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Sun Worship and Sunday

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There are those that make the claim that as Christianity Spread to the Greek and Roman world it slowly lost its Jewishness and It's purity. One of the signs that is pointed to, that Christianity compromised it's self with Paganism is Sunday worship. Since Jews kept the 7th day Sabbath and Jesus kept Sabbath then ,where did Sunday worship come from? The claim is made that the Sun cults influenced Christianity to change it's day of worship and therefore sell out to Paganism.

 

Can anyone verify this claim or refute it?

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I don't know about the religious history of this, but linguistically, the Romance languages use a form of dominus for the name of their 'Sunday': Spanish and Portuguese domingo, Italian domenica, Rumanian duminică , French dimanche (I believe that's the etymology of the French term, but I could be wrong here). Now, it could be that this is a later relationship--that the day of worship = the day of the Lord--with Sun god cults, but the names of the day isn't in relationship with the word 'sun'.

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I don't know about the religious history of this, but linguistically, the Romance languages use a form of dominus for the name of their 'Sunday': Spanish and Portuguese domingo, Italian domenica, Rumanian duminică , French dimanche (I believe that's the etymology of the French term, but I could be wrong here). Now, it could be that this is a later relationship--that the day of worship = the day of the Lord--with Sun god cults, but the names of the day isn't in relationship with the word 'sun'.

 

Salve, Doc!

 

You're right, the frehch word "Dimanche" comes from the Latin "dies dominica" , the day of the Lord.

 

That's why it gets the "di" syllable at the begining and not at the end, as the other names of days of the week (vg, "Lundi" (Monday) = "Luna dies".

Edited by ASCLEPIADES

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Salve, guys!

This is a quotation from the remarkable astronomical site www.nineplanets.org:

 

Days of the Week

The seven-day system we use is based on the ancient astrological notion that the seven known celestial bodies influence what happens on Earth and that each of these celestial bodies controls the first hour of the day named after it. This system was brought into Hellenistic Egypt from Mesopotamia, where astrology had been practiced for millennia and where seven had always been a propitious number. In A.D. 321 the Emperor Constantine the Great grafted this astrological system onto the Roman calendar, made the first day of this new week a day of rest and worship for all, and imposed the following sequence and names to the days of the week. This new Roman system was adopted with modifications throughout most of western Europe: in the Germanic languages, such as Old English, the names of four of the Roman gods were converted into those of the corresponding Germanic gods:

 

Celestial Body Latin Germanic god modern English modern Italian

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sun Solis Sunday domenica

Moon Lunae Monday luned

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There are those that make the claim that as Christianity Spread to the Greek and Roman world it slowly lost its Jewishness and It's purity. One of the signs that is pointed to, that Christianity compromised it's self with Paganism is Sunday worship. Since Jews kept the 7th day Sabbath and Jesus kept Sabbath then ,where did Sunday worship come from? The claim is made that the Sun cults influenced Christianity to change it's day of worship and therefore sell out to Paganism.

 

Can anyone verify this claim or refute it?

The "official" version involves Jesus' resurrection. Jesus resurrected on the day after Shabbat, which corresponded to the Dies Solis and because of this later became Dies Domini/Dominica (that's where all the variants in the different romance languages posted by Doc come from).

I guess it is fair to say that the new cult was influenced by the cult of Sol Invictus (of which, by the way, Constantinus was pontifex), there is plenty of archaeological and literary evidence to support this thesis.

Early Christians did change their day of worship from Shabbat to Dies Solis (and later Dies Dominica) so I guess they simply adapted to Constantine's decision to turn the Dies Solis into a festivity.

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Salve, Doc!

 

You're right, the frehch word "Dimanche" comes from the Latin "dies dominica" , the day of the Lord.

 

That's why it gets the "di" syllable at the begining and not at the end, as the other names of days of the week (vg, "Lundi" (Monday) = "Luna dies".

 

I knew about the other days of the week, and was pretty sure about dimanche, but since my good dictionaries are packed away, I couldn't say 'without a doubt'. Thanks for the confirmation, A!

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Salve, Doc!

 

You're right, the frehch word "Dimanche" comes from the Latin "dies dominica" , the day of the Lord.

 

That's why it gets the "di" syllable at the begining and not at the end, as the other names of days of the week (vg, "Lundi" (Monday) = "Luna dies".

 

I knew about the other days of the week, and was pretty sure about dimanche, but since my good dictionaries are packed away, I couldn't say 'without a doubt'. Thanks for the confirmation, A!

 

Non est, quod gratias agas, Doc.

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Salve, guys!

This is a quotation from the remarkable astronomical site www.nineplanets.org:

 

Days of the Week

The seven-day system we use is based on the ancient astrological notion that the seven known celestial bodies influence what happens on Earth and that each of these celestial bodies controls the first hour of the day named after it. This system was brought into Hellenistic Egypt from Mesopotamia, where astrology had been practiced for millennia and where seven had always been a propitious number. In A.D. 321 the Emperor Constantine the Great grafted this astrological system onto the Roman calendar, made the first day of this new week a day of rest and worship for all, and imposed the following sequence and names to the days of the week. This new Roman system was adopted with modifications throughout most of western Europe: in the Germanic languages, such as Old English, the names of four of the Roman gods were converted into those of the corresponding Germanic gods:

 

Celestial Body Latin Germanic god modern English modern Italian

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sun Solis Sunday domenica

Moon Lunae Monday luned

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Salve, guys!

This is a quotation from the remarkable astronomical site www.nineplanets.org:

 

Days of the Week

The seven-day system we use is based on the ancient astrological notion that the seven known celestial bodies influence what happens on Earth and that each of these celestial bodies controls the first hour of the day named after it. This system was brought into Hellenistic Egypt from Mesopotamia, where astrology had been practiced for millennia and where seven had always been a propitious number.

In A.D. 321 the Emperor Constantine the Great grafted this astrological system onto the Roman calendar
, made the first day of this new week a day of rest and worship for all, and imposed the following sequence and names to the days of the week. This new Roman system was adopted with modifications throughout most of western Europe: in the Germanic languages, such as Old English, the names of four of the Roman gods were converted into those of the corresponding Germanic gods:

 

Roman calander? I have heard this the Romans had various calander 10 day, 8day and 7 day.

 

10 day = founding to mid 1 bc

8 day = mid 1 bc to 321ad when consantine changed to 7day

7 day = 321ad to present

 

could anyone varify this?

Edited by icedragon101

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There are those that make the claim that as Christianity Spread to the Greek and Roman world it slowly lost its Jewishness and It's purity. One of the signs that is pointed to, that Christianity compromised it's self with Paganism is Sunday worship. Since Jews kept the 7th day Sabbath and Jesus kept Sabbath then ,where did Sunday worship come from? The claim is made that the Sun cults influenced Christianity to change it's day of worship and therefore sell out to Paganism.

 

Can anyone verify this claim or refute it?

 

Up until the creation of the modern day christian church, the early congregation continued to hold the original Sabbath(Shabbat) on the seventh day which is from Friday(roman calendar) at dusk until Saturday(roman calendar) at dusk. Even the Messiah and His taught ones(disciples) never deviated from the actual Sabbath. The change came from the Holy Roman Catholic Church, created by constantine, at the council of laodicea in 364. Not only did they change the day of the week that the Sabbath(Shabbat) occured on, but they also modified the original command so that rest was optional and not mandatory. The wording states that it is in order to break away and not be like the Jews, but there is too much evidence on other subjects which points to the Holy Roman Catholic Church as blending paganism into Christianity.

 

http://reluctant-messenger.com/council-of-laodicea.htm

(anathema means "cursed")

Edited by DukeOfMarshall

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