Is Easter Pagan?
- Trey Soto Contributing Writer
- Updated Apr 04, 2024
For nearly 2,000 years, Christians have celebrated Easter Sunday around the globe, singing hymns and preaching sermons about the resurrection of Our Lord. Yet, some Christians do not hold to this day of celebration. On the contrary, they believe that Easter is pagan.
You heard that right. Some Christians believe that Easter is pagan in origin and believe that we should stop celebrating it at all. I met Christians like this years ago in college when they didn’t celebrate Christmas for the same reasons (but that is a story for another time).
If this alarmed you, don’t be. It is quite common in the era of information, or in this case, misinformation.
But where does this belief come from? How could Christians believe that a holiday directly from the Bible be rooted in pagan origins? To address these concerns, we need to understand the historical context.
Does the Word Easter Come from a Pagan Goddess?
Thanks to some unfortunately very popular claims, which have appeared everywhere from TikTok videos to books arguing against Christianity, many people believe the word Easter itself referred to a pagan goddess known as Eostre. This pagan goddess is rooted in Babylonian beliefs and later appears in Germanic paganism where she is worshipped and referred to as the god of crops and human fertility. Karen Cyson gives this overview of Eostre in a piece for the SC Times:
“Legend has it that Eostre mated with the solar god of the spring equinox and nine months later, at Yule/winter solstice, gave birth to a man/god child. The subject of fertility and new life and its relationship to Eostre can be found throughout many cultures. Colored eggs have been associated with the spring celebration since at least 580 BCE in Persia. In Ukraine, Pysanka eggs historically honored the sun god father of Eostre's child until Christianity came to Ukraine.”
The author goes on to argue that Christians should be embarrassed that their faith appropriated another to claim legitimacy and domination to the point where it outlived and spread throughout history. But is this accurate? Did Christians appropriate pagan beliefs?
Does the Easter Celebration Have Pagan Origins?
While the idea that Easter comes from Eostre is a popular claim and belief, it couldn’t be further from the truth. The timeline of when Christianity spread through the Roman Empire shows this claim doesn’t work. To quote Michael Jones from the Christian YouTube Channel Inspiring Philosophy,
“The only clear reference to her comes from a Christian author named Saint Bede, and he may been making a conjecture for the name of the month based on limited information. And Christians had been celebrating [Easter] long before they ever moved in the Germanic regions. There is also no evidence that she was associated with rabbits or eggs. Rabbits …did not become associated with Easter until the late 1500s, and Easter eggs seemed to have come from Lent. You couldn’t eat eggs during Lent, but you could hard-boil them and boil them. And so they were saved for the Easter celebration and probably started decorating them too to celebrate the holiday.”
Of course, we acknowledge that other worldviews sometimes have similarities to Christian customs. However, it is one thing if they happen to be close to each other. It is another to criticize another belief for “stealing” from them when there is little to no evidence to back it up. As BibleStudyTools.com contributor Jay Ryan explains:
“Indeed, it is not clear how Babylonian influence could jump all the way across the Mediterranean and the European continent after many centuries to turn up in Germany and then England with the early Anglo-Saxons. So there are no historical facts that can prove any Babylonian connection between these apparently-similar names.”
To verify Ryan’s point fully, we must ask when Christians began celebrating Easter.
When Did Christians Begin Celebrating Easter?
As we know, Christ was raised from the dead on the Feast of Passover, which can be seen in the Old Testament regarding their leave from Exodus. That said, the Bible itself does not give an outline as to when to celebrate Easter or even to celebrate at all. So where does it come from? For that, we need to look at the early Church Fathers.
Our earliest account can be seen around 150 A.D. when we see St. Polycarp prevent a schism over when to celebrate Easter. This came up again with Irenaeus not long after. Irenaeus is best-known for his work Against Heresies, where he critiques gnostic beliefs, and for the early development of the Scriptural canon. Irenaeus explores a disagreement on when Easter should be celebrated, which almost caused a divide known as the Quartodeciman controversy. Briefly, eastern Christians celebrated Easter on the same day that Jewish people celebrated Passover, even if it fell on a day that wasn’t Sunday. Western Christians had a different calendar system that allowed Easter to always fall on a Sunday. Not wanting Christians to be divided and schismatic, Irenaeus involved the Pope to help keep the peace. This debate occurred again during the First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., which settled on an official date Christians in both hemispheres would use for Easter. The Great Schism in 1054 A.D. changed that agreement, and today, Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter on a different date than Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians.
So, Easter does not start with pagan celebrations. The event itself (Jesus rising from the dead on Easter Sunday) is well documented in all four Gospel accounts. The church celebrating Easter is documented even in early records. It was no minor custom added late in the church’s history. It was important enough to create debates about when to celebrate it.
Should Christians Be Worried if Easter Has Pagan Roots?
Understandably, Christians would be concerned over the possibility of pagan roots in the faith. Given how many religions and cults there have been throughout human history, it’s unsurprising that some have overlapping dates for celebrating particular events.
We should not be worried about pagan roots at Easter because there are none. Two names sounding the same are not grounds to cry “appropriation!” or “heresy!” Neither is one holiday’s date being close to another’s date grounds to worry. More evidence would be necessary to prove a connection. History shows there is no further connection. Ultimately, this concern shows how important it is for Christians to study the Bible’s narrative, its ideas, and what church history tells us about how Christians have lived out its ideas.
The discussion begs another question: can Christians adapt something from another belief system into their customs? It depends on what you are looking to adapt. For example, the Christian Chi-Rho symbol had some roots in paganism, yet it became the shining symbol of Christianity through Emperor Constantine the Great.
Another example is the cross itself. It was once seen as a symbol of death for anyone who defied the Roman Empire. Now, it is a symbol of the resurrection and hope in Christ.
Perhaps the most interesting example in the Bible is when Paul speaks at Mars Hill in Acts 17. He brings up an altar “to an unknown god” he saw in the city and then quotes freely from pagan Greek philosophers to discuss who God is, leading his listeners slowly to a new idea: that God has come as Jesus Christ and been risen from the dead.
This can be further seen in the early church, which used the writings of ancient philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc.) to assist in Christian belief. St. Augustine brought this idea up in his book, On Christian Doctrine. To paraphrase, St. Augustine was a philosopher and rhetorician who initially rejected and avoided all secular ideas after his conversion. Later, as he explained, he saw benefits in affirming secular teachings that speak to the same values and conclusions as Christianity. He argued that “plundering the Egyptians” could spread the gospel and combat heresies. Christians can use secular thought that reaches Christian conclusions because everything genuinely true is ultimately God’s truth.
Adapting pagan symbols is not always sinful. What matters is the intention (is this furthering the kingdom?) and what is adapted (have we avoided adapting things we really shouldn’t touch, like making pagan idol statues or affirming non-Christian values?).
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Franz Xaver Winterhalter
Trey Soto holds a B.A. in Communication Studies from Biola University and an M.A. in Communication Management from the University of Denver. He is a photographer, a writer, and a podcast host at T.V. Trey Podcast. You can see more of his work on his Wix portfolio.
This article is part of our larger Holy Week and Easter resource library centered around the events leading up to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We hope these articles help you understand the meaning and story behind important Christian holidays and dates and encourage you as you take time to reflect on all that God has done for us through his son Jesus Christ!
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