I occasionally run into practicing Pagans and conversations drift towards topics like Easter. This article sums up the points I lack articulation on. Will refer back to it. Thanks for the informative read.
The movement Yeshua founded didn't celebrate Pascha — they kept Pesach, natively, as Torah-observant Jews for whom the death and resurrection of Yeshua was understood from within the festival, not imposed upon it from outside. What you're tracing in the patristic sources is a Gentile church working to retain something it was already drifting away from — on its own terms, and increasingly detached from the Jewish community that held the living calendar tradition.
The Council of Nicaea didn't just resolve a scheduling dispute. Constantine's correspondence makes the motivation explicit: Easter must never coincide with Jewish Passover. That's not simply a footnote — it's the moment the church deliberately cut the celebration loose from its Hebraic roots. You mention the Council produced 'beginnings of unity' but that framing skips over what was actually unified against.
What appears on church billboards today as Easter has a very long journey from Exodus 12 — and most of that journey moved away from the text, not toward it.
Interesting article. I’m working on a biblical theology project in the Gospel of John and have a hard time squaring the use of tradition and history to explain later Easter tradition vis a vis Pascha in John. Pascha is central to the plot and rhetorical aims, to be sure. But while there is fulfillment of Pascha in Jesus (and all of the Jewish festivals), there is also profound discontinuity with Jewish liturgical tradition (eg, repeatedly naming it “Pascha of the Jews,” which is like Christians calling Christmas a feast of the Christians; very strange). I believe the “why” for the Fourth Gospel’s emphasis of Pascha is theological and social rather than biographical. I’m not sure how this will show up in the book (if at all), but if interested I wrote some of these thoughts here: https://onceaweek.substack.com/p/eating-eternity-on-the-eighth-day.
Very helpful Wyatt. Did the early church continue to “sacrifice” lambs for paschal? A “look back” if you will? One of the criticisms of dispensationalism eschatology is the discomfort critics have with a resurgent Jewish sacrificial system.
I occasionally run into practicing Pagans and conversations drift towards topics like Easter. This article sums up the points I lack articulation on. Will refer back to it. Thanks for the informative read.
The movement Yeshua founded didn't celebrate Pascha — they kept Pesach, natively, as Torah-observant Jews for whom the death and resurrection of Yeshua was understood from within the festival, not imposed upon it from outside. What you're tracing in the patristic sources is a Gentile church working to retain something it was already drifting away from — on its own terms, and increasingly detached from the Jewish community that held the living calendar tradition.
The Council of Nicaea didn't just resolve a scheduling dispute. Constantine's correspondence makes the motivation explicit: Easter must never coincide with Jewish Passover. That's not simply a footnote — it's the moment the church deliberately cut the celebration loose from its Hebraic roots. You mention the Council produced 'beginnings of unity' but that framing skips over what was actually unified against.
What appears on church billboards today as Easter has a very long journey from Exodus 12 — and most of that journey moved away from the text, not toward it.
🙏 Always open for discussion.
Interesting article. I’m working on a biblical theology project in the Gospel of John and have a hard time squaring the use of tradition and history to explain later Easter tradition vis a vis Pascha in John. Pascha is central to the plot and rhetorical aims, to be sure. But while there is fulfillment of Pascha in Jesus (and all of the Jewish festivals), there is also profound discontinuity with Jewish liturgical tradition (eg, repeatedly naming it “Pascha of the Jews,” which is like Christians calling Christmas a feast of the Christians; very strange). I believe the “why” for the Fourth Gospel’s emphasis of Pascha is theological and social rather than biographical. I’m not sure how this will show up in the book (if at all), but if interested I wrote some of these thoughts here: https://onceaweek.substack.com/p/eating-eternity-on-the-eighth-day.
Very helpful Wyatt. Did the early church continue to “sacrifice” lambs for paschal? A “look back” if you will? One of the criticisms of dispensationalism eschatology is the discomfort critics have with a resurgent Jewish sacrificial system.
No, they did not. They would have thought it quite wrong to do so.
So have you encountered any historic detail on how they celebrated or commemorated “kept” the paschal?
Yes, they do list out the actual practice. I was actually thinking about writing on it. But it generally looks like:
1. There is a long fast before Pascha/Easter
2. The Pascha is celebrated (it looks like it involves food and certainly later it includes the Lord's Supper).
3. Christ is the Passover lamb, and so there is a literal real sacrifice (but just in the past at the cross).
4. If Roman or non Asian (and few other groups), you'd have this celebration on the Lord's day.
5. Later in history, but perhaps early on, there would be a mass of baptisms that occur.