Transition from the 7th day Sabbath to Sunday?

[ajp_sydney]

What is the official Roman Catholic perspective on:

1. when exactly did it stop being a sin to work on the 7th day Sabbath?
2. when exactly did it start to become a sin to work on Sunday?

Ideally it would be good to have links to official documents, but I would still like to know your opinion (just make it clear what is your opinion vs official teaching of RCC)

(also apologies if this is in the wrong section, happy to move to another section)

 

[JerryZ]

Hmmm. Jesus did not abolish the Jewish Sabbath, what HE taught was that the Sabbath was made for man and not viceversa such that picking up grain because you were hungry does not constitute “work” like the legalistic pharisees preached.
There are still to this day groups within Judaism who believe that turning on the lights by flicking the switch on the wall is a sin. And conversely if their house is built within the confines (boundaries) of their Synagogue then it would not be a sin.
Conversely working on Sunday according to the Catholic Church is not a sin if you have a job that precludes you from not working on this day AND you take your rest on another day. For this purpose SHE provides a mass to these people at times that cover their Sunday Mass obligation on Saturday or Eve Sunday as it is called.
Hope this help.
Peace!

 

[Dovekin]

This is the day the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad!
Ps 118:24

Today is the 8th day, the beginning of a new creation with the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The Sabbath commemorates the first creation, Sunday celebrates our new creation in Christ. The example of the law of the Jews has influenced how we dedicate each Sunday to the Lord.

Dies Domini is John Paul II’s letter on keeping the Lord’s Day holy.

 

[ajp_sydney]

Thanks for taking the time to reply JerryZ, I definitely agree with your perspective that Jesus did not like the pharisees adding their own burdensome traditions to the God’s Law, he brought this problem up on many occasions! Unfortunately modern day Judaism has persisted with this idea that you need to put many layers of protection around God’s Law (i.e. that God is not very forgiving and that he wants to strike you down at the smallest mistake). But I still think it would have been a sin for Jesus or his apostles to have gone out and worked to earn money on the 7th day Sabbath, so I guess my question would be when would that no longer have been a sin for say for an apostle to work on a Sabbath?

For your answer to the 2nd part (again thank you for your time) I would then re-target my question to just those people who didn’t have to work on Sunday, when would it have been a sin for them to work on Sunday.

kind regards!

 

[BartholomewB]

Hi @ajp_sydney. A Happy Easter, and welcome to CAF!

You can find some answers to your question on this earlier thread:

Convert’s Catechism of the Catholic Church Sacred Scripture

Hello guys, I am discusing religion with my colleague (Adventist) in the work. He recently came up with something called “Convert’s Catechism of the Catholic Church“ by Rev. Peter Geiermann C.SS.R. Which says that Catholic Church changed the sabbath. Is it some kind of fake? The only info about the author or the book is on adventist sites - which looks very suspicious to me. I am going to argue that it is not official teaching, but it would be helpful if I knew wether or not its fake. Thanks

 

[ajp_sydney]

Thankyou for your answer Dovekin - great song, great psalm, I can hear it clearly in my mind

It is my understanding that God went to great pains to protect the holiness of the 7th day rest day (Exodus 31:14 DRA - Keep you my sabbath: for it is holy - Bible Gateway), so I’m trying to track down exactly when (as taught by the RCC) it became ok to work on the 7th day. Was this a particular day / event or should I be thinking of it as a transition type process?

From your answer I guess (please correct me if I’m wrong) your understanding is that it is not a sin to work on the 8th day, its a more a recommendation to dedicate the day to God, but not a rest day as God defined in the law. Once again please clarify if I have misinterpreted.

 

[Dovekin]

It is the decision of the holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities,
namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage. If you keep free of these, you will be doing what is right.
Acts 15:28-29

The Psalm is today’s verse, a brief response to the resurrection on Easter that is appropriate every Sunday.

Generally, the specific provisions of Torah were set aside in Jerusalem as described in Acts. No more circumcision, but no more Sabbath as the law commands it. (for Gentiles, Jews still obey the Torah completely) Obviously many of the laws still hold, like no murder, but there was already a custom of Christians gathering on the first day of the week. So my understanding is that the Sabbath laws no longer apply, but we keep Sunday holy in honor of Jesus in many of the same ways that the Sabbath was kept holy. Rest can be an important aspect of that, but does not have to be.

 

[BartholomewB]

it is not a sin to work on the 8th day, its a more a recommendation to dedicate the day to God, but not a rest day as God defined in the law.

Yes, I think that sums it up, except that there isn’t an “eighth day”. Sunday is the first day of the week. Did you ever watch a 1981 movie called Chariots of Fire? A Scottish athlete’s refusal to run in a race at the Olympic Games on a Sunday was a true historical incident. Scottish Presbyterians – not all of them, but many – took the Lord’s day very seriously at that time (and possibly some of them still do, even now) but that has never been the Catholic position.

 

[ajp_sydney]

Thanks for the response BartholomewB, I read through the postings but unfortunately I could not clearly determine an exact point when it was no longer a sin to work on the seventh day. What I’m after is, was there a special week (perhaps after a council) in the past where it would have been a very serious sin to work the prior week and the following week it would not have been a sin to work.

But thanks to your answers (and reading through that post) I’m getting a clearer picture that the 8th day Sunday celebration / mass is quite different from the 7th day rest as described in God’s Law. Or am I misunderstanding?

 

[BartholomewB]

was there a special week (perhaps after a council) in the past where it would have been a very serious sin to work the prior week and the following week it would not have been a sin to work.

I don’t know. Maybe there was, but it’s more likely, I think, that it just evolved over time. If there had been a formal proclamation at one of the councils, I think we would know about it. It would be in the history books. But that’s just my hunch.

 

[BartholomewB]

@ajp_sydney, the old online Catholic Encyclopedia has some information under the heading “Sunday”, such as this:

St. Justin is the first Christian writer to call the day Sunday (I Apol., lxvii) in the celebrated passage in which he describes the worship offered by the early Christians on that day to God. The fact that they met together and offered public worship on Sunday necessitated a certain rest from work on that day. However, Tertullian (202) is the first writer who expressly mentions the Sunday rest: “We, however (just as tradition has taught us), on the day of the Lord’s Resurrection ought to guard not only against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude, deferring even our businesses lest we give any place to the devil” (“De orat.”, xxiii; cf. “Ad nation.”, I, xiii; “Apolog.”, xvi).

These and similar indications show that during the first three centuries practice and tradition had consecrated the Sunday to the public worship of God by the hearing of the Mass and the resting from work. With the opening of the fourth century positive legislation, both ecclesiastical and civil, began to make these duties more definite. The Council of Elvira (300) decreed: “If anyone in the city neglects to come to church for three Sundays, let him be excommunicated for a short time so that he may be corrected” (xxi). In the Apostolic Constitutions, which belong to the end of the fourth century, both the hearing of the Mass and the rest from work are prescribed, and the precept is attributed to the Apostles. The express teaching of Christ and St. Paul prevented the early Christians from falling into the excesses of Jewish Sabbatarianism in the observance of the Sunday, and yet we find St. Cæsarius of Arles in the sixth century teaching that the holy Doctors of the Church had decreed that the whole glory of the Jewish Sabbath had been transferred to the Sunday, and that Christians must keep the Sunday holy in the same way as the Jews had been commanded to keep holy the Sabbath Day.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14335a.htm

 

[ajp_sydney]

from blood, from meats of strangled animals

but aren’t these rules about not consuming blood actually part of God’s Law? Also are you sure they would refer to a rest day as a “burdon”? it is described many times in scripture as a protection for poor workers and a blessing from God. Could it be that the burdons referred to here might be the animal sacrifices, which would make sense as Jesus is the perfect sacrifice that would replace all these sacrifices.

But I may be way off and the meeting of Acts 15:28-29 might have been that special time before which it would have been a sin for people to work on the 7th day, and after which it was no longer a sin, is that your understanding?

But it is still curious that the consuming of blood and strangled meets is still a sin!

 

[po18guy]

I see it as being as much practical and prophetic/theological as it was moral. The appearance of the Risen Lord in Emmaus was the first braking of bread on Sunday. This, after the Lord explained the prophecies to the two as they walked along.

Luke 24:35
Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread .

Being expelled from the synagogues meant that worship (Sacrifice/breaking the bread) had to occur elsewhere.

John 16:2
They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God.

“Possibly” based on that Emmaus occurrence - and certainly centered on the Resurrection, Sunday was chosen.

Acts 20:7
On the first day of the week when we gathered to break bread, Paul spoke to them because he was going to leave on the next day…

Saint Paul indicates that something new had taken place and that Christ had been made manifest (including real Presence?) apart from the Law, the Prophets and the Sabbath.

Romans 3:21
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, though testified to by the law and the prophets,

John clearly identifies the Revelation being received on what had come to be called the "Lord’s day - in opposition to the Jewish Sabbath.

Revelation 1:10
I was caught up in spirit on the Lord’s day and heard behind me a voice as loud as a trumpet,

If you will, Leviticus commands on the Jewish Sabbath what Jesus completed and demonstrated *(i.e. taught) on the first day of the week

Leviticus 24:8
Regularly on each sabbath day the bread shall be set out before the Lord on behalf of the Israelites by an everlasting covenant.

The old Sabbath was a day of rest and it followed, both theologically and practically that, for Christians, the New Covenant lead to a “new Sabbath” - although it was not named using the old covenant term “Sabbath” but rather the new covenant term, the “Lord’s Day”

 

[JerryZ]

The issue has no easy answer, but like I said before there were people who HAD to work even before Jesus time during the Sabbath. A clear example would be the guards that were positioned on the walls of the city that had to be alert for possible attacks from outside enemies. When the Israel nation was more consolidated perhaps they could lower their guard inside their country but they still had to keep guarding their borders. Conversely today the Church gives a dispensation to people who are first responder primarily or work in industries that provide services 7 days a week sometimes 24/7.
The Church still requires that one must give GOD it’s due worship and goes out of her way to accommodate such people. Finally as the Church evangelized the gentiles who did not have a definite non working day like the Jews She nonetheless preached the importance of setting aside a day for our rest and give thanks and worship to GOD.
Since the Sunday was the Day Jesus chose to resuscitate from the dead and conquer death and sin it was always and from the beginning the day chosen to share the Eucharist with the people and in a corporate way give praise and worship to GOD.
Also on a side note need to point out that the celebration of the Eucharist or mass which is an act of sacrifice to GOD for the remission of sins was and is performed every day just like animal sacrifices were carried out in the Temple in Jerusalem every day of the week and especially on the Sabbath.
Offering sacrifices to GOD is NOT work and was not considered such even by the Pharisees.
Peace!

 

[ajp_sydney]

Once again thanks for the time taken to share your considerable knowledge and thoughts on these questions, I may try and get an official answer to my question. If I have any luck I’ll be sure to post back here any response.

God bless!

p.s.
Leviticus 24:8
Regularly on each sabbath day the bread shall be set out before the Lord on behalf of the Israelites by an everlasting covenant.

This quote above does seem to indicate that in some sense the sabbath will be everlasting, a few more things to explore I guess!

 

[BartholomewB]

the meeting of Acts 15:28-29 might have been that special time before which it would have been a sin for people to work on the 7th day, and after which it was no longer a si

The Council of Jerusalem (the name commonly given to the meeting presided by James the Just in Acts 15) had a single specific purpose, to decide whether Gentiles could be admitted to the Christian Church without formally converting to Judaism. James was the head of the Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem, Peter and Paul represented the largely (or even wholly) Gentile Christian community in Antioch, which was then the capital of Syria. James was faced with the difficult task of finding a solution that was acceptable to both sides. He himself, and all his Jerusalem flock, were observant Jews. They worshiped at the Temple constantly, they kept the Sabbath, they kept kosher, and they circumcised their infant sons. As reported by Luke in Acts 15, James rules that Gentile converts are exempted from these requirements. Jewish Christians, as far as we can tell, were still at that time (around the year 48 or 49) required to observe the Sabbath, but Gentile Christians were not. Nothing is said, however, about transferring Sabbath observance to Sunday. There are mentions in the NT of Sunday as the day on which Christians met “to break bread”, i.e. to celebrate the Eucharist, but as far as I’m aware, there is nothing, no mention at all in the NT, of observing Sunday as a day of rest.

 

[Dovekin]

Also are you sure they would refer to a rest day as a “burdon”? it is described many times in scripture as a protection for poor workers and a blessing from God. Could it be that the burdons referred to here might be the animal sacrifices, which would make sense as Jesus is the perfect sacrifice that would replace all these sacrifices.

As @BartholomewB has said, this was a meeting to discuss the Law and its relation to Gentiles. The decision to limit what was asked of the Gentiles to just these few things is a part of the freedom the Gospel gives us. Obviously some things remained — You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart — but decisions were made about what to keep. The important thing is that the Sabbath is and was kept by Jewish people who received the Law. The Gentile Christians were not required to keep to that law, though the Law did influence the regulations we made for ourselves.

But I may be way off and the meeting of Acts 15:28-29 might have been that special time before which it would have been a sin for people to work on the 7th day, and after which it was no longer a sin, is that your understanding?

It is more it is a law for this people but not for these other people, rather than a universal law changing. You can see discussions of the Sabbath in the gospels, so the rules were still important even if the specifics of what day changed. The Sabbath was made for us.

The 8th day is an idea that expresses the idea of new creation, of God doing something new beyond what was done in the first seven days. It is of course the 1st day of the week.

it is still curious that the consuming of blood and strangled meets is still a sin!

It is. I help prepare non-Catholics to receive our sacraments, and I sometimes mention this as a requirement. Usually to blank stares, because few people know how meats are butchered and it is rarely a concern for them.

 

[MarkRome]

This quote above does seem to indicate that in some sense the sabbath will be everlasting, a few more things to explore I guess!

So was circumcision:
“Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant.” Gen 17:13.

 

[JerryZ]

Ahh yes!great quote, let’s explore the context and possible conclusions.
What bread are they talking about? Consider that when in the desert GOD provided the “manna” every day and on Friday HE provided a double measure to be consumed on the Sabbath when no manna was provided.
Also after they entered the promised land and GOD stopped providing the manna, the Levites were supposed to prepare “Holy bread” to be consecrated before the Tabernacle in the Temple. We read that David took some of this bread and gave to his soldiers because they were hungry.
Now let’s come to the present. What is the Eucharist? Is it not “The bread that comes down from Heaven”. To be offered in an Unbloody sacrifice to GOD for ever. And we reserve the remains of the sacrifice in the “Tabernacle”. Notice how much of the Old Testament is now preserved in the practices of the Church that was founded by none other than Jesus Himself. Also as mentioned in my previous post, the Eucharist is offered ALSO on Saturday (Sabbath) but we do not give it the meaning that the Jews used to give it to it having it been replaced by Sunday.
Peace!

 

[ajp_sydney]

ok, its only a day after I posted my original question and I am very grateful for the many well thought out responses! After a little bit of time to think through the answers I would summarise the answer to my questions as follows:

- when exactly did it stop being a sin to work on the 7th day Sabbath?
It seems there is no record of such a declaration. The very first christians (who received their teaching directly from Jesus) definitely thought it was a sin to work on the Sabbath and would rest on the sabbath and continued to do so and passed on this understanding / teaching in their children or section of the church. And of course they also celebrated mass on Sunday (and most likely ever other day).

- when exactly did it start to become a sin to work on Sunday?
It also seems there is no record of such a declaration. At most it has been made a sin (several centuries later) to not attend mass on Sunday.

So statements like “The early Christians–the Catholic Church–did indeed transfer observances associated with the sabbath to Sunday, since Christ was the fulfilment of the sabbath”, made much later in time, are really historical observations, inferring an active move or change in belief. These statements do give the impression of a definite move / shift. The word transfer a clear shift, not a slow shift over hundreds of years.

Also it does not hint at that we are talking more about the proportions of church members that observed the sabbath shifting over time from 100% sabbath keepers to probably 1% sabbath keepers. As the majority of new converts were opting not to keep the sabbath.

An alternate way to express the history of sabbath keeping would be (please heavily critique this statement):
“Initially all the church kept the sabbath, but new gentile converts were given the leniency to avoid the burdon of keeping it. Over time the vast majority of new converts chose not to do so and so became the majority of the church. Independent of sabbath keeping from the very beginning all church members have always broke bread as Jesus instituted, especially on Sunday and often daily.”