Page "Easter" Paragraph 24

The first Christians, Jewish and Gentile, were certainly aware of the Hebrew calendar (; ; ; ; ), but there is no direct evidence that they celebrated any specifically Christian annual festivals.

Direct evidence for the Easter festival begins to appear in the mid-2nd century.

Perhaps the earliest extant primary source referencing Easter is a mid-2nd century Paschal homily attributed to Melito of Sardis, which characterizes the celebration as a well-established one.

Evidence for another kind of annual Christian festival, the commemoration of martyrs, begins to appear at about the same time as evidence for the celebration of Easter.

But while martyrs ' days ( usually the individual dates of martyrdom ) were celebrated on fixed dates in the local solar calendar, the date of Easter was fixed by means of the local Jewish lunisolar calendar.

This is consistent with the celebration of Easter having entered Christianity during its earliest, Jewish period, but does not leave the question free of doubt.