A Brief Explanation of Easter

I was watching television this evening when an advertisement came on for chocolate. Not surprising given the time of year. The ad detailed how the gods of Olympus celebrated Easter with their particular brand of chocolate. Which made me wonder; exactly how much more can we debase our understanding of Easter? The gods of Olympus, to the best of my knowledge, had very little direct involvement in Easter. They were far too busy eating pomegranate seeds, changing people into various vegetables and themselves into bulls and golden showers to seduce mortal women (seriously were Greek women really into bestiality and golden showers?). Even with my somewhat shaky grasp of theology I know that Easter doesn't rate much of a mention here. So I thought I would detail the history of Easter as I understand it.

A long time ago, about thirty odd years after the birth of Christ there was religious strife in the Middle East (I know, I was shocked too). The principal cause of this strife was a jobbing carpenter named Jesus Christ. He was getting the local religious authorities in a complete frenzy because of his habit of pointing out where said authorities were going wrong and recommending improvements. Think of him as the Martin Luther of his day.

Anyway these religious authorities approached the local governor, a Roman named Pontius Pilate, and demanded that he do something about this long haired, young radical. The Romans were ruling this area for reasons too long and too bloody to go into now but being the murderous military dictatorship in residence they were no keener on rabble rousing preachers than the religious leaders. For forms sake Pilate demurred and gently pointed out that Jesus hadn't really done anything wrong but there is a fair bit of circumstantial evidence to indicate that the Romans would have been quite happy to see his career come to a messy end. Jesus was a popular, active young man with an increasing following and he wasn't the emperor. As far as the Romans were concerned that was quite enough.

Making a big show of bowing to popular pressure Pilate ostentatiously absolved himself of what was about to happen and had Jesus crucified. To understand how unlikely this show of reluctance was you need to realise that less than fifty years later the Romans would pretty much raze Judea to the ground while quelling a rebellion that was the result of even more popular pressure.

Now, here is where it begins to get weird. Jesus' followers claimed that he rose from the grave three days after his death and appeared to them with his wounds still upon him. Well, religions have started from less likely origins, Scientology comes to mind for a start. Over the next few centuries Christianity (a little egotistical to name it after himself, even Scientologists don't call themselves Hubbardists) spread in secret until eventually it was adopted as the Roman state religion. It is interesting to note how rapidly the Christian church reconciled itself to tyranny once they were the ones doing the tyrannising.

From modest beginnings the Christian religion spread all over the Roman world. This was probably made easier by the fact that the area was all under one government (as a sidebar does anyone else wonder why Italy still hasn't managed to achieve the degree of efficiency and organisation it possessed under the emperors?). When the religion hit western Europe however there was a problem. The pagans already had a religion which they too had shamelessly named after themselves.

The Christians, looking for ways to ease their belief system onto the somewhat reluctant folk of the west simply co-opted a number of pagan celebrations and re badged them as Christian holidays. It was decided that Easter should happen round about the Spring equinox which was a traditional celebration of fertility and rebirth. Not surprisingly eggs (being unborn chickens) and rabbits (who screw like, well, rabbits) were traditional symbols associated with this celebration. The Christian church scooped up the lot and squeezed it into their own holiday without bothering too much about whether it fitted. This is why we commemorate the tragic death of an idealistic religious reformer at the hands of a cynical, murderous government and a deeply compromised religious establishment by having rabbits deliver eggs. I don't know why the chocolate but I'm prepared to bet its an early twentieth century marketing ploy by a chocolate company.

In summary two conclusions can be drawn; firstly that the church was a lot more flexible and imaginative in its early centuries of existence than it is now and secondly that I am going straight to Hell.