Sun Worship and Sunday

[icedragon101]

There are those that make the claim that as Christianity Spread to the Greek and Roman world it slowly lost its Jewishness and It's purity. One of the signs that is pointed to, that Christianity compromised it's self with Paganism is Sunday worship. Since Jews kept the 7th day Sabbath and Jesus kept Sabbath then ,where did Sunday worship come from? The claim is made that the Sun cults influenced Christianity to change it's day of worship and therefore sell out to Paganism.

 

Can anyone verify this claim or refute it?

[Moonlapse]

I can't verify it, but I consider it obvious. Christianity was spread much like Roman rule and culture was. In addition to the mentioned correlation to Sun-day, many Saints are successors to pagan gods. St. Michael for instance replaced Bel and shrines are generally placed in the same places as the pagan shrines. Sorry I can't offer you any evidence at the moment.

[Ursus]

There are those that make the claim that as Christianity Spread to the Greek and Roman world it slowly lost its Jewishness and It's purity. One of the signs that is pointed to, that Christianity compromised it's self with Paganism is Sunday worship. Since Jews kept the 7th day Sabbath and Jesus kept Sabbath then ,where did Sunday worship come from? The claim is made that the Sun cults influenced Christianity to change it's day of worship and therefore sell out to Paganism.

 

Can anyone verify this claim or refute it?

 

 

Constantine did pass an edict making the The Day of the Sun a day of rest. Constantine did seem to be involved in late imperial Solar worship before finding Christianity.

 

As for Christianity losing its Jewishness, the Jews like Saul of Tarsus who brought Christianity to Gentiles were themselves very Hellenized.

[ASCLEPIADES]

There are those that make the claim that as Christianity Spread to the Greek and Roman world it slowly lost its Jewishness and It's purity.

Salve, guys!

 

Probably the best people to judge the degree of "Jewishness" would be the Jews themselves.

 

THIS IS THE FAQ PAGE OF THE JEWS FOR JUDAISM SITE.

Edited July 25, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES

[sonic]

There are those that make the claim that as Christianity Spread to the Greek and Roman world it slowly lost its Jewishness and It's purity. One of the signs that is pointed to, that Christianity compromised it's self with Paganism is Sunday worship. Since Jews kept the 7th day Sabbath and Jesus kept Sabbath then ,where did Sunday worship come from? The claim is made that the Sun cults influenced Christianity to change it's day of worship and therefore sell out to Paganism.

 

Can anyone verify this claim or refute it?

 

I believe that Constantine did indeed pass an Edict to change the sabbath to Sundays. The reason for this is often seen as religious/political: by making the special day of both the Christians and the Romans the same, he removed a cause for antagonism, since the Christian shops etc were no longer different to those of the Romans and remained open on Saturdays. It also made it easier for non-Christians to convert, since now that the days of worship were the same, there was less pressure on them - they could convert and no-one would be able to detect it as the weekly festivities were on the same day. Consequently, their conversion could either be kept secret or known only to Christians, ensuring that they were not persecuted for their 'apostacy'.

 

The main factor that helped the change was that the majority of Roman 'pagans' had began to adapt under pressure from Christianity and other monotheistic groups. Slowly, the vast number of individual deities were becoming subsumed into one, known as Sol Invictus (The Unconquered Sun - I think!). This is the reason for Sunday being adopted as the day of rest, since most non-Christians within the Empire worshipped Sol Invictus, who was - obviously - worshipped on Sundays. It was very lucky for Constantine that this change had been taking place, as otherwise Christianity may have still had distinctive festivals and days like the Sabbath which marked them as 'different'. Being seen as different is never a good thing - ask the Jews what it has been like over the past c.2,000 years!

 

The change from Pagan to Christian also explains why Christmas is on December 25th: this was a major pagan festival, and the adoption of the date was an attempt to integrate Christianity and pagan religions by ensuring that they all had major festivals on the same day.

 

I used to be a teacher in England, and one of the major (but short-lived) causes of friction amongst pupils in mixed-religious schools is that the Christians have holidays at Christmas, Easter etc. whereas the Muslims have the same holidays plus the Two Eids etc. I would like to emphasise that the situation never mattered to me, but, to some of the less tolerant kids, this 'difference' was, during Eid, a major cause of annoyance. It is not surprising that so many of the Christian festivals were linked to pagan ones in an attempt to avoid conflict.

 

I hope that helps to explain some of the changes, and also clarifies that the Sun cults did not force the Christians to 'sell-out': in reality, it was a ploy used by Constantine to make the Sun-worshippers more likely to become Christian, not htr eother way round!

[Skarr]

One of the most difficult things for the Christians was to get rid of the phallic shaped bread. This was a challenge as this type of bread was in existence for centuries and the bakers were not about to go and revise their traditional moulds and invest in new "conforming" shapes to please the prudish Christians. So, one solution they had was to go about marking these with a cross, as if that very act would make it more acceptable (I wouldn't go so far as saying "holy").

 

Even Easter, which was originally a spring fertility festival from antiquity was adopted by the Christians as they went about transforming various pagan rites and customs into Christian festivals and celebrations.

Edited July 26, 2007 by Skarr

[Segestan]

Pauline and Judaic theologies were no less a conquering power than was the armies of the Gauls or any other barbarians who attacked and sacked Roman cities and towns. 'Pagan' is a term for a 'village'; the name pagan representing those who lived in the villages who had tried to keep the fouding religion of Rome alive after centuries of worship only to find themselves branded as criminals. The Eastern Christian Emperors had outlawed the olden faiths in Saturn , Mars and Jupiter. Rome was conquered by Christianity and Judaism not ....converted. The Battle at the Milvian Bridge officially created the Christian Warrior.

Chrisdian Theology is derived from Isis and Judaism. Sun worship and monotheism.

[Maty]

As we know the days of the week are all pagan gods/goddesses

 

Monday = moon day

Tuesday = Tiuw, god of war

Wednesday = Woden

Thursday = Thor

Friday = Freya, goddess of fertility

Saturday = Saturn, god of crops and the underworld

 

Interestingly, when the Italians took this on, they simply switched to the equivalent Roman pagan gods.

Lunedi = luna, the moon

Martedi = Mars, god of war

Mercoledi = Mercury

Giovedi = Jupiter, the thunderer

Venerdi = Venus

Sabato = Saturn

 

and the only one which was changed is Domenica = the Lord's day.

[docoflove1974]

As we know the days of the week are all pagan gods/goddesses

 

Monday = moon day

Tuesday = Tiuw, god of war

Wednesday = Woden

Thursday = Thor

Friday = Freya, goddess of fertility

Saturday = Saturn, god of crops and the underworld

 

Interestingly, when the Italians took this on, they simply switched to the equivalent Roman pagan gods.

Lunedi = luna, the moon

Martedi = Mars, god of war

Mercoledi = Mercury

Giovedi = Jupiter, the thunderer

Venerdi = Venus

Sabato = Saturn

 

and the only one which was changed is Domenica = the Lord's day.

 

Not just Italian, Maty, but most of the Romance languages have the same cognates for the days of the week. Portuguese is the only current language which doesn't follow the same pattern (segunda-feira 'second day' = Monday), but did at one point use the same pattern.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve, guys and Ladies!

 

Saturday is an exception; in the Romance languages (in your example, the Italian "Sabato"), its name doesn't come from Saturn, but for the well known Hebrew word "Sabbat", with a totally different meaning ( shābath = "to rest").

 

BTW, Sunday would probably not be an exception to the general rule, as the "Lord" of "Domenica" was commonly assumed to be a Solar Deity by Constantine times.

 

Cheers and good luck!

[caldrail]

Sun worship in the late ancient period appears in Syria, a hotbed of hybrid religions most of which were relatively benign, although there were syrian cults involving some serious sexual activity. One sun god, Elagabulus, gave his name to a devotee who became roman emperor at the tender age of 14. A strange lad, a transvestite who was more concerned with religious orgies than running the empire, which he left to his mum. Aglibol was another sun god as I recall, reaching Rome via Palmyra. To be fair, there is some egyptian influence as well, and these exotic beliefs had a good deal of curiosity value to romans whose gods really didn't cater for their emotional needs - something which christianity (and mithraisim to a lesser degree) emerged to fill the market. As christianity moves to increase its market share it begins to 'buy out' pagan beliefs and rebrand them. Thus churches are built on pagan sites. Christian festivals are worshipped during older pagan ones. Christmas for instance is the Saturnalia remarketed with many older roman traditions intact. For some emperors, seeking popularity also means exploiting religious control. Thus constantine shamelessly supports christianity whilst conveniently remaining a pagan until his deathbed, when he converted to ensure he wouldn't go to hell for his earthly crimes if the christians happened to be right after all. Thus the popular sun cults get their own special day courtesy of imperial favour, and the christians claim the rights to it.

[Vibius Tiberius Costa]

Just to run in witha previous part, french is similar (i won't do spanish as i do not wish to offend any spaniards but spelling something wrong).

Lundi - day of the 'luna' aka the moon

Mardi - day of Mars

Mecredi - day of Mercury

Jeudi - day of Jupiter

Vendredi - day of Venus

Samedi - day of the sabbath

Di manche - Lords day

 

just flashing some of my french (years ago i did that and a bit of german, spanish)

 

vtc

[caldrail]

Aglibol was another sun god as I recall, reaching Rome via Palmyra.

 

Ever so slightly wrong, Aglibol was a moon god. The one I was thinking of was Yaribol or Hierobol. Malakbel was another sun god. Also I found this quote, but I'm not sure where it comes from unfortunately.

Solar pantheism, which grew up among the Syrians of the Hellenistic period as a result of the influence of Chaldean astrolatry, imposed itself upon the whole Roman world under the empire. Our very rapid sketch of the constitution of 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. To arrive at the Christian monotheism only one final tie had to be broken, that is to say, this supreme being residing in a distant heaven had to be removed beyond the world. So we see once more in this instance, how the propagation of the Oriental cults levelled the roads for Christianity and heralded its triumph. Although astrology was always fought by the church, it had nevertheless prepared the minds for the dogmas the church was to proclaim.

[Melvadius]

As we know the days of the week are all pagan gods/goddesses

 

Monday = moon day

Tuesday = Tiuw, god of war

Wednesday = Woden

Thursday = Thor

Friday = Freya, goddess of fertility

Saturday = Saturn, god of crops and the underworld

 

Interestingly, when the Italians took this on, they simply switched to the equivalent Roman pagan gods.

Lunedi = luna, the moon

Martedi = Mars, god of war

Mercoledi = Mercury

Giovedi = Jupiter, the thunderer

Venerdi = Venus

Sabato = Saturn

 

and the only one which was changed is Domenica = the Lord's day.

 

I would only flag one thing on this post - that Tuesday to Friday are actually named after Norse (or as I have seen claimed on one website possibly Germanic!) gods so probably are the result of the attempt to incorporate their own equivalents into the existing Roman/ Romano-British calendar.

 

However, given the way that ancient peoples always looked for equivalences between their own and their neighbours gods I suppose that it could have been the other way about - with gods anything is possible:).

Edited November 19, 2007 by Melvadius