Easter Rebellion
Relax!
This has nothing to do with
the politics of the island of
Ireland, just a mini-rant about
how the imposition of a
Festival in the Christian
Calendar impacts on – and I
would argue to the
disadvantage of – the whole
of society.
Most Christians today probably can’t imagine Christmas on any other
day than December 25, but it wasn’t always that way.
In fact, for the first three centuries of Christianity’s existence, Jesus
Christ’s birth wasn’t celebrated at all. The religion’s most significant
holidays were Epiphany on January 6 and Easter.
The first official mention of December 25 as a holiday honouring
Jesus’ birthday seems to appear in an early Roman calendar from
336 A.D.
But was Jesus really born on December 25 in the first place? Almost
certainly not.
The Bible doesn’t mention his exact birthday, and the Nativity story
contains conflicting clues.
For instance, the presence of shepherds and their sheep suggest a
spring birth.
When church officials settled on December 25 at the end of the third
century, they likely wanted the date to coincide with existing pagan
festivals honouring Saturn (the Roman god of agriculture) and Mithra
(the Persian god of light).
That way, it became easier to convince Rome’s pagan subjects to
accept Christianity as the empire’s official religion
The celebration of Christmas spread throughout the Western world
over the next several centuries, but many Christians continued to
view Epiphany and Easter as more important.
But to return to my theme, the floating festival of Easter Sund ay in
2019 falls on 21 April, some 20 days later than it did in 2018.
In 2020, it will be April 12!
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