2nd century sermon

JSRG · May 15, 2026

stevevw said:
When Constantine conquered the pagan hordes and brought them into the church they were observing the day of the sun under the pagan sun god. In order to make it more convenient for them to make the change to the new Christian religion, Constantine accepted their day of worship, Sunday, instead of the Christian Sabbath which had been observed by Jesus and His disciples.

This is a claim that is often made, but not backed up. This idea that Sunday was of any importance to Romans, or even Sun worshippers at the time, lacks foundation. As far as I can tell, this claim dates back to a writer named Franz Cumont who wrote some very influential works about Mithraism around the year 1900, and he thought Sunday was a particularly holy day for Mithraists (though even Cumont, I believe, said that he did not think it was the source of Sunday worship for Christians). Cumont was considered a major authority, and so his ideas about Mithraism were repeated by a lot of people, including even scholarly sources that perhaps should have looked a bit more carefully at some of his ideas.

Mithraic scholars later turned against a number of Cumont's conclusions (a major turning point was the 1971 First International Congress of Mithraic Studies), and his work, while certainly a major step forward at the time, is now considered out of date. Scholarly works about Mithraism have as far as I can tell left this Sunday claim behind, but unfortunately even today a lot of less scholarly ones are still copying out of date sources.

So while Cumont got a lot of stuff right, one can't simply assume something is right because he said it. And now we come to the important question: What did Cumont base this idea on? From what I can determine from his work--the full thing is only in French, the English translation is abbreviated and does not include his rationale for the Sunday claim, only the claim itself--his reasoning was fairly speculative. As far as I am aware there is no mention in any ancient document that Sunday was of importance to Mithraists, Romans, or any followers of "the pagan sun god" (it's not clear what is in mind with that statement due to it being vague).

So the claim that Sunday was a "day of worship" for the pagans (any more than any other day of the week was) seems to be without real evidence. Every claim it did that I've seen seems to either go back to Cumont or (if they try to actually cite primary soruces) cite a source that doesn't really back up the claim when read in context. Indeed, isn't this notable? If Sunday was such a popular holy day for the pagans, why isn't that frequently mentioned in the writings of that period? Especially when the narrative is that it was such a popular day that Constantine was copying it to appease the pagans?

Finally, Sunday had become the main holy day of the Christian church before Constantine was even born. There's plenty of Christian writings asserting as such. For just one example, here's Justin Martyr in The First Apology (mid second century), Chapter 67:

And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. 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, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.

Note, incidentally, he makes no mention whatsoever of any pagans doing so, even though in several different cases in the document--heck, including the chapter immediately before this one--he does mention points of similarity of Christian practice and pagan ones, which he blames on devils imitating Christianity. Personally I see no need to conclude any such similarities were due to malevolent devils (or, as some have tried to use Justin's statements for, evidence of Christian copying), but rather were just coincidence.

stevevw said:
Here are historians, Catholics and Protestants, speaking in harmony about what actually took place in the fourth century. The Catholic Church reinforced that act in one church council after another. Many official statements from Catholic sources are made, claiming that the church made the change from Saturday to Sunday.

Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 153. “The church after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath or seventh-day of the week to the first, made the third commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord’s day.”

The Catholic Mirror of September 23, 1894, puts it this way: “The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.”

One more statement taken from the book, The Faith of Millions, p. 473. “But since Saturday, not Sunday, is specified in the Bible, isn’t it curious that non-Catholics who profess to take their religion directly from the Bible and not from the Church, observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

Yes, of course, it is inconsistency but this change was made about fifteen centuries before Protestantism was born, and by that time the custom was universally observed. They have continued the custom even though it rests upon the authority of the Catholic Church and not upon an explicit text from the Bible.

That observance remains as a reminder of the Mother Church from which the non-Catholic sects broke away like a boy running away from home but still carrying in his pocket a picture of his mother or a lock of her hair.”

One notices that despite your claim that these show "what actually took place in the fourth century", none of them say anything about the fourth century. Heck, the last one says "fifteen centuries before Protestantism was born". As Protestantism's start is dated to the sixteenth century, this would put it in the first century, not the fourth!

The Catholic Encyclopedia agrees it was in the first century as well. While not in the article you cite, in its separate Sunday article, it asserts:

"Sunday was the first day of the week according to the Jewish method of reckoning, but for Christians it began to take the place of the Jewish Sabbath in Apostolic times as the day set apart for the public and solemn worship of God."

So this source, too, puts it in the first century, not the fourth. The remaining one (Catholic Mirror) does not give a specific time, but also does not say anything about the fourth century. But let us look a little more into that specific quote, which is from an article called "Rome's Challenge" that is very popular for people to quote from when trying to argue that this was a shift performed by the Roman Catholic Church in the fourth century. This is addressed by this (non-Catholic) source, explaining how it doesn't really say as much as people think it does:

Rome's Challenge

asbereansdid.blogspot.com

Indeed, that blog post gives a valuable (and lengthy) quote from Dudley Canright's work "The Lord's Day from Neither Catholics nor Pagans" (a work from the early 20th century criticizing Seventh Day Adventists for making the argument you made, showing how much regurgitation there is in these quotes of yours--Canright even mameks a reference to the Catholic Mirror article when he mentions "Rome's Challenge"). One can read more from Canright on that page, but the key point is the conclusion. After going through Catholic source after Catholic source after Catholic source asserting the shift to Sunday occurred in the apostolic period, he concludes:

Here it will be seen that the Catholics use exactly the same arguments for the change of the day that all Protestants do, and locate the change at the same date, in the time of the apostles and by the apostles.

But do not the catechism and Catholic writers, when controverting Protestants, assert that the "Holy Catholic Church" changed the day? Certainly, but they also claim that the Catholic Church began with the apostles who changed the day. Do not Adventists know this? Yes. Why, then, do they not tell the whole facts in the case? Let them answer.

Consider the high Catholic authorities quoted on this subject - the Council of Trent; the papal delegate, Cardinal Gibbons; Archbishop Ireland; the Catholic Encyclopedia; the Catholic Dictionary; written statements of priests; and the teachings of the catechism. All agree that the change in the day was made by the apostles. Beyond dispute, this establishes the doctrine of the Catholic Church on the origin of the Lord's Day. Not a single Catholic authority can be quoted teaching that the change of the Sabbath was made by the Popes or by the Papacy centuries later. That is purely an invention of Seventh-Day Adventists. Here, then, is the testimony of two hundred and fifty million Roman Catholics, all agreeing that the observance of Sunday as the Lord's Day originated with the apostles. Now if Adventists quote the Catholics, then let them abide by their testimony.

Now read "Rome's Challenge," "Father Enright's Challenge," and a lot of other Catholic "challenges," which Adventists gleefully gather up and endorse and peddle the world over as unanswerable. Read them very carefully and notice particularly that not one of these Catholic "challenges" ever locates the time when the "Catholic Church" made the change. In all these "Challenges" they adroitly leave this point out, and presume on the ignorance of the general public, which supposes that the Catholic Church began centuries after Christ. Then Adventists take advantage of this popular idea of the Catholic Church and locate the change about 300 years after Christ. Such deception is unworthy of Christian teachers.

So all of these quotes people throw out about the Catholic Church declaring it made any change to the Sabbath ignore the fact that the context of that claim is that the Catholic Church considers the apostles to be the same church as it, and that it was the apostles (who in the RCC's estimation, were the Catholic Church) who did it. Now maybe someone thinks the claim of the apostles doing it, or the Catholic Church being the same church as the apostle, is false (Canright, being a Protestant, explicitly asserts he thinks the Catholic Church has gone wayward). But that's the basic claim of the Catholic Church, and to accept one but not the other is rather odd. Now, I'm sure that, given how many Catholic writings there have been, one can find a few that might actually locate the move to Sunday as happening later on, like in the fourth century, but that's not the normal position. Certainly, the quotes you cited (as noted by Canright) make no mention of the fourth century or Constantine. Heck, as I noted, one of the things you quoted even in the quote itself located it as a first century event.

stevevw said:
As mentioned this was more a social and cultural practice that got attached to Christs birth. The pagan practices got mixed in with Christian ones and it seems the pagan ones took over. Because for most of the 20th century and today it seems people are more interested in celebrating Christimas than the birth of Christ as saviour.

While it is true that many do celebrate "Christmas" without reference to the birth of Christ, and even plenty of those that do celebrate it as the birth of Christ pay more attention to the commercial parts of it than the actual Christian part, none of that has to do with "pagan practices" getting mixed in with them. This is actually the effect of modern secularism and commercialism. Companies that were selling stuff for Christmas want to try to get as many people as possible to buy their stuff, so making a point of de-emphasizing explicitly Christian aspects of Christmas in favor of more secular-friendly symbols like Santa Claus is a smart business decision, particularly in a country whose population has been becoming increasingly nonreligious.

stevevw · May 15, 2026

The Liturgist said:
@stevew

You presented three links to books that are not official publications of the Roman Catholic Church, and that on this issue actually contradict the Missale Romanum (take a look at one sometime, you’ll see that Sunday is clearly written as Sabbato, and that this was the case in missals published in the 1890s, 1910s, 1930s, and whenever the inconsequental Protestant source you mentioned wrote.

Meanwhile I will continue to rely on books written by serious historians, such as the faculty of Oxford and Cambridge among other authors I cited. It would be appreciated if you were to read the sources I cited, and I shall reply to your post in after six months time if, having done so, you still have concerns regarding the historical accuracy of my sources, or if you believe I have fundamentally misrepresented or misquoted them.

If you have difficulty accessing any of the sources I have mentioned, feel free to send me a PM and I will endeavor to assist you, although all of them are quite common and most can be accessed through your local library and online and in accessible e-book format, since these constitute important works of Patristic and academic provenance, as opposed to obsolete and out-of-print Roman Catholic material (I did not see any links to Protestant content but I have seen Protestants argue in favor of a supposed change of the Sabbath to Sunday even on this site, and in the case of Protestants such a change is more believable since very few of them actually worship on the Sabbath as well as Sunday, whereas most Orthodox Christians do, as well as all Orthodox and Catholic clergy and religious (nuns, monks, etc.

Also it is of course extremely important that you review at least some sources pertaining to this issue from an Eastern Orthodox and ideally an Oriental Orthodox and an Assyrian perspective, since your entire argument rests on the false Catholic vs. Protestant argument and ignores the existence of several churches outside of the Roman Empire which would have broken communion with the church inside if they deemed that it departed from the apostolic faith (and indeed, later would, in the fifth century, over Chalcedon, with the exception of the Church of Georgia, which remained Chalcedonian, but the Church in Mesopotamia and India was divided rather between Nestorians and Oriental Orthodox, and the Church of Armenia, and the Coptic, Numidian and Ethiopian churches became Oriental Orthodox, and all retained Sunday as their primary day of worship, all of them predating the establishment of the secular Sunday law under St. Constantine or of Sunday as the state religion under St. Theodosius.

God bless you!

Ok I will check them out. But I have to clarify that I am not disputing the truth of the disciples and early church that came from this. But rather showing the disagreements that arose in the traditional western church over time. Thats all.

Which has resulted in at least Christians in the west believing that Sunday is the day of worship just like Saturday. They are given an option. I remember going to church on Sunday and so was all the locals. Though Saturday was also available everyone chose to go on Sunday.

Once again this is not saying the teaching is correct. Only that like other practices such as the eucharist being removed in many of todays denominations. Or that divorce and remarrying is ok, women priests or that a person is to remain celebrate outside marriage. All changes within some denominations that were claimed to be biblical.

stevevw · May 15, 2026

JSRG said:
This is a claim that is often made, but not backed up. This idea that Sunday was of any importance to Romans, or even Sun worshippers at the time, lacks foundation.

But its a fact that Constantine made Sunday the day of rest into law.

The Roman emperor Constantine I (died 337), a convert to Christianity, introduced the first civil legislation concerning Sunday in 321, when he decreed that all work should cease on that day, except that farmers could work if necessary. That law, aimed at providing time for worship, was followed later in the same century and in subsequent centuries by further restrictions on Sunday activities.

Sunday | Rest, Worship, Reflection | Britannica

Sunday, the first day of the week. It is regarded by most Christians as the Lord’s Day, or the weekly memorial of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection from the dead. The practice of Christians gathering together for worship on Sunday dates back to apostolic times, but details of the actual development of

www.britannica.com

JSRG said:
As far as I can tell, this claim dates back to a writer named Franz Cumont who wrote some very influential works about Mithraism around the year 1900, and he thought Sunday was a particularly holy day for Mithraists

As far as I understand gnosticism and mysticism were already growing in the first century and early in the church. Including Mithraism.

JSRG said:
Mithraic scholars later turned against a number of Cumont's conclusions

How I see it is that the Christians were already worshipping on Sunday as part of honoring Christs resurrection on Sunday. But as the church gained political and social power and the issue had to be sorted in regards to which day the empire should rest to worship.

It was decided Sunday. There was pressure from other religious and political groups. Not to disimilar to today. Plus the church wanted to seperate from the Jews worship.

NCRWebsite

Sunday worship is the day on which most Christians attend church. However, what is the origin of Sunday worship?

ncawmscog.org

JSRG said:
So the claim that Sunday was a "day of worship" for the pagans (any more than any other day of the week was) seems to be without real evidence.

It is a fact that the biggest religion in pagan Rome was Mithraism god of the sun. The day of worship is in the name Sun-day.

Day of Mithras/Sol: In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, the Roman Empire popularized the astrological week. The first day of the week was dedicated to the Sun (Sol). Because Mithra was a prominent sun-deity in Rome, his followers viewed Sunday as a sacred day of worship, often gathering to greet the rising sun.

JSRG said:
Every claim it did that I've seen seems to either go back to Cumont or (if they try to actually cite primary soruces) cite a source that doesn't really back up the claim when read in context. Indeed, isn't this notable? If Sunday was such a popular holy day for the pagans, why isn't that frequently mentioned in the writings of that period? Especially when the narrative is that it was such a popular day that Constantine was copying it to appease the pagans?

It is. We know that Mithraism, the worship of the sun-god Mithra, rapidly became the most influential religion in the Roman Empire from the 1st century onwards.

Before ancient religious reformer Zarathustra (Greek name Zoroaster) gained influence in the region during the 6th century bce, the Iranians had a polytheistic religion, and Mithra was the most important of their gods.

Known as Mithras in the Roman Empire during the 2nd and 3rd centuries ce, this deity was honoured as the patron of loyalty to the emperor.

Mithraism | Definition, History, Mythology, & Facts | Britannica

Mithraism, the worship of Mithra, the Iranian god of the sun, justice, contract, and war in pre-Zoroastrian Iran. Known as Mithras in the Roman Empire during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, this deity was honored as the patron of loyalty to the emperor.

www.britannica.com

JSRG said:
Finally, Sunday had become the main holy day of the Christian church before Constantine was even born.

Yes so you can see how under Constantine in trying to unify the empire that was full of pagans and Christians that Sunday as the day of rest and worship was the perfect solution. Christians were already doing it in practice and the pagans honored the sun god on Sunday.

JSRG said:
There's plenty of Christian writings asserting as such. For just one example, here's Justin Martyr in The First Apology (mid second century), Chapter 67:

And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. 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, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.

Note, incidentally, he makes no mention whatsoever of any pagans doing so, even though in several different cases in the document--heck, including the chapter immediately before this one--he does mention points of similarity of Christian practice and pagan ones, which he blames on devils imitating Christianity. Personally I see no need to conclude any such similarities were due to malevolent devils (or, as some have tried to use Justin's statements for, evidence of Christian copying), but rather were just coincidence.

Nevertheless Mithraism was a widely practiced pagan belief with worship on Sunday that began well before Christ. In fact a Indo-Iranian religion adopted by the Greco Romans. We have plenty of references to Mithraism from the first centuries as this was the biggest pagan belief of the empire.

Emperor Constantine I, who was historically drawn to sun-worship before converting to Christianity, issued a law in 321 CE establishing Sunday as a legal day of rest across the Roman Empire. In this decree, Sunday was referred to as the "venerable day of the sun" (venerabili die Solis) rather than a Christian term. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

JSRG said:
One notices that despite your claim that these show "what actually took place in the fourth century", none of them say anything about the fourth century. Heck, the last one says "fifteen centuries before Protestantism was born". As Protestantism's start is dated to the sixteenth century, this would put it in the first century, not the fourth!

Yes thats right. Mithraism began well before the 1st century and was adopted by Greco Roman beliefs. It aligned with their pagan sun god Sol Invictus. So by the 4th century it was well and truly ingrained in gentile pagan beliefs.

JSRG said:
The Catholic Encyclopedia agrees it was in the first century as well. While not in the article you cite, in its separate Sunday article, it asserts:

"Sunday was the first day of the week according to the Jewish method of reckoning, but for Christians it began to take the place of the Jewish Sabbath in Apostolic times as the day set apart for the public and solemn worship of God."

Yes thats what I have been saying.

JSRG said:
So this source, too, puts it in the first century, not the fourth.

Rome's Challenge

asbereansdid.blogspot.com

Indeed, that blog post gives a valuable (and lengthy) quote from Dudley Canright's work "The Lord's Day from Neither Catholics nor Pagans" (a work from the early 20th century criticizing Seventh Day Adventists for making the argument you made, showing how much regurgitation there is in these quotes of yours--

Because its true and factual. Except I am not sure what the SDA is arguing. I disagree with them fundementally.

JSRG said:
Canright even mameks a reference to the Catholic Mirror article when he mentions "Rome's Challenge"). One can read more from Canright on that page, but the key point is the conclusion. After going through Catholic source after Catholic source after Catholic source asserting the shift to Sunday occurred in the apostolic period, he concludes:

Here it will be seen that the Catholics use exactly the same arguments for the change of the day that all Protestants do, and locate the change at the same date, in the time of the apostles and by the apostles.

But do not the catechism and Catholic writers, when controverting Protestants, assert that the "Holy Catholic Church" changed the day? Certainly, but they also claim that the Catholic Church began with the apostles who changed the day. Do not Adventists know this? Yes. Why, then, do they not tell the whole facts in the case? Let them answer.

This is conflating a church dispute about origins of how Sunday came about. The point is for which you are confirming is that Sunday became a day of worship very early and seems to be the commonly believed day worship is to take place. Which is different to the Jews.

Perhaps this is an example of one of those issues where its divided and we don't have any clear biblical basis and only the lived reality of how the church actually did worship. How they determined what the teaching were saying about which day. The only evidence is in how the disciples and early Christians actually put into practice worship.

JSRG said:
Consider the high Catholic authorities quoted on this subject - the Council of Trent; the papal delegate, Cardinal Gibbons; Archbishop Ireland; the Catholic Encyclopedia; the Catholic Dictionary; written statements of priests; and the teachings of the catechism. All agree that the change in the day was made by the apostles. Beyond dispute, this establishes the doctrine of the Catholic Church on the origin of the Lord's Day. Not a single Catholic authority can be quoted teaching that the change of the Sabbath was made by the Popes or by the Papacy centuries later. That is purely an invention of Seventh-Day Adventists. Here, then, is the testimony of two hundred and fifty million Roman Catholics, all agreeing that the observance of Sunday as the Lord's Day originated with the apostles. Now if Adventists quote the Catholics, then let them abide by their testimony.

You do realise your making a case for Sunday worship being biblical and the proper teaching and that there are those including the person I was replying to that disagree and say Saturday is the proper day according to the bible teachings.

JSRG said:
Now read "Rome's Challenge," "Father Enright's Challenge," and a lot of other Catholic "challenges," which Adventists gleefully gather up and endorse and peddle the world over as unanswerable. Read them very carefully and notice particularly that not one of these Catholic "challenges" ever locates the time when the "Catholic Church" made the change. In all these "Challenges" they adroitly leave this point out, and presume on the ignorance of the general public, which supposes that the Catholic Church began centuries after Christ. Then Adventists take advantage of this popular idea of the Catholic Church and locate the change about 300 years after Christ. Such deception is unworthy of Christian teachers.

Except if the Catholics say that their church goes back to the disciples then the disciples changing the day to Sunday will still be aligned with the Catholics.

I think there are two differing aspects. We may be able to find a basis for Sunday worship from the apostles. But we also have heretics and denominations that claim it was Saturday.

So perhaps it came down to some sort of edict or declaration as to the whole churches position for the empire to support and confirm it was Sunday and not Saturday. Which may have happened later as a result of all the controversy over what day.

I can understand how the Jewish Christians in wanting to destinguish themselves from Judaism like other traditions determined a different day because it represented they beliefs and not the Jewish ones at the time.

JSRG said:
So all of these quotes people throw out about the Catholic Church declaring it made any change to the Sabbath ignore the fact that the context of that claim is that the Catholic Church considers the apostles to be the same church as it,

This is a different arguement about who changed the day from the Jews. Not whether the change is correct or not. It seems to me that there is controversy over the day and some are argueing that Saturday is the proper day according to the bible and early church.

JSRG said:
While it is true that many do celebrate "Christmas" without reference to the birth of Christ, and even plenty of those that do celebrate it as the birth of Christ pay more attention to the commercial parts of it than the actual Christian part, none of that has to do with "pagan practices" getting mixed in with them.

Of course it does. Giving presents under a tree is pagan. This was adopted very early as part of westernised Christianity.

JSRG said:
This is actually the effect of modern secularism and commercialism. Companies that were selling stuff for Christmas want to try to get as many people as possible to buy their stuff, so making a point of de-emphasizing explicitly Christian aspects of Christmas in favor of more secular-friendly symbols like Santa Claus is a smart business decision, particularly in a country whose population has been becoming increasingly nonreligious.

I see this as another example of how pagan or secular ideology can blend with Christianity culturally and socially. We have to remember the early church was pretty well uncorrupted.

As time went on and as the disciples died off after which we see the church become political and is corrupted. Thats when we see all the heresies and controversies.

stevevw · May 16, 2026

JSRG said:
This is a claim that is often made, but not backed up. This idea that Sunday was of any importance to Romans, or even Sun worshippers at the time, lacks foundation.

But its a fact that Constantine made Sunday the day of rest into law.

The Roman emperor Constantine I (died 337), a convert to Christianity, introduced the first civil legislation concerning Sunday in 321, when he decreed that all work should cease on that day, except that farmers could work if necessary. That law, aimed at providing time for worship, was followed later in the same century and in subsequent centuries by further restrictions on Sunday activities.

Sunday | Rest, Worship, Reflection | Britannica

Sunday, the first day of the week. It is regarded by most Christians as the Lord’s Day, or the weekly memorial of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection from the dead. The practice of Christians gathering together for worship on Sunday dates back to apostolic times, but details of the actual development of

www.britannica.com

JSRG said:
As far as I can tell, this claim dates back to a writer named Franz Cumont who wrote some very influential works about Mithraism around the year 1900, and he thought Sunday was a particularly holy day for Mithraists

As far as I understand gnosticism and mysticism were already growing in the first century and early in the church. Including Mithraism.

JSRG said:
Mithraic scholars later turned against a number of Cumont's conclusions

How I see it is that the Christians were already worshipping on Sunday as part of honoring Christs resurrection on Sunday. But as the church gained political and social power and the issue had to be sorted in regards to which day the empire should rest to worship.

It was decided Sunday. There was pressure from other religious and political groups. Not to disimilar to today. Plus the church wanted to seperate from the Jews worship.

NCRWebsite

Sunday worship is the day on which most Christians attend church. However, what is the origin of Sunday worship?

ncawmscog.org

JSRG said:
So the claim that Sunday was a "day of worship" for the pagans (any more than any other day of the week was) seems to be without real evidence.

It is a fact that the biggest religion in pagan Rome was Mithraism god of the sun. The day of worship is in the name Sun-day.

Day of Mithras/Sol: In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, the Roman Empire popularized the astrological week. The first day of the week was dedicated to the Sun (Sol). Because Mithra was a prominent sun-deity in Rome, his followers viewed Sunday as a sacred day of worship, often gathering to greet the rising sun.

JSRG said:
Every claim it did that I've seen seems to either go back to Cumont or (if they try to actually cite primary soruces) cite a source that doesn't really back up the claim when read in context. Indeed, isn't this notable? If Sunday was such a popular holy day for the pagans, why isn't that frequently mentioned in the writings of that period? Especially when the narrative is that it was such a popular day that Constantine was copying it to appease the pagans?

It is. We know that Mithraism, the worship of the sun-god Mithra, rapidly became the most influential religion in the Roman Empire from the 1st century onwards.

Before ancient religious reformer Zarathustra (Greek name Zoroaster) gained influence in the region during the 6th century bce, the Iranians had a polytheistic religion, and Mithra was the most important of their gods.

Known as Mithras in the Roman Empire during the 2nd and 3rd centuries ce, this deity was honoured as the patron of loyalty to the emperor.

Mithraism | Definition, History, Mythology, & Facts | Britannica

Mithraism, the worship of Mithra, the Iranian god of the sun, justice, contract, and war in pre-Zoroastrian Iran. Known as Mithras in the Roman Empire during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, this deity was honored as the patron of loyalty to the emperor.

www.britannica.com

JSRG said:
Finally, Sunday had become the main holy day of the Christian church before Constantine was even born.

Yes so you can see how under Constantine in trying to unify the empire that was full of pagans and Christians that Sunday as the day of rest and worship was the perfect solution. Christians were already doing it in practice and the pagans honored the sun god on Sunday.

JSRG said:
There's plenty of Christian writings asserting as such. For just one example, here's Justin Martyr in The First Apology (mid second century), Chapter 67:

And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. 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, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.

Note, incidentally, he makes no mention whatsoever of any pagans doing so, even though in several different cases in the document--heck, including the chapter immediately before this one--he does mention points of similarity of Christian practice and pagan ones, which he blames on devils imitating Christianity. Personally I see no need to conclude any such similarities were due to malevolent devils (or, as some have tried to use Justin's statements for, evidence of Christian copying), but rather were just coincidence.

Nevertheless Mithraism was a widely practiced pagan belief with worship on Sunday that began well before Christ. In fact a Indo-Iranian religion adopted by the Greco Romans. We have plenty of references to Mithraism from the first centuries as this was the biggest pagan belief of the empire.

Emperor Constantine I, who was historically drawn to sun-worship before converting to Christianity, issued a law in 321 CE establishing Sunday as a legal day of rest across the Roman Empire. In this decree, Sunday was referred to as the "venerable day of the sun" (venerabili die Solis) rather than a Christian term. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

JSRG said:
One notices that despite your claim that these show "what actually took place in the fourth century", none of them say anything about the fourth century. Heck, the last one says "fifteen centuries before Protestantism was born". As Protestantism's start is dated to the sixteenth century, this would put it in the first century, not the fourth!

Yes thats right. Mithraism began well before the 1st century and was adopted by Greco Roman beliefs. It aligned with their pagan sun god Sol Invictus. So by the 4th century it was well and truly ingrained in gentile pagan beliefs.

JSRG said:
The Catholic Encyclopedia agrees it was in the first century as well. While not in the article you cite, in its separate Sunday article, it asserts:

"Sunday was the first day of the week according to the Jewish method of reckoning, but for Christians it began to take the place of the Jewish Sabbath in Apostolic times as the day set apart for the public and solemn worship of God."

Yes thats what I have been saying.

JSRG said:
So this source, too, puts it in the first century, not the fourth.

Rome's Challenge

asbereansdid.blogspot.com

Indeed, that blog post gives a valuable (and lengthy) quote from Dudley Canright's work "The Lord's Day from Neither Catholics nor Pagans" (a work from the early 20th century criticizing Seventh Day Adventists for making the argument you made, showing how much regurgitation there is in these quotes of yours--

Because its true and factual. Except I am not sure what the SDA is arguing. I disagree with them fundementally.

JSRG said:
Canright even mameks a reference to the Catholic Mirror article when he mentions "Rome's Challenge"). One can read more from Canright on that page, but the key point is the conclusion. After going through Catholic source after Catholic source after Catholic source asserting the shift to Sunday occurred in the apostolic period, he concludes:

Here it will be seen that the Catholics use exactly the same arguments for the change of the day that all Protestants do, and locate the change at the same date, in the time of the apostles and by the apostles.

But do not the catechism and Catholic writers, when controverting Protestants, assert that the "Holy Catholic Church" changed the day? Certainly, but they also claim that the Catholic Church began with the apostles who changed the day. Do not Adventists know this? Yes. Why, then, do they not tell the whole facts in the case? Let them answer.

This is conflating a church dispute about origins of how Sunday came about. The point is for which you are confirming is that Sunday became a day of worship very early and seems to be the commonly believed day worship is to take place. Which is different to the Jews.

Perhaps this is an example of one of those issues where its divided and we don't have any clear biblical basis and only the lived reality of how the church actually did worship. How they determined what the teaching were saying about which day. The only evidence is in how the disciples and early Christians actually put into practice worship.

JSRG said:
Consider the high Catholic authorities quoted on this subject - the Council of Trent; the papal delegate, Cardinal Gibbons; Archbishop Ireland; the Catholic Encyclopedia; the Catholic Dictionary; written statements of priests; and the teachings of the catechism. All agree that the change in the day was made by the apostles. Beyond dispute, this establishes the doctrine of the Catholic Church on the origin of the Lord's Day. Not a single Catholic authority can be quoted teaching that the change of the Sabbath was made by the Popes or by the Papacy centuries later. That is purely an invention of Seventh-Day Adventists. Here, then, is the testimony of two hundred and fifty million Roman Catholics, all agreeing that the observance of Sunday as the Lord's Day originated with the apostles. Now if Adventists quote the Catholics, then let them abide by their testimony.

You do realise your making a case for Sunday worship being biblical and the proper teaching and that there are those including the person I was replying to that disagree and say Saturday is the proper day according to the bible teachings.

JSRG said:
Now read "Rome's Challenge," "Father Enright's Challenge," and a lot of other Catholic "challenges," which Adventists gleefully gather up and endorse and peddle the world over as unanswerable. Read them very carefully and notice particularly that not one of these Catholic "challenges" ever locates the time when the "Catholic Church" made the change. In all these "Challenges" they adroitly leave this point out, and presume on the ignorance of the general public, which supposes that the Catholic Church began centuries after Christ. Then Adventists take advantage of this popular idea of the Catholic Church and locate the change about 300 years after Christ. Such deception is unworthy of Christian teachers.

Except if the Catholics say that their church goes back to the disciples then the disciples changing the day to Sunday will still be aligned with the Catholics.

I think there are two differing aspects. We may be able to find a basis for Sunday worship from the apostles. But we also have heretics and denominations that claim it was Saturday.

So perhaps it came down to some sort of edict or declaration as to the whole churches position for the empire to support and confirm it was Sunday and not Saturday. Which may have happened later as a result of all the controversy over what day.

I can understand how the Jewish Christians in wanting to destinguish themselves from Judaism like other traditions determined a different day because it represented they beliefs and not the Jewish ones at the time.

JSRG said:
So all of these quotes people throw out about the Catholic Church declaring it made any change to the Sabbath ignore the fact that the context of that claim is that the Catholic Church considers the apostles to be the same church as it,

This is a different arguement about who changed the day from the Jews. Not whether the change is correct or not. It seems to me that there is controversy over the day and some are argueing that Saturday is the proper day according to the bible and early church.

JSRG said:
While it is true that many do celebrate "Christmas" without reference to the birth of Christ, and even plenty of those that do celebrate it as the birth of Christ pay more attention to the commercial parts of it than the actual Christian part, none of that has to do with "pagan practices" getting mixed in with them.

Of course it does. Giving presents under a tree is pagan. This was adopted very early as part of westernised Christianity.

JSRG said:
This is actually the effect of modern secularism and commercialism. Companies that were selling stuff for Christmas want to try to get as many people as possible to buy their stuff, so making a point of de-emphasizing explicitly Christian aspects of Christmas in favor of more secular-friendly symbols like Santa Claus is a smart business decision, particularly in a country whose population has been becoming increasingly nonreligious.

I see this as another example of how pagan or secular ideology can blend with Christianity culturally and socially. We have to remember the early church was pretty well uncorrupted.

As time went on and as the disciples died off after which we see the church become political and is corrupted. Thats when we see all the heresies and controversies.

MarkRohfrietsch said:
Please, re-read my rather short post above, both the scripture and my comments. #13

Then I have a very simple question: If we follow St. Paul's lead and take pagan devotion, and turn it arround to promote the Gospel, as he did in Athens, does that Gospel not "Sanitize" such devotion when it is now redirected to the Lord our God?

I like these passages from Paul. That he went out into the streets and preached to the pagans. I agree that when the audience is already a believer in some sort of god they are more open to such beliefs like Christ.

Though some rejected this based on the idea that Christ rose for the dead. Most beliefs around that time mocked the idea of a physical resurrection.

But if the audience is atheist or skeptical of such ideas as gods then they are a harder nut to crack. They metaphysically reject such things and demand physical evidence.

But I am not sure how this relates to Sunday worship. Or how the church later incorporated pagan ideas and false teachings. Paul also warned about the pagan religions that surround the early church. To not be caught up in false teachings and stay true to the teachings.

JSRG · May 16, 2026

stevevw said:
But its a fact that Constantine made Sunday the day of rest into law.

The Roman emperor Constantine I (died 337), a convert to Christianity, introduced the first civil legislation concerning Sunday in 321, when he decreed that all work should cease on that day, except that farmers could work if necessary. That law, aimed at providing time for worship, was followed later in the same century and in subsequent centuries by further restrictions on Sunday activities.

Sunday | Rest, Worship, Reflection | Britannica

Sunday, the first day of the week. It is regarded by most Christians as the Lord’s Day, or the weekly memorial of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection from the dead. The practice of Christians gathering together for worship on Sunday dates back to apostolic times, but details of the actual development of

www.britannica.com

It is certainly true that Constantine did pass the law (likely in recognition of the fact it was the holy day of Christians and he was trying to aid them, as your quote indeed asserts), but that isn't the point of dispute.

stevevw said:
It is a fact that the biggest religion in pagan Rome was Mithraism god of the sun. The day of worship is in the name Sun-day.

Day of Mithras/Sol: In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, the Roman Empire popularized the astrological week. The first day of the week was dedicated to the Sun (Sol). Because Mithra was a prominent sun-deity in Rome, his followers viewed Sunday as a sacred day of worship, often gathering to greet the rising sun.

The biggest religion in pagan Rome was, as far as I understand, the generic pagan religion with Zeus/Poseidon/Hermes/etc. and the rest, not Mithraism. However, even if Mithraism was the top dog, what precisely is your evidence that its day of worship is Sunday? You simply throw out the word Sun is in the name (which isn't evidence) and then claim it again that it was their worship day without evidence, nor do any links you offer give evidence of it.

This claim is made all over the place, but people seem curiously unable to provide actual evidence of this. Every claim I've seen where someone says this is (1) Cumont's speculations, (2) traceable to Cumont, (3) a misunderstanding of an old document, or (4) done without any evidence offered.

One should also note that the days of the weeks were not named after the gods, but after the planets. Things do get a bit confusing because they did have gods that had the same names as the planets, but the days themselves came from the planets.

stevevw said:
Nevertheless Mithraism was a widely practiced pagan belief with worship on Sunday that began well before Christ. In fact a Indo-Iranian religion adopted by the Greco Romans. We have plenty of references to Mithraism from the first centuries as this was the biggest pagan belief of the empire.

And here we come to a major failing of Cumont, which perhaps I should have elaborated on previously. I noted that a lot of Cumont's ideas are rejected by Mithraic scholars now, but there's one in particular that was strongly rejected. Namely, Cumont thought that the Indo-Iranian Mithras and the Roman Mithras were very similar, and that what was true about one would be true about the other. Thus he would engage in attempts to find links that were very strained and torturous. Because, again, he was basically the Mithraic expert for a good while, these were accepted by a lot of people. But this approach is rejected; the Roman Mithras is seen as a very distinct entity from the Iranian one, and one cannot assume that a trait found in one is found in another.

For example, Mithras slaying a bull is iconic in Roman Mithraism; but there is no reference as far as I am aware of the Iranian Mithras ever slaying any bull (as John Hinnells noted at the 1971 First International Congress of Mithraic Studies (Volume 2 Page 291), criticizing Cumont's approach: "In no Iranian text does Mithra slay a bull"). Claims that the followers of the Iranian Mithras had any affection to Sunday is even weaker than that of the Roman Mithras. Even if it is true about Roman Mithraism, that wouldn't make it true of the Iranian Mithras.

Of course, we still come to the same problem: Where's the evidence that even the Roman one had that? You say "we have plenty of references to Mithraism from the first centuries" which is true--but where in those references does anyone say anything about Sunday being of importance to followers of the religion? One would think it would be all over the place in these references it was true... but it's not. How can Sunday be so popular among the pagans that Constantine used it to reconcile them with Christianity but so unpopular among the pagans that there's such a lack of any clear references to them finding it important?

For time/space and to avoid redundancy, I'll skip over most of the rest of your message, but this portion I feel I should address:

stevevw said:
Of course it does. Giving presents under a tree is pagan. This was adopted very early as part of westernised Christianity.

The Christmas tree didn't arise until around the 16th century; that's not early (and they didn't get particularly popular until later). The practice of giving gifts during Christmas appears to have started to gain popularity around that point (prior to that, I believe it was a tradition of St. Nicholas day--earlier in the month--but in various areas it got moved to Christmas, possibly by Protestants who liked the gift giving but wanted to get away from the Catholic ideas about saints), but even the St. Nicholas tradition occurred I think starting around the 11th century or so, and obviously none of it involved the presents going until the tree until after the Christmas tree was introduced. These dates are late, not early, and are well past the point there would have been any pagan practices to incorporate. Furthermore, what is the evidence that pagans ever had such a practice of putting giving gifts under a tree to begin with?

See, when people try to say "such and such is pagan and it's in Christmas" the parallels they bring up invariably fall into at least one of the following categories:
1) There is no evidence the pagans ever engaged in the applicable practice to begin with
2) It only emerged as a Christmas practice long after paganism went extinct.
3) The alleged pagan practice cannot be proved to have started before the Christian practice (meaning the pagans might have copied Christians)
4) The alleged pagan practice is very unlikely to have been known to Christians at all, so they couldn't have copied it even if they wanted to

Giving presents under a tree falls under both #1 and #2. In regards to #1, there is as far as I am aware no evidence that any pagan ever gave presents under a tree, though you're welcome to be the first one to show evidence (please be sure to share the primary documents; anyone can claim there was such a practice, but actually showing evidence is another matter). But even if this was in fact a tradition, however, these practices only entered Christmas so long after these alleged pagan practices were dead and not even known anymore, so any similarity (and note no similarity has been proven to begin with) would be coincidence.

The Liturgist · May 17, 2026

JSRG said:
The biggest religion in pagan Rome was, as far as I understand, the generic pagan religion with Zeus/Poseidon/Hermes/etc. and the rest, not Mithraism.

You are correct on this point - in the first through third centuries AD, up until the death of Diocletian and St. Constantine removing from power his fellow Tetrarchs and issuing the Edict of Milan which legalized the Christian faith is concerned, the predominant religion in the Roman Empire and the main threat to Christianity was the Greco-Roman Pagan synthesis, particularly in is Neo Platonic form, which attempted to provide an intellectual quality to it and to borrow legitimacy by invoking the name of Plato (although there is a huge difference between Platonic pihilosophy and the Neo-Platonic religion, which simply used his philosophy to create a more coherent theology for the Hellenic Pagan religion). Mithraism was very exclusive - only wealthy men could be initiated in the Mithras mysteries; it was practiced alongside the Pagan religion and was akin to the relationship of Freemasonry to many forms of Protestant Christianity. It was also different enough from actual Zoroastrianism, which is practiced by both men and women and does not tolerate integration into Pagan religions but is rather monotheistic and dualist and in many respects similar to Judaism, so similar that I suspect Zarathustra was a failed prophet, someone sent out like Jonah who ultimately was unsuccessful (or perhaps if we believe the Zoroastrians own timeline as to when Zarathustra was alive and of the origin of their faith rather than that taught by many scholars, it could be that the religion resulted from cultural contacts between the Jews and Persians and this would explain why the Persians were so receptive of the Jews after conquering the Chaldeans, who were polytheists whose views towards Judaism tended to be antagonistic except on those occasions when the Holy Prophets like St. Daniel proved useful to the rulers.

The primary Pagan rival to Christianity in the fourth century was rather Neo-Platonism, and the last Pagan emperor of Rome, Julian the Apostate, converted from the heresy of Arianism to Neo-Platonism; this was also the belief of the evil witch Hypatia* who conspiracy theorists like to accuse St. Cyril the Great, the bishop of Alexandria of conspiring to murder, praising her as an enlightened woman of science, when really she was a committed practitioner of the occult.

The main rival to Christianity during the most of the fourth century, following the rise of St. Constantine, was not Paganism, which was in a state of terminal decline from which it would never recover - indeed, it became extinct for decades and as our friends @Jipsah @prodromos and @ViaCrucis have pointed out, the modern day neo-Pagan religions are not contiguous with ancient Paganism but rather emerged in the 19th century as nationalist-hyper-Romanticist attempts to recreate paganism, but to a large extent are innovations, such as Wicca), but Arianism.

The fact of the matter is that throughout the fourth century, every Roman Emperor from Constantius through Valens persecuted Christians (Valens much less so than the others as he had bigger fish to fry, so to speak), and all of them except Julian the Apostate, whose reign was quite short, were Arian. Indeed even St. Constantine fell under Arian influence towards the end of his life and was manipulated into ordering St. Athanasius arrested and exiled to Trier, an extreme punishment given Trier was at the northernmost border of the Empire under constant threat of attack from Germanic tribes (it is actually legitimately miraculous St. Athanasius survived the journey let alone spending winters in Trier, given he was from Egypt and unused to the extreme cold;in 406 AD the wicked emperor Theodosius II would exile St. John Chrysostom who perished as a result) on charges of murder which were later proven false when the Christians of Alexandria were able to produce the man St. Athanasius was accused of murdering.

Thus throughout the fourth century, far from influencing or manipulating Christianity, the early Byzantine Emperors tried to shut it down, in favor of a false religion that looks very similar to the beliefs of the J/Ws. Actions like separating the feast of the Incarnation from the Feast of the Baptism of Christ (a feast which logically fell on December 25th since the pre-existing feast of the Annunciation was on March 25th and most early Christians believed our Lord was conceived on the same calendar date on which he would be crucified) were done in opposition to Arianism, which denied the Incarnation.

*St. Cyril was right to warn his flock about her, but did not kill her (it is an insult to the intelligence of the man who realized the complex reasons why Nestorianism threatened the doctrine of the Incarnation and was incompatible with the Nicene Creed despite a superficial appearance of compatibility, and who also was one of those opposed to Pelagius, the Briton who taught that Christians were supposed to save our selves following the example of Christ, rather than being dependent on the grace of the Holy Spirit for our salvation, and thus supported the efforts of Western Christians such as St. John Cassian, St. Vincent of Lerins and St. Augustine of Hippo to suppress that heresy) to believe that he would risk making a martyr of Hypatia.

The Liturgist · May 17, 2026

stevevw said:
Including Mithraism.

No Christian practiced the Mithraic mysteries and adherence to the other sects you mentioned were grounds for excommuncation before and after the Council of Nicaea. Indeed St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the most important Western Christians from the first century, had a Christian mother but was a Manichean until his conversion to Christianity, and later wrote polemics against the false dualistic teachings of Mani. Additionally St. Epiphanios of Salamis in Cyprus, one of the most important fourth century church fathers, wrote an updated index of heresy based on Against Heresies by the second century St. Irenaeus of Lyons and most of the heresies in the book were Docetist-Emanationist sects of the type you refer to; one cannot be a Christian and a Valentinian or Marcionite or Cerinthian or Ophite or Tatianist or Manichee simultaneously; the belief systems are mutually incompatible and the Nicene Creed and the ancient baptismal liturgy known as the Apostles’ Creed (which is not actually used as a creed in the Eastern Church, the first actual Creed per se is was the Nicene Creed) as well as the sixth century canticle Quincunque Vult sometimes incorrectly called the “Athanasian Creed” (which would be remarkable given that St. Athanasius had reposed in Christ centuries before it was compiled) all contain numerous clauses which preclude the heresies you speak of.

Specifically, the belief that Christ came in the flesh is incompatible with the family of heresies people sometimes refer to as “Gnosticism” although in reality Gnosticism (whose practitioners were commonly referred to as Borborites meaning “mud people” so repulsive were their beliefs) is one specific and extremely vile heresy in that group which it is wisely forbidden to discuss on CF.com, so while I know what they believed I won’t discuss it; it was basically devil worship and its practitioners were despised even by Pagans, most of whom in comparison had fairly upright morals - despite the fact that the idols they worshipped depicted demons according to Psalm 95 v. 5 (in the Septuagint; the Masoretic equivalent verse is Psalms 96:5 ). Actually several varieties of docetic-emanationist belief look like devil worship in that a common trope among the Syrian school of these religions in particular, introduced by the Ophites, was the idea that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was a Christophany, but even that blasphemous idea is tame compared to what the Borborites believed and practiced, which is so repulsive it cannot be openly discussed (and I would advise against even reading the discussions of it in ancient treatises on heretical sects unless one has an extremely strong stomach).

By the way I can supply you with the Panarion and other books from before, during and after the fourth century written by Western and Eastern church fathers and later Roman Catholic books and Eastern Orthodox books - if you study them closely you’ll notice a disconnect between RC beliefs and Orthodox beliefs emerging around 800 AD with the filioque crisis and solidifying into a full blown schism by 1054 AD, when the Patriarch of Constantinople was excommunicated by a Papal legate during the reign of Pope Leo IX (amusingly, in 451 AD, his predecessor Leo I contributed to the unfortunate schism with the Oriental Orthodox in that it was his unsolicied Tome which, combined with the anathematization of Dioscorus of Alexandria based on the falsehood that Dioscorus supported the Monophysite heretic Eusebius, who had in fact been anathematized by Dioscorus, however, to be fair, the schism was the result of crypto-Nestorians such as Ibas interfering in the Council of Chalcedon, and Leo I for his part objected to the council being held (he was concerned about the possibility of a schism if I recall, despite ironically and accidentally contributing it by writing a document intended to reconcile the two parties of the dispute which instead turned into a lightning rod of division in what was the only really unfortunate outcome of an ecumenical council; while it is true that Monophysitism needed to be anathematized and Chalcedon did achieve that, the schism with the Oriental Orthodox was a high price to pay, although it also had the effect of causing a large number of Orthodox Christians to exist completely outside of Imperial influence, which allowed them to flourish in the Persian Empire, India and other places, and to spread the Gospel across Asia, converting many Christians along with the Church of the East, which had also become estranged from the CHalcedonians due to the influence of Nestorian theologians. These churches are the closest to the Eastern Orthodox in terms of beliefs, using similar liturgy, and not making use of the filioque clause in the creed; additionally the Oriental Orthodox are unique in that their church is the only ancient church that never suffered an outbreak of iconoclasm.

Oriental Orthodoxy also inspired, by virtue of its existence independent of any connection to the Pope of Rome, Martin Luther’s decision to separate from the Roman church, which led both to Roman Orthodoxy and the much needed Counter Reformation within the Roman Catholic Church (while the name implies opposition to the Reformation, the Counter Reformation included a number of internal reforms within the RCC that addressed most of the complaints raised by Martin Luther in his 95 Theses, had Pope Leo X, another Leo, amusingly enough, been inclined to engage in them rather than simply excommunicating and anathematizing Luther with the Papal Bull Exsurge Domine, the schism could have been avoided - for example, the Council of Trent prohibited the sale of indulgences, among other reforms.

Hopefully this provides you with more context free from the false Catholic vs. Protestant dichotomy advocated both by a minority of RCC hardliners and by Restorationists and Landmark Baptists that ignores the perspective of Eastern Christians and introduces an alternate history of the early church that differs from what is indicated by all surviving documentary and historical evidence and which is accepted by all leading academics whether Protestant, Restorationist, Roman Catholic, Old Catholic Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox or members of the Assyrian Church of the East or the Ancient Church of the East, indeed even secular academics agree with it aside from the miraculous aspects, but then attempt to exploit it to argue falsehoods like the idea that St. Cyril the Great of Alexandria orchestrated the murder of the evil Pagan witch Hypatia (also Hypatia is lionized as a heroic proto-feminist woman of science, which is such a distortion, since the limit of her scientific ability was some knowledge of the occult disciplines of astrology and alchemy; while it is true that these eventually contributed to astronomy and chemistry, the fact is that most ancient practitioners of them were not scientific, and there were only a few philosophers in antiquity (Socrates, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Al-Kwarizmi, Averroes, Avicenna and Galileo, many of whom were also pious Christians, who had any sense of academic discipline).

Speaking of early physicians, St. Luke the Evangelist is one, and a whole class of saints are venerated by the Orthodox because they provided medical care without charge to the poor - earning them the status of unmercenary healers, and did so in order to glorify Christ. Notably, Saints Panteilmon, Kosimas and Damian. And it was another prominent fourth century Christian and defender of the Trinity and the Council of Nicaea, St. Basil the Great, who built the first recognizable hospital - where anyone could receive medical treatment regardless of their ability to pay or lack thereof, alongside a hostel for travelers and a hospice for the dying, all of which were paid for with the treasury of the Church of Caesarea in Cappadocia (not to be confused with Caesarea in Judea, which was home to Origen Adimantius and other prominent theologians, since prior to the rebuilding of Jerusalem by St. Helena, the mother of St. Constantine, who was a Christian and who influenced her son’s conversion at least as much as the dream of the Cross “with this, you shall conquer,” Caesarea in Syria Palestina as the Romans renamed Judea was the center of the church in the Holy Land, of neccessity, since the Romans carefully controlled who was allowed in and out of Aeolia Capitolina, as they renamed the ruined city of Jerusalem, essentially turning it into a closed city and military garrison from which absolute control could be maintained.

It was the Edict of Milan issued by St. Constantine that allowed Christians and Jews to return to Jerusalem and it was St. Helena who restored the city enabling pilgrimages there, and who led what amounted to one of the first archaeological expeditions in history to locate the major historical sites. Some people scoff at them, but the only proposed alternative to the Holy Sepulchre, “Gordon’s Cavalry,” has been shown to have been constructed in the last 500 years or so and not to have been a tomb at all, but rather a space used as a prison and as secure storage.

stevevw · May 18, 2026

The Liturgist said:
No Christian practiced the Mithraic mysteries and adherence to the other sects you mentioned were grounds for excommuncation before and after the Council of Nicaea. Indeed St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the most important Western Christians from the first century, had a Christian mother but was a Manichean until his conversion to Christianity, and later wrote polemics against the false dualistic teachings of Mani. Additionally St. Epiphanios of Salamis in Cyprus, one of the most important fourth century church fathers, wrote an updated index of heresy based on Against Heresies by the second century St. Irenaeus of Lyons and most of the heresies in the book were Docetist-Emanationist sects of the type you refer to; one cannot be a Christian and a Valentinian or Marcionite or Cerinthian or Ophite or Tatianist or Manichee simultaneously; the belief systems are mutually incompatible and the Nicene Creed and the ancient baptismal liturgy known as the Apostles’ Creed (which is not actually used as a creed in the Eastern Church, the first actual Creed per se is was the Nicene Creed) as well as the sixth century canticle Quincunque Vult sometimes incorrectly called the “Athanasian Creed” (which would be remarkable given that St. Athanasius had reposed in Christ centuries before it was compiled) all contain numerous clauses which preclude the heresies you speak of.

Specifically, the belief that Christ came in the flesh is incompatible with the family of heresies people sometimes refer to as “Gnosticism” although in reality Gnosticism (whose practitioners were commonly referred to as Borborites meaning “mud people” so repulsive were their beliefs) is one specific and extremely vile heresy in that group which it is wisely forbidden to discuss on CF.com, so while I know what they believed I won’t discuss it; it was basically devil worship and its practitioners were despised even by Pagans, most of whom in comparison had fairly upright morals - despite the fact that the idols they worshipped depicted demons according to Psalm 95 v. 5 (in the Septuagint; the Masoretic equivalent verse is Psalms 96:5 ). Actually several varieties of docetic-emanationist belief look like devil worship in that a common trope among the Syrian school of these religions in particular, introduced by the Ophites, was the idea that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was a Christophany, but even that blasphemous idea is tame compared to what the Borborites believed and practiced, which is so repulsive it cannot be openly discussed (and I would advise against even reading the discussions of it in ancient treatises on heretical sects unless one has an extremely strong stomach).

By the way I can supply you with the Panarion and other books from before, during and after the fourth century written by Western and Eastern church fathers and later Roman Catholic books and Eastern Orthodox books - if you study them closely you’ll notice a disconnect between RC beliefs and Orthodox beliefs emerging around 800 AD with the filioque crisis and solidifying into a full blown schism by 1054 AD, when the Patriarch of Constantinople was excommunicated by a Papal legate during the reign of Pope Leo IX (amusingly, in 451 AD, his predecessor Leo I contributed to the unfortunate schism with the Oriental Orthodox in that it was his unsolicied Tome which, combined with the anathematization of Dioscorus of Alexandria based on the falsehood that Dioscorus supported the Monophysite heretic Eusebius, who had in fact been anathematized by Dioscorus, however, to be fair, the schism was the result of crypto-Nestorians such as Ibas interfering in the Council of Chalcedon, and Leo I for his part objected to the council being held (he was concerned about the possibility of a schism if I recall, despite ironically and accidentally contributing it by writing a document intended to reconcile the two parties of the dispute which instead turned into a lightning rod of division in what was the only really unfortunate outcome of an ecumenical council; while it is true that Monophysitism needed to be anathematized and Chalcedon did achieve that, the schism with the Oriental Orthodox was a high price to pay, although it also had the effect of causing a large number of Orthodox Christians to exist completely outside of Imperial influence, which allowed them to flourish in the Persian Empire, India and other places, and to spread the Gospel across Asia, converting many Christians along with the Church of the East, which had also become estranged from the CHalcedonians due to the influence of Nestorian theologians. These churches are the closest to the Eastern Orthodox in terms of beliefs, using similar liturgy, and not making use of the filioque clause in the creed; additionally the Oriental Orthodox are unique in that their church is the only ancient church that never suffered an outbreak of iconoclasm.

Oriental Orthodoxy also inspired, by virtue of its existence independent of any connection to the Pope of Rome, Martin Luther’s decision to separate from the Roman church, which led both to Roman Orthodoxy and the much needed Counter Reformation within the Roman Catholic Church (while the name implies opposition to the Reformation, the Counter Reformation included a number of internal reforms within the RCC that addressed most of the complaints raised by Martin Luther in his 95 Theses, had Pope Leo X, another Leo, amusingly enough, been inclined to engage in them rather than simply excommunicating and anathematizing Luther with the Papal Bull Exsurge Domine, the schism could have been avoided - for example, the Council of Trent prohibited the sale of indulgences, among other reforms.

Hopefully this provides you with more context free from the false Catholic vs. Protestant dichotomy advocated both by a minority of RCC hardliners and by Restorationists and Landmark Baptists that ignores the perspective of Eastern Christians and introduces an alternate history of the early church that differs from what is indicated by all surviving documentary and historical evidence and which is accepted by all leading academics whether Protestant, Restorationist, Roman Catholic, Old Catholic Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox or members of the Assyrian Church of the East or the Ancient Church of the East, indeed even secular academics agree with it aside from the miraculous aspects, but then attempt to exploit it to argue falsehoods like the idea that St. Cyril the Great of Alexandria orchestrated the murder of the evil Pagan witch Hypatia (also Hypatia is lionized as a heroic proto-feminist woman of science, which is such a distortion, since the limit of her scientific ability was some knowledge of the occult disciplines of astrology and alchemy; while it is true that these eventually contributed to astronomy and chemistry, the fact is that most ancient practitioners of them were not scientific, and there were only a few philosophers in antiquity (Socrates, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Al-Kwarizmi, Averroes, Avicenna and Galileo, many of whom were also pious Christians, who had any sense of academic discipline).

Speaking of early physicians, St. Luke the Evangelist is one, and a whole class of saints are venerated by the Orthodox because they provided medical care without charge to the poor - earning them the status of unmercenary healers, and did so in order to glorify Christ. Notably, Saints Panteilmon, Kosimas and Damian. And it was another prominent fourth century Christian and defender of the Trinity and the Council of Nicaea, St. Basil the Great, who built the first recognizable hospital - where anyone could receive medical treatment regardless of their ability to pay or lack thereof, alongside a hostel for travelers and a hospice for the dying, all of which were paid for with the treasury of the Church of Caesarea in Cappadocia (not to be confused with Caesarea in Judea, which was home to Origen Adimantius and other prominent theologians, since prior to the rebuilding of Jerusalem by St. Helena, the mother of St. Constantine, who was a Christian and who influenced her son’s conversion at least as much as the dream of the Cross “with this, you shall conquer,” Caesarea in Syria Palestina as the Romans renamed Judea was the center of the church in the Holy Land, of neccessity, since the Romans carefully controlled who was allowed in and out of Aeolia Capitolina, as they renamed the ruined city of Jerusalem, essentially turning it into a closed city and military garrison from which absolute control could be maintained.

It was the Edict of Milan issued by St. Constantine that allowed Christians and Jews to return to Jerusalem and it was St. Helena who restored the city enabling pilgrimages there, and who led what amounted to one of the first archaeological expeditions in history to locate the major historical sites. Some people scoff at them, but the only proposed alternative to the Holy Sepulchre, “Gordon’s Cavalry,” has been shown to have been constructed in the last 500 years or so and not to have been a tomb at all, but rather a space used as a prison and as secure storage.

You got me. Too much for me to begin unravelling. My main point was that yes the church maintained their stand that was aligned with the disiciples but as time went on all these alternative interpretations and heresies were coming up.

The longer time went by the more and the more the truth became lost and blurred by all these false teachings. Until today where we have 101 denominations and interpretations claiming to be the truth.

Now the original teachings are immersed in all sorts of controversies and divisions over what is the proper teaching and application. That all began pretty well soon after the disciples passed away.

I recall seeing a doco on Polycarp who was a disciple of John. The last disciple left as an eye witness. People respected and believed his word because of his line back to Christ. When there was a dispute they would come to Polycarp as he was a disciple of John.

But after Polycarp the line began to blur and there was less respect for the words of those who trace back to the disciples. Because it was moving further away and people tend to forget. As well as all these false gnostic teachings flooding the market place. It created the perfect conditions for the church to be undermined and begin to incorporate false ideas.

The Liturgist · May 18, 2026

stevevw said:
But after Polycarp the line began to blur and there was less respect for the words of those who trace back to the disciples. Because it was moving further away and people tend to forget. As well as all these false gnostic teachings flooding the market place. It created the perfect conditions for the church to be undermined and begin to incorporate false ideas.

With all due respect, its clear you don’t know what the groups in question actually believed, although this is extremely well documented online. Especially in the case of the sect you keep mentioning that we are not allowed to discuss, the one also called the Borborites (please stop mentioning them). Look up “Against Heresies” by St. Irenaeus of Lyons or the Panarion of St. Epiphanius, or read the actual texts of those religions, such as the Nag Hammadi library recovered in 1948, and then if you want to continue to insist the Eastern Orthodox (myself, @prodromos , @jas3 ), Oriental Orthodox, traditional Anglican, Evangelical Catholic Lutherans such as our friends @MarkRohfrietsch and @ViaCrucis ) or Roman Catholic church (our friend @chevyontheriver ) well you can present what you think we believe that those sects also believed, because right now, as someone who has spent much time studying those sects, I find no evidence that there is a trace of any of their doctrines, including, but not limited, to, emanationism, dualism, the evil of the flesh, docetism, anti-materialism, transmission of the Gospel as secret knowledge, usually as secret writings from an Apostle, some of which we have (the false Gospels ascribed to Thomas, two of them, particularly the blasphemous Protoevangelion, and likewise those ascribed to Mary Magdalene, Philip, “Truth”, Judas, and a few others, the Acts of Thomas, the Pistis Sophia, the Tripartite Tractate, and some wacky poetry like “The Thunder: Perfect Mind” or some such which is basically incomprehensible, so naturally Ridley Scott sought to adapt it into a film) that only people with a special knowledge or “gnosis” can receive, denial of the inspiration of the Old Testament, rejection of the bodily resurrection either of our Lord or of ourselves in the Eschaton, rejection of reproduction as inherently evil, and anti-materialist , escapism, in any traditional church. Indeed the idea is preposterous. Two examples of modern heresies where one will see an influence of this movement are in Unitarian Universalism, specifically when Unitarianism was still nominally Christian-adjacent in the 1930s they produced religious educational material for children which suggested hidden gnosis among other things, and later, many went off the deep-end into occult emanationism and “post-Christian” thought, and the beliefs of Christian Science, which rejects the reality of the physical world.

If you’ve ever seen the Matrix, the heresies you are referring to had a heavy influence on it. There is some similarity to Buddhism, and Indian religion, with some of the heretical sects even believing in reincarnation, called the “transmigration of the soul.’ Likewise the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick following a very disruptive “trip” with an illegal substance came to believe in a weird form of Gnosticism influenced by his friendship with a retired Episcopalian bishop*, which he believed aliens were transmitting into his mind with a pink laser beam (see Radio Free Albemuth, VALIS, and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.

*This bishop in question had during his career come very close to being deposed for heresy and who would later die in the desert of Israel, his wife being saved by Bedouins, after engaging in a reckless search for historical documents pertaining to “the Historical Jesus” in the middle of nowhere without proper supplies or protection against dehydration, heat exhaustion et cetera, so not exactly Cranmer, Laud, or Seward. The repose of the bishop and his reincarnation was the theme of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (a psuedonym Dick created for the real bishop who I will not name on the principle of nil nisi bonum but anyone familiar with Episcopaplianism in San Francisco in the 1960s would know exactly who I’m talking about).

boughtwithaprice · May 19, 2026

JSRG said:
This is a claim that is often made, but not backed up. This idea that Sunday was of any importance to Romans, or even Sun worshippers at the time, lacks foundation. As far as I can tell, this claim dates back to a writer named Franz Cumont who wrote some very influential works about Mithraism around the year 1900, and he thought Sunday was a particularly holy day for Mithraists (though even Cumont, I believe, said that he did not think it was the source of Sunday worship for Christians). Cumont was considered a major authority, and so his ideas about Mithraism were repeated by a lot of people, including even scholarly sources that perhaps should have looked a bit more carefully at some of his ideas.

Mithraic scholars later turned against a number of Cumont's conclusions (a major turning point was the 1971 First International Congress of Mithraic Studies), and his work, while certainly a major step forward at the time, is now considered out of date. Scholarly works about Mithraism have as far as I can tell left this Sunday claim behind, but unfortunately even today a lot of less scholarly ones are still copying out of date sources.

So while Cumont got a lot of stuff right, one can't simply assume something is right because he said it. And now we come to the important question: What did Cumont base this idea on? From what I can determine from his work--the full thing is only in French, the English translation is abbreviated and does not include his rationale for the Sunday claim, only the claim itself--his reasoning was fairly speculative. As far as I am aware there is no mention in any ancient document that Sunday was of importance to Mithraists, Romans, or any followers of "the pagan sun god" (it's not clear what is in mind with that statement due to it being vague).

So the claim that Sunday was a "day of worship" for the pagans (any more than any other day of the week was) seems to be without real evidence. Every claim it did that I've seen seems to either go back to Cumont or (if they try to actually cite primary soruces) cite a source that doesn't really back up the claim when read in context. Indeed, isn't this notable? If Sunday was such a popular holy day for the pagans, why isn't that frequently mentioned in the writings of that period? Especially when the narrative is that it was such a popular day that Constantine was copying it to appease the pagans?

Finally, Sunday had become the main holy day of the Christian church before Constantine was even born. There's plenty of Christian writings asserting as such. For just one example, here's Justin Martyr in The First Apology (mid second century), Chapter 67:

And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. 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, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.

Note, incidentally, he makes no mention whatsoever of any pagans doing so, even though in several different cases in the document--heck, including the chapter immediately before this one--he does mention points of similarity of Christian practice and pagan ones, which he blames on devils imitating Christianity. Personally I see no need to conclude any such similarities were due to malevolent devils (or, as some have tried to use Justin's statements for, evidence of Christian copying), but rather were just coincidence.

One notices that despite your claim that these show "what actually took place in the fourth century", none of them say anything about the fourth century. Heck, the last one says "fifteen centuries before Protestantism was born". As Protestantism's start is dated to the sixteenth century, this would put it in the first century, not the fourth!

The Catholic Encyclopedia agrees it was in the first century as well. While not in the article you cite, in its separate Sunday article, it asserts:

"Sunday was the first day of the week according to the Jewish method of reckoning, but for Christians it began to take the place of the Jewish Sabbath in Apostolic times as the day set apart for the public and solemn worship of God."

So this source, too, puts it in the first century, not the fourth. The remaining one (Catholic Mirror) does not give a specific time, but also does not say anything about the fourth century. But let us look a little more into that specific quote, which is from an article called "Rome's Challenge" that is very popular for people to quote from when trying to argue that this was a shift performed by the Roman Catholic Church in the fourth century. This is addressed by this (non-Catholic) source, explaining how it doesn't really say as much as people think it does:

Rome's Challenge

asbereansdid.blogspot.com

Indeed, that blog post gives a valuable (and lengthy) quote from Dudley Canright's work "The Lord's Day from Neither Catholics nor Pagans" (a work from the early 20th century criticizing Seventh Day Adventists for making the argument you made, showing how much regurgitation there is in these quotes of yours--Canright even mameks a reference to the Catholic Mirror article when he mentions "Rome's Challenge"). One can read more from Canright on that page, but the key point is the conclusion. After going through Catholic source after Catholic source after Catholic source asserting the shift to Sunday occurred in the apostolic period, he concludes:

Here it will be seen that the Catholics use exactly the same arguments for the change of the day that all Protestants do, and locate the change at the same date, in the time of the apostles and by the apostles.

But do not the catechism and Catholic writers, when controverting Protestants, assert that the "Holy Catholic Church" changed the day? Certainly, but they also claim that the Catholic Church began with the apostles who changed the day. Do not Adventists know this? Yes. Why, then, do they not tell the whole facts in the case? Let them answer.

Consider the high Catholic authorities quoted on this subject - the Council of Trent; the papal delegate, Cardinal Gibbons; Archbishop Ireland; the Catholic Encyclopedia; the Catholic Dictionary; written statements of priests; and the teachings of the catechism. All agree that the change in the day was made by the apostles. Beyond dispute, this establishes the doctrine of the Catholic Church on the origin of the Lord's Day. Not a single Catholic authority can be quoted teaching that the change of the Sabbath was made by the Popes or by the Papacy centuries later. That is purely an invention of Seventh-Day Adventists. Here, then, is the testimony of two hundred and fifty million Roman Catholics, all agreeing that the observance of Sunday as the Lord's Day originated with the apostles. Now if Adventists quote the Catholics, then let them abide by their testimony.

Now read "Rome's Challenge," "Father Enright's Challenge," and a lot of other Catholic "challenges," which Adventists gleefully gather up and endorse and peddle the world over as unanswerable. Read them very carefully and notice particularly that not one of these Catholic "challenges" ever locates the time when the "Catholic Church" made the change. In all these "Challenges" they adroitly leave this point out, and presume on the ignorance of the general public, which supposes that the Catholic Church began centuries after Christ. Then Adventists take advantage of this popular idea of the Catholic Church and locate the change about 300 years after Christ. Such deception is unworthy of Christian teachers.

So all of these quotes people throw out about the Catholic Church declaring it made any change to the Sabbath ignore the fact that the context of that claim is that the Catholic Church considers the apostles to be the same church as it, and that it was the apostles (who in the RCC's estimation, were the Catholic Church) who did it. Now maybe someone thinks the claim of the apostles doing it, or the Catholic Church being the same church as the apostle, is false (Canright, being a Protestant, explicitly asserts he thinks the Catholic Church has gone wayward). But that's the basic claim of the Catholic Church, and to accept one but not the other is rather odd. Now, I'm sure that, given how many Catholic writings there have been, one can find a few that might actually locate the move to Sunday as happening later on, like in the fourth century, but that's not the normal position. Certainly, the quotes you cited (as noted by Canright) make no mention of the fourth century or Constantine. Heck, as I noted, one of the things you quoted even in the quote itself located it as a first century event.

While it is true that many do celebrate "Christmas" without reference to the birth of Christ, and even plenty of those that do celebrate it as the birth of Christ pay more attention to the commercial parts of it than the actual Christian part, none of that has to do with "pagan practices" getting mixed in with them. This is actually the effect of modern secularism and commercialism. Companies that were selling stuff for Christmas want to try to get as many people as possible to buy their stuff, so making a point of de-emphasizing explicitly Christian aspects of Christmas in favor of more secular-friendly symbols like Santa Claus is a smart business decision, particularly in a country whose population has been becoming increasingly nonreligious.

Thank you for that wonderful scholarly review. To me this issue frequently receives the treatment that I recall was used by the Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. Your review is from a lover of truth, as all Christians are called to be.
As a propagandist, Goebbels knew that intellectuals are not persuaded by argument, so he resorted to using emotion and force. Here are some of his quotes:

A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.
This is the secret of propaganda: Those who are to be persuaded by it should be completely immersed in the ideas of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it.
If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself

The lack of scholarly review makes the Sabbatarian arguments fall flat. When faced with the facts which you present, we can see the appeal to emotion rather than fact.
Their position is that the Catholic Church changed the sabbath for pagan reasons. They say Sunday is the mark of the beast. No one wants to be pagan and Christian at the same time , and no Christian would want to take the mark of the beast, so these type of arguments produce a very strong emotional response in the hearers. When the claims are investigated and proven false, even with scripture, the emotional conditioning in the style of Goebbels, is so strong that they will not give up their position, even with truth staring them in the face.

As Christians, we are not to use the tactics of Goebbels, as scripture says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. The weapons Our Lord gives us are prayer, fasting, humility, love of truth and love of enemies. Forgive them Father, they don’t know what they are doing
We do know the truth, and we find it when we search with all of our hearts. Jesus gave the great commission to the Apostles. He said go into all the world and preach the Gospel, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. He did not say go into all the world and teach the 10 commandments, He said all that I have commanded you. Jesus gave His final command before His death, when He said Do this in remembrance of me. Did He give them the remembrance of the seventh day Sabbath? He had the perfect opportunity as they were celebrating the Passover. Instead He took the bread and said this is my body broken for you and this cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you.
The Apostles knew the significance of that command as Numbers 28 tells us that every Sabbath must have a perpetual holocaust (sacrifice) of Lamb, bread and wine. With His command, He stopped the animal sacrifices and replaced them with Himself. They are not nullified, but fulfilled. Jesus told them that the old Covenant is over, I am the Sabbath. The Sabbath is not just a day. It is the perpetual sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Scripture tells us He is a priest forever in the order of Melchisedech. Melchisedech offered bread and wine just as is done at every Apostolic Mass, as Our Lord commanded.
Some say Jesus died once and sacrifice has ended, the Sabbath has no sacrfice. Well Numbers 28 disagrees with that, and the words Our Lord taught us in Matthew and Luke regarding the Lord’s Prayer, as well as John 6 in the bread of life discourse teach the perpetual nature of the sacrifice.
Just as the manah in the desert was not to be hoarded, the Israelites were to go out everyday to gather it, the Lord taught us to pray give us this day our daily bread. This does not mean physical food, as the word translated “daily bread” is an incomplete translation. The original Greek reads suprasubstantial bread; this is spiritual food. Christ says in John 6, unless we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, we have no life in us. Jesus died once for all, but we must consume His flesh and blood on a regular basis, daily, weekly, yearly to maintain our spiritual health. To consume Him worthily, we must afflict our conscience, mortify the deeds of the flesh in order to prepare for the marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven. We have to do that while we are alive, because at death our will is fixed and there is no more chance for repentance, we face the judgement. If we refuse to eat his flesh and blood, we enter the judgement unprepared. If we eat His flesh and blood in an unworthy manner, we heap condemnation on ourselves.

Thank you again for your scholarly review. I too love the truth and can face the facts. Have there been evil men in the Catholic Church? Yes and Jesus told us that there would be, when He gave us the parable of the wheat and the tares. Does this make the whole Catholic Catechism evil? No, that conclusion is not born out by scripture

Scripture tells us in Colossians 2 that we are not to be judged by Sabbath days; however, the rest of Scripture tells us that we will be judged by Sabbath sacrifice. To the seventh day sabbatarians, I ask, so you meet on Saturdays? Where is your sacrifice? Or as Isaac asked Abraham, where is the Lamb? If you refuse to offer bread and wine and refuse to make sacrifice, are you really keeping Sabbath holy? Are you really keeping Christ’s command to do this in remembrance of me? Why do you call unholy those that do follow Christ’s command regarding the Sabbath and His sacrificial death on the cross?

Remember the Sabbath itself does not give you rest, Jesus says to all those that are heavy laden, come unto me, and I will give you rest. What more do you need to see that Jesus is not only Lord of the Sabbath, His broken body and shed blood on the cross now offered in the perpetual sacrifice of bread and wine IS the Sabbath?

DamianWarS · May 23, 2026

boughtwithaprice said:
This is from Iraneus, Bishop from the early 2nd century. Taught by Polycarp who knew John the Apostle personally.
The charge has been leveled that the Church apostasized after the Apostles died, because they did not keep the Sabbath.
I find this highly unlikely as the Church has existed for about 100 yrs at that time. There were heretics who claimed special knowledge and change the Gospel. They were called gnostics, and Iraneus vigorously opposed them.
There is no record of a Sabbath controversy in the second century, but there was controversy over who Christ is and what He accomplished
This is pre-Nicene creed, but we can see that the orthodox believers held the sacraments in high regard, especially baptism and the Eucharist. This does not look like apostasy, rather the 15th century reformers were mistaken in reducing the Sabbath sacrifice to symbolism. I have already shown from scripture that the Sabbath is to have a perpetual sacrifice of lamb, bread and wine. Jesus confirms it at the Last Supper, and scripture confirms Him as a priest forever according to the Order of Melchisedech.

From the treatise "Against the Heresies" by St Irenaeus

The Eucharist, pledge of our resurrection

If our flesh is not saved, then the Lord has not redeemed us with his blood, the eucharistic chalice does not make us sharers in his blood, and the bread we break does not make us sharers in his body. There can be no blood without veins, flesh and the rest of the human substance, and this the Word of God actually became: it was with his own blood that he redeemed us. As the Apostle says: In him, through his blood, we have been redeemed, our sins have been forgiven.

We are his members and we are nourished by creatures, which is his gift to us, for it is he who causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall. He declared that the chalice, which comes from his creation, was his blood, and he makes it the nourishment of our blood. He affirmed that the bread, which comes from his creation, was his body, and he makes it the nourishment of our body. When the chalice we mix and the bread we bake receive the word of God, the eucharistic elements become the body and blood of Christ, by which our bodies live and grow. How then can it be said that flesh belonging to the Lord’s own body and nourished by his body and blood is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life? Saint Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. He is not speaking of some spiritual and incorporeal kind of man, for spirits do not have flesh and bones. He is speaking of a real human body composed of flesh, sinews and bones, nourished by the chalice of Christ’s blood and receiving growth from the bread which is his body.

The slip of a vine planted in the ground bears fruit at the proper time. The grain of wheat falls into the ground and decays only to be raised up again and multiplied by the Spirit of God who sustains all things. The Wisdom of God places these things at the service of man and when they receive God’s word they become the eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ. In the same way our bodies, which have been nourished by the eucharist, will be buried in the earth and will decay, but they will rise again at the appointed time, for the Word of God will raise them up to the glory of God the Father. Then the Father will clothe our mortal nature in immortality and freely endow our corruptible nature with incorruptibility, for God’s power is shown most perfectly in weakness.

End citation

We can see from scripture that the Sabbath is participating in the Body and Blood of Christ, not just a day on which we meet

Where you may interpet a unique "Sabbath sacrafice" practice/teaching the Irenaeus quote you posted doesn't mention any day or title this as a Sabbath or Sabbath sacrafice.

The source is Greek but no complete surving Greek record exists and back translations from Latin are needed to assemble a Greek text. Although traditions may use more theological terminology like "eucharist" it's important to understand these are Greek words in a Greek text by someone whose spoke Greek and it's theological framing was more simplified.

boughtwithaprice · May 23, 2026

God does reveal Himself to the simple, and the wisdom of the world is foolishness to God.
You may object to my interpretation of Iraneus, but given that Christ died for all, which do you think is more plausible? Christ is our sabbath rest, and His sacrifice replaces the Old Covenant sabbath, or that His very Apostles, as well as those taught by them, misinterpreted His teaching, and failed to emphasize the seventh day Sabbath so much that the real Church became hidden for 1800 years until special revelation was given in 1843 or soon thereafter?

The arguments for the modern seventh day sabbath as a sign of the “true church” fall flat in light of history and the glory of God, regardless of your perceived errors in my interpretation of the Greek which Iraneus both spoke and wrote.

Christ is above all and in all. He is how we move and have our being. He is not limited to a day from the shadows of the Old Covenant.

The scriptures point more to His mother, Mary, as the Ark of the New Covenant, rather than a continuation of the binding force of a seventh day sabbath. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

If a seventh day sabbath helps some worship God, by all means do so. Let every tounge confess and every mouth that had breath proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, but trying to subjugate all of Christianity under an Old Covenant that was finished almost 2000 years ago on the cross, is a bit of a stretch. It gives the air of modernism in that the saints that came before us were too stupid to understand what we now know. We are to respect our elders, not revile them

2nd century sermon

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Traditional Liturgical Christian

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