pascha

Forms

pascha n or f (genitive paschae or paschatis or paschatos); variously declined, first declension, third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek πάσχα (páskha, “Passover”), which is from Aramaic פַּסְחָא (pasḥā), from Biblical Hebrew פֶּסַח (pésaḥ).^[1][2][3]

Christian writers argued about its origin.^[4] Lactantius and others derived it from Greek πάσχω (páskhō, “to suffer”), as a figure of the Passion, while Augustine defended the Hebrew origin, explained as “passing over”.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It appears in Tertullian, who speaks of the feast days of Easter (sollennibus Paschae).^[5]

Semantic evolution

It named both the Jewish Passover and the Christian Easter, and in the Vulgate also the paschal lamb.^[5][3] It was declined in the first declension as a feminine and in the third as a neuter (paschatis), and sometimes not declined at all.^[5][2][4]

In Medieval Latin it kept these senses and was used of Christ as the Paschal Lamb;^[2][6] phrases such as dies paschae named Easter week,^[2] and British sources called Palm Sunday pascha floridum and the Sunday after Easter pascha clausum.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian names the feast of Easter.^[5][7]
• c. 340–402 AD – Symmachus writes of the days of Easter.^[5][7]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it for the paschal lamb.^[3][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Late Latin) The Jewish Passover.^[5][2]
2. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Easter.^[5][8]
3. (Late Latin) The paschal lamb.^[3][2]
4. (Medieval Latin) Christ as the Paschal Lamb.^[2][6]

Word family

• paschālis

Related words

• phase

Usage notes

Pascha was used as a feminine of the first declension and as a neuter of the third (genitive paschatis).^[5][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
3. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson