“Ancient
Spring Equinox Customs Underlying the Jewish Holidays of Purim and Pesach
(Passover), and the Christian Holiday of Easter”
by Lisa Lindberg
begun March 20, 1997, modified April 2006
A part of the series, "Ancient
Seasonal Festivals and their Overlaying,
Present-Day Religious Holidays”
--
A greeting card, plus the draft of an essay --
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text
of Spring Equinox card -- written and sent out March 1997
The
Seasonal Festival of the Spring Equinox
In Anglo-Saxon mythology, the goddess Easter
brought rebirth at the Spring
Equinox, the dawn of the year when Nature was once again renewed.
The goddess Easter was associated with the fertility symbols of red eggs,
rabbits, and the very welcome flowers of Spring.
In pre-Judaic Middle Eastern
cultures -- centuries before Moses – the pastoral people of this region held a
3-day New Year festival. It began
on the eve of the first full moon after the Spring Equinox,
in the middle of the month of Nisanu -- the first month of their year.
At sundown on the eve of this full moon, they sacrificed their first-born
lamb or goat, dipped a bunch of hyssop and bitter herbs in the blood,
then daubed the doorposts of their homes.
They also ate bitter herbs for
Springtime purification. The
sacrificed meat had to be consumed in
the night " in haste" - -
with anything left over to be burned completely (holocaust -- "whole
burning").
These pastoral people
believed performing this Spring rite would ward off illness and plague, assuring
the health of their herds and families in
the year ahead.
The people of pre-Christian Eastern Europe had the
custom of planting grain kernels in
window baskets in late winter to sprout at the Equinox into beautiful green
thatches. They called these
"Gardens of Adonis," in
honor of their mythologic god of harvest fertility -- also called Tammuz in some
areas. Into these baskets of green
lush grass, they placed the fertility symbols of red eggs.
Then, at the Spring Equinox, each village held a
3-day festival in which they enacted the drama of the death and renewal
of Life. They created an
effigy of their harvest fertility god Adonis-Tammuz as a symbol of Life, and
celebrated the death and resurrection of this god-king.
On the first day they buried his effigy.
On the second day they mourned his death with wailing lamentation – as
in the Bible "wailing for
Tammuz." At the
stroke of midnight at the beginning of the 3rd day, they cracked
red eggs together, and proclaimed "He is risen!" rejoicing that
from out of death, Life was once again reborn anew.
*
* * *
* *
* * *
*
At
Springtime, Winter's silent rest has nourished the Earth, renewing her creative
strength. From within itself, Life
has found renewal. Nature is now
poised on the brink, ready to Spring into abundant New Life.
Stiff, frozen Winter melting into Spring's flowing warmth
offers a metaphoric model for liberation of the spirit:
- - deliverance from the bondage of ignorance,
- - rising from the deadness
of limitations.
Spring's fluid freedom beckons us out of our cages, inviting us to soar to the
heights and to delight in awakening to life's unity and wholeness. In
this joyful spirit of awakening freedom, we wish you a Happy Spring Equinox --
this year Thursday March 20, 1997.
Ó1997 The Great Dance
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ideas for a more extensive essay
The
central common message in ancient mythologic rites of Spring
-- abstracting
from the literal content of each tradition and cast of characters
-
Vernal rituals of Dying and Reviving reprise the drama 3 months earlier at the longest night
of the year, the deepest dark of the Mid-Winter Solstice - - the "Sun's
stillness." At that time, the Light goes into the Dark -- Life goes
into Death -- and lies for a moment in the gap of stillness. There is the
attending anxiety of: "This time, will the Light/Life be reborn?"
then, to everyone's relief, there is the return of Light -- and the possibility
of New Life.
- The Immanent and the Transcendent
are essential parts of each other, found within the other.
- Life and Death are essential parts
of each other, with Life continually re-born from Death
- From within the depths of Life is
Death. From within the depths of Death is Life's power of renewal -- the awakening to
New Life:
- the deliverance up out of the bondage of
ignorance
- the rising from the deadness of limitations
- Life is whole and trustable. Life ever returns from Death.
We have no cause for fear.
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Sources cited -- and to be further
plumbed
Sir James George Frazer and Theodore H. Gaster -- pre-eminent scholars in the
field of comparative religion, mythology, cultural anthropology, and
folklore.
Sir
James George Frazer (1890), The Golden Bough
Theodore
H. Gaster (1959), The New Golden Bough: A New Abridgment of the Classic
1890 Work by Sir James George Frazer
Theodore
H.Gaster (1969), Myth, Legend, and Folklore in the Old Testament: A
Comparative Study (update of Sir James G. Frazer (1918), Folklore
in the Old Testament)
Theodore
H.Gaster (1953
Theodore
H.Gaster (1950), Purim and Hanukkah
Theodore
H.Gaster (19__),
Passover
Extensively cites Theodore Gaster's on the origins of
Jewish holidays.
Michael Walsh (1986), The Triumph of the Meek: Why Early
Christianity Succeeded
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The
Jewish Holiday of Purim
-- get
deas from Theodore Gaster (1950), Purim and Hanukkah
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Ancient Middle Eastern Spring
Festivals
Theodore Gaster
(1969), Myth, Legend, and Folklore in the Old Testament: A
Comparative Study,
p.632-33, commentary of the Old Testament
prophet, Hosea:
"Hosea 5:6
`Israel will go seeking Yahweh,
but will not find him,
since he will have "slipped away" from them.'
“The reference here is to the ritual search for the vanished god of fertility.
In the Egyptian "mysteries" of Osiris, 'seek' was a technical
term. In the Canaanite Poem
of Baal, which is basically a seasonal myth, the goddess Anat says
expressly that she will "go in search" (b-q-s) of the ousted lord of
the rains. In the Hittite myth of
Telipinu, that god is said to have 'taken himself off ...flown into a rage, and
carried away everything good'; while the search of Demeter for Persephone is
familiar to every reader of Classical
literature. The prophet
chooses his words exquisitely. In the original Hebrew, the god is said not
merely to depart or withdraw, but to slip away (Heb.: halas), suggesting
graphically the gradual disappearance
of the green summer."
“Hosea
6:1-2
`Come, let us return to the Lord;
though he has torn, he will heal us;
though he has stricken, he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,*
and we shall be revived in his presence.'
"(*the Hebrew word does not refer to resurrection, but simply to bringing a
sick man to his feet.)
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The
Jewish Holiday of Pesach (Passover)
Chaim Raphael (1990),
Festival
Days: A History of Jewish Celebrations,
p. 69:
"Details of the original Pesach in the Bible parallel the spring
sacrifice of all pastoral people as described by cultural anthropologists.
In this picture, every family slaughtered a first-born lamb or he-goat on
the eve of the full moon in the first spring month, an ancient tradition by
which one warded off illness and plague in the year ahead.
A bunch of hyssop was dipped in the blood, which was then daubed on the
doorposts of the home, a ceremony which marked the participation of the god in
the sacrifice. The food had to be
consumed in the night 'in haste' (as in the Bible story), with anything left
over burned to avoid putrescence (holocaust-- "whole burning"). In
a book on this subject by T.H. Gaster, [Festivals
of the Jewish Year, 1953, p. 33] `bitter herbs' are said to have been
added as a cathartic against impurity. The
ban on all 'leaven' during the festival was an expression of the same
warding-off of impurity."
(Note: explanation for the intercalated month of Adar II:
Even though the Jewish year follows the lunar year, this
"intercalated" month makes it a luni-solar calendar, modeled after the older calendar
developed by the astronomers of Babylon (in present-day Iraq).
Correspondences between the older Babylonian calendar and the
later-developed
Jewish calendar include the names of the months, the fact that boths follows the
lunar lunar cycle while including periodic intercalated (added) months to bring
the religious calendar into line with the solar year. Periodically
adding a Spring month ensures that Passover always falls AFTER -- rather than
before -- the Spring Equinox. This luni-solar calendar contrasts to the
completely lunar Islamic calendar, whose high holy day of Ramadan strictly
follows the lunar progression, and therefore over the years, moves in time to
fall within all of the seasons.
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Oester:
Ancient Western Europe's Celebration of new life at the Spring Equinox
"Oester,"
the Old European Anglo-Saxon goddess of the Spring Equinox whose symbols are
colored eggs, fertile rabbits, and the very welcome flowers of spring.
The words "Oester" and “Easter” come from the same root as
the direction “east” and the words “estrogen” and “estrus”
-- all pertaining to the
awakening of new life.
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Ancient
Eastern Europe's
Celebration of new life at the Spring Equinox
Ancient
(many centuries BC) annual three-day Spring rite held by the peoples of
Babylonia, Syria and Greece:
Theodore Gaster (1959) , The
New Golden Bough. pp. 632-633)
"A not uncommon feature of seasonal festivals is the staging of a mock
funeral and subsequent resurrection of the spirit of fertility.
In Egypt, it was Osiris who was thus buried and revived; in Syria, it was
Adonis, and in Asia Minor it was Attis. In
Russia, the interment and resurrection of Kostrubonko, deity of the spring, was
solemnly celebrated in popular custom at Eastertide. In Roumania, on the
Monday before Assumption (in August), a clay image of the analogous Kalojan is
deposited in the earth, to be dug up after a few days.
The prophet's words may well have been inspired by such a
spectacle."
On the first day of Eastern
European peoples' three-day festival, they made an effigy of the god who they called
"the true son," and "lord of Life's renewal at Springtime."
They held a mock burial for his effigy, then mourned his death. On the
third day they dug into the Earth where they had buried the effigy. They raised
it up, proclaimed that he had come back to life, and rejoiced that in his rebirth he also brought about
the rebirth of life to Earth. To
this day, some of the peoples in parts of the Mediterranean countries (and their
diaspora) continue
this ancient rite of effigy-creation, mock burial, and resurrecting, the
difference being that long ago their culture evolved to embrace Christianity,
and now to the effigy they give the name "Jesus."
In
the Hebrew Bible ( what book? Hosea,
Isaiah??): The women of Jerusalem were exhorted not to wail for Tammuz,
the Babylonian god of fertility.
The ancient custom in Eastern Europe and the Near East at the time of the Spring Equinox of planting rye grass seeds in
indoor baskets, pots, or baskets , called “Gardens of Adonis” --
the precursor of “Easter Grass”
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Easter
/ Pascha: The
Christian Festival of Jesus' Death and Resurrection
In
the mythologies discussed by Frazer and Gaster
in The Golden Bough and The
New Golden Bough, there are
two relevant sections:
"Part
III: Death and Resurrection:
The Rhythm of Nature"
&
"Part IV: Dying and
Reviving Gods"
Etymology of the word
"Easter" : "Oester,"
the Old European Anglo-Saxon goddess of the Spring Equinox
Knowing this, the Eastern Orthodox Church uses instead the term "Pascha" -- the
Latinized form of the Hebrew word "Pesach."
The Middle Eastern Pastoral Peoples' 3-day Spring Festival of Rebirth
The ancient Middle Eastern pastoral peoples considered
that performing their Spring
rite of sacrificing the first-born lamb or kid (the Paschal Lamb) assured the
well-being of the rest of their herds and families
in the year ahead. The Jews transformed this commonly celebrated pastoral Spring
Rite into a religious holiday. Their new story was that in the time the
Jewish people were in Egypt, the sacrificial blood on the doorposts assured that
the punishing Angel of Death would
"pass over" their houses and spare the lives of their first-born sons.
In turn, the early followers of Jesus transformed the Jewish Pesach sacrifice of
first-born lambs/kids into the sacrifice of Jesus, the first-born son of God,
whose death assured the well-being of the whole world -- "Jesus as Paschal
Lamb."
The canonized passages of the Bible give few events of the day after Jesus'
death, and only sparse descriptions of the women going to the tomb.
The passages state that "on the first day of the week," the
women discovered Jesus's body to no longer be in the tomb. However,
there are no statements about a 3rd day resurrection -- just
sightings of "the risen Lord."
According to the
Grolier's Encyclopedia and Michael Walsh (1986) The Triumph of the Meek, (p.138),
in the first century CE, the early Christians celebrated Jesus' sacrifice on one day only :
on the day of the Jewish Pesach.
Included among these early Christians were Jesus' disciples --
John et al.
Theodore Gaster (1959), The
New Golden Bough.
p. 356 "When we reflect how often the Church has skillfully
contrived to plant the seeds of the new faith on the old stock of paganism, we
may surmise that the Easter celebration of the dead and risen Christ was grafted
upon a similar celebration of the dead and risen Adonis, which - - as we have
see reason to believe -- was celebrated in Syria at the same season.
The "type" created by Greek artists, of the sorrowful goddess
with her dying lover in her arms, resembles -- and may have been the model of --
the Pieta of Christian art, the Virgin with the dead body of her divine Son in
her lap, of which the most celebrated example is the one by Michael Angelo in
St. Peter's."
From Michael Walsh (1986), Triumph of the Meek
In the early decades after Jesus' death, there was no clear distinction between
the Jewish people in general and the Jewish followers of Jesus -- who considered
Jesus to be the Jewish Messiah foretold in the Hebrew Bible.
In the decades immediately after his death, Jesus' followers continued to hold
their holy day of the week on the Jewish Sabbath day, Saturday (Sabado =
Spanish for Saturday). Later,
to distinguish their new branch of Judaism from the old branch of Judaism,
the followers of Jesus moved their weekly holy day to the day after the
Jewish Sabbath day -- to Sunday. Later --
to further distinguished themselves from older branches of Judaism --
they changed their day of another of their religious celebrations. Beginning in the 110's
under Rome's Bishop Xystus, these early followers
of Jesus unofficially moved the commemoration of their highest holy day of their year -- Easter, Pascha the
commemoration of Jesus as the sacrificial
Paschal Lamb -- to the Sunday after the Jewish Pascha.
For the first time there was a Christian Pascha differentiated from the Jewish
Pascha. The 314 A.D. synod of Arles made this
change mandatory.
However,
the commemoration of the Christian Pascha continued to be held on one day only
-- on the Jewish Pesach. It took 2 more centuries for the Christian Pascha
to evolve into a three-day celebration. In the new, 3-day celebration, Jesus' death
was commemorated on the first day -- the Friday of the year he was said to have
died -- with his 3rd day resurrection on the following Sunday. The 325
A.D. Council of Nicea -- presided over by the
manipulative, politically ambitious Emperor Constantine (a sun-worshipping pagan
whose weekly holy day was Sunday), and made mandatory the new, three-day commemoration,
with the penalty of excommunication for non-adherence.
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