1. Term

The origin of the English word “Easter” is uncertain. In the eighth century the Venerable Bede (ca. 673–735) proposed that it derived from Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. Modern English-language dictionaries suggest that it comes ultimately from a Germanic stem meaning “east.”

In Romance and other languages, the word for Easter (e.g., Fr. Pâques; Sp. Pascua; Russ. Paskhar) comes from the Heb. pesaḥ through the Gk. pascha. Recent liturgical usage has employed …