SDA Open Letter - Did The Catholic Church Force Sunday Worship 2

This is part 3 of my letter to the SDA leadership in Vanuatu. This part is a continuation of my previous post in this series.

SO WHY DO SDA LEADERS CLAIM THAT SUNDAY KEEPERS WORSHIP THE SUN GOD WHEN IN FACT CHRISTIANITY CAUSED THE ERADICATION OF SUN GOD WORSHIP? WHY DO YOU NOT TELL THAT PART OF HISTORY TO YOUR BELIEVERS? 

BONUS MATERIAL
Lets take a look at a picture that appeared in the Baths of Titus constructed around AD80.

Across the top are the days, down the sides are the day number (up to XXX, 30) and the circe shows the zodiac signs for months.  This is a pagan calendar.  So here is how the pagans represented the days.



Saturday, (or dies Saturni – the day of Saturn) was the very first day of the week, not the seventh. Saturnus is seen here holding a sickle as he is rhe God of Agriculture
Next, on the second day of the pagan planetary week, is seen the sun god with rays of light emanating from his head. Sunday was known as dies Solis.
The third day of the week was dies Lunæ (day of the Moon – Monday). The moon goddess is shown wearing the horned crescent moon as a diadem on her head. The rest of the days in order are
 dies Martis (day of Mars);
dies Mercurii (day of Mercury);
dies Jovis (day of Jupiter); and
dies Veneris (day of Venus), the seventh day of the week

I will admit though that Constantine was largely responsible for organising some later Church Councils which became more and more anti-Jewish and therefore anything that was Jewish was banned, including celebrating Passover or other Jewish festivals and Sabbath.

This anti-semitism led to widespread persecution of the Jews at the time which is extremely regrettable. Where we do agree is that Constantine (and later so called ‘Christian’ emperors) was guilty of trying to incorporate his own pagan beliefs into Christian beliefs which are incompatible. This is after all, where we get the beginning of Easter (pagan Spring fertility festival time) and Christmas (Saturnalia Festival – the festival of the Sun). As a curiosity - do SDAs celebrate Easter and Christmas?

So I do not deny that the Roman emperors under what was then an early from of the Roman Catholic Church did act against Jewish customs and also did eventually endorse [not force] Sunday worship.

However, the question remains – did they force Christians to observe Sunday and forbid Sabbath keeping?  They could have, although the information is sketchy. Let’s look at Christian writings before Constantine. Justin Martyr (c 150AD) he was called a martyr because he was burnt at the stake by a Roman Emperor))

But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. (Justin, 1st Apology) 

Ignatius of Antioch (c112-120AD – within 12 years of the death of the apostles)

If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day…It is absurd to profess Christ Jesus, and to Judaize. For Christianity did not embrace Judaism, but Judaism Christianity...”  Ignatius - To the Magnesians 9-10 

The Letter of Barnabas (of Alexandria) (A.D. 74, about the time that Apostle Paul was ending his ministry in Spain)

"We keep the eighth day [Sunday] with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead" (Letter of Barnabas 15:6–8 

 All of these men were early church fathers and all wrote about Sunday keeping. So does it stand to reason that Christians were in the habit of Sunday keeping well before Constantine and well before there was a Roman Catholic Church? By the time Constantine came along, Sunday was regarded by Christians and even secular Romans as a day of rest. What Constantine did and other Church Councils after this was to make it official. Ultimately, the various decrees to observe Sunday were pointless as is arguing against Sunday Keepers. If you read Acts 2:46, you see that the Christian believers met every day. Also in Acts 5:42, Acts 17:17 and Acts 19:9 you see the apostles preaching every day, not just on the Sabbath.

This also explains why, there are writings that show that Jews were exempt from military service because they insisted on the Sabbath and as such had a bad reputation for it, while their Christian counterparts did not and so were liked. In other words, the Roman world loved to take Christian servants because they did not care if they observed the Sabbath or not. Militarily, you cannot have an army if a group decide to have Sabbath off.

Now perhaps you do not believe what these early church fathers wrote here or perhaps you believe that the early writings were altered by the Catholic Church but can you explain then why a leading SDA scholar called C. Mervin Maxwell, who co-wrote “Early Sabbath-Sunday History” says this:

These [New Testament] writers taught that the new covenant had put an end to the old law — and that now the new spiritual Israel, with its new covenant and its new spiritual law, no longer needed the literal circumcision, literal sacrifices, and literal Sabbath. Barnabas observed that God "has circumcised our hearts." Justin referred triumphantly to the new spiritual circumcision in Christ. Irenaeus taught that circumcision, sacrifices, and Sabbaths were given of old as signs of better things to come; the new sacrifice, for example, is now a contrite heart. Tertullian, too, had a new spiritual sacrifice and a new spiritual circumcision. Each of these writers also taught that a new spiritual concept of the Sabbath had replaced the old literal one.... This supplanting of the old law by the new; of the literal Sabbath by the spiritual, was a very Christ-centered concept for these four writers. (Early Sabbath Sunday History pp154-156) 

Maxwell admits there is no need to observe the Sabbath since a new, Christ centred covenant had replaced it.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it appears that even SDA experts confess that the early church had abandoned the Sabbath which is in agreement with basically all bible scholars and historians, so it worries me as to why the SDA leadership is still claiming otherwise. It appears that the bible, early church fathers and even SDA scholars are all in agreement that the Sabbath was not practiced by the early Christians, well before there was any formal recognition from Rome.

Remember what SDA Theologian, C. Mervyn Maxwell said?

“That same hermeneutic was used in the Gentile mission ever since Acts 15: a mission that did not require Gentiles to keep the laws of Moses, including the Sabbath.” 

We will look at Acts 15 shortly [in another post]. Have you heard of D A Carson? In his famous book “From Sabbath to Lord’s Day” he made the following statement. Please take a note carefully of what it says:

There is no record of any Christian group (except the extreme part of the Ebonites) that did not observe Sunday, either in the second century or in later centuries of the patristic era.” (From Sabbath to Lord’s Day, Carson,p.271, 272)

to be continued....