It wouldn't have been different from the first, as the
church began as a
Jewish sect which would already have been celebrating Passover with everyone else. They probably added Jesus' resurrection to their own celebration, and eventually lost contact with the
Jewish festival. There were many
Christian communities scattered about in the 1st Century, they were probably very diverse (all the churches mentioned in the New Testament are different), and it would be a mistake to assume they were all doing the same thing. According to a letter written to the
church of
Alexandria from the Council of Nicea (325), some churches
had celebrated Ease Gospel story, uisr on the same date as the passover, and henceforth they were all to change to the dating adopted by
Rome. So clearly there was a dispute. I'm trying to think what I might have that would go into the
history of it, but I'm not sure. My library's a
bit short on the patristic era.
'Eostre' was the British name, adopted from the name of a local goddess. I'm not sure which
harmony you're referring to, but they were basically rewritings of the Gospel story, using the four canonical Gospels and sometimes other sources. This one is probably going to be an English
work which assimilates the story to English culture. The best comparison is with the traditional
Christmas story, which conflates Matthew and Luke, adds material from the Infancy Gospels, and manages to be untrue to all its sources. The main reason why they were popular was the sheer expense of books before the age of printing. Even a set of the four Gospels would have been beyond all but the richest of kings. A
complete Bible would have been around seven years
work for a skilled copyist, and the
price would have been astronomical. As a comparison, I've been told that a
complete Torah scroll, containing the first five books of the Old Testament, as used in synagogues, is a year's
work for a scribe, and is worth around 30 000 pounds Sterling.