FESTIVAL OF EASTER

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 22 April 1935, Page 10

FESTIVAL OF EASTER

AGE-OLD OBSERVANCE MANY CEREMONIES & CUSTOMS SEASON OF REJOICING

Easter, one of the great universal festivals of Christian countries, has been kept ever since the earliest centuries A.D. as a memorial to the Resurrection of Christ. As a heritage of, times when religion touched more nearly perhaps than it does to-day the feelings, thoughts, and activities of the people, it has always had an expression of extending beyond ecclesiastical observance; it has been a season of common rejoicing, in some countries of convivial customs, and everywhere a time for reaffirming belief in the beauty of nature and the goodness of men.

It. is supposed that the popular festivities at Easter have their sources further back in history than the earliest recorded Christian observance of the season, that they ar( b i* l f a survival from the old natural religions. It is certain that among ancient peoples, at a time corresponding with the Christian Easter, there were ceremonies of rejoicing at the return of the warmer sun in -spring. These came no doubt from sympathy with nature; the mystery of the renewal of the earth after the desolaton of winter has moved men in all ages to some sympathetic expression, whether religious or artistic. Only a complicated treatise could show conclusively whether the traditional rejoicings of the English Easter have a pagan origin. From accounts of early English and mediaeval ceremonies and customs, however, it appears that these were natural and unaffected. Christianity, their religion, prescribed a certain season for the remembrance of the event on which it was founded, and the people, apart from their religious duties, celebrated in their own way.

THE NAME EASTER It. was the way of the early Christians in England to make use, where it was possible, of the familiar heathen rites of the people, giving them a Christian, instead of a pagan, significance. Our name Easter is accordingly believed to have been adapted from the name of the Anglo-Saxon vjoddess of Spring. The month answering to our April, being dedicated to this goddess, was called Eostur Monath. This month became identified with the mensis paschalis (the Paschal month), and the Venerable Bede says, that then “the oid festival was observed with the gladness of a new solemnity.”

The Christian Easter is perhaps best summarised in the first sentence of an Easter anthem: “Christ out passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast.” This makes clear the relation of Easter to tho Jewish feast of the passover. The first Christians had no thought of setting apart certain special days for memorials of events in - the life of their Founder. They continued to observe the Jewish days, adding to the passover the new conception of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb. This was the actual origin of Easter as we know it;, in every country where Christianity replaced to a. certain or less extent tie pagan faith of the jjeople, different customs became asCliristianity replaced to a greater or tho more . nearly universal of these have persisted almost throughout Christendom. THE ENGLISH EASTER

An early medieval English sermon begins (the midde English names are given in parenthesis) : “Good men and women, as you all know well, this day is called in some places Easter (Astur), in some places the Paschal Day (Pasch Day), and in some places God’s Sunday (Godus Sunday. So much for the Christian background of the English Easter. Some of the customs of the people, crudely connected with the thought of the Resurrection, are of a more general historical interest. One of these was the, custom of “lifting,” which persisted until at .least the end of the eighteenth century. It is quantly described by a writer in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” (1784): • “Lifting was designed to represent the Resurrection of our Saviour. The men lift the women on Easter Monday and the women the men on liiister Tuesday. One or more take hold of each leg and each arm and lift the person into a horizontal position three times. It it a rude, indecent and dangerous diversion practised chiefly by the lower classes of the people. Our magistrates constantly prohibit it by the bellman.” Another custom, the association of which with Easter is not so obvious, was that on . Easter Tuesday wives beat their husbands and on the following day husbands beat their wives. These customs, and many others pgfculiar to England, existed side by side witfi the custom of giving Easter eggs which is found from early times in Russia, Greece, Germany, and France, and which has been traced back to the ancient Persians.

EASTER EGGS Tho Orthodox Church in Russia, existing as it did among an illiterate

peasantry, naturally developed symbolic expression, further than some other Christian peoples. In Hakluyt’s Voyages there is an account of part of the Russian observance. It is said that the Russians prepared for Easter a number of eggs, coloured them red, and on Easter Day these were given to 'the parish priest: “They use it, as they say, for a great love, and in token of the Resurrection, whereof they rejoice.” Again, when two friends met in Russia on Easter Day, one would salute the other with, “Christ is risen,” the reply being, “He is risen indeed.” The friends would then kiss each other and ox change their coloured eggs. Reference to Easter eggs is also made by a traveller in Greece last century. He recounts his being wakened in the morning by the blaze and crackling of . a large bonfire, and singing and shouting in honour of the Resurrection. The eggs have been explained in a number of. ways, one being that the breaking of the young bird from tlie shell was thought to be a type of the Resurrection; but eggs were in pre-Christian civilisations regarded as a symbol of the universe, or of the supreme Deity.