Something Schmeman Said

Chesterton

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In For the Life of the World, there's a part he's talking about the institution of the Lord's Day, and he says:

"In the late Jewish apocalyptic writings there emerges the idea of a new day which is both the eighth ...and the first, because with it begins the new time, that of the Kingdom. It is from this idea that grew the Christian Sunday."​

Anyone know what apocalyptic writings he's referencing?
 

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In For the Life of the World, there's a part he's talking about the institution of the Lord's Day, and he says:

"In the late Jewish apocalyptic writings there emerges the idea of a new day which is both the eighth ...and the first, because with it begins the new time, that of the Kingdom. It is from this idea that grew the Christian Sunday."​

Anyone know what apocalyptic writings he's referencing?
8 is the number of new beginnings, resurrection. It's the 1st because it's the first of the firstfruits. Sunday being the first day of the week. No idea what writings are being referred to tho.
 
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~Anastasia~

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I'm not sure but tbh I grew up with something of that understanding. NO IDEA where I got it from.

Funny, I was talking to my husband last night about "days" along these lines and other things. He has never heard or thought either of the ideas like this that are there with me, and I don't recall them specifically from Protestantism. I have no idea where my thoughts on "days" came from. But someone must have introduced the idea somewhere for me to have had it.
 
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seashale76

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I'm fairly certain St. Ignatius and St. Justin Martyr both mentioned that Christians were worshipping on Sunday. However, as far as references specifically to 'the eighth day', I don't know. Isn't the idea of the sabbath now that we remember those that are departed?
 
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prodromos

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It doesn't answer your question, but this is something I posted a while back which I had put together from various sources.

We as Christians, from the earliest days of the church have always held Sunday, the day of resurrection as a holy day and have chosen it as our particular day of worship, setting ourselves apart from the Jews who remain under the Law and worship on the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. Our Lord's resurrection might be considered enough of a reason to change the day on which we meet together to worship God, but it turns out, like all things revealed to us by God, that this day is prefigured in the Old Testament, not as one might think, as the first day of the week, but rather as the eighth day, a new and eternal day where we leave the endless repetitive cycle of seven days and enter into eternity.

Genesis 1:33 - 2:3 states that God had completed his creation in six days and then rested on the seventh. It is readily apparent, however, that God has never stopped creating since each new person who is conceived is a new creation. We did not exist as disembodied souls prior to the beginnings of our life in the womb. We also know that God is spirit and that He is omnipotent and cannot become tired from the work of creation. Tiredness is something of the flesh, not of spirit, so here we begin to understand that the seventh day of rest is something significant for God incarnate, since only flesh needs rest. Like so many other things that are prefigured in the Old Testament we must understand that there is a deeper meaning to the seven days of the Genesis account. They are a type of something in the future, or indeed something outside of our understanding of time entirely.

We have already seen how the Sabbath, the day of rest, is of significance to the God-man, Jesus Chist. We know that through the whole of His incarnation, that is, His conception, His birth, His life of teaching and example culminating in His death and resurrection, Jesus fulfilled all of the Law and the Prophets. So how did He fulfill the Sabbath? It was certainly not through the keeping of the Sabbath on a week to week basis since Jesus continued to work on the Sabbath, healing people and teaching in the synagogues and the temple.

Jesus was crucified on the "sixth day", Friday, He lay in the tomb for the whole of the "seventh day", the Sabbath, then He rose again on the "eighth day", the incorrupt, eternal, and unending day, the day without night following. Thus did Christ fulfill the Sabbath, when His flesh, through death, ceased to do work and so He did rest, having finished all His works of creation and salvation.

It should be noted that the eighth day has particular significance throughout the Old Testament. Male boys were always circumcised on the eighth day after their birth, regardless of whether this broke the Sabbath. We are no longer required to be circumcised, rather we receive circumcision of the heart through entry into the eternal eighth day of the resurrection.

The book of Leviticus has many references to the eighth day, regarding circumcision, sanctification of the altar (seven days of preparation, then its use from the eighth day and onwards). The day on which an offering is brought to the temple after a period on uncleanliness is again, on the eighth day after whatever was causing their uncleanliness had ceased.

In the Septuagint Old Testament, it does not call the first day of creation "first", but "one", "one day", because the first day is a prefiguring of that Sabbath which is the preeminent one of all Sabbaths. It is an image and prefiguring of the day of Resurrection, which is the beginning of the "eighth day", the incorrupt, eternal and unending day. Therefore Genesis names the first day "one day", because it is an image of eternity. The psalmist also refers to the "eighth day" in the superscriptions of psalm 6 and psalm 12, a day which is outside of our seven day cycle of time.

On the Saturday before Pascha (Easter) we read the following in the church service: "Moses the Great prefigured this present day mystically, saying, 'And God blessed the seventh day'. For this is the blessed Sabbath, this is the day of rest, on which the Only-begotten Son of God rested from all His works. Suffering death for the economy of salvation, He kept the Sabbath in the flesh, and returning again... through the Resurrection, He has granted to us eternal life, for He alone is good and the lover of man". (Matins of Great Saturday)

The seventh day is the bridge that connects this corruptible world of the six-day genesis of all things to the incorruptible and eternal world of the eighth day, the day without end, the eternal day. It is the day on which God "rested from all His works" in death for the economy of salvation. It is day of the Great Sabbath, the sanctified one, on which the Lord finished all His works, those of creation and those of salvation. And having completed His union with creation, even unto death, on the Cross He uttered those last words: "It is finished", and He abode in the grave, "in the flesh, keeping the Sabbath". This is the blessed Sabbath that brought forth all of creation from corruptibility to incorruptibility and, "through the Resurrection, granted to us eternal life".

"And the heavens and the earth were finished, and the whole world of them. And God finished on the sixth day His works which He made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He ceased from all his works, which God began to do". (Genesis 2:1-3)

Sunday is the day of the sun, the source of life, the first day of the week, and symbolically the first day of creation. It is also the eighth day, the day of the new creation, the day of resurrection, which initiated all creation to eternal life. The importance of this day to Christians was so great that they changed the name of the day to Kyriaki (of or pertaining to the Lord). The Christians in Russia named this day the Russian word for "Resurrection". In fact it seems that only in the West have the days of the week retained their pagan origins, being named after the Sun and the planets which were once thought by the pagans to be gods.

Ezekiel 43:27 "And when they have completed these days, then from the eighth day onward the priests shall offer upon the altar your burnt offerings and your peace offerings; and I will accept you, says the Lord God."

We do not transgress the Fourth Commandment when we observe Sunday, the eighth day, the day which prefigures the "new creation," since formerly, before the Incarnation, the primordial perfection of the creation of the world was commemorated by the Sabbath day of rest. By observing Sunday, we confess the new creation in Jesus Christ, which is of greater import and more real than the existing creation which yet bears the wounds of sin.​
 
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Leviticus 23:10-11 Note that the first day of the week plus the count of seven weeks brings the day to pentecost __ the birth of the church. Christ is our firstfruit, we are to be the wave offering.
Colossians 1:18 gives 1st place to Christ. Revelation 1:10 why it's called the Lord's day and not the Sabbath Matthew 11:28-29 which is our rest now and not the previous rest nor the rest to come.
 
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