A joyous Passover

I noticed in Sandro Magister's post on Good Friday, in which he offered Easter greetings in four different languages, that the English language is the only language of those four (English, Italian, French and Spanish) in which the term for Easter lacks any etymological connection to the Jewish word for Passover. Here they are:

• Best Wishes for a Happy Easter! (English)
• Tanti auguri di buona Pasqua! (Italian)
• Joyeuses Pâques! (French)
• ¡Feliz Pascua de Resurrección! (Spanish)

'Pasqua', 'Pâques', and 'Pascua' are each etymologically derived from the term Pesach (Hebrew: פֶּסַח) or, more precisely, the verb "pasàch" (Hebrew: פָּסַח) which is first mentioned in the Old Testament account of the flight from Egypt (Exodus 12:23) in Moses' words that God "will pass over" the houses of the Children of Israel during the last of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, in which the first-born were killed. ("Passover," Wikipedia).

Granted, there are other European languages in which other terms, not derived from Hebrew, are used to refer to the Sunday marking the feast of the Lord's Resurrection and the liturgical season of Easter. Examples include Wielkanoc (Polish), Veľká Noc (Slovak), and Velika noč (Slovenian) -- each of which translates literally as "the Great Night"; or Velikonoce (Czech), which means "Great Nights" (plural, no singular exists); or Vialikdzen’ (Belarusian), Velikden (Bulgarian), and Veligden (Macedonian) -- each of which means "the Great Day"; or Lieldienas (Latvian), which means "the Great Days" (no singular exists). There are, of course, other variations in other languages too.

"Easter," by the way, is not derived etymologically from the Babylonian fertility goddess Ishtar (other variants: Eshtar, Astarte and Ashtoreth), no matter what the phonetic similarities may suggest to the overheated imaginations of Romophobe Fundamentalists like Ralph Woodrow, Alexander Hislop, and their red headed stepchildren. Europe never had a cult of Babylonian goddess worship. Rather, it derives from the name of an Anglo Saxon goddess, Eostre, who was celebrated during the season of Eosturmonath, the equivalent of April. As the British Benedictine monk, the Venerable Bede (672 - 735) explains:

Eosturmonath, qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum quae Eostre vocabatur et cui in illo festa celebrabant nomen habuit.

("Eosturmonath, which is now interpreted as the paschal month, was formerly named after the goddess Eostre, and has given its name to the festival.") (De temporum ratione)^[1]

Nonetheless, I wish that references to this most important religious feast of the Christian liturgical year could be expressed in our language in a way that more directly exhibited the connections with the Jewish Passover, since that is what Jesus is:

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast. Allelujah!

This is not Judaizing. It is simply fact: Christianity is preeminently Jewish. The Church is the New Israel. The word 'Allelujah' or 'Hallelujah' is Hebrew and means "[Let us] praise (הַלְּלוּ) Jah (Yah) (יָהּ)" -- 'Jah' or 'Yah' meaning 'God'. 'Amen' is Hebrew (אָמֵן ’) and means "So be it" or "Truly." Many of the traditional prayers of the Mass are derived from Hebrew liturgical sources, as Louis Bouyer shows in Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharist (1989). Many of these connections have been eclipsed by developments over the last few of generations in the effort to make Catholicism more accessible to contemporary society. This, I think, is highly unfortunate. We have been so immersed in chocolate Easter bunnies and Easter eggs that we've lost touch with the Hebrew roots of this Catholic feast on the level of our popular culture.^[2]

Wikipedia lists 35 languages with terms for Easter that derive from the Hebrew Pesach (פסח) for "Passover." These include:

• Latin Pascha or Festa Paschalia
• Greek Πάσχα (Paskha)
• Afrikaans Paasfees
• Albanian Pashkët
• Catalan Pasqua
• Danish Påske
• Dutch Pasen or paasfeest
• Finnish Pääsiäinen
• French Pâques
• Icelandic Páskar
• Indonesian Paskah
• Italian Pasqua
• Japanese 聖大パスハ (Seitai Pasuha, "Holy and Great Pascha")
• Rhine German Paisken
• Malayalam: പെശഹ (Pæsacha/Pæsaha)
• Norwegian Påske
• Persian Pas`h
• Polish Pascha
• Portuguese Páscoa
• Romanian Paşte
• Russian Пасха (Paskha)
• Spanish Pascua
• Swedish Påsk
• Tagalog (Philippines) Pasko ng Muling Pagkabuhay (literally "the Pasch of the Resurrection")
• Turkish Paskalya
• Welsh Pasg

From now on, I think I may undertake to respond to greetings of "Happy Easter" with some variation of "A Joyous Passover." I know there is nothing essentially wrong with appropriating the term 'Easter' as we have for Christian use. But I like the solidarity of "Joyous Passover" with "Joyeuses Pâques!" and the numerous other languages offering variations on the Hebrew Pesach (פסח) for "Passover." Furthermore, it seems eminently fitting.

Notes:

1. St. Bede, De temporum ratione ("On the Reckoning of Time"), Ch. xv, "The English months" (Source, in Latin), see Wikipedia, "Easter, Etymology" and "Bede's account of Eostre." [back]


2. In this connection, there are several books that come to mind (in addition to Bouyer's excellent volume cited above) that touch on this subject:
   
   
   • James J. Meagher, How Christ Said the First Mass or the Lord's Last Supper (1985) This book is by a traditional Catholic author and explores the Old Testament sources of the Mass in detail.
     
     
   • Mike Aquila, The Mass of the Early Christians (2001) This volume by a well-known contemporary Catholic writer explores the apostolic origins of the Mass and its Jewish antecedents, showing the continuity of the development from origins and throughout history.
     
     
   • Ceil Rosen and Moishe Rosen, Christ in the Passover: Why is This Night Different (1978) This popular little booklet is by a Jewish Evangelical Christian convert and founder of the Jews for Jesus, and explores the Christian symbolism in the Jewish Passover Seder and Haggadah. The symbolism is amazingly rich, even though non-Christian Jews will obviously dispute his interpretations. [back]

Addendum

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf offers a podcast from Rome, "Tenebrae factae sunt - Good Friday ", as he indicates in his blog on the subject, What Does The Prayer Really Say? April 6, 2007. [Hat tip to Bornacatholic].