No, I wasn't refering to Justin.
I already dealt with Justin's quote in the post just above your remarks. Justin was trying to impress the emperor.
To deduce from that, that all Christians were from that point onward worshipping on Sunday is a terrific leap in logic.

About like saying because German Adventists slipped on the Sabbath issue during Hitler's time thus since that time all Adventists have followed their decisions.

These are quotes found at anti Adventist and anti Sabbath websites like www. Bible.ca.

These were very numerous at one point, though some have disappeared since their methods were exposed.

Let's start with the Didache.



First of all you won't find that quote in the Didache at all. It comes from a document written 200 years later. (So much for accurately portraying dates on those websites)



Now I wonder why the anti-Sabbath website elipsed "every Sabbath day" ?? Obviously in the third century they were still observing the Sabbath day !!! Even if the day of resurrection also had meetings on it.

At that point they were not to fast on the Sabbath except one -- further study reveals that one was the yearly rememberance of Christ being in the grave.
Later decades we find commands to fast on the Sabbath -- the papal means of casting contempt upon the God's Holy Day.

There were actually four quotes that anti-Sabbath website was attributing to the 90AD Didache that weren't there at all. They were all lifted out of the Apostolic Consitiutions of the 3rd century.

However, all those quotes prove is that Christians liked to have an early morning meeting on Sundays.
In fact they seemed to gather EVERY morning!

Look at these quotes:




So what do we see?

We do NOT see Christians as having given up the Sabbath at all.
Yes, they do meet on Sundays and as time progresses Sunday (with the help of Roman Catholic Church) will push out the Sabbath, but it had not done so prior to the days of Constantine.

There is no evidence that they had given up the Sabbath in these 3rd century writings.

But back to the problems in these writings.

This quote really is from the Didache



Sounds pretty convincing BUT....

The Greek word for "day" does not even appear in the original greek passage. It has been added by the translators

It could just as easily read:
"But for every Lord's Supper gather yourselves together and break bread give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure."

However there is something even more interesting --
If the missing noun is "day" -- what evidence from scripture do we have that these early Christians refer to Sunday? NONE!
All through scriptures the LORD claims the seventh day as His.

Those who understand GREEK have found something very interesting in Didache 14:1 something that has disappeared in the English translations.



Notice the last words of chapter 13 are "according to the commandment."


Now according to Bob Pickle who studied this passage from the Greek --

Kata is the Greek preposition translated "according to." The next word, ten, is the direct article in front of "commandment." (Ten is pronounced "tane": what looks like a "v" is really an "n," and the letter that looks like an "n" with a tail corresponds to the "e" in "obey.") Entolen is the word for "commandment." The -en at the end of entolen alerts us to the fact that entolen is a feminine word, singular in number, and accusative in case.

Notice how kuriaken, which we have translated "imperial," also ends with en. Kuriaken is an adjective. Adjectives must typically agree with the words they are modifying in gender, number, and case. Translators have usually assumed that the word being modified by kuriaken is hemera, the Greek word for day, even though hemera is nowhere to be seen in the text. However, it is fairly clear from the context that the word being modified is actually entolen, "commandment," since that word immediately precedes kata kuriaken, and is also feminine and singular.

In other words, Didache 14:1, far from commanding worship on the first day of the week, is actually directing Christians to gather for worship in harmony with the imperial commandment of the Lord. And what can that but bring to mind but the Sabbath of the fourth commandment of the Decalogue!

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


Didache 14 According to the imperial commandment of the Lord, after being gathered together, break bread and give thanks. . . .—suggested translation.

Ignatius
The real Ignatius, lived about 110 AD.
Something like 15 letters were attributed to him, but now even the anti-Sabbath scholars reject most (some even all) the writings attributed to him as being fake. Saying they were written years later by some zealous person trying to establish apostalic authority on things that had no apostolic authority.

His epistle to the Magnesians comes in two forms, one much longer than the other. Some scholars think MAYBE the shorter one is authentic. The second obviously seems to be added onto by a later writer.


"The whole story of Ignatius is more legendary than real, and his writings are subject to grave suspicion of fraudulent interpolation." (History of the Christian Church, Philip Shaff, Vol 2, ch 4)

I was just doing a thread on this subject in another site, so I will bring over some what I found that relates to the origin.

The Romans often called their sun god by the name, Sol Invictus, "the Invincible Sun." During the early centuries of the Christian Era, pagan sun worship was the greatest rival of Christianity.

The pagan religion would closely approximate in several ways Christianity. It had such features as a dying, rising Saviour, special religious suppers, a special holy day out of the weekly seven--the Sun Day, initial baptism of its converts (in the blood of a slaughtered bull), and other similarities.

Gradually, large numbers of Romans began observing Sunday as a holy day in honor of the gods of the sun, especially Mithra. He was especially liked by the Roman soldiers, for his worship included athletic feats of skill and "warlike manliness." and they carried this belief with them as they came up through the ranks. When Augustus Caesar became emperor, just before the birth of Christ, Mithraism was already spreading westward from Asia into Europe, and into the Roman Empire.

Since the Roman generals, in times of crisis, frequently took over the emperorship, this also favored the growth of sun worship. (Two centuries later, the Roman generals Constantius Chlorus and his son Constantine were devoted to the Sun god.) The early church in Rome kept the Seventh day at its inception, as many Gentiles as well as Jew became Christians and kept the Seventh-day Sabbath. Josephus, a historian who lived in the first century, remarks on how widespread throughout the empire was the keeping of the Seventh-day Sabbath at that time.

But then two important events occurred that shattered all this. In A.D. 70, nearly forty years after the death of Christ, and then again in A.D. 135, serious Jewish revolts were put down with much bloodshed. As a result of this, the hatred of the Romans toward anything that savored of Judaism became intense. Hadrian, the emperor, issued an edict soon after, strictly prohibiting the observance of the Seventh-day Sabbath. But imperial decrees tended to be short-lived, and Christians generally disregarded it. However in Rome itself, the capitol of the empire, things were different.

Anicetus, the local bishop, or religious leader, of the Christian church in the city of Rome , urged his followers as well as neighboring churches to keep the first day instead of the Seventh. At the risk of his life, the aged Polycarp, who had been a close friend of the Apostle John before his death about 100 A.D., traveled to Rome about the year 155, and strongly protested this action on the part of Anicetus. The Roman bishop refused to yield to Scripture in this matter, but otherwise the meeting was courteous. Polycarp returned to Smyrna and was martyred the next year.

By the middle of the second century, Sun worship was very popular among the Romans. The emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161 A.D.) erected a temple to Mithra at Ostai, a seaport town a few miles below Rome. Pius' name is also written at the base of the famous temple of the Sun at Baalbek (Heliopolis) in Syria. Justin Martyr, a leading Christian writer at the time, wrote an open letter to Pius, in which he referred several times to the increasing influence of Mithraism in the Christian Church. By this time, Mithraism was becoming popular among the Christians at the Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Egypt.

Gradually, the worship of the Invincible Sun became even more popular and widespread among the Roman Empire. Emperor Aurelian (270-275 A.D.), whose mother was a priestess of the Sun, made this solar cult the official religion of the empire. His biographer, Flavius Vopiscus, says that the priests of the Temple of the Sun at Rome were called pontiffs. They were priests of their dying-rising Saviour--Mithra, and vicegerents in religious matters next to him.

By this time, the middle of the second century, the early church, especially in Alexandria and Rome let in a flood of pagan beliefs and other aspects of sun worship and began keeping Sunday, and in order to excuse their practice, since it was not Scriptural, they called it "the Lord's Day" even though it was obvious to all that Revelation 1:10 said nothing about Sunday.

Nimrod was menitioned in the Bible, and seems to be the source of many of the pagan relions that took root. In Persia Nimrod was called “Mithras,” In Greece, he was called “Helios,” and in Rome he was called “Sol Invictus” – the “unconquerable sun.” Interestingly, in Samaria he was called “Anu.” The Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th Edition, Vol. 1, p. 432, says this about Anu: “Anu was associated with the city of Erech in Southern Babylonia . . . Anu was regarded as the god of the heavens.”

The Bible says this: “And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” ( Gen. 10:10). In the above quote the city of Erech is described as one of the cities of Nimrod. Yet in the quote from the encyclopedia, it associates Erech with Anu. Here is proof that Nimrod was known by different names in different parts of the world!

It was from this sun-worship that we get the name Sunday for the first day of the week. “Sunday is the first day of the week, adopted from the Roman calendar because it was dedicated to the worship of the sun.” – Unger’s Bible Dictionary under the article “Sunday.”

In fact, the names for the days of the week came from pagan Gods or worship. Sun–day was named after the sun. Moon-day named from the worship of the moon became Monday. From the worship of the pagan god Tiu came Tiu’s-day or Tuesday. From the pagan god Woden came Woden’s-day or as we know it today Wednesday. Thor’s-day became Thursday. Frigga’s-day became Friday, and Saturn-day became Saturday.

In the Bible the only day that had a name recognized was the seventh-day Sabbath. Sunday was simply called in the Bible “the first day of the week.” (See John 20:1). So the religion of sun worship in Isreal was Baal, and though other names were used in different languages, it all came from the same source and spread into almost every part of the ancient world.

Now Sunday worhip was slowly being brought in through the celebration of the Passover which the Bishop of Rome extended so continued to the pagan festival on Sunday. So Polycarp tried to put a stop to allowing Sunday as a day of worship coming in the back door as part of Passover as the Bishop of Rome was realy catering to the pagans that held Sunday as day of their gods.

The Quartodeciman controversy, is said to be concerning the date on which the Passover or Pascha should be celebrated, but it really was that the Passover was extended to allow Sunday worship, so lets take a look at the explanation.

The term "Quartodeciman" refers to the practice of celebrating Pascha or Easter on Nisan 14 of the Hebrew calendar, "the Lord's passover" (Leviticus 23:5). According to the church historian Eusebius, the 'Quartodeciman' Polycarp (bishop of Smyrna, by tradition a disciple of John the Evangelist) debated the question with Anicetus (bishop of Rome). The Roman province of Asia was 'Quartodeciman', while the Roman and Alexandrian churches continued in connecting it to Sunday allowing the first worhip in the church on the first day and become what is now Easter. This is how Sunday came into the church, using the Passover and legitimizing itself without any scriptural support or change from Christ or the Apostles.

Yes, Mithraism was a rival to Christianity and had some very similar concepts (though quite different fundamentally).

However, Constantine's law would never have taken place had not Christianity already adopted to a large extent the making of Sunday as a special day for religious meetings. The 70 AD and 130 AD wars against the Jews with the resulting laws against Jewish worship practices (including a decree by Hadrian that forbade keeping the seventh day) was pushing some of the Christains into Sunday worship. Most were regarding the 7th day as the Sabbath -- but holding meetings Sunday seemed wise in pacifying the Romans.

So when Constantine made his decree it was an attempt to UNITE Christians and pagans on a "common ground".

The Roman bishop (pope Sylvester) stood right beside Constantine.

Well, during the first centuries after Christ died, the early Christians began to make more and more concessions to the pagan practices around them. One of the practices that separated the pagans from the Christians was that they worshiped Jesus on the seventh day that we now call Saturday. Over a process of time with many pagans being allowed to join so some unscrupleous leaders could gain prestige over rivals, the Christians gradually began to worship on Sunday also, until both days became holy days (holidays). This resulted in the five day work week from Monday to Friday.

"Finally, at the Council of Laodicea, in A.D. 364, the leaders of the main body of the early Christian church officially changed the observance of the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day of the week. The Bible foresaw this apostasy coming into the Christian church. In Daniel 7:25 the Bible predicted a power that would 'intend to change times and law.'

"Many people have asked:'What is the difference between one day and another?' That is just the point. Since there is no difference between the days of the week, except that God says to keep one specific day holy, the only reason to change the day of worship from the day that God said to keep, to another day which He did not say to keep, is out of intentional rebellion against God. If God had said to keep Sunday, man would have decided to keep Monday. If He had said to keep Monday, man out of rebellion, would have decided to keep Tuesday. And once some men change the day, they would have sought to force all other men to follow them, and to make God's law unpopular.

Early Christian history of Sabbath keeping has been doctored.

Someone just posted the following on another forum and it just shows the diligence the Catholic Church uses to erase accounts of early Sabbath keeping.

The Chang-An Monument

"It was in the year 1625; the Jesuits had infiltrated the fabric of the Chinese cultured classes, when a sensational discovery was made. A large monument stone inscribed with nineteen hundred Chinese characters, and fifty Syrian words, was unearthed just outside the walls of Chang-An, the ancient capital of the Tang Dynasty. The news of this discovery caused a bustle of excitement in the ancient metropolitan city, and thousands were anxious to know what information about their cultural heritage was hidden in the writing.

The Jesuits, who were regarded as the teachers and scholars, were immediately summoned to decipher the inscriptions. To the astonishment of these haughty priests, there before their eyes, was a description of the prestigious position, and vast extent of the seventh-day Sabbath-keeping Christian Church of the East of a millennia before!

The ancient Chinese characters were inscribed in 781 AD, at the command of Emperor Tae-Tsung, to honor the arrival of an Assyrian missionary and his companions to the capitol in the year 635 AD from Ta Tsin, or Judea. The stone revealed beliefs and practices of the primitive Christian church, which were unrelated and out of harmony with the Roman Catholic beliefs.

One of the passages reads:

"On the Seventh Day we offer sacrifices after having purified our hearts, and received absolution from our sins. This religion, so perfect and so excellent, is difficult to name, but it enlightens darkness by its brilliant precepts.”

In a state of shock, the Jesuits, and the Mandarins, a class of scholarly religious Chinese rulers, worked to alter the Chinese characters to reflect the Catholic doctrines, for if the expectant population were to learn what the stone really said, it would greatly damage their beliefs in the Catholic doctrines, and diminish the influence of the Mandarins.

But something very different than the expected resulted. Today, after carefully comparing the known facts of history with an examination of the historical and doctrinal facts written on the stone, a fraud is obvious.

The Chang-An Monument, or the "speaking stone," as it is called, is considered to be as important a find as the Rosetta Stone, for it had the inscriptions in more than one language. The truth was preserved because the Jesuits were not able to read the inscription that was in Syrian.

From the reading of the stone today an irrefutable fact of history quickly becomes obvious.That ancient Sabbath-keeping Christianity had been very prominent and extensive throughout the Orient as late as the eighth and ninth centuries. "

Except from "Our Sabbath Heritage" by James Arrabito