temporal1 wrote:This evening i viewed another episode of
Ancient Roads, this was #6 of 6, on Constantine.
http://www.christtoconstantine.com/
Interesting episode. In it, Constantine is credited with establishing Sunday as the Christian day of rest (for the empire.)
This is another source on it:
http://amazingdiscoveries.org/S-decepti ... onstantine
Sunday actually made very little headway as a Christian day of rest until the time of Constantine in the fourth century. Constantine was emperor of Rome from AD 306 to 337. He was a sun worshiper during the first years of his reign. Later, he professed conversion to Christianity, but at heart remained a devotee of the sun. Edward Gibbon says,
"The Sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine.”
Constantine created the earliest Sunday law known to history in AD 321. It says this:
"On the venerable Day of the sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits: because it often happens that another Day is not so suitable for grain sowing or for vine planting: lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost."
Chamber’s Encyclopedia says this:
"Unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the Sabbatical observance of that Day is known to have been ordained, is the edict of Constantine, 321 A.D."
(if this is repeating earlier discussion, i apologize. i have not read every post in this thread.)
Thanks for the information. Constantine and the State Run Church were really the capstone of deciding who was orthodox and who was a heretic. But, the State Run Church in the 1st Century did not like Christ either, so He would have been an heretic too.
But your information brings out that there are really two questions:
1. When did Christians start worshiping on Sunday?
2. When did the Sabbath get changed from Saturday to Sunday?
These are not the same positions, as there are people today that worship on Sunday, but rest on Saturday. (I used to be one of them.)
But it looks like Constantine established Sunday for the day of worship for the State Church, and for a the "Sabbath" day for the State Church.
Constantine also killed his wife and son, and built a column to himself topped by a statute of himself as the "god" Apollo. He put the words "Committed to the Invincible Sun" on the back of all of his coins. He was as much a "Christian" as Adolph Hitler was a Catholic.
But yes, Constantine, along with the State Church, did establish Sunday as the official Sabbath.
And the Catholic church will argue that this same change in day was the result of their own authority, which all Protestants must acknowledge:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath#S ... _First-day
----------------------------------------------
An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine:
Q. How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
A. By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin; and by not keeping the rest [of the feasts] by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power.[10]
The Augsburg Confession:
They [the Catholics] allege the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord’s day, contrary to the decalogue, as it appears; neither is there any example more boasted of than the changing of the Sabbath day. Great, they say, is the power and authority of the church, since it dispensed with one of the ten commandments.[11]
A Doctrinal Catechism,
Q. Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?
A. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her. She could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.[12]
Catholic Christian:
Q. Has the [Catholic] church power to make any alterations in the commandments of God?
A. ...Instead of the seventh day, and other festivals appointed by the old law, the church has prescribed the Sundays and holy days to be set apart for God’s worship; and these we are now obliged to keep in consequence of God’s commandment, instead of the ancient Sabbath.[13]
The Catechism of the Council of Trent:
The Church of God has thought it well to transfer the celebration and observance of the Sabbath to Sunday![14]
------------------------------------------------
So it was the Catholic Church that changed the Sabbath Day to Sunday. And they were doing this long before Constantine.
And they are correct. If you accept that the Catholic Church has the authority to change the Sabbath to Sunday, then the Catholic Church has the authority for establishing Christmas, Easter, Lent, and all of their other feast days and rites. So, we are really all "Catholics" now, for we follow the authority established by the Catholic church over the authority of Christ and the Bible.
This is one place where I agree with the Catholic church.
"He replaced the teachings of Christ with his own opinions, and gave us a religion based on the doctrines of men."
I really don't think you are doing what I'm speaking against here, I just think that this way of speaking may lead some who hear it to a sort of refined Bibliolatry, where the words of Scripture, even Jesus' words, take the focus of attention away from the Word, Jesus the Christ himself. I am also troubled by the possibility that some will draw the incorrect inference that the whole of Scripture is not 'real Scripture' to the same extent as these few chosen words. As a former Bible translator, I have seen some who handled the rest of Scripture with less care than they did the 'words in red', and I do not think that is warranted, or what God wants of us.)
