EASTER

the festival commemorating the resurrection of Christ, observed in the Roman Catholic, the Greek, Anglican, Luther an, and other branches of the Christian Church. By the first Christians it was considered to continue the feast of the pa over, at which the paschal lamb, a type of Christ, was sacrificed. Hence its name in Greek (vascha), French (pdques), and other Romance Janguages is taken from the Hebrew pesach, pa over. The English name, according to the Venerable Bede, comes from the Anglo-Saxon Hostre (from Teutonic Austré), a godde of light or spring, whose festival was celebrated in April 39 EASTER DUES There was long a dispute in the Christian Church as to the proper time for holding Easter, the Christians of the East celebrating it on the same day as that on which the Jewish pa over fell, that is, the 14th of Nisan (hence they were called quarto decimani), while the majority of the Church celebrated it on the Sunday next after this day. The controversy was decided by the Council of Nice (Niczea) in 325, which settled that it was to be reckoned as at present, namely, that Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon or next after the 21st ef March; and if the full moon bappens on a Sunday, Easter-day is the Sunday after, but, properly speaking, for the ‘full moon’ in the above the ‘fourteenth day of the moon’ should be_ substituted.—Cf. Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough.