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From: JEK@cu.nih.gov
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: etymology of "Easter"
Message-ID: <Apr.21.03.26.47.1993.1376@geneva.rutgers.edu>
Date: 21 Apr 93 07:26:48 GMT
Sender: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu
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Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu

for SRC

In most languages, the Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord is
known as the PASCH, or PASQUE, or some variation thereof, a word
which comes from the Hebrew PESACH, meaning "Passover." In English,
German, and a few related languages, however, it is known as EASTER,
or some variation thereof, and questions have been asked about the
origin of this term.

One explanation is that given by the Venerable Bede in his DE
RATIONE TEMPORUM 1:5, where he derives the word from the name of an
Anglo-Saxon goddess of Spring called EASTRE. Bede is a great
scholar, and it is natural to take his word for it. But he lived
673-735, and Augustine began preaching in Kent in 597. The use of
the word EASTER to describe the Feast would have been well
established before the birth of Bede and probably before the birth
of anyone he might have discussed the subject with. It seems likely
that his derivation is just a guess, based on his awareness that
there had been an Anglo-Saxon goddess of Spring bearing that name,
and the resemblance of the words. Thus, if the said resemblance
(surely it is not surprising that a personification of Spring should
have a name similar to the word for Dawn) is not in istelf
convincing, the testimony (or rather the conjecture) by Bede does
not make it more so.

Assuming that Bede was right, that would not justify saying that the
Christian celebration (which, after all, had been going on for some
centuries before the name EASTER was applied to it) has pagan roots.
It would simply mean that the Anglo-Saxons, upon becoming Christians
and beginning to celebrate the Resurrection by a festival every
spring, called it by the name that to them meant simply "Spring
Festival."

However, Bede's is not the only theory that has been proposed.  J
Knoblech, in "Die Sprach," ZEITSCHRIFT FUER SPRACHWISSENSCHAFT 5
(Vienna, 1959) 27-45, offers the following derivation:

Among Latin-speaking Christians, the week beginning with the Feast
of the Resurrection was known as "hebdomada alba" (white week),
since the newly-baptized Christians were accustomed to wear their
white baptismal robes throughout that week. Sometimes the week was
referred to simply as "albae." Translaters rendering this into
German mistook it for the plural of "alba," meaning "dawn." They
accordingly rendered it as EOSTARUM, which is Old High German for
"dawn." This gave rise to the form EASTER in English.

 Yours,
 James Kiefer


[No, I'm not interested in restarting discussions of the propriety
of celebrating Easter.  However this seems like it contains enough
interesting information that people might like to see it.  --clh]
