Easter is pagan. NOT! (Part 2)

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Continuing on with my Easter Season posts, this one will deal with another cited reason as to why Easter has pagan origins, namely, that it was Constantine who approved of Easter.

The explanation goes something like this:

In 325 A.D. – Emperor Constantine, a pagan Sun-god worshiper, at the Council Nicaea ordered all Churches to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday, which was the high pagan holy day of Sol Invictus. The ancient Church had celebrated the Resurrection during the Passover [Nisan 14], which could fall on any day of the week, but the Churches near Rome had abandoned the practice because they hated the Jews, and fixed the date to the first Sunday after the first full moon of Spring. They also called the celebration ‘Easter’, after the pagan goddess of Spring.

There is only one way in which this presumption can be shown to be false, that being, we must prove that the Catholic Church was celebrating a Paschal Feast, i.e., “Easter” PRIOR TO the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.

So, with that being said, let’s look at the historical accounts as to the existence of an Easter celebration before the First Council at Nicaea!

Early Church historian and bishop of Caesarea, Eusebius Pamphilus (260-340 A.D.), attended the First Nicene Council but, more importantly, he finished his work entitled, Church History, before 325 A.D. We are sure of this due to the fact that, in the final book of Church History, Eusebius dedicates it to Paulinius, the bishop of Tyre (See Book X, paragraph 2). Paulinius became the bishop of Antioch and died after only 6 months as Antioch’s patriarch. His successor and the 25^th Patriarch of Antioch, Eustathius, just so happened to be present at Nicaea in 325 A.D. Along with Eusibiu, he is said to have been among the 318 bishops at the Council. Therefore, we know as a matter of fact that, when Eusebius finished his opus on the History of the early Catholic Church, HE HAD TO have written all 10 books BEFORE Constantine [apparently] forced the Catholic Church to co-opt the pagan worshipping day of Sunday for their Masses as well as the celebration of the resurrection day of their Messiah to coincide with pagan practice.

Eusebius is proof that the early Church – which was entirely Catholic in its identity – was ALREADY celebrating a Paschal Feast that memorialized the resurrection of Christ. He wrote in Book V, Chapter 23 entitled, The Question then agitated concerning the Passover, the following:

“A question of no small importance arose at that time. For the parishes of all Asia, as from an older tradition, held that the fourteenth day of the moon [Nisan 14], on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should be observed as the feast of the Savior’s Passover. It was therefore necessary to end their fast on that day, whatever day of the week it should happen to be. But it was not the custom of the churches in the rest of the world to end it at this time, as they observed the practice which, from apostolic tradition, has prevailed to the present time, of terminating the fast on no other day than on that of the resurrection of our Savior.

Synods and assemblies of bishops were held on this account, and all, with one consent, through mutual correspondence drew up an ecclesiastical decree, that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be celebrated on no other but the Lord’s day, and that we should observe the close of the paschal fast on this day only. There is still extant a writing of those who were then assembled in Palestine, over whom Theophilus, bishop of Cæsarea, and Narcissus, bishop of Jerusalem, presided. And there is also another writing extant of those who were assembled at Rome to consider the same question, which bears the name of Bishop Victor; also of the bishops in Pontus over whom Palmas, as the oldest, presided; and of the parishes in Gaul of which Irenæus was bishop, and of those in Osrhoëne and the cities there; and a personal letter of Bacchylus, bishop of the church at Corinth, and of a great many others, who uttered the same opinion and judgment, and cast the same vote.

And that which has been given above was their unanimous decision.”

So, what does Eusebius tell us here? He literally tells us 3 things:

1) A Paschal Feast has been observed due to Apostolic Tradition. Eusebius states that Easter isn’t a man-made tradition nor is it a man-made observance, on the contrary, as Catholics we correctly uphold the legitimacy of unerring Apostolic Tradition (See CCC Sec.1 Chap.2  Article 2). Hence, to celebrate Easter, is to celebrate a God-inspired day in which all faithful Christians are to reflect on the majesty and joyfulness of Christ having freed us from the shackles of death.

2) There is a form of fasting involved, that is, they fasted up until the Paschal festival. Easily seen here is the historical evidence for fasting up until Easter or, as Roman Catholics call it, Lent. Here is proof that the Early Christians fasted for a certain number of days or weeks up until Easter and, as we shall shortly see, it wasn’t whether or not Christians had to observe the Paschal Festival but, the real issue among the Church Fathers was on which day(s) that the faithful should observe Easter!

3) The early Catholic Churches came together to acknowledge that the Paschal Feast should be observed on a Sunday.  The day Jesus rose from the dead was to be the day set on the calendar for the Paschal Feast. This fact alone refutes the “Constantine ordered Easter to be on a Sunday” argument, for here we see that Eusebius – writing BEFORE the Council of Nicaea – states that some of the major churches came together and agreed to commemorate the resurrection of the Lord on “the Lord’s day,” i.e., Sunday.

If we continue into Book V, Chapter 24 of Church History, we see that even though the churches agreed to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord, the one thing they had some difficulty with was the date. In the 24^th Chapter, Eusebius recalls how the Bishop of Rome, Victor (d. 199 A.D.), chose to excommunicate the churches in Asia who did not want to conform to the ruling of the prevailing churches. The Asian churches, led by Polycrates (130-196 A.D.), who was the bishop of Ephesus at the time, sent a letter to Victor on behalf of the churches in Asia stating that they observe “the exact day” of Nisan 14.

Nisan 14 (think April 14), it should be noted, is the day before the Jewish Passover. To this day, practicing Jews celebrate the 7 days of their Passover beginning on Nisan 15. We see that the Passover is made into a perpetual holiday by God in Exodus 12 and, in the Gospel of John, we see several verses that could lead one to believe that Nisan 14 is the proper day of the Paschal Feast regardless of what day it falls on. The Asian bishops held that the celebration should begin at the time when the disciples ate the Passover with Christ in the upper room, which is roughly in line with the Jewish Passover itself.

Not only did Polycrates cite St. John the Evangelist as a source for their belief but he goes down the list of some of the most well known Church Fathers of the 2^nd century! Victor becomes incensed when he hears of this and, another very well known Early Church Father helps to mediate the situation between the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of Ephesus...Enter St. Irenaeus.

Eusebius quotes a letter from St. Irenaeus (130-202 A.D.) which was written to squelch the disagreement between the two factions. In this letter to Victor, St. Irenaeus recounts an account by Polycarp (70-155 A.D.), who was the Bishop at Smyrna and an apostle of St. John, of an instance when Polycarp visited Rome and talked with St. Anicetus (d.168 A.D.), the Bishop of Rome at the time:

“For the controversy is not only concerning the day, but also concerning the very manner of the fast. For some think that they should fast one day, others two, yet others more; some, moreover, count their day as consisting of forty hours day and night.

And this variety in its observance has not originated in our time; but long before in that of our ancestors. It is likely that they did not hold to strict accuracy, and thus formed a custom for their posterity according to their own simplicity and peculiar mode. Yet all of these lived none the less in peace, and we also live in peace with one another; and the disagreement in regard to the fast confirms the agreement in the faith…

…And when the blessed Polycarp was at Rome in the time of Anicetus, and they disagreed a little about certain other things, they immediately made peace with one another, not caring to quarrel over this matter. For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it as he said that he ought to follow the customs of the presbyters that had preceded him.

But though matters were in this shape, they communed together, and Anicetus conceded the administration of the eucharist in the church to Polycarp, manifestly as a mark of respect .And they parted from each other in peace, both those who observed, and those who did not, maintaining the peace of the whole church.”

St. Irenaeus bears witness here that, by the early 2^nd century, the church as a whole was celebrating the resurrection of Jesus; the only difference was that the Eastern churches celebrated Easter on Nisan 14 and the Western Church celebrated it on the Sunday AFTER Passover. Did this rift lead them to split the Early Church in two? Nope. The one Body of Christ remained unsplintered and would continue to stay united for another 1,300 years, until a sole disgruntled monk decided he knew better than the Church and invented his own personal religion; an action that would spark the Protestant revolt.

Eusebius of Ceasaera: The grey beard let's you know
this dude is full of mad knowledge.

An interesting thing to note here is the power that the Bishop of Rome, that is, the Pope, had at this time. How is it that Victor had the authority to excommunicate a whole region of churches and no one stated that he could not do so? Think about it, for all of the detail that Eusebius and Irenaeus put into their writings, not once did they ever mention that the Bishop of Rome had no power to excommunicate! Quite the opposite occurs, numerous bishops, as well as Irenaeus himself, implore the Bishop of Rome’s sensibilities for him NOT TO excommunicate these churches. Hence, it can be argued, the Early Church viewed Rome and the Bishop who resided there with primacy.

Additionally, note at how St. Irenaeus says that Polycarp – who was a directly apostle of St. John – couldn’t persuade Anicetus, the Pope at the time, to reconsider the date for the Paschal Feast! I don’t know about you, but, if a scholarly student of St. John told me that I was doing something wrong, I’d not only believe him but, I’d immediately change in order to rectify my actions! But, did Polycarp use this argument against the Bishop of Rome, that is, did Polycarp use the fact that he knew the Beloved Disciple personally as reason to get Anicetus to change his mind? No. He doesn’t even attempt to correct him and, why should he? St. Anicetus sits on St. Peter’s throne as the 11^th Bishop of Rome and has all of the authority that has been invested into that office! Very telling, how the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome had already taken form by the early 2^nd century.

Another Church Father that is mentioned by Eusebius is that of St. Anatolius of Laodicea (d. 288). In Book 7, Chapter 32, paragraphs 13-14 of Church History, Eusebius makes mention of Anatolius’ Paschal Canons. In this writing, Anatolius points out that, since the date of the Jewish Passover was calculated by the Jews and, many of the early Christians relied on the Jewish calendar for the Easter celebration. Eventually, however, there arose a sense of doubt when the Passover would fluctuate from one 14^th day of the month to another. So again we see that the date for Easter was indeed an issue: there were those who wanted to celebrate it with the Jews on Nisan 14 (Quartodecimans) and those who want to distance themselves from the Jews and celebrate it on the Sunday after the Jewish Passover.

This issue was officially resolved when the Catholic Church convened at Nicaea. Near the end of the Nicene documents, we read the following:  

We further proclaim to you the good news of the agreement concerning the holy Easter, that this particular also has through your prayers been rightly settled; so that all our brethren in the East who formerly followed the custom of the Jews are henceforth to celebrate the said most sacred feast of Easter at the same time with the Romans and yourselves and all those who have observed Easter from the beginning.

Why do we celebrate Easter and how do we know it’s not from Constantine’s pagan beliefs? Because the early church was celebrating it before 325 A.D. and it officially made Easter a Christian observance. All in all, the early Christians simply wanted a day to honor our Savior’s resurrection by fasting and feasting. Working from apostolic tradition, they all agreed that the Paschal Feast should be celebrated but, differed on when and how to do it. In order to unify the one and only Body of Christ, the Church Fathers at Nicaea declared infallibly when it was to be observed.

Although no one can ever pin-point the exact date of when Jesus resurrected, the date we observe and celebrate today is a reasonable approximation with absolutely NO pagan festivals attached to it. Therefore, for the rest of this Easter Season let us not concentrate so much on those who mistakenly attempt to profane Easter but, on the completed work of Christ and our application to it. 


EXTRA TIDBITS

As an aside, there is one final Constantine myth that we must also take into consideration. That being, the fallacious idea that Constantine made Jesus into a God.

 

"Hi, I'm John Constantine and I'm here to turn your
resurrected  Messiah into a God. You can thank me later." 

One of the more prevalent myths out there is that Constantine, by making Christianity legal in 313 A.D. and later calling the Council of Nicaea for the early Church to hammer out their differences, made Jesus divine in order to have stability and peace within his empire. This argument states that, before Constantine, no one thought Jesus was God. This lie was made popular by the Dan Brown novel The Da Vinci Code and is regurgitated ad nauseam as bone fide fact by countless ignorant minds who want to sound educated in ancient Christian thought. I won’t go into great detail on why the early Church viewed Jesus as divine so, instead, I’ll leave you some ante-Nicene quotes by some of our Church Fathers that prove that the Early Church did in fact view Jesus as not only the Messiah but, as God.

"Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the Church at Ephesus in Asia . . . predestined from eternity for a glory that is lasting and unchanging, united and chosen through true suffering by the will of the Father in Jesus Christ our God"  

- St. Ignatius of Antioch (Letter to the Ephesians 1 [A.D. 110]).

“For the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and from their disciples the faith in one God, Father Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them; and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who announced through the prophets the dispensations and the comings, and the birth from a Virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily ascension into heaven of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and his coming from heaven in the glory of the Father to reestablish all things; and the raising up again of all flesh of all humanity, in order that to Jesus Christ our Lord and God and Savior and King, in accord with the approval of the invisible Father, every knee shall bend of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth . . . "  

- St. Iranaeus (Against Heresies 1:10:1 – 189 AD)

“The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient beginning—for he was in God—and of our well-being. And now this same Word has appeared as man. He alone is both God and man, and the source of all our good things"  

– St. Clement of Alexandria (Exhortation to the Greeks 1:7:1 – 190 AD)

“The origins of both his substances display him as man and as God: from the one, born, and from the other, not born" 

- Tertullian (The Flesh of Christ 5:6–7 – 210 AD)

“Although he was God, he took flesh; and having been made man, he remained what he was: God" 

- Origen (The Fundamental Doctrines 1:0:4 – 225 AD)

“One who denies that Christ is God cannot become his temple [of the Holy Spirit] . . . " 

- St. Cyprian of Carthage (Letters 73:12 – 253 AD)

“‘Well, then,’ some raging, angry, and excited man will say, ‘is that Christ your God?’ ‘God indeed,’ we shall answer, ‘and God of the hidden powers’" 

- Arnobius (Against the Pagans 1:42 – 305 AD)

“He was made both Son of God in the spirit and Son of man in the flesh, that is, both God and man" 

– Lactantius (Divine Institutes 4:13:5 – 307 AD)