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The Easter season is common to Jewish and Christian religions, and is accompanied by festive rites and traditions, of which religious and pagan versions survive today, peppered with numerous symbols.<\/p>\n
The first Passover,\u00a0Pessah<\/a>\u00a0, cited in the Old Testament, in the book of Exodus\u00a0(<\/a>\u00a0https:\/\/fr.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/S%C3%A9der_de_Pessa%27h).<\/p>\n Christ\u00a0Jesus died in Jerusalem, during the Jewish Passover, on the 14th of Nissan (first month of spring in the Jewish calendar \u2013 which corresponds to April 7 of the year 30 in our calendars)\u00a0.<\/a>\u00a0If the Christian Easter calendar was built on the Jewish liturgy, from the 4th\u00a0century\u00a0onwards \u00a0, it was established independently.<\/p>\n The time of Carnival-Lent, which lasts 40 days, ends with the time of Easter, a spring festival, whose name is written in the plural because it corresponds to several tenses. It is celebrated from Palm Sunday (or \u201cFlower Easter\u201d \u2013 one week before Easter) to Quasimodo Sunday (one week after Easter \u2013 the bell ringer of \u201cNotre-Dame de Paris\u201d, by Victor Hugo owes its name to the fact that he was collected on a Quasimodo Sunday).<\/p>\n During the Easter\u00a0triduum<\/a>\u00a0(the three Holy Days), Christians celebrate the Last Supper (Thursday), the crucifixion (Friday) and the resurrection of Christ (on the night of Saturday to Sunday). Over the centuries, various popular festivals have expanded this ritual time.<\/p>\n The Battle of Carnival and Careme, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, 1559. Wikimedia<\/p><\/div>\n This painting by\u00a0Pieter Brueghel the Elder<\/a>\u00a0, entitled\u00a0The Fight of Carnival against Lent<\/em>\u00a0, can be read as a commemorative calendar of festive customs from Christmas to Easter. In the center of the painting, a house dominates the village square.<\/p>\n The Battle of Carnival against Lent, Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526\/1530-1569), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Detail of the central part. Drawing SB\/Wikimedia , CC BY<\/p><\/div>\n Perched in front of the high window, a figure similar to a straw mannequin with a whitened face observes the scene from the highest point of view in this square.\u00a0Claude Gaignebet<\/a>\u00a0sees in him the Christ, the \u201cEaster Fool\u201d according to the apostle Paul, for whom \u201cthe cross is madness\u201d, because it seems unthinkable for Christians that salvation could come from a messiah crucified like a slave . To the left of this house, a child hands a loaf of bread (from Easter time) to a leper.<\/p>\n Child and leper, detail from the painting by Brueghel the Elder. Wikimedia<\/p><\/div>\n In successive circles, Brueghel tells us about the rites and festivities which, at the end of the 16th\u00a0century\u00a0\u00a0, occupied the towns and countryside throughout the year.\u00a0It depicts a popular Christianity which has become folklorized<\/a>\u00a0, in the words of the historian\u00a0Robert Muchembled<\/a>\u00a0, but which will retain its medieval substrate until the first decades of the 20th\u00a0century\u00a0\u00a0.<\/p>\n In the center, below the house, women prepare fish, large and small. (detail of Brueghel’s painting. Wikimedia<\/p><\/div>\n The \u201cfish of living water\u201d is the first living being blessed by God. This \u201cdelicious food\u201d appears on the\u00a0Shabbat<\/a>\u00a0(or Shabbat) table, this time of withdrawal and rest which ends the week in the Jewish world.<\/p>\n Tradition dating back to paleo-Christian times designates the\u00a0fish<\/a>\u00a0as a Christ and Eucharistic symbol. Tertullian, in his\u00a0Treatise on Baptism<\/em>\u00a0(\u00a0De Baptismo<\/em>\u00a01, 3), speaks of Christians as little fish,\u00a0pisciculi<\/em>\u00a0, because “following the example of the \u1f30\u03c7\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2, our Lord Jesus Christ, they were born in water . \u00bb<\/p>\n According to Saint Augustine, citing an acrostic from the\u00a0Sybiline Oracles<\/em><\/a>\u00a0, the letters composing the word fish in Greek,\u00a0\u1f30\u03c7\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 (ichthus)<\/a>\u00a0, could be an acronym for \u1f38\u03b7\u03c3\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 \u03a7\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u0398\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03a5\u1f31\u03cc\u03c2, \u03a3\u03c9\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\/\u00a0I \u0113so\u00fbs Khrist\u00f2s Theo\u00fb Ui\u00f3s S\u014dt\u1e17r<\/em>\u00a0(Jesus the Christ (or the anointed) of God the son, savior). This summary of the Christian faith is an omnipresent sign in early Christian funerary art (4th\u00a0century\u00a0\u00a0).<\/p>\n \u201cFish of the living\u201d, epitaph of Licinia (det.), end of the 3rd century, National Museum of the Baths of Diocletian, Rome. Sylvie Bethmont , Provided by the author<\/p><\/div>\n But it was also present in everyday life, Clement of Alexandria (around 150-220), cites in\u00a0The Pedagogue<\/em>\u00a0the\u00a0intaglio rings<\/a>\u00a0serving as seals which bear the image of a fish or the letters \u1f30\u03c7\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 \u2013 Ichthus or Ichtys, from the ancient Greek ichth\u00fas, \u201cfish\u201d, one of the major symbols used by the first Christians.<\/p>\n Celebrating the Eucharist for Christians is remembering the words of Christ: \u201cMy body is true food, my blood true drink\u201d (Gospel according to John 6, 51-58). According to\u00a0Dominique Rigaux,<\/a>\u00a0fish \u201cqualifies the Lord’s meal, in images of the Last Supper or monastic meals\u201d (\u00a0At the Lord’s Table<\/em>\u00a0, Cerf, 1989). \u201cLean\u201d food, it is consumed by everyone on Friday and Good Wednesday and Friday.<\/p>\n The Last Supper, mosaic in the central nave, Saint-Apollinaire-le-Neuf, Ravenna (Italy), before 540. Wikimedia<\/p><\/div>\n The New Testament calls Christ ”\u00a0\u00a0the lamb of God<\/a>\u00a0who takes away the sin of the world” and considers him to be slain as the Jewish Passover lamb.<\/p>\n Easter ends Lent. It’s time for a whole sweet bestiary. In Alsace, on Easter morning we eat osterl\u00e4mmele\u00a0or<\/a>\u00a0Easter Lamala, a cake baked in a lamb-shaped mold and covered with icing sugar. Among the sweet treats of festive Easter traditions,This gilded silver group, composed of a hen and her seven chicks, takes up a rich iconographic tradition, dating back to the first Christian images. This \u201chen means the Church\u201d a place of protection, according to art historian Nouredine Mezoughi.<\/p>\n The hen and her chicks, Treasure of the Cathedral of Monza, from a Lombard royal tomb. Provided by the author<\/p><\/div>\n The same symbolism is present in an illumination of a Hebrew Bible from the 14th\u00a0century\u00a0\u00a0. The hen feeding her chicks then representing the\u00a0Synagogue<\/a>\u00a0.<\/p>\n Judaism considers the egg to be a symbol of the cycle of death and life and the hard-boiled egg is part of the mourning meal, as well as the Seder.<\/p>\n In the Christian world, during the Middle Ages and until the 17th\u00a0century\u00a0\u00a0, the consumption of eggs, like that of meat, was prohibited during the forty days of Lent. Eggs not eaten during this time were decorated and offered on Easter Sunday. Among Orthodox Christians, the first decorated egg is painted red; it must have been laid on Maundy Thursday. At Easter, we break the shell of our (hard-boiled) egg against the egg of our neighbor at the table by exchanging these words: \u201cChrist is risen! Truly He is risen! \u00bb<\/p>\n In the courts of Europe during the Renaissance, fragile chicken eggs were replaced by golden eggs, decorated with precious stones. Everyone knows the eggs that at the end of the 19th\u00a0century\u00a0\u00a0the jeweler Faberg\u00e9 designed for Tsar Alexander III, offered each year for Easter to his wife and mother. Like a Russian doll,\u00a0The Hen’s Egg<\/a>\u00a0, the first created in 1885 by Faberg\u00e9, opens to reveal a matte golden yolk that contains a small hen.<\/p>\n The Chicken’s Egg, Faberg\u00e9, 1885. Wikimedia , CC BY<\/p><\/div>\n As a sign of mourning, the Catholic Church forbids the ringing of bells on Good Thursday and Friday. Children are sometimes still told that the bells, which went on a pilgrimage to Rome, return on Easter Sunday to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ, bringing back all kinds of sweets. It’s egg hunt time!<\/p>\n In Germany and Alsace, there are rabbits called\u00a0\u201cEaster hares\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(Osterhase), who come and leave egg-shaped treats in the gardens for good children.<\/p>\n The white rabbit, an ambivalent symbol which comes to us from the Middle Ages, can in turn be associated with virginal purity and with the unbridled sexuality which is expressed in the animal kingdom in the summer.<\/p>\nEaster, the holiday for Christians<\/strong><\/h4>\n
A visual calendar of Christian holidays<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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In the beginning\u2026 the fish<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Easter Bestiary<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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From chicken to egg\u2026<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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When bells and rabbits lay eggs<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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