Dedicated to Truth

Dedication · Senior Member

Did Pagans worship on Sunday?

Dedication · Senior Member

My question would be --
Since some claim the Romans did not have their planetary week (a seven day week where each day is named after a god) prior to Constantine then why did
Justin Martyr who lived about 160 AD. write a letter to a Roman Emperor using the names of the planetary week?

Viewing his article "First Apology" chapter 67
I see phrases such as "And on the day called Sunday" "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. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples,"

The Jews did NOT call their days "the day of Saturn" or "the day of the Sun", so Justin did NOT take these names from the Jewish 7 day week.

Also -- he is writing to a ROMAN and would use terminology that is familar to this Roman Emperor.

Now -- either someone made up Justin Martyrs comments to prove early Christians met on Sunday,
OR
The Romans were very familiar with the planetary week days along with the gods they were dedicated to in 160 AD

Dedication · Senior Member

Indeed the Romans were very familar with the planetary week.

(Remember the Jews did NOT name their days with the names of sun, moon or planets)

But Roman historians and other Roman writers, who wrote in the first century were using the planetary week day names.

Roman author Sextus Julius Frontinus (40–103 AD) wrote in his work The Stratagems, referring to the fall of Jerusalem of A.D. 70, that Vespasian "attacked the Jews on the day of Saturn, on which it is forbidden for them to do anything serious and defeated them."

There are many other references -- here's just a small sampling.

Dio Cassius 150-235

The dedication of the days to the seven stars which are called planets was established by Egyptians, and it spread also to all men ... the ancient Greeks knew it in no way, as it appears to me at least. But since it also prevails everywhere among all the others and the Romans themselves . . . is already to them an ancestral custom."

Dio’s mention that already back in 37 B.C., when Jerusalem was captured by Sosius and Herod the Great, the day "even then was called day of Saturn"

The existence and common use of the planetary week already in the first century A.D. are well attested by several testimonies. In the present study we need refer only to few of them. The Roman historian Dio Cassius, who wrote his Roman History between A.D. 200-220, reports that Jerusalem was captured both by Pompey in 63 B.C. and by Gaius Sosius in 37 B.C. "on the day even then called the day of Saturn." That the praxis of naming the days of the week after the planetary deities was already in use before Christ is further corroborated by the contemporary references of Horace (ca. 35 B.C.) to "dies Jovis—Thursday"and of Tibullus (ca. B.C. 29-30) to dies Saturni—Saturday."Dio Cassius himself speaks of the planetary week as "prevailing everywhere" in his time to the extent that among the Romans it was "already an ancestral custom."

Two Sabine calendars found in central Italy in 1795 and a third one which came to light at Cimitele, near Nola in southern Italy, in 1956 (all three dated no later than the time of Tiberius (A.D. 14-37),26 present in the right column the eight letters from A to H of the eight-day Roman nundinum market week and in the left column the seven letters from A to G, representing the seven-day planetary week. In addition to these calendars should be considered also several so-called "indices nundinarii" (some of them dated in the early empire).28These give the name of the towns and the corresponding days of the planetary week (which always starts with Saturday—dies Saturni) on which the market was to be held.

In the light of these and other indications, the archeologist Attilio Degrassi at the Third International Congress of Greek and Roman Epigraphy (1957) stated: "I wish to insist on my conviction that this planetary week . . . did not become known and commonly used, as generally believed, only in the first half of the first century A.D., but already in the first years of the Augustan era [27 B.C. –A.D. 14]... This is a conclusion that appears inevitable after the discovery of the calendar of Nola. (SUN-WORSHIP AND THE ORIGIN OF SUNDAY, chapter 8, Bacchiocchi)

Dedication · Senior Member

But now the question – Was Sunday considered a pagan festival day?

Now some people look to quotes from 19th century Museum personnel (British Museum, Smithsonian Museum) quoted in Canright's book, where the claim is made that, no, the pagans didn’t have a seven day week and they had no weekly festival. However, many people deny that God created the world in seven days as well. So we need to broaden our search.

We also need to remember, that the pagan's special days were not like the Bible Sabbath in any form or shape . Thus we aren’t at all surprised that there is no reference of such a Sabbath in pagan history. But they did have pagan festivals.

What we do see, is that at the very time when Christ came into this world as the Savior for mankind, satan was busy pushing a clever counterfeit.

Mithraism, a pagan religion coming from the east (Babylonia, from which it seems all counterfeits of the true have arisen)
swept into the west, as it became the "soldiers religion".

And yes, among other things counterfeiting truth, these pagans consider Sunday a special festival day?

It’s interesting too, that some of these same institutions often quoted now speak differently!

Mithraism

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM, WASHINGTON, DC

November 21, 1923.

Office of Administrative Assistant to the Secretary in Charge U. S. National Museum.

Mr. C. P. Bollman,

Managing Editor, The Liberty Magazine, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR:

Receipt is acknowledged of your letter of November 19, and in response to your several inquiries Dr. L. M. Casanowiez, Assistant Curator of Old World Archaeology, makes the following statement concerning Mithraism:

“The devotees of Mithra held Sunday sacred because Mithra was identified with the “Invincible Sun,” but we have not knowledge how they observed that day. Mithra was an old Aryan deity, and his worship is a special mystery cult developed with the decay of Zoroastrianism. Mithraism came to Rome from Asia Minor in 67 BC, but we do not know when it was organized into a cult. It became the religion especially of the Roman army, and besides Italy it spread especially along the frontiers where the garrisons were stationed. It did not supplant paganism, but existed alongside the old paganism, and other so-called mystery cults, as those of Isis, Cybele, and Attis.”

Very truly yours,

W. DEC RAVENEL,

Administrative Assistant to the Secretary.

“[Mithra] Born in midwinter, he remained celibate all his life. Striding forth into the coldness of the world, he killed the sacred bull and offered the blood of the sacrifice to his followers. In ritual celebration, they drank wine that was said to have turned into blood and ate the bread of the sacrifice after an initiation ceremony consisting of a ritual baptism. They worshiped on Sunday and celebrated the birth of the Hero, Mithras, on December 25th. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Some of the peculiar doctrines enunciated by its priests were "the immortality of the soul" "the use of bell and candle, holy water and communion; sanctification of Sunday and the 25th of December."---Encyclopedia Britannica [11th ed.] article "Mithras."

In his book, “Mithraism,” W. J. Phythian-Adams not only traces the cult, in its Western migrations, into Cilicia and other parts of Asia Minor, but shows that the capital of the empire itself, and its environs, “teemed with Mithraic devotees.” All over Germany, far up the Danube and along the whole course of the Rhine, and as far west as Britain, “its course,” says Mr. Adams, “can be tracked by monuments and inscriptions.” (See “Mithraism,” pages 22, 23.)

And wherever the cult went, there went the weekly celebration of Sunday and the annual celebration of the 25th of December, both in honor of the sun.

Dedication · Senior Member

On this point we have the following striking testimony of the CATHOLIC WORLD, published in 1894:

"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 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...........The pagan Sunday was in a manner, an unconscious preparation for Easter day. The sun was the formost day of heathendom....The sun has worshippers at this hour in Persia and other lands...
"The sun was a foremost god with heathendom..............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 [the god of light and peace], became the Christian Sunday, sacred to JESUS.---William L. Gildea, Vol. 58, # 348, March 1894, p.809.