The festival of Sunday is much more ancient than the Christian religion. Baal worship is the same as sun worship. This practice can be traced to remote times - to the Canaanites, the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and other ancient nations.
Even the Israelites at times went so far as to do the same as the heathens (II Kings 23:4, 5; Ezekiel 8:13-16). In Rome, also, the sun was being worshiped by many people. Constantine the emperor being one of them in the fourth century.
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary defines Sunday: "Sunday: so called because this day was anciently dedicated to the sun or to its worship. The first day of the week; the Christian Sabbath; a day consecrated to rest from secular employment, and to religious worship; the Lord's day."
"Sunday (Dies Solis of the Roman Calendar, the day of the sun; because dedicated to the sun), the first day of the week, was adopted by the early Christians as a day of worship. The 'Sun' of Latin adoration, they interpreted as the Sun of Righteousness" (Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia, old edition).
The Persian Mithras was one of the gods which were brought to Rome. Mithraism contested with Christianity for the religious hegemony of the Roman world. The Church Fathers were astounded at the resemblances. It is said that Roman roads were dotted with Mithraic sanctuaries, attested by inscriptions like Soli invicto Mithroe, "to the sun, invincible Mithra."
H.G. Wells says of this theocrasia: "It would seem the Christians adopted Sun-day as their chief day of worship instead of the Jewish Sabbath from the Mithraic cult" ( The Outline of History, p. 543).
"Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular festival of Sunday very early indeed in place of the Sabbath. . . . The festival like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic church to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps by the end of the second century, a false application of this kind had begun to take place, for men appear by that time to have considered labouring on Sunday sin" (Neander's Church History, p. 168, old edition, translated by Rose).
Constantine's Sunday Legislation
Soon after Constantine became a Roman Emperor (A.D. 306-337), he made the Christian "cross" his battle standard. He had been led to adopt this emblem when once he prayed to his sun-god about an impending battle, and there appeared a cross over the setting sun with this inscription above it: In hoc signo vinces, "In this sign conquer." Obedient to this celestial vision, Constantine and his soldiers marched to victory at the Battle of Milvian Bridge.
This constituted a turning point in the history of the Roman Empire, as well as that of the church. Up until then a non-military spirit had characterised the followers of the lowly Nazarene, but all this was then changed (See Myer's Ancient History, 1904, pp. 524-527). Among the various edicts Constantine issued was that concerning Sunday, in A.D. 321, as follows:
"Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty, attend to the business of agriculture because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines lest the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted them by heaven" (Corpus Juries Civilis Cod. Liv. 3, Tit. 12:30).
In the article "Sunday," The Encyclopaedia Britannica, seventh edition, 1842, says: "It was Constantine who first made a law of the proper observance of Sunday; and who, according to Eusebius, appointed that it should be regularly celebrated throughout the Roman Empire."
This imperial law designated the day as a heathen festival, which it really was, but within four years after its enactment, Constantine (at the Council of Nicaea) had become not merely a professed Christian, but in many respects the practical head of the church, as the course of the proceedings at the council showed.
This pagan Sunday law was henceforth enforced in behalf of the day as a Christian festival. This law gave to the Sunday celebration a Sabbatic character for the first time. Eusebius, biographer and admirer of Constantine, in his Commentary on The Psalms, as quoted in Cox's Sabbath Literature, Volume 1, p. 361, indicates that from the time of Constantine's Sunday edict, the sanctity of the Sabbath was transferred to the first day of the week: "And all things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's Day, as more appropriately belong to it, because it has a precedence and is first in rank, and more honourable than the Jewish Sabbath."
Since, admittedly, all the Church of God kept the seventh-day Sabbath in apostolic days and until about A.D. 140, when we perceive for the first time that some began to observe the first day of the week, the question naturally arises: Why was this changeover accomplished? We have previously noted that some of the reasons given were because pagan converts, which included some of the early Church Fathers, brought some of their pagan beliefs and practice along, among which was Sunday observance. Other reasons given were that the Messiah was supposed to have been raised from the dead on the first day of the week, and the so-called "eighth day" played a role with some; another that we may note here is that of which Doctor Neander treats, as previously noted: "Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular festival of Sunday, very early indeed, into the place of the Sabbath."
Another historian presented a similar reason for the change: "The best time for the Easter festival would have been the ancient day of the Jewish Passover. It was opposed merely by a whim of Constantine, because, as a Roman, he hated the nation which his country had long detested and persecuted, that is, the Jews." He then quotes from a letter of Constantine to the bishops of the world who could not attend the Council of Nicaea. It was declared improper to follow the customs of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival.
"Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. . . . Therefore this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have anything in common with the parricides and murderers of our Lord" (Dean Dudley, in History of the Council of Nice, with a "Life of Constantine," pp. 4, 5, 112).
The Catholic Church, too, subsequently made laws and regulations in the matter of Sunday observance. The following is a quotation from the Council of Laodicea, A.D. 364: "Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be Judaizing, let him be anathema from Christ" (as quoted in A History of the Church Councils, by Charles J. Hefele, Volume 11, p. 316).
Catholic Priest T. Enright, one-time president of Redemptorist Father's College (Kansas City), in one of his lectures, as published in the Industrial American, Harlan, Iowa, referred to this decision made at the Council of Laodicea in the following excerpt:
"My brethren, look about the various wrangling sects and denominations. Show me one that claims or possesses the power to make laws binding on the conscience. There is but one on the face of the earth -the Catholic Church -that has the power to make laws binding upon the conscience, binding before God, binding under the pain of hellfire. Take, for instance, the day we celebrate - Sunday. What right have the Protestant churches to observe that day? None whatever. You say it is to obey the commandment, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' But Sunday is not the Sabbath according to the Bible and the record of time.
"Everyone knows that Sunday is the first day of the week, while Saturday is the seventh day, and the Sabbath, the day consecrated as a day of rest. It is so recognised in all civilised nations. I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone who will furnish proof from the Bible that Sunday is the day we are bound to keep, and no one has called for the money. If any person in this town will show any Scripture for it, I will tomorrow evening publicly acknowledge it and thank him for it. It was the Holy Catholic Church that changed the day of rest from Saturday to Sunday, the first day of the week. And it not only compelled all to keep Sunday, but at the Council of Laodicea, A.D. 364, anathematised those who kept the Sabbath and urged all persons to labour on the seventh day under penalty of anathema.
"Which church does the whole civilised world obey? Protestants call us every horrible name they can think of - anti-Christ, the scarlet-coloured beast, Babylon, etc., and at the same time profess great reverence for the Bible, and yet by their solemn act of keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the power of the Catholic Church" (December 19, 1889).
We have previously noticed the relationship between the Roman Emperor Constantine and the Roman Catholic Church. A second great autocrat who also contributed the shaping upon the Catholic church a distinctly authoritative character, was Theodosius the Great, who ruled from A.D. 379 to 395.
"But near the Aquila on 6 September, 394, once more the Christian Laborum triumphed over the banner of the ancient gods; Theodosius entered Rome sole Master of the now finally Christian empire. Further laws enforced the keeping of Sunday and the disabilities of Pagans, Jews, and heretics" (The Catholic Encyclopaedia, Volume XIV, p. 479).
Chrysostom, Post-Nicene Church Father, Patriarch of Constantinople, who died about 402 A.D., in his commentary on Galatians 2:17, says:
"For though few are now circumcised, yet by fasting and observing the Sabbath of the Jew, they equally exclude themselves from grace.... Wherefore dost thou keep the Sabbath, and fast with the Jews? ... A fear to omit the Sabbath plainly shows that you fear the law as still in force" (Library of the Fathers, Volume 6, p. 42, Oxford, 1840).
Thus we see that in the fifth century there were still Sabbathkeepers, but Chrysostom, Augustine, and others contended for the abolition of the Sabbath, and for the observance of the "Lord's Day," as Sunday was often called, incorrectly, of course. (The true Lord's Day of scriptural authority is the seventh day, our Saturday, Sabbath. See Isaiah 58:13, Mark 2:28.)
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