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Does Easter Have Pagan Origins?

...n is that Christians have been celebrating (and debating) Easter/Passover since at least AD 150, long before Constantine or even any other “pagan” influence could take hold. Is the Name “Easter” really the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre? In short: no. There’s also no link between “Ishtar” and “Easter” either. Ishar was an ancient Near Eastern fertility goddess, but just because the names sound somewhat similar in English, it doesn’t mean there is any etymological connection at all. Ishtar is also originally Akkadian, which was a language spoken in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq and Syria) between about 2,800 BC and 500 AD, and was also the godde...

Lent: Day 6 - Ignatius to the Magnesians

...elates to Christians, “For if we still live according to the Jewish law,” Ignatius says, “we acknowledge that we have not received grace”, which you can see is a statement echoing Paul’s sentiments throughout his letters to the churches – “you are not under law, but under grace” as he wrote in Romans 6:14 (and Rom 7:4,6; Gal 4:21 etc). This whole chapter is pretty much a short summary of Paul’s teaching on the Law and how we Christians are no longer bound by it; "You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace" (Gal 5:4), or as Ignatius phrases it, "it is absurd to profess Christ Je...

Lent Day 28: Athanasius: Life of Anthony: Chaps. 71-80

...fs of the Christians for the preaching of the cross, which as we know from Scripture, is not something unexpected (1 Cor 1:18). On hearing their objections, Anthony answered them by turning their own beliefs against them; Which is more beautiful, to confess the Cross or to attribute to those whom you call gods adultery and the seduction of boys? [...] Next, which is better, to say that the Word of God was not changed, but, being the same, He took a human body for the salvation and well-being of man, that having shared in human birth He might make man partake in the divine and spiritual nature; or to liken the divine to senseless animals and consequently to wo...

The Problem of Suffering and How We Approach it

...The topic of human suffering is a subject many Christians struggle with, and is an issue many theologians have written about over the centuries — so it's definitely not something I can fully address in a single blog post! But there are some general principles we can find in Scripture that many Christians can/do accept, which should act as a starting point to addressing this subject, such as: We live in a fallen world due to sin (Gen 3), and so things aren’t perfect and neither are people, therefore suffering can happen from illness, nature, and human action (or inaction). Not all suffering is necessarily “bad”, from a Christian perspective. For exam...

Creedal Christians: The Apostle's Creed

...ongst the Christians. Most often, the need for creeds arose in opposition to heresy so that the Church could point to what was historically taught by Christ and the Apostles to show what was ancient and true, as opposed to new and “novel” doctrines. The Old Roman Creed The text of the Old Roman Creed survives in a letter from a bishop Marcellus of Ancyra, which was sent to Julius, the bishop of Rome, dating back to around 340–360 AD where it was mainly used as a baptismal text in the Roman church. Roughly 50 years later, Tyrannius Rufinus (an Italian monk) wrote a commentary on this creed whilst translating it into Latin, where he made a note about the...

What was so good about Good Friday?

...the early Christians didn't care about this event in the same way we do today. And history would tell us this as well, as celebrating birthdays were a pagan/Roman tradition, the Christians had nothing to do with it. It wasn't until around the 4th Century when Pope Julius declared December 25th as the date in order to corresponded with the Roman feast of Saturnalia. But the real celebration, and the main thrust and focus in the New Testament is the death of Jesus and his subsequent resurrection. While there does seem to be some evidence to suggest that by the 2nd Century, early Christians were celebrating Easter, it sometimes feels like the Modern Church ha...