Good Friday
The Friday before Easter is called Good Friday. Earlier it was probably known as "God's Friday", the day on which the Son of God was shamefully put to death. This is the Friday on which the Church keeps the anniversary of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Parasceve, the Latin equivalent of paraskeue preparation (i.e., the preparation that was made on the sixth day before the Sabbath); came to signify the day on which the preparation was made. But while the Greeks retained this use of the word as applied to every Friday, the Latins confined its application to one Friday. They speak of Good Friday as the day of the Pasch, but later writers distinguished between two meanings; the passage to death and the passage to life (i.e., the Resurrection).
At present, the word Pasch is used exclusively in the latter sense. The two Paschs are the oldest feasts in the calendar. From the earliest times, the Christians kept every Friday as a feast day; and the obvious reasons for those usages explain why Easter is the Sunday par excellence to many, and why the Friday which some say marks the anniversary of Christ's death came to be called the Great or the Holy or the Good Friday.
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The Friday before Easter is called Good Friday. Earlier it was probably known as "God's Friday", the day on which the Son of God was shamefully put to death. This is the Friday on which the Church keeps the anniversary of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Parasceve, the Latin equivalent of paraskeue preparation (i.e., the preparation that was made on the sixth day before the Sabbath); came to signify the day on which the preparation was made. But while the Greeks retained this use of the word as applied to every Friday, the Latins confined its application to one Friday. They speak of Good Friday as the day of the Pasch, but later writers distinguished between two meanings; the passage to death and the passage to life (i.e., the Resurrection).
At present, the word Pasch is used exclusively in the latter sense. The two Paschs are the oldest feasts in the calendar. From the earliest times, the Christians kept every Friday as a feast day; and the obvious reasons for those usages explain why Easter is the Sunday par excellence to many, and why the Friday which some say marks the anniversary of Christ's death came to be called the Great or the Holy or the Good Friday.
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