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rites in ancient Germany, Greece,
and even India.
Hot-cross buns, interestingly
enough, were eaten by pagan Sax–
ons in honor of Easter, their goddess
of Light. The Mexicans and Per–
uvians hada similar custom. In fact,
the custom of eating hot-cross buns
was practically universal in the an–
cient pagan world!
Easter fires, al though not a wide–
spread phenomenon today, are still
lit in sorne northern European
countries, notably Germany. This
practice is clearly traceable to pagan
an tiquity.
And what about Easter sunrise
services? They too go back to the
pagan custom of prostrating before
the rising springtide sun. The god–
dess of light, Eastre or Ostera, was
identified with the rising sun.
Throughout the Middle Ages, this
pagan custom was continued. "A
universal celebration was held in
the Middle Ages at the hour of sun–
rise. According to an old legend, the
sun dances on Easter morning or
makes three cheerful jumps at the
moment of rising, in honor of
Christ's Resurrection. . . . All over
Europe people would gather in
open plains or on the crests of hills
to watch the spectacle of sunrise on
Easter Day. The moment of day–
break was marked by the shooti ng
of cannon and the ringing of
bells.... In most places the crowds
would pray as the sun appeared....
From this medieval custom dates
OUr modero
SUNRISE SERVICE
held
by many congregations in this coun–
try on Easter Sunday" (Weiser,
The
Easter Book,
pp. 158-159).
Plainly, then, today's Easter has
its roots deep
in
ancient paganism -
centuries before the birth of Christ
- and its rites have scarcely
changed.
The Earliest Easter Story
From the literature of the ancient
Sumerians
in
Mesopotamia comes
the earliest legend of the death and
10
resurrection of a pagan deity - the
first Easter story.
Tammuz, whose name meant
"true son of the deep waters," was
married to the goddess Inanna or
Ishtar (pronounced Eestar), the
"mother goddess" who represented
Mother Earth. According to the leg–
end, when Tammuz died, Inanna
was grief-stricken and followed
him
to the underworld to the realm of
Eresh-Kigal, queen of the dead. In
her absence, the earth lost its fertil–
ity, crops ceased to grow, and ani–
mals ceased mating - all life was
threatened. Then Ea, god of water
and wisdom, sent a messenger from
heaven to the underworld to bring
back Inanna or l shtar. The messen–
ger sprinkled lnanna and Tammuz
with the water of life, giving them
power to return to the light of the
sun for six months of the year. Each
year, therefore, Tammuz would
again retum to the realm of the
dead for six months, Inanna would
pursue him, and her grief would
move Ea to rescue them.
This ancient legend, very wide–
spread in the Middle East, traveled
to Phoenicia and Syria, where Taro–
muz was called Adon and Inanna
was called Astarte. In Greece, they
became known as Adonis and Aph–
rodite. The original legend under–
went many changes in its passage to
other countries. but the essential
theme of autumnal death and ver–
nal resurrection remained. In Asia
Minor. Adonis was called Attis and
his wife-mother was Cybele, Rhea
or Dindymene. T he Egyptian myth
of Osiris, who married (in this ver–
sion his sister) Isis, the Great
Mother goddess of the Egyptian
pantheon, springs from the same
source.
The Egyptian Osiris, put to death
by Set, was, it is said, brought back
to life and emerged from a sarcoph–
agus or from a broken egg. On ris–
ing from the dead, he became lord
of the Tuat or underworld and the
judge of the living and the dead. He
was called "Eternity and Ever–
lastingness," the one who would
come again to reign upon the earth.
Says Alan W. Watts
in
Easter, Its
Story and Meaning:
"It would be
tedious to describe
in
detail all
that has been handed down to us
about the various rites of Tammuz,
Adonis, Kore, Dionysus, and many
others.... Sorne of them were cele–
brated at the vernal equinox, or
thereabouts, and sorne at midsum–
mer. But their universal theme -
the drama of death and resurrection
- makes them the forerunners of
the Christian Easter. and thus the
.first 'easter services'
"(p.
58).
Writes J ames George Frazer in
The Golden Bough,
"When we re–
flect how often the Church has skill–
fully contrived to plant the seeds of
the new faith on the
old stock ofpa–
ganism,
we may surmise that the
Easter celebration of the dead and
risen Christ was grafted upon a sim–
ilar celebration of the
dead and risen
Adonis.
which ... was celebrated in
Syria at the same season" (p. 345).
Frazer notes the striking sim–
ilarities bctween the rites of Adonis
and the Easter rites observed in
Greece, Sicily, and southem ltaly.
He points out that ecclesiastical au–
thorities were motivated to assimi–
late the rites of the risen Adonis to
celebrate the risen Christ.
In analyzing the strange customs
PLAIN TRUTH Morch 1973