EASTER, the Christian spring festival commemorating the Resurrection. The term in Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon languages is derived from Ostara, the divinity of spring of the ancient Norsemen, who was welcomed in a festival of celebration on her annual return, reclothing the earth with greenery and flowers, after each winter and night of death had stripped the world of its faded robes and hid den them away, the sun even in the northern most inhabited regions disappearing during the coldest winter months. In the Greek and Latin and in the languages derived from them, the spring festival is called Pascha, Pasch, Pasqua, Pascua, Pdques, etc., from the Chaldee word Pascha, signifying passing, the equivalent of the Hebrew Pesach, that name recalling the ing over" of the Hebrew households, when Death smote the firstborn of the Egyptians, as recorded in Exodus xii. To the Norsemen the festival of the divinity of spring which they called Ostara or Eastre (whence Easter) was especially the season of new birth. From this festival arose the symbols of the Easter egg and of the Easter rabbit, as pro lific reproducers of species; the decoration of springs and wells with flowers in token of the returning flow of water as a life-giving necessity; and the custom of baptismal clean liness, purification and regeneration. Every rite has a physical basis. The coloring of the Easter eggs, red, blue, yellow, etc., was bor rowed from the rays of the Aurora borealis— the northern lights — and the dawning hues of the Easter sun. At Easter the hearth fire was lighted afresh. Easter bonfires were kindled on the hills, dispersing the germs of evil so far as an Easter fire shed its light. Around these purifying fires young men and maidens who desired marriage during the coming year sang and danced three (or nine) times or gave three leaps over the flame. The foundation of drama is found in these early myths and attendant songs, for example, the desire to express the two great emotions attributed to Nature, her sorrow when the sun is withdrawn and her joy when the fruitful season of growth begins again, is poetically developed with repetition in the Greek dramatic myth of Demeter and Per sephone — Latinized as Ceres and Proserpine. While gathering flowers on the plains of Enna in Sicily, Persephone was abducted by °gloomy Dial— Pluto, the god of the dead —and reigned in Hades as his wife, the majestic queen of the underworld. Her mother, Demeter or Ceres, seeking her, hurries over the earth with a torch in her hand and at last gains the con cession from the gods of Persephone's return for a third part of every year. In later years, with the development of agriculture, the festival came to be overshadowed by the rejoicing of the harvest season and by the autumn' celebra tion of the cereal mysteries of the earth-god dess. In the beginning she was not separated from the divinity of spring, who, having wan dered for nine months, at last returns, bringing new life and warmth and sunshine to the wait ing earth. Therefore at eEleusis," a general term for a of coming or assembly," and not originally a name attached to a special locality, the Greeks celebrated their festivals with the mysterious processions of veiled figures with torches moving from side to side in mimic search for the lost Persephone. The modern
Maypole dances have their origin in these same Eleusinian spring celebrations, for the rhythmic interlacing circles of figures holding the brightly colored ribbons recall inevitably the measured torch-light dance of Eleusis, the search from side to side for lost Persephone. The resem blance between spring festivals throughout the history of the world discloses the universal inclination to worship and reverence, to natural piety. Following the Mosaic injunction of °rites of remembrance" to keep alive the origins of faith, in Catholic countries and communities the Easter hearth fire is commemorated by candles carried to be lit and blessed at the altar, the flame being guarded so that the lowly home fire may be rekindled on Easter morning. Where once the image of Demeter-Ceres in pre-Chris tian days was borne, that of the Virgin in the Middle Ages was, and in some localities still is, carried about to bless the fields for a fruitful yield. On Rogation Days — days of prayer between Easter and Ascension, headed by the priest, choirs and congregations of churches also make solemn procession with chanting and garlands to nearby springs and fountains, usually bearing the name of some saint, and celebrate the ancient ceremony of decorating with fresh flowers the springs and wells in token of grateful thanksgiving for the return ing flow of the life-giving waters.
Besides being commemorative of the Resur rection of Christ from the dead, the Easter festival of modern times is a memorial of the Christian passover from the Old Dispensation of the moral law to the New Dispensation, wrought by the sacrifice for unity or atone ment in the innocent death of Jesus Christ upon the cross. At first the Christian passover was celebrated on the same day as the Hebrew, the 14th day of the month Nisan (April). But the Church at Rome and other churches of the Latin world soon transferred the observance to the Sunday next after the 14th Nisan, primarily to mark the difference between Judaism and Christianity. The churches of Asia and some in the West which were founded by missionaries from the East were slow to adopt the usage of Rome and the diversity of usage gave rise to great controversy; the Westerns deprecating subservience to Judaic custom and the Easterns accusing the Westerns of innovation and depar ture from the ways of Jesus Christ and his apostles. It was not till the year 325 that a general law of the Church was enacted at the famous Council of Nice prescribing for the universal Church a day for this solemnity. To the bishops of Alexandria was committed in perma nence the task of computing for all the churches the time of Easter, that city being the metropolis of science in those times. (See CHRISTIAN