Before I go through this post of yours that's just copy/pasted from another site, I should note you do not actually address the points either I or prodromos made. prodromos asked "Show us the evidence that the Roman pagans gathered every Sunday to worship the Sun." You have given no evidence of this. Even if everything in your post is completely accurate (and it is not), you still haven't provided evidence. It's as if someone says "give me proof that Obama was born in Kenya" and you then post arguments arguing he was a bad President. Even if someone thinks he did a bad job as president, it doesn't prove anything about where he was born.
Similarly, my points regarding the Council of Laodicea from post 661 are simply ignored. But Ill get into more detail on that when it comes up in the message.
A little more detail on the matter...
Vatican admits the change of Sabbath was their act not the Bible
This is a highly misleading title, given that not a single quote offered is actually
from the Vatican.
When Emperor Constantine I—a pagan sun-worshipper—came to power in A.D. 313, he legalized Christianity and made the first Sunday-keeping law. His infamous Sunday enforcement law of March 7, A.D. 321, reads as follows: “On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” (Codex Justinianus 3.12.3, trans. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 5th ed. (New York, 1902), 3:380, note 1.)
I should note that this quote leaves out what comes immediately afterwards:
"In the country however, persons engaged in agricultural work may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain growing or for vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost."
If this was some idea of moving the Sabbath to Sunday in any way, this decree sure didn't do it.
The Sunday law was officially confirmed by the Roman Papacy. The Council of Laodicea in A.D. 364 decreed, “Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday but shall work on that day; but the Lord’s day they shall especially honour, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ” (Strand, op. cit., citing Charles J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, 2 [Edinburgh, 1876] 316).
I refuted this claim quite thoroughly in my post, so it's very odd you choose to simply repeat it without interacting with it. For example, you provide no answer to the rather obvious fact that the pope was not present at this council, he did not send representatives, and its decrees, being local, had no effect on him or his territory. To claim that the Roman Papacy "officially confirmed" anything in a council it had nothing to do with is nonsense. You are simply repeating the same refuted claim, meaning it's still refuted.
Also, as proof of the fact this is just being uncritically copy/pasted by your source, one can see the citation says "Strand, op. cit." despite the fact that there is no Strand cited anywhere prior.
Cardinal Gibbons, in Faith of Our Fathers, 92nd ed., p. 89, freely admits, “You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we [the Catholic Church] never sanctify.”
This, along with the other quotes provided, are constantly copy/pasted online. I'll go through them individually, but for the issues with these sorts of quotes in general, I should note that
this Catholic source. (I also cannot help but find it interesting that the people who copy/paste these quotes into articles like the one you are yourself copying from don't trust the Catholic Church... but apparently these quotes from an untrustworthy source can be trusted without reservation!)
Now, Gibbons was a Bishop so he is actually an authority, unlike some of the other quotes cited (still not "the Vatican" though). But what is Gibbons actually saying here?
We don't need to bother with any kind of mind reading on this. In the early 20th century, a guy named Dudley Canright wrote a book ("The Lord's Day From Neither Catholics Nor Pagans") criticizing the sorts of arguments found in your article. Because back then Gibbons was actually alive and could be consulted, Canright took the step of
actually writing to Gibbons to clarify his stance, asking him when (in Gibbons' view) the Catholic Church started and when Sunday worship began. Here was the response he received:
"First. The Catholic Church dates back to the day when our Lord made St. Peter the visible head of the Church, and when St. Peter established, first at Antioch, then at Rome, the seat of his residence and jurisdiction.
In these days and those immediately following, we find traces of the beginning of the custom of the Sunday observance. You may refer to the Christian writers of that period. (Confer Ignatius ad Magnes, 9; Justin Martyr, 1, Apol. 59; Tertul., Apol. 16.) All these writers speak of the Sunday as the Lord's Day; no other more distinct trace has been preserved, and the mention which occurs in the following centuries rests on the fact of a previous custom more or less general."
(This can be found on page 91
here)
You need to remember that to the Catholic Church, the apostles were the Catholic Church, and the modern-day Catholic Church is the same church via apostolic succession. Whether or not you agree with that idea is besides the point--it's the Catholic belief. Thus, Gibbons' opinion is that Sunday worship was something started in the first century
by the apostles, not something done centuries later by a pope.
Again, “The Catholic Church, … by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday” (The Catholic Mirror, official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893).
See above for the problems with this citation. Though I should note
this Protestant site goes into a bit more detail on the subject of the specific article that is from.
“Protestants do not realize that by observing Sunday, they accept the authority of the spokesperson of the Church, the Pope” (Our Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950).
Our Sunday Visitor is a Catholic
newspaper but it's a "lay Catholic" newspaper--that is, it's run by regular Catholic people, not the Vatican or Catholic Church. It carries no special authority. Certainly these quotes prove nothing about the "Vatican" admitting anything.
“Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change [Saturday Sabbath to Sunday] was her act… And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things” (H.F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons).
We've already seen that Gibbons is of no help to those who try to claim that the Sabbath was moved to Sunday by the Catholic Church, unless they are also prepared to accept that the Catholic Church has true continuity with the apostles, and if you accept that then just become Catholic (or Orthodox). But I can't help but notice that no actual source is given for this. H.F. Thomas said this? Okay, but where? When? As Abraham Lincoln wisely said, "the problem with many quotes you see on the Internet is that they aren't true."
“Sunday is our mark of authority… the church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact” (Catholic Record of London, Ontario Sept 1, 1923).
Like the Our Sunday Visitor, this is not an actual production of the Catholic Church, so this means nothing other than that whoever happened to write that article thought this was a good apologetic against Protestants (it isn't).
So in conclusion, your copy/pasted post (which itself offers quotes that it uncritically copy/pasted from other sites) does not address the criticisms leveled your way at all. Even accepting your post in isolation (that is, independent of its failure to address the points you claim it is), its claims about the Council of Laodicea are absurd and despite its claim that "Vatican admits the change of Sabbath was their act not the Bible", no statements by the Vatican are actually provided. It tries to scrape non-official lay Catholic newspapers instead, and in the one case where it might actually have someone with authority (Bishop Gibbons), it shows a misunderstanding of his ideas.
