Here is some historical information on where Easter came from, and its propagation (Eggs, Candy, Bunnies, and other things).


The Wild Boar News Podcast - Easter Edition 2008 WBNP#48
By Dr. C. Matthew McMahon (3-17-08)

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C. Matthew McMahon, Ph.D.
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Thank you very much Dr. McMahon for this podcast, it is very informative.

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Josiah Lovett
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Orthodox Presbyterian Church
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Westminster Confession (1788)

You almost had me going there. Then I saw the citation of Hislop & realised you were joking.

I am going to remember this one for the next time we have a late Easter & I can use it as a April Fool joke.

(you were kidding, right?)

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Kevin Rogers
Sovereign Community Church, PCA
Moncton NB

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Traci
Lynnwood OPC
Psalm 52:8-9
8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.
9 I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints.

Wow - I learned something new. I had not known before that the 4 BC date of the birth of Christ was in any way connected to the "christianizing" of pagan rites. So we're really living in 2012, huh?

The podcast listed above (Small Groups) was excellent also.

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The pre-millennialists will have to recalculate everything.

Sir, is that printable? I could just copy and paste, but I would like permission first.

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Ian Kemmerer
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"Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart, And all is darkened in the vale of tears, Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart, Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears. Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay From His own fullness all He takes away."

No, I do not think Matthew was kidding.

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Stephen Welch
PCA Teaching Elder
Nova Scotia

Excellent piece brother Matt!

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I find your quote from the "5th century" "pagan philosopher" Socrates to be pretty incredible. "...the celebration of the feast of Easter began everywhere more of custom than by any commandment either by Christ or any apostle." Yes, Socrates lived in the 5th centrury...BC! Was he a prophet as well as a philosopher?

I'm sure the rest of the podcast is equally well researched.

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Scott Roper
Member, Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA): "A bunch of hippie Calvinists"
Winston-Salem, NC

Scott, there were others who went by the name Socrates, including an early church historian:

Socrates of Constantinople - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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R.Vic Bottomly
Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Tacoma, WA

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I'll fix the typo on Socrates. That was my fault. Yes, should be "BC."

No, I wasn't kidding. Easter, or Ishtar, or Astarte is definitely not Christian.

Yes, you can copy it.

Your welcome!

Wait Matt! That quote was from the 5th century AD Socrates! The church historian referenced above.

Sorry, I just don't buy it.

To make a historical arguement with Hislop as the sole footnoted (!) source is just not credible IMO.

It is on the same level as a dispensationalist claiming to have *refuted* covenant theology and then citing Larkin as the sole source.

Do any credible church historians at all support Hislop?

I don't know about that, Kevin. I gather Hislop was more of a polemicist than a historian.

My only concern was with the early church historian Socrates, who chronicled that the Easter celebration was something that just sprang up:

"The aim of the apostles was not to appoint festival days, but to teach a righteous life and piety. And it seems to me that just as many other customs have been established in individual localities according to usage. So also the feast of Easter came to be observed in each place according to the individual peculiarities of the peoples inasmuch as none of the apostles legislated on the matter."

Ecclesastical History of Socrates Scholasticus (Schaff edition)

Book V, Chapter XXII

Another anathaema I will have to live with.

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Jonathan Hunt

Preaching Elder
Cheltenham Evangelical Free Church (Confessionally Based)
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom

Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
-- Thomas Elsworth

True enough, Vic. Local "celebrations' took on much local flavour that has no warrant is scripture. That some local observances have similarities to other folk celebrations common to that people is to be expected. However that is a long way from proving that there is a direct causation.

An analogous situation would be to assert a deep symbolism to the use of candles in medieval churches. At the same time to ignore other more plausable explanations, such as a need for light prior to electricity. Then make the observation (true as it is) that modern north American families often celebrate b-days with candles on a cake.

Then you have (in Hislops world) *proof* that modern families are crypto-catholics who secretly use the candles for the mystical purposes previously asserted.

He has almost zero credibility. To cite him as a source reduces what ever point was being made to the same level. IMO.

Matt, I have had enough problems keeping my sources straight (particularly when they have the same name), that your mental hiccup is quite understandable and pardonable (particularly after all of the good stuff you have researched and provided on your web site). Victor is correct. Socrates Scholasticus (aka Socrates of Constantinople), a fifth century A.D. person, wrote The Ecclesiastical History, in seven books. His work is contained in Schaff, P. (1997). The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series Vol. II. Socrates, Sozomenus: Church Histories.

Actually, Socrates mentioned Easter 56 times in his history. His bottom line on the subject is as follows:

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I know, but that Socrates was not a pagan philosopher as Matt said.

I don't pay attention to the church calendar, so I don't really care about Easter. However, I find the argument against Easter because of its pagan name to be rather poor. It really only works for Germanic languages. In the Romance languages and other languages like Russian, the word they use for Easter is based on the word for Passover.

That's why I called it a mental hiccup. You start your research, take cryptic notes, come back to it later, and under a load of preoccupation, your brain "hiccups." After all the good Matt has done, I'm willing to cut him some slack on a name that, like Madonna, tends to have one predominate association (i.e., I don't mean the mother of Jesus) and one secondary one. After all, let's be honest, Scott, when you caught the "goof," you assumed it was a 5th century B.C. figure instead of the author of Historia Ecclesiastica too.

Thanks for the correction on the correction.

Yes, mental hiccups are part of the fall.

I'll add a few more things to the article so there are "plenty of footnotes" just so that isn't an "exception" to the realities that lie behind Easter's Romanism.

The Post Reformation pastors and t