FROM PASSOVER TO EASTER SUNDAY ============================== Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D., Professor of Theology and Church History, Andrews University NOTE. In few days time both Christians and Jews will celebrate Passover, the feast of redemption that both unites and divides the two religions. In Passover we meet Judaism and Christianity at their core, similar and yet different. Unfortunately Passover divides Christians not only from the Jews but also among themselves. While mosts Christians will observes Passover this year on April 7 as Easter-Sunday to commemorate especially Christ's resurrection, there are numerous numerous smaller Christian churches that will observe Passover on April 4 (some on April 3) according to the Biblical dating and typology, to commemorate primarily the suffering and atoning death of Jesus. In my own Seventh-day Adventist Church there will be no formal celebration of Passover, though some individual members or churches will observe the feast. As Adventists we view our quarterly celebration of the Lord's Supper as the new Passover that Christ instituted at His last Paschal Supper. The different views regarding the dating, meaning, and nature of Passover pose important questions: Does the observance of Passover continues in the Christians Church as an annual feasts or as a periodical celebration of the Lord's Supper? Should Passover be observed primarily as the commemoration of Christ's atoning suffering and death by the Biblical date of Nisan 14 which corresponds to the first full moon after the Spring equinox? Or should Passover be observed primarily as the commemoration of Christ's resurrrection on the Sunday following Nisan 14? These are some of the questions that I have examined at great length in my latest God's Festivals in Scripture and History, which can be ordered ($15.00, postpaid) from Biblical Perspectives, 4990 Appian Way, Berrien Springs, Michigan 49103. In this essay I will limit myself to briefly summarize the section of my research dealing with change from Passover to Easter-Sunday in early Christianity. Easter-Sunday and Philosophical Speculations. One could wish that the Fathers would have used their rational skills to help Christians understand and accept more fully the drama of redemption typified by the substitutionary sacrifice of the paschal lamb. Unfortunately, they failed to do so because their understanding of redemption was conditioned by their philosophical (gnostic) thinking, which viewed salvation more as metaphysical deification through special knowledge than a moral transformation through the atoning sacrifice of Christ. This helps us understand why many Fathers sought for the meaning of Easter in philosophical speculations about springtime, the spring equinox, numerical symbolism, and the conflict between light and darkness.41 Their concern was to attain salvation through secret knowledge of mysteries to be found in the Bible and in cosmic cycles. Thus, the five days which separated the choice of the lamb on Nisan 10 from its immolation on Nisan 14 had for the Fathers a mysterious allegorical meaning, namely, that they represented the five ages of the world. This is brought out, for example, in the Paschal Homilies of Pseudo-Chrysostom: "This space of the five days is a figure of the whole time of the world, divided into five periods, from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to the coming of Christ, and from the coming of Christ until now. During all this time salvation by the holy Victim was presented to men, but the Victim was not yet immolated. It is in the fifth epoch of history that the true Pasch was immolated and that the first man, saved by it, came out in the light of eternity."42 Speculations abound even on the symbolism of the 14th day of the lunar cycle on which Passover was to be celebrated.43 Being the day on which the moon is full, it is interpreted by some of the Fathers as the triumph of light over darkness. This interpretation is surprising since they no longer observed Passover on the 14th of Nisan. Gregory of Nyssa brushes aside this incoherence in his Sermon on the Resurrection, simply by saying that the spiritual significance was more important than the literal observance.44 In the mysterious cosmic speculations of the Fathers, we find, as Jean Danielou himself acknowledges, "the incorporation into the Christian mystery of a whole solar mythology. The conflict of light with darkness is expressed by the myth of Ormuzd and Ahriman, of Apollo and Poseidon. But Christ is the sun of the new creation. He rose at the time of the Incarnation: His name is Orient, the Dawn in the East, He attacked the power of darkness, and, on the day of His Resurrection, He completely scattered the darkness of death and of sin. So Christianity disengages the cosmic symbols from the pagan myths . . . and incorporates them as figures of the mysteries of truth. This line of thought shows that we are in the fourth century, at the time of the decline of paganism, when Christianity began to cloth itself in its garments."45 Eastre: Anglo-Saxon Spring Goddess. The process which led Christianity to clothe itself in the garments of paganism began when Gentile Christians gained control of the Church, and it continued during the Middle Ages when hordes of Barbarians entered the Church with their superstitious beliefs. Passover was renamed "Easter," which derives from Eostre, Eastur, Ostara, Ostar, terms used by the Norsemen (ancient Scandinavians) to refer to the season of the rising sun. According to Bede (ca. A. D. 673-735), the "Father of English History," the word "Easter" is derived from Eastre, an Anglo-Saxon spring goddess to whom sacrifices were offered at the vernal equinox (March 21).46 "This pagan festival probably gave way to the Christian celebration of the resurrection."47 Donna and Mal Broadhurst point out, "It is probable that Eostra/Ostara is the Anglo-Saxon version of Ishtar, the Sumerian goddess of love and war who in Canaan evolved into a moon goddess and wife of Baal. According to Sumerian lore, Ishtar was the wife of the Summerian god, Tammuz. Both are spoken of in the Bible-Tammuz in Ezekiel 8:14 and Ishtar, called Ashtoreth and Queen of Heaven, in Judges 2:13, Judges 10:6, Jeremiah 44:17, and elsewhere. "When Tammuz died, Ishtar followed him to the underworld, leaving the earth deprived of its fertility. She and Tammuz were rescued from death when the Queen of the Dead allowed a heavenly messenger to sprinkle them with the water of life. This allowed them to return to the light of the sun for six months of each year. For the other six they had to return to the land of death. "The worship of Ishtar as a nature goddess had spread throughout the ancient world. In Phoenicia and Syria her name had become Astarte. Her husband earlier called Baal, and known as Tammuz farther east, became Adon and Adonai in Phoenicia and Syria. In Greece, Ishtar and Tammuz became Aphrodide and Adonis; in Asia Minor they became Cybele and Attis. Diana of the Ephesians (Acts 19:27) probably traces to Ishtar."48 What makes these cults the forerunners of Easter is the fact that most of them had their annual festival at the vernal equinox, the Easter season, during which they celebrated the cycle of death and resurrection. In his book Easter: Its Story and Meaning, Alan W. Watts discusses the relationship of these pagan cults to Easter and notes that "their universal theme-the drama of death and resurrection-makes them the forerunners of the Christian Easter and thus the first 'Easter services.' As we go on to describe the Christian observance of Easter we shall see how many of its customs and ceremonies resemble these former rites."49 Lent from Pagan Cults. One example of the former rites is the fast of Lent, which begins forty days before Easter. This practice most likely derives from the fast practiced among various ancients cults. A Lent of forty days was observed by the worshippers of the Babylonian Ishtar and by the worshippers of the great Egyptian mediatorial god Adonis or Osiris. The rape of the goddess Proserpine also was commemorated among the Romans by forty nights of wailing. Among the pagans, this Lent period seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual (usually spring) festivals commemorating the death and resurrection of their gods.50 Lent, with the preceding revelries of carnival, was entirely unknown in the earliest Christian Passover celebration. Christians fasted, as we have noted, the night of Passover until dawn, when they broke their fast with the Lord's Supper, which commemorated Jesus' expiatory suffering and death. The extension of the fast to forty days was apparently borrowed from pagan spring festivals. Another example of pagan influence in the Easter celebration is the service of light, which is still part of the Catholic Easter liturgy. For this service, the priest and his assistants come with a candle to a wood fire in front of the church. After a greeting and a short introduction, the priest blesses the fire which he uses to light a candle. The priest then leads a procession with the lighted Easter candle to the church altar for the blessing and lighting of all the candles.51 The service of light, according to some liturgists, "is of Frankish origin and seems intended from the beginning as a sacrament of the Church that would replace the fires lit in spring by the pagans in honor of Wotan or some other heathen divinities to assure good crops."52 Alan Watts derives the lightening of the Easter candle from the great fire lighted by the devotees of Attis as they stood around his grave on the night of the spring festival celebrating his resurrection.53 Though there is disagreement over which pagan practice influenced the origin of the Easter blessing of the fire and candles, there is ample consensus as to the pagan derivation of such practice. Easter Bunny and Eggs. Pagan influence can also be seen in the replacement of the Passover symbolism of the lamb with that of the Easter hare. The Easter hare was once a bird which the goddess Eostre changed into a four-footed creature. The hare, or rabbit, became a symbol of fertility, presumably because rabbits are notably prolific. The hare laid eggs which became the symbol of the abundant new life of spring. Thus, the Easter egg is the production not of some mystical bird but of a rabbit or hare. The origin of the Easter egg is traced back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Babylon, Phoenicia, and Greece, where the universe is said to have been born from a mighty world egg. "The ancient peoples of Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, and China exchanged eggs at their spring fertility festivals. In Babylonia, eggs were presented to the goddess of fertility, Astarte (Eostre)."54 Hyginus, the Egyptian historian who was the curator of the Palatine library in Rome at the time of Augustus, wrote: "An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank, where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess [that is, Astarte]."55 The egg became one of the chief symbols of Venus or Astarte. In Cyprus, one of the chief centers of the worship of Venus, an egg of a wondrous size was represented on a grand scale before her Temple.56 Christians adopted eggs for their Easter celebration because the egg was a popular pagan symbol of death and life. It was a symbol of death because the shell is like a tomb that imprisons the life-germ inside. It was a symbol of life insofar as it contains the source of a new creature. Innumerable European folk customs are found in connection with Easter eggs. Eggs were elaborately painted with symbols, often Roman crosses and swastikas. Egg hunting in gardens was a favorite Easter game for children. In my country, Italy, eggs are blessed by the priest on Easter-Sunday with holy water when he goes from home to home. The "blessed" Easter eggs are then sold on the market with the promise of miraculous power, very much as sacrificial meat was sold on the market of ancient Rome (1 Cor 8:1-6). With the advent of the industrial era, Easter eggs were transformed into chocolate and sugar, wrapped in tin foil, or even trimmed with real gold and jewels, as was the custom among the wealthy in czarist Russia. "Eggs laid on Good Friday are credited with miraculous powers. There is the belief that if such an egg is kept for a hundred years its yolk will turn into a diamond, or that if it is cooked on Easter Sunday it will work as a powerful amulet against sudden death or as a charm for fruitful trees and crops."57 Reformers and Easter. The above survey of some of the pagan practices and superstitions associated with Easter helps us understand why the Reformers were generally opposed to the observance of Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas. "Calvin considered the annual church feast of Easter so paganized that at one point he did not observe it."58 Though Calvin tolerated the observance of Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas, he viewed their institution as a susperstition, because God alone can institute a festival.59 Luther shared the same view. In his Treatise on Good Works, he wrote: "And would to God that in Christendom there were no holy days except Sunday."60 Martin Bucer also opposed the many holy days because they often had pagan origin and appeared to be consecrated to the devil rather than to the Lord.61 The Reformers viewed the multitude of saints' days and Marian feasts instituted by the Catholic Church as indicative of the apostasy into which the church had fallen. To rid the church of all the pagan superstitions which had become part of the popular piety, the Reformers did away with most of the annual holy days, retaining only Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas. Even these were tolerated rather than promoted. The position of Luther was based not only on his reaction against the superstitious observance of the host of holy days established by the Catholic Church, but also on his radical distinction between the Old and New Testaments. In the Large Catechism (1529), Luther explains that the holy days are "altogether an external matter, like other ordinances of the Old Testament, which were attached to particular customs, persons, and places, and now have been made free through Christ."62 Luther chose to retain Sunday, not as a Biblical institution but as a convenient day "ordained by the church for the sake of the imperfect laity and the working class,"63 who need "at least one day in the week . . . to rest and . . . to attend divine service."64 It is regrettable that in his efforts to cleanse the church from pagan superstitions and legalistic tendencies, Luther rejected even those Old Testament institutions which can help believers understand and experience the very "righteousness by faith" which he passionately taught. Calvin rejected Luther's radical distinction between the Old and New Testaments, emphasizing instead the basic unity between the two. For Calvin, as Winton Solberg explains, "the scheme of redemption unfolds in one unbroken sequence throughout the two Testaments. One covenant unites the people of God; it varies only in the mode of administration, not in substance. The Christian Church rather than the Jewish Nation is the society adopted by the Lord, and both were federally connected with him by the same law and doctrine. Using the same exegetical method as that of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Calvin Christianized the Old and Judaized the New Testament in order to make them appear as one unified covenant."65 The respect that Calvin had for the Old Testament is reflected in the spiritual lessons which he finds in the annual festivals of Israel. Their function was to teach the people to trust in God and to be grateful for His goodness to them. By these festivals, the Jews were compelled to recognize that their prosperity depended upon God's blessings and not on their own efforts. In spite of the valuable spiritual lessons that Calvin found in the Old Testament feasts, he rejected their observance because he viewed them as part of Jewish ceremonial laws abolished by Christ.66 Calvin attached great spiritual importance to Passover, which he saw as a monument of the Israelites' deliverance from Egypt as well as a symbol of the Christian deliverance from sin. He believed that though Passover was abolished as a ceremony, it should still be observed spiritually in order to be reminded constantly of the incomparable power and mercy of God.67 Calvin's attempt to retain the spiritual observance of the Sabbath, Passover, and other annual holy days while rejecting their literal observance, poses an unresolved contradiction. How can Christians gain spiritual enrichment from holy days which they are not supposed to observe? How can Passover be celebrated spiritually as a memorial of our deliverance from the bondage of sin through Christ, our Paschal Lamb, while its literal observance is rejected? Do not Christians need as much as Jews the aid of the actual observance of Passover to experience the spiritual deliverance commemorated by the feast? It is regrettable that though Calvin recognized the basic unity between the Old and New Testaments and the spiritual value of the annual holy days, he made no attempt to restore their true meaning and observance for Christians. Calvin and the other Reformers were so preoccupied with cleansing the church from the superstitious observance of the multitude of holy days which lacked scriptural warrant and occasioned pagan revelry that they ignored the need to restore those Biblical holy days which can help Christians conceptualize and experience the reality of salvation. The Puritans and Easter. The moderate anti-feast attitude of the Reformers became radicalized by the Puritans, who swept away all religious holy days except Sunday. In England, the Puritan Parliament struck Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost from their calendar. In America also, the Puritans did not celebrate these feasts, which they regarded as part of the apostate church they had left behind in the old world. J. P. Walsh notes: "The Puritans rested on the Sabbath in order to keep it holy; they worked on December 25 in order to strip it of its sanctity."68 The Puritans were familiar with the Exodus story, which they often quoted and applied to their own political situation. Like the Israelites, they believed they had been delivered by God's hand from the oppression of the established church. They found the meaning of Passover in their sufferings and deliverance. They rejected the paganized Easter but made no effort to restore the Biblical observance of Passover. Their influence was so strong that hardly anyone in colonial America celebrated Easter or Christmas. The exceptions were places such as Louisiana and Maryland which had been settled by Catholics.126 The situation changed as new waves of Catholic immigrants brought to America their Easter customs, which were soon adopted by the American people. Mardi Gras, a carnival period climaxing on Shrove Tuesday before Lent, became popular in certain cities. The Easter parade, Easter bonnets, chocolate eggs, Easter baskets, and cute Easter bunnies, have all become part of the American Easter tradition. Still, some American churches with a strong Biblical commitment do not participate in the Easter customs with origins from pagan fertility cults. Conclusion. Our examination of three common arguments adduced to deny the continuity in the New Testament of Old Testament Holy Days, such as Passover, shows they are based on groundless assumptions. The sacrifice of Christ did not exhaust the typological function of Passover, because Christ Himself said that the ultimate fulfillment of Passover will be realized at the final establishment of God's kingdom (Luke 22:16). The discountinuity brought about by the coming of Christ is never interpreted in the New Testament in terms of abrogation of the Mosaic law, in general, or of Holy Days, in particular. Rather, the meaning of discontinuity is defined in the light of the sense of continuity that is evident in the New Testament. Our study of relevant Pauline passages shows that Paul's attitude toward Holy Days must be determined not on the basis of his denunciation of heretical and superstitious practices, but on the basis of his overall attitude toward the law. The failure to understand that Paul rejects the law as a method of salvation but upholds it as a moral standard of Christian conduct has been the root cause of much misunderstanding of Paul's attitude toward the law and toward Holy Days. The earliest Passover documents clearly show that Christians observed Passover as a night vigil, beginning at sundown on Nisan 14 and continuing until the next morning. They celebrated Passover as their annual commemoration of the suffering and death of Christ. They engaged in prayer, singing, reading of Scripture, and exhortations until dawn, when they broke their fast by partaking of the Lord's Supper and an agape meal. As Gentile Christians gained control of the church, they adopted and promoted Easter-Sunday instead of the traditional Passover date. The change was influenced by the repressive policies adopted by Roman emperors against the Jewish people and religion, as well as by the defamatory campaign waged by Jews against Christians. As a result, the Biblical Passover themes were gradually replaced by pagan symbols and myths, which became part of the Easter celebration. In time, Easter became associated with numerous pagan practices and superstitions which are foreign to the redemptive meaning and experience of the Biblical Passover. In conclusion, Passover was observed in the early church as a commemoration of the suffering and death of Jesus by many faithful Christians who were committed to be true to the teaching of the Scripture regarding the date and meaning of the feast. Their example serves as a basis for reflecting in the next chapter on how we should observe Passover today. NOTES 21. Eusebius, Church History 5, 24, 7, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, Michigan 1979), second series, vol. 1, p. 242. 22. Eusebius, Church History 5, 24, 14. 23. 82. Thomas J. Talley (note 17), p. 22. Among the scholars who defend this view are Karl Holl, "Ein Bruchstueck aus einem bisher unbekannten Brief des Epiphanius," Gesammelte Aufsaetze zur Kirchengeschichte. II: Der Osten (Tuebingen, 1927), pp. 204-224; Hans Lietzmann, A History of the Early Church (New York, 1961), pp. 135f.; Marcel Richard, "La question paschal au IIe siecle," L'Orient Syrien 6 (1961), pp. 179-212; A. Hamman, "Valeur et signification des reseignements liturgiques de Justin," Studia Patristica XIII.ii TU 116 (Berlin, 1975), pp. 364-374. 24. Eusebius, Church History 5, 24, 17. 25. Thomas J. Talley (note 17), p. 23. 26. See my discussion of the Hadrianic anti-Judaic legislation in From Sabbath to Sunday (Rome, 1977), pp. 159-164. 27. Eusebius, Church History 4, 6, 4, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, Michigan 1979), second series, vol. 1, p. 178. 28. Ephiphanius, Adversus haereses 70, 10, Patrologiae Graeca 42, 356. 29. Ibid. 30. My analysis of the sociopolitical factors which contributed to abandonment of the Sabbath and the adoption of Sunday is found in From Sabbath to Sunday, (Rome, 1977), pp. 159-164, 198-234. 31. Thomas J. Talley (note 17), p. 25. 32. Donna and Mal Broadhurst, Passover: Before Messiah and After (Carol Stream, Illinois 1987), p. 142. 33. See my analysis of "Anti-Judaism in the Fathers" in From Sabbath to Sunday, (Rome, 1977), pp. 213--235. 34. Joachim Jeremias, "Pasha", Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Gerhard Friedrich, ed., (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1968), vol. 5, p. 903, note 64. 35. J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (New York,1885), vol. 2, p. 88. 36. Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3, 18-19, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, Michigan 1979), second series, vol. 1, p. 524-525. Emphasis supplied. 37. Donna and Mal Broadhurst (note 32), p. 149. 38. Eusebius, Treatise on Easter, Patrologiae Graeca 23, 696D, cited and translate by Jean Danielou, The Bible and Liturgy (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1956), p. 289. 39. Ibid. 40. Gaudentius, De Paschate Sermones, Patrologiae Latina 20, 844-845, cited and translated by Jean Danielou (note 38), p. 292. 41. For patristic texts, see Jean Danielou (note 38), pp. 287-302. 42. Pseudo-Chrysostom, De Paschate Sermones, Patrologiae Graeca 59, 724, cited and trans. by Jean Danielou (note 38), p. 295. The same allegorical interpretation of the five days which separated the choice of the lamb from its immolation is found in the writings of Cyril of Alexandria and Augustine. For patristic texts, see Jean Danielou (note 38), pp. 294-295. 43. For patristic texts, see Jean Danielou (note 38), pp. 296-298. 44. Gregory of Nyssa, De Resurrectrione Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, Patrologiae Graeca 46, 628C-D. 45. Jean Danielou (note 38), p. 299. Emphasis supplied. 46. Bede, De Ratione Temporum 15. 47. J. C. Connelly, "Easter," The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclpopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, 1978), vol. 2, p. 180. 48. Donna and Mal Broadhurst (note 32), p. 156. 49. Alan W. Watts, Easter: Its Story and Meaning (New York, 1950), p. 58. 50. Ibid., pp. 59-65. See also Austen Henry Layard, Nineveh and Babylon (London, 1853), p. 93; James Wilkinson, Egyptian Antiquities (London, 1837), p. 278; Edwin H. Landseer, Sabean Researches (London, 1823), p. 112; Arnobius, Adversus Gentes 5 (Paris, 1836), p. 403. 51. For a description and historical survey of the Easter blessing of the fire and of the candles, see Mario Righetti, L'Anno Liturgico, Manuale di Storia Liturgica (Milano, 1969), pp. 255-264. 52. Adolf Adam, The Liturgical Year, Its Meaning, and Its History after the Reform of the Liturgy, trans. Matthew J. O'Connell (New York, 1981), pp. 77-78. Adam quotes from L. Eisenhofer, Handbuch der katholischen Liturgik (Freiburg, 1932), vol 1, p. 536. 53. Alan W. Watts (note 49), pp. 64-65. 54. Donna and Mal Broadhurst (note 32), p. 157. 55. Hyginius, Hygini Fabulae (Leipsig, 1856), pp. 148-149. 56. Edwin H. Landseer (note 50), p. 80. 57. Alan W. Watts (note 49), p. 65. 58. Donna and Mal Broadhurst (note 32), p. 159. 59. John Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, Joannis Calvinis opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. G. Baum and others (Brunswick, 1883), vol. 27, pp. 364-365. 60. Martin Luther, Treatise on Good Works, in Selected Writings of Martin Luther, ed. by Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia, 1967), vol. 1:153d. 61. Martin Bucer, Grund and Ursach, in Martin Bucers deutsche Schriften, ed. R. Stupperich (Gutersloh, 1960),vol. 1, pp. 262-263. 62. Concordia or Book of Concord, The Symbols of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (St. Louis, Missouri, 1957), p. 174. 63. Ibid., p. 154b. 64. Ibid., p. 174. 65. Winton U. Solber, Redeem the Time (Cambridge, Massachussetts, 1977), p. 17. 66. For a discussion of Calvin's attitude toward the annual Jewish festivals, see Daniel Augsburger, "Calvin and the Mosaic Law" (Ph. D. dissertation, University of Strasbourg, 1976), pp. 268-275. 67. See Calvin's discussion of Exodus 12 in The Commentaries of John Calvin (Grand Rapids, Michigan, n.d.), vol. 1, pp. 286-295. 68. J. P. Walsh, "Holy Time and Sacred Space in Puritan New England," The American Quarterly, 32 (Spring 1980), p. 81. 69. For a discussion of the Puritans' attitude toward church-ordained feasts, see Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1982), pp.93-123; also Horton Davies, The Worship of American Puritans, 1629-1730 (New York, 1990), pp. 51-76. Thank you for sharing with me your comments about this essay. If you would like me to send you some information about my research on vital aspects of the Christian faith, feel free to send me your address. ---------------------------------- Christian regards Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D., Professor of Theology and Church History Andrews University 4990 Appian Way Berrien Springs, MI 49103 samuele@andrews.edu