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In Defense of the Faith - Contents
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    How Sunday Later Crept Into the Church

    Early in the Christian Era a new form of heathen worship sprang up and spread rapidly throughout the then Gentile world. It was known as Mithraism, and had to do with the worship of the sun as did other forms of heathenism; but its philosophy was more fascinating than the more crude form of paganism, and made a pretense of holding up high standards of morality. This new heathenism soon captured the Caesars, invaded the Roman armies and the centers of learning, and was embraced by the higher classes of society. Alexandria and Rome soon became important Mithran centers, and, in fact, history records that in “the middle of the third century Mithraism seemed on the verge of becoming the universal religion,” and that’ it “became the greatest antagonist of Christianity.” Some of the peculiar doctrines enunciated by its priests were “the immortality of the soul,” “the use of bell and candle, holy water and communion; sanctification of Sunday and the 25th of December.”—Encyclopedia Britannica (11th ed.), art. “Mithras.”DOF 166.7

    “The devotees of Mithra held Sunday sacred because Mithra was identified with the ‘invincible sun.’”—Letter to C. P. Bollman from W. de C. Ravenel, administrative assistant to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., quoted in Sunday, p. 3.DOF 167.1

    Franz Cumont, Ph.D., LL.D., speaking of Mithraists, says :DOF 167.2

    “They held Sunday sacred, and celebrated the birth of the Sun on the 25th of December.”—The Mysteries of Mithra (1910), pp. 190, 191.DOF 167.3

    There soon set in a life-and-death struggle between Mithraism and Christianity, and since apostasy was already rife in the Christian church, it was only a short step further for her leaders to agree upon a compromise. Many of these leaders had themselves come into the church as converts from Mithraism, and still had a certain veneration for the sun and those institutions held sacred to it. It was therefore agreed by them that, in order to facilitate the conversion of the heathen, and thus advance the cause Of Christ over that of Mithra, they would incorporate many of the teachings and institutions of Mithraism into the church, and among these was the Sunday festival.DOF 167.4

    On this point we have the following striking testimony of the Catholic World, published in 1894:DOF 167.5

    “The church took the pagan philosophy and made it the buckler of faith against the heathen. She took the pagan Roman Pantheon, temple of all the gods, and made it sacred to all the martyrs; so it stands to this day. She took the pagan Sunday and made it the Christian Sunday. She took the pagan Easter and made it the feast we celebrate during this season....DOF 168.1

    “The sun was a foremost god with heathendom.... There is, in truth, something royal, kingly about the sun making it a fit emblem of Jesus, the Sun of justice. Hence the church in these countries would seem to have said, ‘Keep that old pagan name. It shall remain consecrated, sanctified.’ And thus the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder [the god of light and peace], became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus.”—Vol. 58, no. 348, March, 1894, p. 809.DOF 168.2

    With the celebration of Sunday came the worship toward the cast in the early morning hour, at the rising of the sun, and Christianity came so nearly to resemble the religion of the heathen world that many of its adherents were no longer able to distinguish between the two. Dr. Franz Cumont tells us in the following passage how that which should have been rendered to God was now often rendered to the dazzling sun:DOF 168.3

    “On the other hand, the ecclesiastical writers ... contrasted the ‘Sun of justice’ with the ‘invincible sun,’ and consented to see in the dazzling orb which illuminated man a symbol of Christ, ‘the light of the world.’ Should we be astonished if the multitudes of devotees failed always to observe the subtle distinctions of the doctors, and if in obedience to a pagan custom they rendered to the radiant star of the day the homage which orthodoxy reserved for God? In the fifth century, not only heretics, but even faithful followers were still wont to bow their heads toward its dazzling disc as it rose above the horizon, and to murmur the prayer, ‘Have mercy on us.’”—Mysteries of Mithra, p. 193.DOF 168.4

    Christianity finally came to look just like paganism. Faustus, a pagan of the fourth century, in speaking to the Christians, declared:DOF 169.1

    “You celebrate the solemn festivals of the Gentiles.... ‘and as to their manners, those you have retained without any,alteration. Nothing distinguishes you from the pagans except that you hold your assemblies apart from them.”—Faustus (a non-Christian) to St. Augustine (4th Century), cited in History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, J. William Draper, M.D., LL.D., vol. 1, p. 310.DOF 169.2

    “The Christian church made no formal but a gradual and almost unconscious transference of the one day to the other.”—Archdeacon F. W. Farrar, The Voice From Sinai (1892), p. 167.DOF 169.3

    Dr. Peter Heylyn (Church of England):

    “It was near 900 years from our Savior’s birth, if not,quite so much, before restraint of husbandry on this day, had been first thought of in the East; and probably being thus retrained, did find no more obedience there, than it had done before in the Western parts.”—History of the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 5, par. 6.DOF 169.4

    Bishop Grimelund of Norway:DOF 169.5

    “Now, summing up what history teaches regarding the origin of Sunday and the development of the doctrine about Sunday, then this is the sum: It is not the apostles, not the early Christians, nor the councils of the ancient church which have imprinted the name and stamp of the Sabbath upon the Sunday, but it is the Church of the Middle Ages and its scholastic teachers.”—Sondagens Historie, p. 37.DOF 169.6

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