St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1891-03-28
EASTER.

founder of the religion. There is how
ever no trace of or authority for such
festival in the New Testament or in
the writings of the apostolic fathers.
1t grew out OF the festival of the Pass
over, kept by the Jewish christians
who simply added christianity to
Judaism. The original passover was a
Spring festival, and most probably a
pagan one, which was modified by the
events in Egypt; and it was further
modified during the exile of the Jews,
when public sacrifices could not be
made in the old way@hs the paschal
lamb was eaten with unlea(ened bread
in each household. The 9ristian
Spring festival is the same, modified to
suit christianity. Ins fact, among
Latin christians, it is called paques,
pasqua, pascura, derived from the Lat
in word pascha, which plainly shows
its origin.
Easter is the same festival with an
other name. Easter is Tentonic OR
Anglo-Saxon word, and was the name
of the Anglo-saxon goddess OF Spring.
The Anglo-saxons in changing their
religion did not change the festival !;
the christian doctrine or belief was
engrafted upon the pagan custom.
The Jewis1 christians kept the 14th
day of the moon of the lunar or He,
brew month Nisan, without regard to
the day Of the week but the Gentle
christians, imbued with the idea of
Christ as the paschal lamb, kept the
first Sunday after the 14th day of the
paschal moon in celebration of the re-
surrection. For long time the
church was divided in regard to the
time of the paschal or Easter festival !;
bu1all christendom deriving religion
from the church of Rome, is now
agreed upon the same day.
1t would seem natural that Easter
Sunday, which depends upon the
moon, should be ascertained by astro-
nomical calculation and we believe
that the Russian or Greek church, and
other Oriental churches, do get at it
in that way; but it is matter of ac-
cident when their Easter and that of
the Western church and its deriya-
tives fall on the same Sunday.
The Roman church has established
an artificial rule for ascertaining East
er Sunday, which is always the first
Sunday after the l4th day of that
(ecclesiasticaD calendar moon which
follows the 2lst March and accord
ing to this rule Easter can never be
earlier than March 22d, nor later than
April 25th.
Immovable festivals, like Christmas,
are on particular day of the solar
year, and never change but the NOV
able festivals are all regulated by
Easter and change as it changes; and
it is regulated by the moon, according
to rule that keeps it within certain
limits-between March 2lst and April
26th of each solar year. The solar
year, the lunar month and the days OF
the week have to be SO adjusted as to
bring about this result.
By dividing the Z days of the week
into the solar year Of 365 days, there
are 81 weeks and one day over; SO if
the first day of any particular year is
Sunday, the first day of the next year
will be Monday. If this particular
year is leap year, then the first day of
the next year would be Tuesday in
stead of Monday. If there were no
leap year, after period or cycle of
seven years, corresponding to the seven
days of the week, the same day OF the
week would again be the first day OF
the year but the occurrence of leap
year every four years makes this
period, called the Solar Cycle, result
from multiplying I by 4, which is 28
years.
In the process Of ascertaining East
er, the days of the week are letttered
A, B, c, D, E, F, G.; and in the
calendar A stands by the LIST day of
January, and so on, the letter stand
ing by Sunday being called the Domi's-
zeal Letter When this letter is
known, the letters that correspond to
the other days of the week are also
known and every % years, the domi-
nical letter occupies the same place in
the calendar. This cycle was fixed to
begin nine years before the Christian
era therefore nine has to be added to
any particular year before dividing by
%, to get the year of the cycle. In
using the solar cycle to find the domi-
nical letter, it has to be known that
the dominical letter of the first year
of the era was B. But at the end of
the first century the working of this
rule was interfered with by the abso-