whanne he hadde cauyte Petre, he sente hym in to prisoun; and bitook to foure quaternyouns of knyytis, to kepe hym, and wolde aftir pask bringe hym forth to the puple.

Luther—Da er ihn nun griff, legte er ihn ins Gefängnis und überantwortete ihn vier Rotten, je von vier Kriegsknechten, ihn zu bewahren, und gedachte, ihn nach Oster dem Volk vorzustellen.

Tyndale—And when he had caught him he put him in preson and delyvered him to .iiii. quaternios of soudiers to be kepte entendynge after ester to brynge him forth to the people.

KJV—And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.

1 Corinthians 5:7—This passage refers to Christ as the sacrificial Passover lamb, using pascha (πάσχα).

Wycliffe— . . . For Crist offrid is oure pask.

Luther— . . . Denn wir haben auch ein Osterlamm, das ist Christus, für uns geopfert.

Tyndale— . . . For Christ oure esterlambe is offered up for us.

KJV— . . . For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.

Conclusion

It would seem from the translations of Luther and Tyndale that by 1500, the word oster/ester simply referred to the time of the Passover feast and had no association with the pagan goddess Eostre—if Eostre ever existed at all. Luther was comfortable referring to Christ as the Osterlamm. On the other hand, Cruse’s Resurrection etymology is also consistent with this passage, and Luther referred to Christ as the “Resurrection lamb.” Likewise, Tyndale was comfortable referring to Christ as the esterlambe. To suggest these men thought of their Savior in terms of the sacrificial offering of a pagan goddess is quite absurd in light of their writings and translations of other portions of Scripture. Even the translators of the KJV, who relied heavily on Tyndale’s work, chose to use Easter in the post-Resurrection context of Acts 12:4. Although using a word that means resurrection would not make sense to describe the Passover festivals prior to the Resurrection of Christ, Luther still used oster consistently in his New Testament for the entire passover week.

Apostolically Speaking
☩☩ Jerry L Hayes
(Mar David Ignatius)

Apologia is a polemical work of apologetics in the defense of Christian sacred days. Our focus is Sunday worship, Easter and Christmas. There has been little written in the line of a strong apologia for the observance to the traditional times. Bishop Hayes offers his work "Apologia, A Defense of Christian Sacred Days" to meet that need. This book establishes why Christians have observed Sunday as their primary day of worship right out of the gate. Also, within the pages of "Apologia" the reader will discover the true meaning of the terms 'Easter" and "Christmas". Both terms have come under sustained attack in recent years from an element that is antagonistic to traditional Christianity. Bishop Jerry L Hayes comes to the defense of historical Christianity in this work that is destined to become a classic. We know you will want to recommend "Apologia, A Defense of Christian Sacred Days" to all your friends and family.
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