Easter Customs….
n“Motives of the same
sort may have led the ecclesiastical authorities
to assimilate the Easter festival of the death and resurrection of their Lord to the festival of the
death and resurrection of
another Asiatic god which fell at the same season. Now the Easter rites still observed in Greece, Sicily and southern Italy bear in some respects
a striking resemblance to
the rites of Adonis, and I have suggested
that the Church may have consciously adapted
the new festival to its heathen predecessor for the sake of winning souls to Christ”
- Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough, 1993, p. 359.
- Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough, 1993, p. 359.