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ASK AUGUSTINE

How soon after Jesus arose on that first Easter, which would have been on a Sunday as we now know it, did Christians start worshipping on Sundays?

Today millions of Christians gather on the first day of the week (Sunday) for worship, mainly in remembrance of Christ’s resurrection, which occurred on the first day of the week, and of the descent of the Holy Spirit, which occurred on Pentecost Sunday. However, our adoption of Sunday as the Christian Sabbath was gradual.

Sunday, which occurs nowhere in the Bible, is derived from Anglo-Saxon Sunnandaeg, “day of the sun,” the first day of the week having been dedicated to the sun by the pagans. The commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” referred to the ancient Jewish Sabbath, which was the seventh day of the week (Saturday) according to the Hebrew calendar. That the New Testament writers clearly distinguished between the Sabbath and the first day of the week is shown by several passages in which the first day is mentioned as following the Sabbath.

Although Jesus Himself observed the Sabbath, St. Paul seems to have placed observance of this day among the customs not obligatory on Christians. He writes in Colossians 2:16, “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths.” This passage indicates that the question of the Christian’s relation to the Jewish Sabbath was raised at an early date, although it is not certain that the passage refers to the weekly Sabbath.

In Romans 14:5-6 Paul says, “One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it.” Whatever the true meaning of these passages, from the beginning many of the Christians commemorated the first day of the week as Resurrection day, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead.

There is, however, no evidence in the New Testament itself that the first day was originally intended as a substitute for the Jewish Sabbath. In fact it appears that most of the early Christians observed both the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day, and this was the tendency as long as the Christian community was composed chiefly of former adherents of Judaism. Neither is there any evidence that the first day was regarded in Apostolic times as a day for general rest from secular pursuits.

On the other hand, it is probable that the early Christians held special worship on the Lord’s day, for according to Acts 20:7, Paul preached at Troas on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread, and the Apostle continued to speak until the break of day.

The association of Sunday with the true Sabbath and its development as a day of rest came later. In the first century St. Ignatius wrote that Christians no longer observed the Sabbath but the Lord’s Day instead. St. Justin, writing in the second century, was probably the first Christian writer to refer to the Lord’s Day as Sunday. “On the Lord’s day,” wrote Tertullian in 202 A.D., “we ought to abstain from all habit and labor of anxiety, putting off even our business.”

This tendency to observe the first day of the week as a day of general cessation from work was further confirmed in 321 A.D., when the Roman emperor Constantine, who had become a Christian, issued a civil decree restricting all but agricultural work on Sundays. This edict, which exempted farmers, was a good stroke of policy, because the pagan “day of the sun” and the Christian “Lord’s Day” both fell on the first day of the week, and both Christians and pagans were pleased. It seems that in the fourth century at Rome, Saturday was observed as a fast day in the spirit of the Jewish Sabbath, while at Milan the day was kept as a feast day. St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, wrote in the fourth century that even during Lent “not only the Lord’s Day, but every Sabbath, except the great Sabbath before Easter, are observed as festivals and days of relaxation in the Milan churches.”

Monica, the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), paid her son a visit at Milan while he was a teacher of rhetoric there. She was a conscientious Christian and was greatly perplexed whether she should fast on Saturday as the Romans did, or follow the Milanese custom of feasting. St. Augustine says in one of his epistles that he submitted the problem to St. Ambrose on behalf of his mother.

The Bishop replied that he could give them no better advice than to follow his own practice in reference to the point raised. “When I am at Rome,” wrote Ambrose, “I fast as the Romans do; when I am at Milan I do not fast.” Some authorities believe that the proverb, “When in Rome do as the Romans do,” was suggested by this observation of Ambrose.

Later the Roman church prescribed the hearing of mass and rest from work on Sunday. The Council of Laodicea, which met during the fourth century in one of the cities of the seven churches of Asia, transferred many of the obligations and solemnities of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday. At first it was not pretended that Sunday observance was based on any specific passage in the New Testament. But about this same time it became customary to refer the obligation of observing the Lord’s Day to the Decalogue.

As centuries passed and the Christian church grew in numbers and strength, the majority of Christians paid less and less attention to the Jewish Sabbath and more and more to the Lord’s day, until finally observance of the Jewish Sabbath was virtually abandoned by all but certain sects of Christians. In time the Lord’s Day, or Sunday, largely supplanted the Sabbath in their eyes, and many began to take the position that the first day of the week had some kind of divine sanction and that the commandment about the Sabbath was applicable to it instead of to the Scriptural Sabbath of the Israelites.

It became customary among English-speaking people to speak of Sunday as the Sabbath. Even as early as the reign of Elizabeth fines were imposed on persons who did not attend church on Sunday. Later persons were subject to a fine or a certain number of hours in the stocks for carrying on their trade on the Lord’s Day.

Nevertheless, some Christian sects, such as the Seventh Day Adventists, still adhere to the practice of observing Saturday, the seventh day of the week, instead of Sunday, the first day, as the true Sabbath.

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