Easter will be celebrated on Sunday, making this an appropriate time to ask: do you know where the word comes from? Easter is never mentioned in the Bible. In fact, Easter as we know it originated in the pagan world.
This story begins with Gregory the Great (at right), who was pope from 590 to 604.
At the time, England was populated by pagan Anglo-Saxons, and this prompted Pope Gregory to send a mission to England to convert them to Catholicism.
The conversions would be easier, Pope Gregory wrote Archbishop Mellitus, if those being converted were allowed to retain their pagan traditions. They would simply be told that their rituals, in fact, honored the Christian God.
Missionaries should accommodate the Anglo-Saxons in this way, as the pope put it, “to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God.”
Among the “gratifications” permitted were Easter festivities, which had been a pagan celebration of spring. Because the actual date of Jesus’ death is unknown, the missionaries could tell the Anglo-Saxons that their spring celebration should go on as always but to understand it was really all about Jesus’ resurrection.
This redirecting of traditions was so successful that the church then used it to convert pagans in the Netherlands and Germany.
The Venerable Bede is responsible for our knowing the origin of the word Easter.
A Christian scholar, the Venerable Bede (672-735), a century later wrote that Easter took its name from Eostre, also known as Eastre. Eostre (at right) was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe.
Similarly, some of the Teutonic names for the goddess of dawn and fertility were Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, and Eastur.
These names were derived from an old Germanic word for spring, “eastre.”
Since ancient times, spring has been seen as a time of fertility, so it was not surprising that among the pagan symbols of the season were rabbits (because large litters are born in early spring) and decorated eggs (because wild birds lay eggs in spring).
Bizarrely, these pagan symbols became so intertwined that Easter Bunnies ended up distributing Easter Eggs.
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And so it was that in this roundabout way Pope Gregory I unintentionally helped bring about a goofy bunny’s becoming associated with….
The resurrection of Jesus, who is seen appearing to Mary Magdalene as she weeps outside his tomb.
Comments
8 responses to “What does the Easter Bunny have to do with Jesus’ resurrection?”
Thank you, Dave. Very enlightening. Let us never take ourselves so seriously that we don’t have room for technicolor bunnies…
Dave,
I was just explaining to a friend that Easter has an interesting history and had to “Google” it. Your blog post here is a fantastic summary of the pagan roots for Easter. The web benefits greatly from contributions such as these. Thank you!
Andrew
Thanks, Dave — I was aware of some of this, but you connect the dots very nicely, and I love the illustrations!
Christians consider eggs to be “the seed of life” and so they are symbolic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That I get and understand. But any other symbolism that Catholicism added to the holiday? Or is it really just a pagan holiday that they copied without adding anything except the resurrection story?
It’s a lot deeper than what you wrote. What actually went down was: there was a sparrow who was supposed to migrate South at the onset of Winter, but was unable to fly because she broke a wing. The goddess Aester found the poor thing. It wasn’t within Aester’s power to heal the broken wing — or perhaps she didn’t choose to? — so instead she changed the sparrow into a rabbit, so enabling animal to survive the winter. But came Spring, this new kind of creature — part Sparrow, part Rabbit — laid eggs instead of having little furry babies. That’s why the Anglo people celebrate Easter with chocolate bunnies and chocolate eggs.
I find this story very beautiful. It’s not about death and resurrection. It’s about endings and transformation.
Happy Easter!
Thanks for writing, Al, but I’m skeptical of your explanation for Easter eggs. The explanation I quote is fairly standard in academic circles.
Nice writ. But it still doesn’t explain how Easter relates to Jesus Christ. I guess we will never know. Personally I wish they would Abolish the commercial Easter bunny all together. It’s so annoying.
Very Interesting