Æthelwold (956–962), and Æthelwine, surnamed Dei amicus (962–992).
See Bede, Hist. Eccl. (ed. C. Plummer, Oxford. 1896), ii. 5, 15, iii. 7, 8, 18-20, 22, iv. 3, 5, 23; Saxon Chronicle (ed. Earle and Plummer, Oxford, 1899), s. a. 823, 838, 866, 870, 880, 885, 890, 894, 905, 921; Historia Brittonum (San-Marte, 1844), s. 59; H. Sweet, Oldest English Texts, p. 171 (London, 1885). (F. G. M. B.)
EASTBOURNE, a municipal borough (1883) in the Eastbourne parliamentary division of Sussex, England, 61 m. S.S.E. of London by the London, Brighton & South Coast railway. Pop. (1891) 34,969; (1901) 43,344; (local census, 1909) 49,286. It is situated 3 m. N.E. of Beachy Head, the loftiest headland on the English Channel coast. It once consisted of three parts—the village of East Bourne, a mile inland; South Bourne, lying back from the shore; and Seahouses, facing the beach. The church of St Mary, the ancient parish church of East Bourne, is a fine transitional Norman building; and there are numerous modern churches and chapels. The principal buildings and institutions are the town hall and municipal buildings, the Princess Alice Memorial and other hospitals, a free library and, among many high-class schools, Eastbourne College for boys, founded in 1867. There is a fine pier with pavilion, and a marine parade nearly 3 m. in extent, arranged in terraced promenades. Devonshire Park of 13 acres is pleasantly laid out, and contains a pavilion and a theatre. The duke of Devonshire is the principal landowner. Golf links are laid out on the neighbouring downs. A Roman villa was formerly seen close to the shore, but it is not now visible. The corporation consists of a mayor, 8 aldermen and 24 councillors. In 1910 the corporation promoted a bill in parliament to add the Hampden Park district in the parish of Willingdon to the borough and to make Eastbourne, with this extension, a county borough.
EAST CHICAGO, a city of Lake county, Indiana, U.S.A., on Lake Michigan, about 19 m. S.E. of the business centre of Chicago. Pop. (1890) 1255; (1900) 3411 (1331 foreign-born); (1910) 19,098. It is served by several railways, including the Pennsylvania, the Wabash, the Chicago Terminal Transfer (whose shops are here), the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Chicago, Indiana & Southern, and the Indiana Harbor railways. East Chicago covers an area whose greatest dimensions are 4 by 312 m. That part of the city along the lake, known as Indiana Harbor, dates from 1901 and has grown very rapidly because of its position at the southernmost part of the Calumet District, and because of the meeting here of railway and lake commerce. A good harbour has been constructed, a new ship canal connecting the harbour with the Calumet river. East Chicago is industrially virtually a part of “Greater” Chicago; among its manufactures are iron and steel, cement, lumber, boilers, hay presses, chains, chemicals and foundry products. East Chicago was chartered as a city in 1893.
EASTER, the annual festival observed throughout Christendom in commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The name Easter (Ger. Ostern), like the names of the days of the week, is a survival from the old Teutonic mythology. According to Bede (De Temp. Rat. c. xv.) it is derived from Eostre, or Ostâra, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, to whom the month answering to our April, and called Eostur-monath, was dedicated. This month, Bede says, was the same as the mensis paschalis, “when the old festival was observed with the gladness of a new solemnity.”
The name of the festival in other languages (as Fr. pâques; Ital. pasqua; Span. pascua; Dan. paaske; Dutch paasch; Welsh pasg) is derived from the Lat. pascha and the Gr. πάσχα. These in turn come from the Chaldee or Aramaean form פַסְהָא pascha’, of the Hebrew name of the Passover festival פֶסַח pesach, from פָסַח “he passed over,” in memory of the great deliverance, when the destroying angel “passed over the houses, of the children of Israel in Egypt when he smote the Egyptians” (Exod. xii. 27).
An erroneous derivation of the word pascha from the Greek πάσχειν, “to suffer,” thus connected with the sufferings or passion of the Lord, is given by some of the Fathers of the Church, as Irenaeus, Tertullian and others, who were ignorant of Hebrew. St Augustine (In Joann. Tract. 55) notices this false etymology, shows how similarity of sound had led to it, and gives the correct derivation.
There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the apostolic Fathers. The sanctity of special times was an idea absent from the minds of the first Christians. “The whole of time is a festival unto Christians because of the excellency of the good things which have been given” is the comment of St Chrysostom on 1 Cor. v. 7, which has been erroneously supposed to refer to an apostolic observance of Easter. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates (Hist. Eccl. v. 22) states, with perfect truth, that neither the Lord nor his apostles enjoined the keeping of this or any other festival. He says: “The apostles had no thought of appointing festival days, but of promoting a life of blamelessness and piety”; and he attributes the observance of Easter by the church to the perpetuation of an old usage, “just as many other customs have been established.”
This is doubtless the true statement of the case. The first Christians continued to observe the Jewish festivals, though in a new spirit, as commemorations of events which those festivals had foreshadowed. Thus the Passover, with a new conception added to it of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb and the first fruits from the dead, continued to be observed, and became the Christian Easter.
Although the observance of Easter was at a very early period the practice of the Christian church, a serious difference as to the day for its observance soon arose between the Christians of Jewish and those of Gentile descent, which led to a long and bitter controversy. The point at issue was when the Paschal fast was to be reckoned as ending. With the Jewish Christians, whose leading thought was the death of Christ as the Paschal Lamb, the fast ended at the same time as that of the Jews, on the fourteenth day of the moon at evening, and the Easter festival immediately followed, without regard to the day of the week. The Gentile Christians, on the other hand, unfettered by Jewish traditions, identified the first day of the week with the Resurrection, and kept the preceding Friday as the commemoration of the crucifixion, irrespective of the day of the month. With the one the observance of the day of the month, with the other the observance of the day of the week, was the guiding principle.
Generally speaking, the Western churches kept Easter on the first day of the week, while the Eastern churches followed the Jewish rule, and kept Easter on the fourteenth day. St Polycarp, the disciple of St John the Evangelist and bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome in 159 to confer with Anicetus, the bishop of that see, on the subject; and urged the tradition, which he had received from the apostle, of observing the fourteenth day. Anicetus, however, declined to admit the Jewish custom in the churches under his jurisdiction, but readily communicated with Polycarp and those who followed it. About forty years later (197) the question was discussed in a very different spirit between Victor, bishop of Rome, and Polycrates, metropolitan of proconsular Asia. That province was the only portion of Christendom which still adhered to the Jewish usage, and Victor demanded that all should adopt the usage prevailing at Rome. This Polycrates firmly refused to agree to, and urged many weighty reasons to the contrary, whereupon Victor proceeded to excommunicate Polycrates and the Christians who continued the Eastern usage. He was, however, restrained from actually proceeding to enforce the decree of excommunication, owing to the remonstrance of Irenaeus and the bishops of Gaul. Peace was thus maintained, and the Asiatic churches retained their usage unmolested (Euseb. H.E. v. 23-25). We find the Jewish usage from time to time reasserting itself after this, but it never prevailed to any large extent.
A final settlement of the dispute was one among the other reasons which led Constantine to summon the council of Nicaea in 325. At that time the Syrians and Antiochenes were the solitary champions of the observance of the fourteenth day. The decision of the council was unanimous that Easter was to be kept on Sunday, and on the same Sunday throughout the world,
