seventh day

"Roger Mills" <romilly@...> wrote:
> Tom Little wrote:
> >The rest day was moved from Saturday to Sunday in the Christian tradition.
> >Biblically speaking, it is the Jewish sabbath (Saturday) that would
> >correspond to the "Seventh day" in Genesis.>
>
> Thank you.  That was my point.  I wonder, did the earliest Christians
> celebrate on Saturday, or Sunday?
Depends on what you mean by 'celebrate'.

From what I understand, both Sunday and Saturday were 'celebrated' at times but
(AFAICT) with different purposes.  What happened was that "the Lord's Day"
Sunday appeared (rather early on, so that it appears as a name day even in the
NT[1]), while the "Sabbath" Saturday steadily declined (for many reasons, though
the ones I hear about most are anti-judaism and the throwing of the emphasis on
to Sunday).

But hmm, examples?  there was a Laodicean counsel, (364 AD?), that denounced
resting on the Sabbath as 'judaizing', although some religious observances were
still prescribed for it and Sunday together.  Apparently March 7, 321 (...?!)
Sunday was officially proposed by Emperor Constantine? as a rest-day (regardless
of religion, though, so...).  These kind of measures seem to indicate that 1)
some people weren't keeping Sundays and 2) some people were keeping Sabbaths
even as late as the fourth century.

I do have a note here, "Until rather recent years ['recent' relative to 1956, I
guess] the Coptic Church of Ethiopia observed the seventh-day Sabbath.  The
Ethiopians also kept Sunday, the first day of the week, throughout their history
as a Christian people.  These days were marked by special services in the
churches.  The observance of the seventh-day Sabbath has, however, virtually
ceased in modern Ethiopia."

[NB my sources may be slightly biased, as I'm part of a sabbathkeeping Christian
church/denomination/college/city/etc. Even our US Post Office delivers the mail
on Sunday instead. So hey...]


     *Muke!
[1] In the beginning of Revelation, John said he was in the Spirit on the Lord's
day.  Some people, though, say that this is a reference to Saturday, linking it
with Jesus' statements on being 'Lord of the Sabbath'.  I don't think this is a
necessary 'defense' though.
--
http://www.southern.edu/~alrivera/

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