復活節風俗大揭祕

As with almost all "Christian" holidays, Easter has been secularized and commercialized. The dichotomous nature of Easter and its symbols, however, is not necessarily a modern fabrication。

和其它基督教節日一樣，復活節正慢慢"被世俗"和"被商業"。即便如此，復活節的這兩個性質和它的標誌並不是必然的"現代產物"。

The History of Easter

復活節的歷史

Since its conception as a holy celebration in the second century, Easter has had its non-religious side. In fact, Easter was originally a pagan festival。

"復活節是神聖的慶典"的概念在公元200年已經形成，自那時起，復活節就站在了非宗教的一方。而事實上，最初的復活節是異教徒的節日。

The ancient Saxons celebrated the return of spring with an uproarious festival commemorating their goddess of offspring and of springtime, Eastre. When the second-century Christian missionaries encountered the tribes of the north with their pagan celebrations, they attempted to convert them to Christianity. They did so, however, in a clandestine manner。

古撒克遜人慶祝春至時非常熱鬧，因爲這也紀念他們祖先和春天的"復活"。在公元200年，基督教的傳教士並偶然來到這個擁有異教慶典的北方部落。這些傳教士嘗試讓撒克遜人改信基督教，而他們使用的方法非常隱祕。

It would have been suicide for the very early Christian converts to celebrate their holy days with observances that did not coincide with celebrations that already existed. To save lives, the missionaries cleverly decided to spread their religious message slowly throughout the populations by allowing them to continue to celebrate pagan feasts, but to do so in a Christian manner。

早期的基督教人爲了慶祝他們神聖的節日而在儀式中自殺，然而這些儀式並沒有與以前的慶祝儀式相類似。爲了拯救生命，傳教士略施小計，在人羣中慢慢散佈神明的信息，謊稱神明允許人們繼續慶祝異教節日，但是要使用基督教的方式進行慶祝。

As it happened, the pagan festival of Eastre occurred at the same time of year as the Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ. It made sense, therefore, to alter the festival itself, to make it a Christian celebration as converts were slowly won over. The early name, Eastre, was eventually changed to its modern spelling, Easter。

就這樣，復活節在同年出現了，而且被當作耶穌復活的基督教儀式。因此，這個節日就被慢慢被改變，漸漸轉變爲基督教的一個節日。於是，人們漸漸皈依基督教。而復活節早期的名字"Eastre"，最後也被改成流傳至今的拼法"Easter"。