Sun Worship
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Sun Worship |
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[p. 53] The triumph of Oriental religions [in the Roman Empire] was simultaneously the triumph of astral religion, but to secure recognition by all pagan peoples, it needed an official sanction. The influence which it had acquired among the populace, was finally assured when the emperors lent it an interested support… The Oriental clergy … preached doctrines which tended to elevate sovereigns above mankind, and they supplied the emperors with a dogmatic justification of their despotism… [p. 54] The emperor is the image of the Sun on earth, like him invincible and eternal. [See No. 1345.] Official Cult of Roman Empire, Derived from Chaldea
Solar pantheism, which grew up among the Syrians of the Hellenistic period as a result of the influence of Chaldean astrolatry [Babylonian star and sun worship], imposed itself upon the whole Roman world under the empire… That theological system shows incidentally the last form assumed by the pagan idea of God. In this matter Syria was Rome’s teacher and predecessor. The last formula reached by the religion of the pagan Semites and in consequence by that of the Romans, was a divinity unique, almighty, eternal, universal and ineffable, that revealed itself throughout nature, but whose most splendid and most energetic manifestation was the sun. Final Form & Phase of Roman Paganism
[p. 73] From astronomical speculations the Chaldeans had deduced a whole system of religious dogmas. The sun, set in the midst of the superimposed planets, regulates their harmonious movements… [p. 74] By a succession of emissions and absorptions he [the Sun] will alternately cause these fiery emanations to descend into the bodies which they animate, and after death will gather them up and make them reascend into his bosom. This coherent and magnificent theology, founded upon the discoveries of ancient astronomy in its zenith, gradually imposed on mankind the cult of the "Invincible Sun" as the master of all nature, creator and preserver of men. This Sun-worship was the final form which Roman paganism assumed. In 274 the emperor Aurelian, as we have seen [see No. 1344], conferred on it official recognition …; and in the following century, the Claudian emperors [including Constantine; see No. 1566] worshipped the almighty star not only as the patron but also as the author of its race. The invincible Sun … tends to absorb or subordinate to himself all the other divinities of ancient Olympus.
This solar faith was the culmination of Hellenistic-Oriental and Roman Paganism. It was the vitalizing power in pagan theology and afforded the most convincing symbol of that light which was the aim of philosophy and religion. It was the source of a mystical devotion in which peasant and philosopher could participate.
Cults of the sun, as we know from many sources, had attained great vogue during the second, third, and fourth centuries. Sun-worshippers indeed formed one of the big groups in that religious world in which Christianity was fighting for a place. Many of them became converts to Christianity and in all probability carried into their new religion some remnants of their old beliefs. The complaint of Pope Leo in the fifth century that worshippers in St. Peter’s turned away from the altar and faced the door so that they could adore the rising sun is not without its significance in regard to the number of Christians who at one time had been adherents of some form of sun-worship. It is of course impossible to say precisely in what way their influence manifested itself. We do know, however, of analogues between Christ and the sun; he was designated the Sun of Righteousness; and our Christmas falls on the date of the festival of a popular sun-god in Rome. In Late Astrological Pantheism
[p. 274] In the hot plains of Mesopotamia the Moon had the premier place, but as Babylonian celestial lore moved westwards and northwards to colder climates where the Sun was not so overpowering, it was inevitable that the Sun should secure its place of primacy. But other factors were working towards the practice of adoration of the Sun. The scientific influence of Greek astronomy working on Oriental astrology was bound to recognize the natural superiority of the Sun. Further, Stoic hylozoism, with its deification of the world, and its theory of a universally penetrating principle, easily lent itself to the advance of astral pantheism, which also recognized a "heart of the world." … [p. 275] As men looked upon the external world as divine and replete with symbols of divinity, it was inevitable that the Sun should be accepted as the supreme symbol of the divine unity. It might—with that ancient disregard of the distinction between symbol and that beyond the symbol common to Pagans and Christians—be regarded indifferently as the symbol of the Supreme God or the Supreme God Himself.
[p. 89] Concerning the worship which was paid to the stars in the West we possess very few data, even for the most important of all, that of the Sun… We shall only mention some liturgical practices which have had permanent results. It was customary to worship the rising Sun (Oriens) at drawn, at the moment when its first rays struck the demons who invaded the earth in the darkness. Tacitus describes to us how, at the battle of Bedriacum in 69 a.d., the soldiers of Vespasian saluted the rising sun with loud shouts after the Syrian custom.2 [Note 2: Tacit., Hist., iii., 24.] In temples thrice a day—at dawn, at midday, and at dusk—a prayer was addressed to the heavenly source of light, the worshipper turning towards the East in the morning, towards the South at midday, and towards the West in the evening. Perhaps this custom survived in the three daily services of the early Church. A very general observance required that on the 25th of December the birth of the "new Sun" should be celebrated, when after the winter solstice the days began to lengthen and the "invincible" star triumphed again over darkness… The pre-eminence assigned to the dies Solis also certainly [p. 90] contributed to the general recognition of Sunday as a holiday. This is connected with a more important fact, namely, the adoption of the week by all European nations. Roman Official Cult in Constantine’s Day
A star cult, sun-worship, became (in the third century a.d.) the dominant official creed, paving the road for the ultimate triumph of Judaeo-Christian monotheism. So strong was the belief in the Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus) that for example Constantine I (d. 337), himself at first a devotee of the sun cult, found it, indeed perfectly compatible with his pro-Christian sympathies to authorize his own portrayal as Helios. And in 354 the ascendant Christian church in the reign of his pious but unsavory son, Constantius II, found it prudent to change the celebration of the birth of Jesus from the traditional date (January 6) to December 25, in order to combat the pagan Sun god’s popularity—his "birthday" being December 25. [Editors’ note: December 25 is mentioned here, but an earlier example of the influence of this official sun worship on Christianity is Constantine’s law of a.d. 321 uniting Christians and pagans in the observance of the "venerable day of the sun" (see Nos. 1642, 1644). It is to be noted that this official solar worship, the final form of paganism in the empire (see No. 1571), was not the traditional Roman-Greek religion of Jupiter, Apollo, Venus, and the other Olympian deities. It was a product of the mingling Hellenistic-Oriental elements, exemplified in Aurelian’s establishment of Eastern Sun worship at Rome as the official religion of the empire, and in his new temple enshrining Syrian statutes statues of Bel and the sun (see Nos. 154, 1344). Thus at last Bel, the god of Babylon, came into the official imperial temple of Rome, the center of the imperial religion. It was this late Roman-Oriental worship of one supreme god, symbolized by the sun and absording lesser divinities as by the sun and absorbing lesser divinities as subordinates or manifestations of the universal deity, that competed with young Christianity. This was the Roman religion that went down in defeat but infiltrated and colored the victorious church with its own elements, some of which can be seen to this day.]
Remains of the struggle are found in two institutions adopted from its rival by Christianity in the fourth century, the two Mithraic sacred days, December twenty-fifth, dies natalis solis [birthday of the sun], as the birthday of Jesus, and Sunday, "the venerable day of the Sun," as Constantine called it in his edict of 321.
This word [Sunday] is of heathen origin. It, or a corresponding term in languages and cultures other than Anglo-Saxon, indicates a day dedicated particularly to the worshipful recognition of some deity in the particular pantheon involved. Obviously the exact name indicates the day devoted to the worship of the sun. In pagan use the name, whatever it may be, does not indicate exaltation of this deity above all others, nor exclusive worship of that deity on that day, but only special emphasis on his worship. When in the Roman Empire the sun gained prominence as the symbol of highest divinity this constituted a preparation for the political and ecclesiastical identification of the Lord’s Day for Sun-day… With the expansion of Christianity in Europe the day for special Christian worship falling on that of sun worship the name was simply taken over. It has no direct reference to the Hebrew Sabbath. And, of course, there is no close connection between the origin of the name and Christian practice. [Editors’ note: This quotation should not be interpreted as indicating on the part of Dr. Carver any lack of commitment to the observance of the first day of the week as "the Christian’s Lord’s Day."]
The church took the pagan philosophy and made it the buckler of faith against the heathen. She took the pagan, Roman Pantheon, temple of all the gods, and made it sacred to all the martyrs; so it stands to this day. She took the pagan Sunday and made it the Christian Sunday. She took the pagan Easter and made it the feast we celebrate during this season. Sunday and Easter day are, if we consider their derivation, much the same. In truth, all Sundays are Sundays only because they are a weekly, partial recurrence of Easter day. The pagan Sunday was, in a manner, an unconscious preparation for Easter day. The Sun was a foremost god with heathendom. Balder the beautiful, the White God, the old Scandinavians called him. The sun has worshippers at this hour in Persia and other lands. "Some of you," says Carlyle, "may remember that fancy of Plato’s. A man is kept in some dark, underground cave from childhood till maturity; then suddenly is carried to the upper airs. For the first time he sees the sun shining in its splendor overhead. He must fall down, says Plato, and adore it." There is, in truth, something royal, kingly about the sun, making it a fit emblem of Jesus, the Sun of Justice. Hence the church in these countries would seem to have said, "Keep that old, pagan name. It shall remain consecrated, sanctified." And thus the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder, became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus. The sun is a fitting emblem of Jesus. The Fathers often compared Jesus to the sun; as they compared Mary to the moon, the beautiful moon, the beautiful Mary, shedding her mild, beneficent light on the darkness and night of this world—not light of her own; no Catholic says this; but—light reflected from the sun, Jesus. Pagan Sun Worship in 3d Century
Do not many among you [pagans], with an affection of sometimes worshipping the heavenly bodies likewise, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise? It is you, at all events, who have even admitted the sun into the calendar of the week; and you have selected its day [Sunday], in preference to the preceding day, as the most suitable in the week for either an entire abstinence from the bath, or for its postponement until the evening, or for taking rest and for banqueting. By resorting to these customs, you deliberately deviate from your own religious rites to those of strangers. [Editors’ note: See also No. 1409e.] Pagan Sun Worship in 4th Century
Remember to invoke in private prayer at the same time Mercury, and the sun on the day sacred to the sun, and the moon when its well-known day will have come, then Saturn, and then Aphrodite [Venus]. Pagan Sun Worship—Mithraism & The Power of Mithras Cult
[p. 167] Each day in the week, the Planet to which the day was sacred was invoked in a fixed spot in the crypt; and Sunday, over which the Sun presided, was especially holy… [p. 191] [The worshippers of Mithra] held Sunday sacred, and celebrated the birth of the Sun on the 25th of December.
[p. 499] The observance of the Jewish Sabbath, again, transferred to the Mithraic Sun-day, is an important feature of many Christian cults… [p. 512] During this indefinite time [the 1st and 2d centuries] a considerable amount of a sort of theocrasia seems to have gone on between the Christian cult and the almost equally popular and widely diffused Mithraic cult, and the cult of Serapis-Isis-Horus. From the former it would seem the Christians adopted Sun-day as their chief day [p. 513] of worship instead of the Jewish Sabbath.
Concerning the power of the Mithras cult we still have evidence in the fact that it is not the Jewish in the fact that it is not the Jewish Sabbath that is the sacred week-day, which Christianity, coming out of Judaism, had nearest at hand, but Sunday, dedicated to the Sun-god Mithras.
[p. 257] Modern Christians who talk of keeping Sunday as a "holy" day, as in the still extant "Blue Laws" of colonial America, should know that as a "holy" day of rest and cessation from labor and amusements Sunday was unknown to Jesus… It formed no tenet of the primitive Church and became "sacred" only in course of time. Outside the Church and became "sacred" only in course of time. Outside the Church its observance was legalized for the Roman Empire through a series of decrees starting with the famous one of Constantine in 321, an edict due to his political and social policies rather than, as Eusebius thought, to religious ones. For he took the day not because of the Christian custom of meeting then to commemorate the Resurrection but from "the venerable day of the Sun" (Mithra), and especially in order to give to Roman slaves respite from labor which their Semitic brothers had enjoyed for centuries. So much confusion in identifying Sunday and the Sabbath has been inherited by Britain and America through Puritan influence that it seems well to recapitulate the well-known facts… As the Jewish element in the Church waned the Christians came to feel the need of a fixed day for [p. 258] meetings to replace the Sabbath. Then Sunday, like other pagan festivals such as Christmas, came gradually into being, first as a fit day for worship and later one for rest… [p. 260] Parallel to the Church movement … but independent of it another had been developing in the State which after an obscure past culminated in Constantine’s decree of 321 when the observance of the "day of the Sun" was imposed on the Empire, a decree marking an epoch in the history of Sunday as the beginning of both civil and later of ecclesiastical legislation. Now dies Solis, sacred in various solar cults and notably in Mithraism, was to play a role as the Christian Sunday as Christmas did a little later. Sun Worship and Semi-Pagan Manichaean
We are not afraid to meet your scoff at the Sabbath, when you [Faustus] call it the fetters of Saturn. It is a silly and unmeaning expression, which occurred to you only because you are in the habit of worshipping the sun on what you call Sunday. What you call Sunday we call the Lord’s day, and on it we do not worship the sun, but the Lord’s resurrection. And in the same way, the fathers observed the rest of the Sabbath, not because they worshipped Saturn, but because it was incumbent at that time; for it was a shadow of things to come, as the apostle testifies. The Gentiles, of whom the apostle says that they "worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator," gave the names of their gods to the days of the week. And so far you do the same, except that you worship only the two brightest luminaries, and not the rest of the stars, as the Gentiles did. Anglican Archbishop Declares Tradition as Its Origin
Toronto, Oct. 27 (bup).—Rev. Philip Carrington, Anglican Archbishop of Quebec, sent local clergymen into a huddle today by saying outright that there was nothing to support Sunday being kept holy. Carrington defiantly told a church meeting in this city of straight-laced Protestantism that tradition, not the Bible, had made Sunday the day of worship. He quoted the biblical commandment which said the seventh day should be one of rest, and then stated: "That is Saturday." "Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday," the Archbishop told a hushed, still audience. Local parsons read his comments today with set, determined looks. They refused comment [see, however, No. 1605]. Part of Church’s Policy of Adopting Pagan Festivals
The Church made a sacred day of Sunday … largely because it was the weekly festival of the sun; for it was a definite Christian policy to take over the pagan festivals endeared to the people by tradition, and to give them a Christian significance.
The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions 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, at 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 laboring on Sunday as a sin… The Jewish Christian Churches, [i.e., Churches consisting of Jewish converts,] although they received the festival of Sunday, retained also that of the Sabbath; and from them the custom spread abroad in the Oriental Church, of distinguishing this day, as well as the Sunday, by not fasting and by praying in an erect posture; in the Western Churches, particularly the Roman, where opposition to Judaism was the prevailing tendency, this very opposition produced the custom of celebrating the Saturday in particular as a fast day. [Editors’ note: The brackets are in the original. This is the translation from Neander’s first German edition. Later editions have omitted the statement that Sunday was only a human ordinance.] |
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