Church Father's Reasons

1. Spurious or Uncertain References. The Greek text of the most likely genuine form of the Epistle to the Magnesians (ch. 9), attributed to Ignatius, a bishop of Antioch early in the second century, contains the phrase kata kuriakeµn zoµeµn zoµntes, "living according to the Lord’s life." The extant Latin text (a thirteenth-century translation) has no word here for "life" (corresponding to the Gr. zoµeµn). But since the reading "living according to the Lord’s" does not make sense, some translators have supplied the word "day," as understood with the adjective "Lord’s," so that the passage is made to read in English: "living according to [or in the observance of] the Lord’s Day" (as translated in ANF, vol. 1, p. 62: see SB, Nos. 1404, 1614). However, other scholars translate the Greek "living a life according to the Lord’s [day]" on the assumption that a later usage of kuriakeµ as a noun meaning "Lord’s day" was valid already in Ignatius’ time. Others hold that the whole passage is spurious. Obviously such a passage, offering so many alternatives as to make it impossible to know what Ignatius originally meant, is without value as evidence.

Another reference often cited for Sunday is a letter of Pliny, governor of Bithynia and Pontus, written in A.D. 112, mentioning that the Christians met "on a certain fixed day before it was light" for the celebration of certain religious rites (see SB, No. 1185a). But this does not identify the day; the reference could have been to the Sabbath as easily as to Sunday.

The so-called Epistle of Barnabas (ch. 15), belonging probably to the early or mid-second century, referring to the day of Christ’s resurrection, says: "We also celebrate with gladness the eighth day" (The Apostolic Fathers [Loeb. ed.], vol. 1, p. 397).

In one of his letters (written to the bishop of Rome about A.D. 170), Dionysius, a bishop of Corinth, wrote: "Today we have passed the Lord’s holy day, in which we have read your epistle" (quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, bk. 4, ch. 23). The context does not reveal what day is meant by the expression "the Lord’s holy day."

The Didache, a treatise supposed to belong to the same period, enjoins (ch. 14) the doing of something "according to the Lord’s of the Lord" (kataV kuriakhVn deV kurivou), which does not make sense. Obviously the Greek text is defective. Translators have generally rendered this as "the Lord’s day of the Lord" by supplying the word "day" in the translation on the supposition that the reference is to Sunday; that is mere guesswork.

2. Justin’s Sunday Services. The first clear, authentic, uninterpolated witness to regular Sunday observance among early Christians is Justin Martyr’s First Apology, ch. 67: "On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read. . . . Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly" (see SB, No. 1407a). This Apology usually is considered to have been written at Rome in A.D. 155; there is, however, some evidence from Justin’s other writings and from Eusebius that Justin may have observed Sunday when living in Ephesus before he came to Rome, and if so, as early as A.D. 135 or earlier.

Thus, until about the middle of the second century, there is no certain mention of Sunday as a weekly holy day, but after Justin’s Apology (perhaps A.D. 155) there are a series of references to that day by various Church Fathers. It should be noted, however, that although evidence for Sunday observance can thus be traced back almost to apostolic times (see extract quoted in Present Truth 1:82, November 1850), this early Sunday observance amounted almost entirely to participation in religious services. Sunday was not confused with "sabbath" and was not considered a day of obligatory rest until the sixth century or later.

3. "Lord’s Day" Applied to Sunday. A fragment of a spurious Gospel of Peter, dated perhaps about A.D. 155(?)-180, refers twice to the day of Christ’s resurrection (in secs. 9 and 12) as "the Lord’s day."

In his Miscellanies (bk. 5, ch. 14), Clement of Alexandria (about the close of the second century) alleges that Plato, a pagan Greek philosopher, had prophetically spoken of "the Lord’s day" in the tenth book of his work entitled The Republic. (Actually, Plato speaks of the souls of the dead setting out on "the eighth [day]" after "seven days had elapsed for each group in the meadow" in their travel through the planetary heavens to the place where they would choose the lives for their next reincarnation.) In another place (Miscellanies, bk. 7, ch. 12) Clement says that the Christian keeps "the Lord’s day, when he abandons an evil disposition, and assumes that of the Gnostic glorifying the Lord’s resurrection in himself."

The apocryphal Acts of Paul (A.D. 180–200) says that Paul prayed on the Sabbath as the Lord’s day was coming on. The apocryphal Acts of Peter, written around A.D. 200, speaks of Peter as holding his preaching assemblies on "the Lord’s day," the day after the Sabbath.

Thus the phrase "Lord’s day" seems to have been in use in the closing years of the second century, even though it was probably not fully established in common parlance by that time. Scholars generally regard these references to Sunday as "the Lord’s day" as authentic. If so, they are the earliest unquestionable examples from Christian writers.

4. Easter Lends Prestige to Sunday. In the early part of the second century many Christians were commemorating Christ’s sufferings and death by special services, particularly the Lord’s Supper, on the Passover day, the fourteenth of the first lunar month according to the current Jewish calendar, on whatever day of the week it might fall each year. This practice had not been commanded in the Bible, but neither was it expressly forbidden.

Perhaps as early as Sixtus (pastor in Rome, c., A.D. 115–c., A.D. 125), and certainly as early as Anicetus (c. A.D. 155–c., A.D. 156), the church in Rome made it a point to set the annual spring celebration of Christ’s resurrection only on a Sunday, a custom that became generally accepted except in the Roman province of Asia. Victor (c. A.D. 189–c., A.D. 198), bishop of Rome at the end of the second century, excommunicated the "Quartodeciman" Christians in Asia Minor because they celebrated on the 14th of Nisan rather than always on a Sunday. (See SB, Nos. 654–657.) There is no doubt that Rome very early revealed a strong preference for Sunday.

5. The Qumran Theory. A. Jaubert and J. van Goudoever have proposed that Christian Sunday observance was derived from an ancient Jewish sectarian practice, as reflected in the ancient Qumran literature. The religious calendar given by the Book of Jubilees assigns all major religious festivals to Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Obviously, for the people of Qumran these three days were of special significance. But there is no evidence that Sunday held any preeminence above Wednesday or Friday. Nevertheless, it is possible that the favor shown Sunday by the Qumran sect may have contributed indirectly in some way to the later Christian observance of Sunday (see Earle Hilgert, "Jubilees and the Origin of Sunday," Andrews University Seminary Studies 1:44–51, 1963).

6. Sunday in Paganism. In referring to the first day of the week, Justin used the phrase "Day of the Sun." This was the pagan name for the biblical first day of the week. It was not yet official in the Roman calendar, but had been used for two centuries or more in astrology. For the astrological week, see the introductory paragraph of this article.

As the legions of Rome extended their conquests deep into the Middle East from the first century before Christ and onward, Persian Mithraism rapidly became popular among soldiers and traders. The worship of Mithra as the Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus), spreading westward to the Atlantic Coast, the Iberian Peninsula, and the British Isles, became popular generally throughout the Roman Empire. By the middle of the second century A.D., Mithraism had become the foremost rival of Christianity. As pagans venerated Sunday as the day of the week dedicated to the Invincible Sun, Christians tended to honor the day in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ from the dead. The writings of the Church Fathers abundantly reveal a growing intermingling of pagan philosophy and customs with the doctrines and religious practices of Christianity. Gnostic Christian philosophy and its allegorization of the Bible facilitated this fusion of paganism and Christianity. This syncretism became so pronounced that in the time of Tertullian (A.D. 180–220) cultured pagans thought of Sundaykeeping Christians as worshipers of the sun and, therefore, as "Persians," or worshipers of Mithra (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 16; Ad Nationes, bk. 1, ch. 13).

The emperor Aurelian (A.D. 270–275) made sun worship the official imperial cult. He built a new temple in which he placed the statues of the Babylonian god Bel and of Helios (the sun) that he had captured from Palmyra. Thus the ancient Roman gods were replaced by the Chaldean-Greek solar pantheism from the East.

Sol Invictus became supreme as Sol Dominus Imperii Romani, "the Sun, the Lord of the Roman Empire" (see SB, Nos. 1344, 1565, 1572, 1573). It remained so until the Emperor Constantine I (A.D. 306–337) made Christianity the privileged religion. Reared a devotee of the Invincible Sun, Constantine remained pontifex maximus (supreme pontiff) of state paganism until his death. The image of Sol Invictus was stamped on coins issued during his reign, with inscriptions declaring the Invincible Sun to be his constant protector and companion. Even in his Sunday laws, by which he attempted to compel the observance of the first day of the week by resting from secular labor, Constantine referred to it only as "the venerable day of the Sun" and "the day of the Sun, noted for its veneration" (edicts of March and July A.D. 321; see SB, Nos. 1643, 1647). See also Robert Leo Odom, Sunday in Roman Paganism.

7. Basis Cited for Sunday Observance. The fourth commandment seems never to have been cited in the early centuries as referring to Sunday; rather, the Resurrection was the reason given. The idea of rest was not connected with it. Tertullian (third century) made an isolated reference to trying not to work on that day; otherwise, until the end of the third century Sunday generally was regarded by Christians as merely a day of joy on which fasting was out of place, worshipers prayed standing rather than kneeling, and services were held for preaching and celebrating of the Lord’s Supper.

In the fourth century a change occurred in the status of Sunday, following the supposed conversion of Constantine. The first Sunday law, Constantine’s Sunday edict of March A.D. 321, the first civil Sunday law on record, forbade Sunday work in cities and towns but specifically exempted farm work. The first church enactment, at the Council of Laodicea later in the same century, urged Christians to rest on Sunday if possible. Near the end of the century the notable John Chrysostom instructed his congregation to go home after the church service to meditate on the sermon before resuming ordinary pursuits (Homilies on . . . Matthew, No. 5, sec. 1); yet there seems to have been no general obligation to refrain from work. Chrysostom’s contemporary Jerome spoke casually of the women attending church and then returning to their sewing after the service (letter 108, see SB, Nos. 1640, 1641).

The Theodosian code (mid-fifth century) indicates that by that time Sunday was solidly established in the Western Roman Empire. When the empire collapsed, the barbarian invaders, mostly Arians, were observing Sunday. The first "Christian" Frankish ruler, Clovis (481–511), kept Sunday by what he considered a divine command. By 538, the climate of opinion in France, at least, had so developed in favor of Sunday that even farmers, who had been exempted from Constantine’s Sunday law, were forbidden by a church council, the third synod of Orleans, to work on Sunday. Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) mentions that some insisted on overstrict Sunday observance. He considered the Sabbath commandment to be essentially spiritual, yet he said that Sunday should be observed by a cessation of earthly labor (Epistles, xiii.1).

To judge from the extant sources, Sunday observance began in the middle of the second century and spread gradually as a day for voluntary religious services and as an ecclesiastical festival commemorating Christ’s resurrection on the first day of the week, but not replacing the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath; but by the sixth century it became in some places a day of enforced rest and obligatory church attendance. In the eighth century Charlemagne declared Sunday rest to be enjoined by the law of God (see SB, Nos. 1650, 1653), although this was not official Catholic doctrine.

The seventh-day Sabbath was kept by many Christians in many lands along with Sunday; it was observed for centuries in the Eastern Orthodox churches as a day for worship; also, in Ethiopia and in other places (see Sabbath).

The Catholic Church enforced Sunday, but never as the Sabbath. It taught that the observance of Sunday under the "new law" is not based on a legal precept, but on the decision of the church.