The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-04-12
Easter in the Church.

Writer in New York Advocate.
Next to Christmas, the Easter festival-the
anniversary of the resurrection of our Lords
the most significant of the several festivals of
the church, and is most commonly and jealous
ly observed The word Easter" had, at first
no reference to this Christian event 1t is a
modified form of the Anglo Saxon Eastre, the
name of the goddess of spring, in whose honor
a festival was annually celebrated in the month
of April. In the only instance in which this
word occurs in the New Testament it is a mis-
translation of pascha. the passover. A movable
feast, it occurs by the authority of the church
annually on the first Sunday after Good Friday
and corresponds as to time with the Passover of
the Jews. Its observance. if not apostolic. dates
back to the early postapostolic times. And yet
it is everywhere seen in the writings of the
Christian fathers of the first three centuries
that the resurrection of Christ and the general
resurrection of the dead are strongly and con-
stantly defined and maintained, and doubtless
the anniversary of our Lords resurrection was
observed from the beginning
Among the early Greek fathers who lived after
the great Nicence Council held A. D. 325, and
who wrote of the Easter festival was the famous
AthanaSius who for half q century the chief
figure in the Christian world, the great defender
of the doctrine of the Trinity. Born about a.
ID. 20, he early rose to such distinction as a
scholar and defender Of the faith as to have it
said of him by Iiberius, bishop of Rome: The
whole world against Athanasius, and Athanasius
against tan expression that has been abbrevi-
ated to "Athanasius against the world" AS
bishop of Alexandria where astronomical science
was early cultivated. he officially announced
the date and proper observance of this
annual festival. In one of his epistles he
says: ''We begin the fast of forty days on the
sixth day of Phamenoth March p; and having
passed through that properly, with fasting and
prayers. we may be able to attain to the holy
day The great week of the passion begins on
the eleventh of Pharmuthi April g.. And let
us rest from the fast the sixteenth of it
(April III, on the seventh day, late in the eve
ming. Let us keep the feast when the first of
the week rises upon us, on the seventeenth of
the month Pharmuthi April l2). Let us then
add one after the other the seven holy weeks of
Pentecost rejoicing and prasing God that he
hath by these things made known to us before
hand joy and rest everlasting, prepared in
heaven for those who truly believe in Christ
Jesus our Lord
Gregory Nyssa, another learned and pious
Trinita1ian, also wrote forcibly of the observ-
anee of this day. Born about A. D. 331, he
was an admirer of Origen and of Basil the
Great, and an able defender of the Nicene faith,
In dialogue purporting to have been between
Gregory and his sister, because of the death of
their brother Basil. he says, my opinion is
this: The soul is active, living, spiritual
essence which confers upon the organized body
which perceives, through its Senses power to
live and to observe things known by the senses,
so long as its nature is capable thereof" In the
future life it will recognize, he says, the ele-
ment of its body scattered at death, and will
reassume them, so that it shall be like the go-
rious body of Christ of whose resurrection
Easter is the memorial.