The Real Reason Mass is on Sunday Sounds Shocking 😳

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That many leading figures in the Church’s history were horrifyingly anti-Semitic is well known.

That there was a period (very early on and recorded in the New Testament, not as late as Constantine’s day) when Christianity went from a sect of Judaism to a distinct, Gentile-dominated religion with its own practices, likewise.

What else you got?
 
JPUSC said:
When the early Church was still mostly Jewish, the holy day was Saturday. When more Gentiles became Christians, things changed.

“It’s important to note that the Sabbath was not simply moved; Christians altered the observance as well as the day.”

christianitytoday.com/history/2008/august/when-did-christian-church-switch-sabbath-from-saturday-to.html
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Again, it was your source that said Christians were already practicing on Sunday. Constantine took their lead on it, so it can’t be laid at the feet of “Pagan Constantine.” In essence your own source shows the answer.

One has to notice something very important; the Council at Jerusalem did not demand worship on the Sabbath, and that was coming from Jewish Christians. There are scriptural reasons for the change, including the obvious fact of Jesus rising on Sunday, and Him being our Sabbath rest, fulfilling the Sabbath. Now, we are new creations (hence the first day of the week). So, it’s connected to Genesis, the old Adam, the new Adam, Jesus fulfilling the old covenant and bringing a new, etc…
 
For instance, in order to commemorate the “Lord’s Day,” the day on which Jesus was raised from the dead, the first Christians, converts from Judaism, gathered on Saturday night after 6:00 P.M. By the early second century, however, Gentile converts met before daybreak on Sunday. Throughout the period up to Constantine, Christians observed the first day of the week as a day of worship.

With the conversion of Constantine, however, came new possibilities of adjusting the calendar to Christian ends. In 321 Emperor Constantine decreed that Sunday would be a day of rest, a legal holiday. Some scholars suggest he intended to honor the god Sol Invictus Mithras (Mithras, the Unconquered Sun). Indeed, he described the first day of the week as the day of the sun, but regard for the Christian Lord’s Day motivated the ruling.

What Constantine did about Christmas further suggests he had Christianity in mind. Early Christians, of course, had no information that would help them calculate the date of Christ’s birth. The earliest evidence for the observance of December 25 as the birthday of Christ appears in the Philocalian Calendar, composed at Rome in 336. For many years this date was observed only in the West; the eastern churches observed January 6, Epiphany. Curiously, pagan holidays lay behind both of these dates. December 25 was the Natalis Soli Invicti, the birthday of the Unconquered Sun. January 6 was the feast of Dionysus. It seems likely that Constantine, trying to unite the worship of the Sun with that of Christ, pushed, if he did not concoct, the observance of Christmas. At about the same time, the mosaic of Christ as the Unconquered Sun appeared, later found in the excavations under St. Peter’s in Rome.

christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-37/worshiping-like-pagans.html
 
Kliska said:
Again, it was your source that said Christians were already practicing on Sunday. Constantine took their lead on it, so it can’t be laid at the feet of “Pagan Constantine.” In essence your own source shows the answer.

One has to notice something very important; the Council at Jerusalem did not demand worship on the Sabbath, and that was coming from Jewish Christians. There are scriptural reasons for the change, including the obvious fact of Jesus rising on Sunday, and Him being our Sabbath rest, fulfilling the Sabbath. Now, we are new creations (hence the first day of the week). So, it’s connected to Genesis, the old Adam, the new Adam, Jesus fulfilling the old covenant and bringing a new, etc…
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Yes, they were already practicing on Sunday because they were Gentiles.
 
JPUSC said:
Yes, they were already practicing on Sunday because they were Gentiles.
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No, the earliest Christians we see in scripture were practicing on Sunday after preaching the gospel in the synagogues on Saturday to the Jews who has yet to convert. Those earliest Christians were Jews. The Christians at the council of Jerusalem were, in the main, Jewish converts to The Way. If you were sent to the Jews to preach you would find them at synagogue on Saturday of course. But we clearly see the converts, who were Jewish converts, gathered and celebrated on Sunday from the time of the resurrection.
 
JPUSC said:
For instance, in order to commemorate the “Lord’s Day,” the day on which Jesus was raised from the dead, the first Christians, converts from Judaism, gathered on Saturday night after 6:00 P.M. By the early second century, however, Gentile converts met before daybreak on Sunday.
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You realize, don’t you, that in the Hebraic mind, the day went from sunset to sunset, right? So, whether you meet on Saturday evening or on Sunday morning before dawn, you’re still celebrating the beginning of the day in which Christ rose from the dead. The only question was whether you met early in the evening or late in the evening. There was no “Jewish-Christian vs Gentile-Christian” division in terms of day of worship of Christ. (There were lots of other issues to iron out (observing kosher rules, circumcision, etc), but the question of the day of the week of Christian worship wasn’t one of them. 🤷
With the conversion of Constantine, however, came new possibilities of adjusting the calendar to Christian ends.
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Right. In other words, Constantine changed Roman practice to align with Christian practice… not the other way around! 😉
 
@JPUSC as others have said you seem to have bought into Adventist claims. Just because you find lots of Adventist documents making the same outrageous and incorrect claims doesn’t make it true. Adventism is easily shown to be a false religion. Its founders made prophecies that the world was ending. Each time they were wrong they said they had gotten their calculations wrong and offered a new date. Obviously they continued to be wrong, but this didn’t stop the prophecies. Adventists don’t celebrate Easter because they are so beholden to their Sabbatarian claims. Look into the history of the source of these lies before you accept them.
 
JPUSC said:
For instance, in order to commemorate the “Lord’s Day,” the day on which Jesus was raised from the dead, the first Christians, converts from Judaism, gathered on Saturday night after 6:00 P.M. By the early second century, however, Gentile converts met before daybreak on Sunday. Throughout the period up to Constantine, Christians observed the first day of the week as a day of worship.

With the conversion of Constantine, however, came new possibilities of adjusting the calendar to Christian ends. In 321 Emperor Constantine decreed that Sunday would be a day of rest, a legal holiday. Some scholars suggest he intended to honor the god Sol Invictus Mithras (Mithras, the Unconquered Sun). Indeed, he described the first day of the week as the day of the sun, but regard for the Christian Lord’s Day motivated the ruling.

What Constantine did about Christmas further suggests he had Christianity in mind. Early Christians, of course, had no information that would help them calculate the date of Christ’s birth. The earliest evidence for the observance of December 25 as the birthday of Christ appears in the Philocalian Calendar, composed at Rome in 336. For many years this date was observed only in the West; the eastern churches observed January 6, Epiphany. Curiously, pagan holidays lay behind both of these dates. December 25 was the Natalis Soli Invicti, the birthday of the Unconquered Sun. January 6 was the feast of Dionysus. It seems likely that Constantine, trying to unite the worship of the Sun with that of Christ, pushed, if he did not concoct, the observance of Christmas. At about the same time, the mosaic of Christ as the Unconquered Sun appeared, later found in the excavations under St. Peter’s in Rome.

christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-37/worshiping-like-pagans.html
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The Annunciation (and Jesus’ conception) is typically dated May 25th, which was believed to be the same solar calendar day he died, and which was roughly 5 to 6 months after it was believed Gabriel appeared to Zechariah serving in the Temple around Tabernacles, which fit the scriptures.

Add nine months to May 25th.

Even disregarding that, the Church was based in the northern hemisphere, and how fitting that we celebrate Christ being born into the world at man’s darkest hour, and when the light of day begins to get longer?

Some additional food for thought: crisismagazine.com/2011/christmas-pagan-romans-frodo-baggins
 
JPUSC said:
St. Justin Martyr – Dialogue with Trypho (Between 138A.D. and 161 A.D.)

We too, would observe your circumcision of the flesh, your Sabbath days, and in a word, all you festivals, if we were not aware of the reason why they were imposed upon you, namely, because of your sins and the hardness of heart. The custom of circumcising the flesh, handed down from Abraham, was given to you as a distinguishing mark, to set you off from other nations and from us Christians. The purpose of this was that you and only you might suffer the afflictions that are now justly yours; that only your land be desolated, and you cities ruined by fire, that the fruits of you land be eaten by strangers before your very eyes; that not one of you be permitted to enter your city of Jerusalem. Your circumcision of the flesh is the only mark by which you can certainly be distinguished from other men…as I stated before it was by reason of your sins and the sins of your fathers that, among other precepts, God imposed upon you the observance of the sabbath as a mark.

(Edited version at catholic.com/tract/sabbath-or-sunday)
St. John Chrysostom (344-407 A.D.) – From Homily I of his “Eight Homilies Against the Jews”

Many, I know, respect the Jews and think that their present way of life is a venerable one. This is why I hasten to uproot and tear out this deadly opinion. I said that the synagogue is no better than a theater and I bring forward a prophet as my witness. Surely the Jews are not more deserving of belief than their prophets. “You had a harlot’s brow; you became shameless before all”. Where a harlot has set herself up, that place is a brothel. But the synagogue is not only a brothel and a theater; it also is a den of robbers and a lodging for wild beasts. Jeremiah said: “Your house has become for me the den of a hyena”. He does not simply say “of wild beast”, but “of a filthy wild beast”, and again: “I have abandoned my house, I have cast off my inheritance”. But when God forsakes a people, what hope of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes the dwelling of demons. (2) But at any rate the Jews say that they, too, adore God. God forbid that I say that. No Jew adores God! Who says so? The Son of God says so. For he said: “If you were to know my Father, you would also know me. But you neither know me nor do you know my Father”. Could I produce a witness more trustworthy than the Son of God? (3) If, then, the Jews fail to know the Father, if they crucified the Son, if they thrust off the help of the Spirit, who should not make bold to declare plainly that the synagogue is a dwelling of demons? God is not worshipped there. Heaven forbid! From now on it remains a place of idolatry. But still some people pay it honor as a holy place.
St. Augustine (c. 354-430 A.D.), Confessions, 12.14

How hateful to me are the enemies of your Scripture! How I wish that you would slay them (the Jews) with your two-edged sword, so that there should be none to oppose your word! Gladly would I have them die to themselves and live to you!

patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2016/11/anti-semitism-in-the-church-fathers-catholic-history.html
Augustine

“Well, now, I should like to be told what there is in these ten commandments, except the observance of the Sabbath, which ought not to be kept by a Christian. . . . Which of these commandments would anyone say that the Christian ought not to keep? It is possible to contend that it is not the law which was written on those two tables that the apostle [Paul] describes as ‘the letter that kills’ [2 Cor. 3:6], but the law of circumcision and the other sacred rites which are now abolished” (The Spirit and the Letter 24 [A.D. 412]).

Pope Gregory I

“It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the Sabbath day. What else can I call these [men] but preachers of Antichrist, who when he comes will cause the Sabbath day as well as the Lord’s day to be kept free from all work. For because he [the Antichrist] pretends to die and rise again, he wishes the Lord’s day to be held in reverence; and because he compels the people to Judaize that he may bring back the outward rite of the law, and subject the perfidy of the Jews to himself, he wishes the Sabbath to be observed. For this which is said by the prophet, ‘You shall bring in no burden through your gates on the Sabbath day’ [Jer. 17:24] could be held to as long as it was lawful for the law to be observed according to the letter. But after that the grace of almighty God, our Lord Jesus Christ, has appeared, the commandments of the law which were spoken figuratively cannot be kept according to the letter. For if anyone says that this about the Sabbath is to be kept, he must needs say that carnal sacrifices are to be offered. He must say too that the commandment about the circumcision of the body is still to be retained. But let him hear the apostle Paul saying in opposition to him: ‘If you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing’ [Gal. 5:2]” (Letters 13:1 [A.D. 597]).

catholic.com/tract/sabbath-or-sunday

NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004

IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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That the Church had harsh words for Jews (unfortunately) does not go on to support that the Church broadly speaking did not celebrate on Sunday, which is attested to in Scripture, the Didache, and in second century testimony.
 
JPUSC said:
Constantine moved it from the Sabbath to Sunday because of anti-Semitism and pagan sun worship.
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Hogwash and other exclamations.🙂 Constantine may have supported it after his conversion but he didn’t change anything. Why believe some out of context and unscriptural rubbish. All one need do is read the New Testament for yourself to avoid this kind of misinformation.

The Church worshiped on the first day of the week even as the New Testament was being written.

Take note:
**Acts 20:7] On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the morrow; and he prolonged his speech until midnight. **

**1st Corinthians 16:1] Now concerning the contribution for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. 2] On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that contributions need not be made when I come. **
 
JPUSC said:
When the early Church was still mostly Jewish, the holy day was Saturday. When more Gentiles became Christians, things changed.
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Christians gathered on Sunday for the “breaking of the bread” (communion) and the reading of scripture. Even Jewish communities. That Jewish converts observed both Sabbath and Sunday may be true, but Christian worship was on Sunday, Judaizing Christians was scorned by the Apostles and Church alike early on, and gentiles were not expected to observe the Sabbath, nor was any expectation that Jewish converts be required to continue their observances ever mentioned.
 
Didache:

**But every Lord’s day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. **But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations.

newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm

Saint Paul - Colossuans 2: 16

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath.
 
JPUSC:
Yes, they were already practicing on Sunday because they were Gentiles.
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No JPUSC.

**They were already practicing on Sunday because they were Christians.

They were already practicing on Sunday because it is the Lord’s Day.

They were already practicing on Sunday because Jesus fulfilled the Law.**

And appealing to a pagan (Constantine) who was baptized into Christ on his deathbed over two-hundred years later to try to tattoo the Church with shenanigans is phony.

Most of your posts are phony. And I am sorry you have so much pain.
 
The only thing that would shock me is if anyone ever fell for this “real” reason schtick, which is neither real, nor a use of reason. I am a little surprised to hear it here as opposed to someone knocking at my door with a tract.
 
JPUSC said:
Constantine moved it from the Sabbath to Sunday because of anti-Semitism and pagan sun worship.
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I hope that you are not persuaded by the heretical sabbatarian sects. Must we open the can of worms on which they are founded? Sand would be a more firm foundation.
Colossians 2:16 “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath.”
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The devil is like corrosion, and his attacks on the Church never stop.
 
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