Yeah, assumptions were made- based upon some evidence- but nothing solid. But not just set to compete with Pagan holidays are oft said. Mind you, his assumptions are a bit mystical, but still, they kinda seem to make some sense.
Ok. So, back to my OP and wading through the side trips and secondary issues, am I correct in saying that Easter and spring coincide because of this: Jesus was killed during Passover, which was a springtime event. The resurrection/Easter story that comes with his death, then, was coincidental with the time of year. I can’t exactly suss out how the whole Jesus death/resurrection story developed and who was responsible, but it seems that the biological rebirth of spring simply happened at the same time. Do I have that about right?
To the best of our ability to determine, yes.
Pretty much, yes. The only thing I’d add is that it’s the Gospels which state that Jesus was killed during Passover; as with a lot of Christian canon, even if there was a person named Jesus, the way things are described in the Bible may or may not have been exactly how (or when) it occurred, if it actually occurred at all.
In other words, AFAIK, there is no known corroborating evidence from that time (such as Roman records) stating that a Hebrew man named Jesus was put to death in or around the time of Passover. Christians believe it to be so, because the Gospels say it is so.
But the Romans were killing a bunch of Jewish troublemakers around that time, and very few records survive, so it’s not in any way an implausible story.
Certainly. But, going back to the OP: Easter is celebrated in the Spring because the Gospels say that Jesus was put to death, and rose from the Death, around Passover.
I don’t remember the details, but I’m pretty sure Jews do attach some theological significance to the Exodus having happened at the “rebirthing” time of year. So, assuming I have that right, there is at least an indirect connection between the season of the year and the timing of Easter.
Passover is also a Jewish new year - the ecclesiastical new year, unlike the civil and agricultural new year on Rosh Hashana. A new year isa time of birth.
See also the egg traditionally placed on the seder plate (along with the similarly new-life-evoking green parsley sprigs).
Quite a few records do mention Jesus, however. And why toss out the Gospels? Biased, sure, written some time after the events sure, but that is the way of most of ancient historical writing. Suetonius wrote a biased account of Caligula some 60 years after Caligula’s death- and altho modern historians point that out sometimes, still, he is one of the most used sources on the Roman Emperors. And quite a few others.
I mean, one can claim Socrates didnt exist either. Socrates wrote nothing himself, and what we know of him was mostly written by his disciples.
What it comes down to in the end is that whether as a faithful record or as a retcon, the people in charge of ”Write That Down!” in the early Church tied Passion Week/Resurrection Sunday from the start with the already existing Passover holiday (now they’re slightly offset after centuries of calendar updates). So why is “Easter”/Holy Week when it is, ends up being because Pesach is when it is.
Intuitively it makes sense that Easter and Christmas are basically co-opted pagan holidays. Easter for the spring equinox, growth/rebirth, eggs, and the Easter Bunny, which are all symbols of fertility that resonate with the resurrection story. Christmas is a winter solstice holiday, the tree is an evergreen that symbolizes perseverance through the cold dark winter, and lights on the tree are a reminder that the sun will return. The star on top of the tree is the one overtly Christian symbol, representing the Star of David. I didn’t learn until recently why Christmas is a few days after the solstice; it’s because that’s the first day after the solstice that primitive people were able to measure that the sun was indeed higher in the sky and the day longer than before, reassuring them that the darkness was retreating.
I wouldn’t consider Halloween a Christian holiday today, but apparently it used to be more so. Still, it grew out of pre-Christian fall harvest celebrations. Valentine’s Day is more Christian than Halloween, but it seems to be getting less and less so every year. It seems to have come from an ancient Roman fertility and purification festival. The whole point is that as Christianity expanded, it absorbed these other traditions to make conversion more palatable. The pre-existing dates were already pretty much fixed, so they just kinda rolled with it.
Except- as a holiday, with merrymaking, gifts and such, Christmas was not celebrated until the reign of Charlemagne.
Mostly pagan like additions to Christmas, and fairly late, 1500’s or so.
First, it doesn’t represent the Star of David, and second, the Star of David is a cultural symbol more than religious, and even to the extent that it’s religious, it’s Jewish, not Christian.
The star on a Christmas tree is usually taken to represent the Star of Bethlehem, but then, a star really isn’t very distinctive as a symbol.
But of course, there are plenty of other tree decorations that are overtly Christian. The tree topper is often an angel rather than a star, and I’ve seen plenty of non-topper ornaments featuring angels, too. Plus not a few nativity scenes and crosses.
Whoops my mistake.
I’d bet most people don’t know that that angel is Gabriel or why he’s up there.
It’s curious that, AFAICT, there’s no tradition of having an angel tree-topper until Christmas Eve and switching it to a star for Christmas Day.
For sure, the forms of social celebratory activities around Resurrection Sunday and Nativity naturally sycretized parts of the cultural seasonal holidays of the different peoples that adopted the new religion. If the social celebration did not involve something that violated the teachings of the Faith, hey, “you can go on having your fun and praise Jesus all the same! Aren’t we inclusive(=catholic)?”
(The whole thrust here has been that YES everyone can understand the sillyness with the rabbits and eggs is cultural absorptions from nonchristian peoples, while at the same time that the date of the Resurrection a.k.a. “Easter” was borrowed from Judaism, not Paganism.)
Nope. The reason is that when Julius Ceasar reformed the Roman calendar in 46 BC, the solstice was on the the 25th (or sometimes the 24th, but they ignored that). Anyway, the solstice drifted over the centuries because the year isn’t exactly 365.25 days; it’s somewhat shorter. But the Romans still treated the 25th as the solstice even after the drift became obvious. So Christmas being on the 25th makes it a solstice holiday.
Pope Gregory’s correction to the calendar fixed this drift, but he wasn’t interested in putting the calendar back to when Jesus was born. Instead he put it back to when the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) set the rules on how to calculate the date of Easter.
Saturnalia was the 17th of December, plus a couple of days. That was the Roman Solstice holiday. Even after Caesar fixed the calendar.
The Solstice is on the 23rd.
Christmas was calculated- wrong or rightly, by taking the day of crucifixion (March 25 by then reckoning) and thinking that the day he died was the day of his conception. Nine months later= Dec 25.
Dec 25 wasnt picked to “compete” with any pagan holidays, as- until Charlemagne- it was not a day of celebration, parties, gift giving or any of that. It was just another “Feast day”- honored by prayer.
There is no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200) or Tertullian (c. 160–225). Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264) goes so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, dismissing them as “pagan” practices—a strong indication that Jesus’ birth was not marked with similar festivities at that place and time.1 As far as we can tell, Christmas was not celebrated at all at this point.
The idea that Dec 25 was picked to compete with Pagan holidays didnt come about until the 12th century.
An interesting counterpoint occurs to me.
The linked article notes that early Christians didn’t celebrate the birth at all. But some clearly were interested in working out a date.
Arriving at the 25th of December, and finding it coincided with a major Roman celebration date, some may well have been inspired to start celebrating and thence co-opting the date. It didn’t need to wait until the faith was spread to the pagans. Nearly everyone had a solstice celebration. Even a suppressed minority religion might gain some satisfaction from participating in the solstice celebration if they secretly had another reason to celebrate.
This suggests that if there hadn’t been a solstice celebration on the date, the birthday may have been left as a minor footnote.
So the date wasn’t chosen to match, but possibly the entire idea of celebrating was co-opted. Thence everything got melded to create the current mishmash experience.