Easter

== Early Christianity ==
[[File:Last-supper-from-Kremikovtsi.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Last Supper]] celebrated by Jesus and his disciples. The early Christians, too, would have celebrated this meal to commemorate Jesus's death and subsequent resurrection.]]

As the Gospels assert that both the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus occurred during the week of Passover, the first Christians timed the observance of the annual celebration of the resurrection in relation to Passover.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Landau|first=Brent|title=Why Easter is called Easter, and other little-known facts about the holiday|url=http://theconversation.com/why-easter-is-called-easter-and-other-little-known-facts-about-the-holiday-75025|access-date=3 April 2021|website=The Conversation |date=12 April 2017 |archive-date=12 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210812003604/https://theconversation.com/why-easter-is-called-easter-and-other-little-known-facts-about-the-holiday-75025|url-status=live}}</ref> Direct evidence for a more fully formed Christian festival of Pascha (Easter) begins to appear in the mid-2nd century. Perhaps the earliest extant primary source referring to Easter is a mid-2nd-century Paschal [[homily]] attributed to [[Melito of Sardis]], which characterizes the celebration as a well-established one.<ref name="Melito">
{{cite journal| last = [[Melito of Sardis]]| title = Homily on the Pascha| journal = [[Kerux]]| publisher = [[Northwest Theological Seminary]]| url = http://www.kerux.com/documents/KeruxV4N1A1.asp| access-date = 28 March 2007| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070312203732/http://www.kerux.com/documents/KeruxV4N1A1.asp| archive-date = 12 March 2007 | df = dmy-all}}</ref> Evidence for another kind of annually recurring Christian festival, those commemorating the martyrs, began to appear at about the same time as the above homily.<ref>Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward Yarnold, and Paul Bradshaw, Eds., ''The Study of Liturgy, Revised Edition'', Oxford University Press, New York, 1992, p. 474.</ref>

While martyrs' days (usually the individual dates of martyrdom) were celebrated on fixed dates in the local solar calendar, the date of Easter was fixed by means of the local Jewish<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Genung|first=Charles Harvey|title=The Reform of the Calendar|jstor=25105305|journal=The North American Review|volume=179|issue=575|date=1904|pages=569–583}}</ref> [[lunisolar calendar]]. This is consistent with the celebration of Easter having entered Christianity during its earliest, [[Jewish Christianity|Jewish period]], but does not leave the question free of doubt.<ref>Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward Yarnold, and Paul Bradshaw, Eds., ''The Study of Liturgy, Revised Edition'', Oxford University Press, New York, 1992, p. 459:"[Easter] is the only feast of the Christian Year that can plausibly claim to go back to apostolic times&nbsp;... [It] must derive from a time when Jewish influence was effective&nbsp;... because it depends on the lunar calendar (every other feast depends on the solar calendar)."</ref>

The ecclesiastical historian [[Socrates Scholasticus]] attributes the observance of Easter by the church to the [[religious syncretism|perpetuation of pre-Christian custom]], "just as many other customs have been established", stating that neither Jesus nor his [[Apostles in the New Testament|apostles]] enjoined the keeping of this or any other festival. Although he describes the details of the Easter celebration as deriving from local custom, he insists the feast itself is universally observed.<ref>Socrates, ''Church History'', 5.22, in {{cite web| last = Schaff| first = Philip| title = The Author's Views respecting the Celebration of Easter, Baptism, Fasting, Marriage, the Eucharist, and Other Ecclesiastical Rites.| work = Socrates and Sozomenus Ecclesiastical Histories| publisher = Calvin College Christian Classics Ethereal Library| date = 13 July 2005| url = http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf202.ii.viii.xxiii.html| access-date = 28 March 2007| archive-date = 16 March 2010| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100316220259/http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf202.ii.viii.xxiii.html| url-status = live}}</ref>