History of Easter Eggs

People have been decorating eggs for longer than we've been celebrating easter. Eggs and rabbits have been a pagan symbol of fertility since the birth of Christ (or his re-birth).

The Jewish Passover Seder service uses a hard-boiled egg flavored with salt water as a symbol both of new life at the Temple service in Jerusalem which, in turn, may have come from earlier Roman Spring feasts.

The term "Easter" originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE.) a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre) who was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe.

Also, the "Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility [was] known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos."

Even though many think of Easter as a Christian festival, we can never escape it's pagan roots. Many scholars believe Easter to be a pagan fertility rite in origin celebrating the rebirth of life in spring.

There are so many theories as to the origins of the Easter egg celebrations. One of the stories is that it began because one emporor claimed that the Resurrection was as likely as eggs turning red.

A similar view is that after the resurrection Mary Magdalene went to the Emporer of Rome and as she said "Christ is Risen", gave him a red egg. The egg was meant to symbolise the grave and the life within, and the red was supposed to indicate the blood of Christ redeeming hte world.

Another is that it came as a celebration as to the end of Lent where eggs were seen as "meat" and were forbidden during the period of Lent.