Adam Clarke in his commentary on Acts 12:4, has this to say:


Verse 4. Four quaternions of soldiers] That is, sixteen, or four companies of four men each, who had the care of the prison, each company taking in turn one of the four watches of the night.

Intending after Easter to bring him forth] meta to tasca, After the passover. Perhaps there never was a more unhappy, not to say absurd, translation than that in our text. But, before I come to explain the word, it is necessary to observe that our term called Easter is not exactly the same with the Jewish passover. This festival is always held on the fourteenth day of the first vernal full moon; but the Easter of the Christians, never till the next Sabbath after said full moon; and, to avoid all conformity with the Jews in this matter, if the fourteenth day of the first vernal full moon happen on a Sabbath, then the festival of Easter is deferred till the Sabbath following. The first vernal moon is that whose fourteenth day is either on the day of the vernal equinox, or the next fourteenth day after it. The vernal equinox, according to a decree of the council of Nice, is fixed to the 21st day of March; and therefore the first vernal moon is that whose fourteenth day falls upon the 21st of March, or the first fourteenth day after. Hence it appears that the next Sabbath after the fourteenth day of the vernal moon, which is called the Paschal term, is always Easter day.

And, therefore, the earliest Paschal term being the 21st of March, the 22d of March is the earliest Easter possible; and the 18th of April being the latest Paschal term, the seventh day after, that is the 25th of April, is the latest Easter possible.

The term Easter, inserted here by our translators, they borrowed from the ancient Anglo-Saxon service-books, or from the version of the Gospels, which always translates the to pasca of the Greek by this term; e.g. Matt. xxvi. 2: Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover.

(Anglo-Saxon) Wite ye that aefter twam dagum beoth Eastro. Matt. xvi. 19: And they made ready the passover. (Anglo- Saxon) And hig gegearwodon hym Easter thenunga (i.e. the paschal supper.) Prefixed to Matt. xxviii. 1, are these words: (Anglo-Saxon) This part to be read on Easter even. And, before Matt. xxviii. 8, these words: (Anglo-Saxon) Mark xiv. 12: And the first day of unleavened bread when they killed the passover. (Anglo-Saxon) And tham forman daegeazimorum, tha hi Eastron offrodon. Other examples occur in this version. Wiclif used the word paske, i.e. passover; but Tindal, Coverdale, Becke, and Cardmarden, following the old Saxon mode of translation, insert Easter: the Geneva Bible very properly renders it the passover. The Saxon (Anglo-Saxon) are different modes of spelling the name of the goddess Easter, whose festival was celebrated by our pagan forefathers on the month of April; hence that month, in the Saxon calendar, is called (Anglo-Saxon) Easter month. Every view we can take of this subject shows the gross impropriety of retaining a name every way exceptionable, and palpably absurd.

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Gil Garcia
Rehoboth Reformed Church (RCUS)
La Habra, CA

"Ignorance of this distinction between Law and Gospel is one of the principal sources of the abuses which corrupted and still corrupt Christianity." - Calvin's successor


"By the words of the law man is admonished and taught, not what he can do, but what he ought to do. How is it that you theologians are twice as stupid as schoolboys, in that as soon as you get hold of a single imperative verb you infer an indicative meaning...?"
-Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will