Pagan Origins Of Easter

[longshotgene]

If you guys ever go to Basel, Switzerland, check out the Muenster Cathedral. It is one of those places mentioned that was actually a Celtic worshipping center, turned into a Catholic Church. It is located at the strongest current point of the Rhine in Europe. I was always under the understanding that the early missionaries had to pacify the pagans by allowing them to keep their holidays, but with Christian overtones. For instance, All Saints Day in South America was actually Honor the dead Incan Emperors day. When the Christians came to South America to convert, they saw the pagans eating with their dead on a specific day. The Christians convinced them to move the day to this All Saints Day, but they could still contiue the custom. The same thing happened in Europe. Only, slowly the Pagan and Christian converged and became one. Easter Bunny. Rabbits are the symbol of fertility in ancient Europe. Hence the term, "breed like rabbits". It happens to take place in spring, much like the time of passover, and the crucifixion. What better way to convert!

[Ursus]

Religious usurpation and absorbtion is nothing new, though.

 

It is often theorized that the cults of the Olympians like Zeus displaced an older set of deities; the survival of offcolor cults in Classical Greece such as Hekate are then supposedly the remains of an older, chthonic religion that was incorporated into the new Olympian religion.

 

The Celtic tribes in Britain may have absorbed the practices of an older, megalithic people into their own religions. Etc.

 

And in historical times we can see how the Romans modified Celtic cults to their needs, or how the Ptolemaic regime deliberately cultivated a synthesis between Hellenic and Kemetic cults.

 

While on one level the cynical modification of native religion for imperial control offends purist sensibilities, on another level it allows remnants of the previous culture to survive in the face of change.