EASTER (AS. (111G. 6star6. Ger. Os /ecu. from Tent. .Imstri5, of spring: con nected with Lat. aurora, Gk. Lith. ans zia, Skt. usas. usra, dawn. with As. east. 01-1G.
(:er. Osten, east, and ultimately with Gk. iaap, hemar, dry. Lat. ter, spring). The festi val of the resurrection of Christ, the principal feast of the Christian Era. From very early times it was observed with great solemnity. In the primitive Church it was one of the special days for the administration of baptism. and the Latin name of the octave or the Sunday follow ing. Dominica in preserves the memory of the custom of the newly baptized wearing their white voiles throughout the whole week. The faithful greeted each other with the kiss of peace and the salutation "Christ is risen," to which the response was. is risen. This custom is still kept up in Russia. In the Roman Catholic Church the festivities of Easter really begin on the preceding morning with the mass of Holy satnrday, in which the short first vespers of Easter are included —a trace of the times of primitive severity, when the mass of that day would have been celebrated at a later hour. all the people fasting absolutely. The popular obserranees. past and present, connected with the day are innumerable. The use of in this connection is of the highest antiquity. the egg having been considered hi widely sepa rated pre-Christian mythologies as a symbol of resurrection: though it is not certain that egg: were used in the sprint!' fest ivals among the people of those times, it is possible that here, as in other eases. the C'hurell adopted and eonseerated an earlier ellsf0111. This is almost certainly true of the Easter fires which formerly odebrated the triumph of spring over winter fee BE:LTANE) the 'blessing of new fire,' from which is lit the paschal candle (a huge taper which burns at solemn mass and vespers until Aseension Day). is a part of the ceremonies in the Mass referred to above. Some of the mediaeval customs. especially 111 France and Germany. were very quaint for example. that which prevailed in several French of a solemn game of ball played by the bishops, canons, and other dignitaries (de scribed by Pater in one of his Imaginary Por traits): grave and rhythmical dances more per formed at Auxerre as late as the fifteenth century and at Besancon as late as the seventeenth cen tury, to the strains of the Easter sequence, fie firatc poschafi. All these observances had a common purpose, the expression of joy in the resurrection. To the popular sports and dances !still maintained in some places, as at Con stantinople. where the whole 41reek colony cele brates the festival with the ordinary accompani ments of a fair in the Cemetery of Pent) were added farcical exhibitions, in which even the clergy joined in some places, reciting from the pulpit stories and legends calculated to excite laughter risos pose/to/is) among the hearers.
The proper time for the celebration of Easter has oecasioned no little controversy. In the second century a dispute arose on this point be tween the Eastern and Western churches. The great mass of the Eastern Christians celebrated Easter on the fourteenth day of the first Jewish month or moon, considering it to he equivalent to the Jewish Passover. The AVestern •hurehes cele
brated it on the Sunday after the fourteenth day, holding that it waSz the cot llllll •moration of the resurrection of Jesus, The Collura) of Niewa lin 3251 decided in favor if the Western usage, branding the Eastern with the nn Me of the 'quartodeeiman' heresy. This, however, only settled the point that Easter was to he held, not upon n certain day of the month or moon. but Oil a Sunday. The proper astronomical cycle for emendating the Iteenrrence of the Easter moon was not determined by this council. It appears. however, that the metonie cycle (q.v.) was already in use in the West for this purpose; and it was on this eyele that the Gregorian cal endar. introduced in 15S2. was arranged. The time of Easter. being the most important of all the movable feasts of the Christian Church. de termines all the rest. It was debated, at the time of the introduction I if the (Iregorian cal endar, whether Easter should continue to lie movable, or whether a fixed Sunday. after the 21st of March, should not be adopted. It was deference to an•ient custom that led the ecclesi astical authorities to adhere to the method of determination by the moon. 11. must be remem bered. however, that it is not the :trawl moon in the heavens, nor even the mean moon of astronomers. that regulates the time of Easter, hut an altogether imaginary moon. whose peri ods are so contrived that the new (calendar) moon always follows the real new moon (some times by two, or even three. days). The effect of this is, that the fourteenth of the calendar moon—m-16(ra had. limn the times of Moses, been considered 'full moon' for ecelesiastieal purposes —falls generally on the fifteenth or sixteenth of the real moon, and thus after the real full moon. which is generally on the fourteenth or fifteenth day. With this explanation, then. of what is meant by 'full moon.' viz. that it is the fourteenth day of the ealendar moon. the rule is that Easter Day is always the first Sunday after the paschal full moon, i. e. full moon which happens upon of next after the 21st of _March (the beginning of the ecclesiastical year) ; and if the full moon happens upon a :...randay, Easter Day is the Sunday after.
One object in arranging the calendar moon was, that Easter might never fall on the same day as the Jewish Passover. They did occur to gether. however. in 1SO5 and 15•5. and will do so again in 1903. on the 1•0 of April; in 1923, on the 1st of April; in 1927, on the 17th of April; ;Ind in 19S1, on the 19th of April. The Jewish Passover usually occurs in the week be fore Easter. and never before the 2lith of Alarch, or after the 25th of April new style). On the other hand, the Christian festival is never before the 22c1 of Mareh. or after the 25th of April. In 17fi1 and ISIS Easter fell on the 22d of March; but this will not be the case in any year of the twentieth century. The latest Easter in• this occurs in 1943, on the 25111 of April.