Is Sunday keeping from paganism?

RALPH AND ARLENE WOODROW
P.O. BOX 21
PALM SPRINGS, CA 92263-0021 February 1999
DID SUNDAY WORSHIP
COME FROM PAGANISM?
There are many Christians—not only those who
meet on Saturday, but many who attend church
on Sunday—who assume that Sunday observance
originally came from paganism. The basic idea is this:
Sunday was the established day of rest, the weekly
holiday in the pagan world. On this day each week,
the Romans, Greeks, and other pagans, gathered in
temples to worship their pagan gods, particularly the
Sun-god—hence the term Sun-day. Later, when these
pagans professed Christianity, they gradually brought
the overwhelmingly popular practice of meeting on
Sunday into the “Church.”
The teaching that Sunday worship “came from
paganism” has been so often repeated, it may come as
a surprise when I tell you this teaching has no basis
in fact. It is misinformation. If I can show you—and I
believe I can—that Sunday was not a day of rest and
worship among pagans, then it should be quite clear
that the practice of Christians meeting on Sunday, the
fi rst day of the week, did not come from this source.
In the New Testament, “the fi rst day of the week”
is mentioned eight times. These references do not give
any information about whether or not the fi rst day of
the week—Sunday—was a day of rest and worship
among pagans. For this we will need to look into history.
In doing so, suppose we were to contact highly
qualifi ed historians—at great centers of learning like
the British Museum, the Smithsonian Institute, and
Harvard University—and ask them if Sunday was a
weekly holiday in the pagan world. Surely their answers
would be weighty.
Well, this has already been done—by D. M. Canright,
a Seventh-Day Adventist minister. He sincerely
believed Sunday worship came from pagan-ism—this
teaching had been passed on to him by equally sincere
people. But when he began to look into the subject
more fully, he came to a different conclusion. It was
at this time—back in 1913-1914—that he contacted
these great centers of learning we have men-tioned.
He carefully avoided giving any idea of his own views
or purpose in writing, so as not to infl uence answers
in any way. The responses he received (which I have
abridged slightly because of space limitations) are
as follows:
From the world renowned British Museum in
London, England, Department of Greek and Roman
Antiquities:
Sir:
I am commanded by the Assistant Keeper of Greek
and Roman Antiquities to reply as follows to your
questions on the ancient week:
Question 1: Did the pagan Romans and Greeks ever
have any regular weekly day of rest from secular
work?
Answer: No.
Question 2: Did they have any regular weekly
festival day?
Answer: No.
Question 3: Did they have any regular weekly day
when they assembled for pagan worship?
Answer: No.
Question 4: Did they have any special day of the
week when individuals went to the temples to pray
or make offerings?
Answer: No; both for Greeks and Romans the month
was the unit and not the week. The Greek calendar
varied in different states but the month was generally
divided into three periods of ten days. The Romans
reckoned from three fi xed points in the month,
the Kaleend or fi rst, the Nones fi fth or seventh, the
Ides thirteenth or fi fteenth. These subdivisions in
themselves had no religious signifi cance. Also in the
Roman calendars were nundinal, or market days, at
periods of eight days. On these days farm work, etc.,
stopped and citizens fl ocked into the town markets.
To some extent this may be a regular stoppage of
secular work; but it had no religious signifi cance.
Question 5: As Sunday was sacred to the Sun, Monday
to the Moon, Saturday to Saturn, etc., were those
supposed deities worshipped on their own particular
days more than on any other days?
Answer: No; the old worship of the gods was disappearing
when the seven-day week came about. The
signifi cance of the deities’ names was astrological,
not religious, e.g., if a person were born on Monday,
the moon would infl uence his horoscope, but the
moon was never an object of common worship.
Question 6: When was our week of seven days fi rst
introduced into the Roman calendar?
Answer: There are traces in the literature of the late
republic (fi rst century B. C.) that the Romans used
the week of seven days for astrological purposes, in
connection with the many Eastern superstitions of
the period. It was probably the third century, A. D.
before the seven day week came into common use.
Question 7: From whom did the Romans learn the
week of seven days?
Answer: From the Jews, alternately the Assyrians
and Babylonians; the names were probably fi xed by
the Hellenistic Greeks.
Question 8: Did the pagan Greeks ever adopt in
common life, or in their calendar, the week of seven
days?
Answer: No.
Question 9: Did Apollo, the Sun-god, either among
the Romans or Greeks, have any special day on which
he was worshipped with prayers or offerings more
than on any other day?
Answer: There were certain set festivals at various
temples; these were annual, not weekly.
Question 10: Did the pagan reverence for Sunday
have anything to do in infl uencing Christians to
select that day as their rest day?
Answer: No; it can hardly be said that there
was any special reverence for Sunday in pagan
times (see answer to Number 5).
—I am, sir, Your obedient servant, F. N.
PRYCE.
Concerning this response, Canright says: “You
see this historian gives an unqualifi ed NO to all the
questions. Notice particularly that the names of the
days of the week were all only astrological, not religious.
There was no religious sacredness attached
to a day because it was named after some planet as
Sun-day—Sun’s day—or Monday, Moon’s day, etc. The
sun was not worshipped on Sunday, nor the moon
on Monday, nor Saturn on Saturday, etc. Also notice
carefully that Apollo was not worshipped on Sunday...
his festival days were annual, not weekly.”
From the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.,
Canright received the following response to similar
questions:
Question 1: Did the pagan Romans and Greeks ever
have any regular weekly day of rest from secular
work?
Answer: No.
Question 2: Did they ever have any weekly festival
day?
Answer: No.
Question 3: Did they have any regular weekly day
when they assembled for pagan worship?
Answer: No.
Question 4: When was our calendar of the week fi rst
introduced among the Romans and Greeks?
Answer: The division of the month into weeks
was introduced into Rome from Egypt. The date is
uncertain, but it was not earlier than the second
century, A. D.
Question 5: When was our calendar of the week
fi rst recognized in Roman law?
Answer: The earliest Sunday legislation was enacted
under Constantine I, 321 A.D. No legislation of
earlier date on the division of the month is known.
Question 6: As each day of the week was dedicated
to some god, as Sunday to the Sun, Monday to the
Moon, Saturday to Saturn, etc., was each of these
supposed deities worshipped on one particular day
more than any other day?
Answer: No.
Question 7: Did the pagan Romans have any one
special day in the week when individuals, if they
chose, went to make prayers or offerings to their
gods?
Answer: No.
Question 8: Did Apollo have any special day in the
week or month more than any other day when he
was worshipped with prayers or offerings?
Answer: No.
—Very truly yours, R. RATHBORN.
Canright addressed the same questions to George F.
Moore, Professor of Ancient Roman and Greek History,
at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Here was his response:
There are two seven-day weeks: the Jewish week,
with a Sabbath on the seventh day; and the Astrological
week, with days named after the sun, moon,
and fi ve planets, in our order determined by the
theories of astrology, but without any day of rest....
The Astrological week fi rst appears in Greek and
Latin writings about the beginning of the Christian
era….It had no use in ordinary life. Abstinence from
labor on the seventh day, or on one day in seven, is
a distinctively Jewish institution.
The edict of Constantine (321 A.D.) closing the courts
on Sunday and prohibiting some kinds of labor on that
day, is the first recognition of a seven-day week in
Roman law. The ancient Romans had a market day
every eight days, when the peasants came to town
to market, but it was in no sense a day of rest. In
the old Roman calendar there were many days when
the courts were closed and other public and private
business was not done. They had also many festivals
on which the people left their ordinary occupation
to take part in the celebrations, but these have no
periodicity like that of the week….
The planetary week in which the days were named
from their regents, Saturday, Sunday, etc., was an invention
of the astrologers, probably in the second century,
B. C., and has no relation to religion or infl uence
upon it. Saturn, for example, was not worshipped on
Saturday, nor Jupiter on Thursday. The festivals of
the several gods were never weekly festivals. Private
persons went to the temples when they had occasion
to offer prayers or sacrifi ces or to make vows, etc.
There were no stated days for such visits—though
some days were in some temples luckier than others,
and there was nothing like a stated day for the
assembling of a worshipping con-gregation except
the festivals of the local calendar.
—Very truly yours, GEORGE F. MOORE.
The following response was from Professor W. H.
Westerman of the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
Wisconsin:
Dear Sir: I shall answer your questions briefl y, and
in the order in which you sent them.
1. The pagan Greeks and Romans never had a weekly
day of rest.
2. They never had a weekly holiday or festival day.
3. They never had a special day in the week on which
they made offerings or prayers to heathen gods. (Neither
the pagan Greeks nor the Romans recognized a
seven-day division or week division in the month.)
4. They made no offerings or prayers on Sunday to
their gods any more than on other days.
5. The seven-day period of dividing the month or the
week was never adopted into the calendar of the pagan
Greeks. It appears in the Roman calendar after
the time of Theodosius, or after 391 A.D., but the
week, or seven-day period, fi rst appears in Roman
law in a constitution of Constantine, promulgated
in 321 A. D.
In the constitution of Constantine, which spoke of
the “venerable day of the sun,” Constantine regards
Sunday as venerable undoubtedly from the Christian
standpoint…If it was in any way venerable or a
holiday to the pagans, so far as my information goes,
the pagans must have adopted the practice from the
Christians.
Apollo was not worshipped on any stated day of the
week or month more than any other. I do not believe
that there is any proof that the early Christians were
led to observe Sunday by the example of any pagan
worship upon that day.
–Very Sincerely yours, W. H. WESTERMAN.
These same basic points were confi rmed in a letter
Canright received from J. W. Moncrieff, Professor at
the University of Chicago, who went on to say that
the notion Sunday was a weekly holiday among the
Romans is simply not true—that “reliable, competent
historians, with one accord proclaim this notion to be
a myth, pure and simple.…I have consulted sixteen
encyclopedias and dictionaries, and they differ in no
essential detail in their treatment of the subject.”
These statements from men who have devoted considerable
time to the study of history are weighty. As
historians they could provide answers without any
need to uphold, or deny, a doctrinal position. And
they answered independently of each other. Two other
university Professors referred Canright to the book
Roman Festivals by Fowler. This book, though it describes
many Roman festivals, says absolutely nothing
about any weekly day of rest or worship. Wouldn’t this
be a strange omission, if indeed Sunday had been their
national holiday—the day they assembled every week
to worship the Sun-god? Obviously this was not the
case! Schaff, in his Church History, says: “The pagan
Romans paid no more regard to the Christian Sunday
than to the Jewish Sabbath.”
The Roman Calendar at the time of Christ and the
founding of the Christian church, was divided into
months, not weeks—that feature was added later. The
Encyclopedia Americana, article “Week,” says: “The
Romans and Greeks…were not acquainted with the
week till a late period. The Romans had, however,
for civil uses, as the arrangement of market days,
a cycle of eight days, the ninth being the recurring
one, instead of the eighth as with us.” Accordingly,
their days were: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, then 1, 2, 3, etc.
Whereas, with a seven day week, the days are: 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, then 1, 2, 3, etc.
Now this should be carefully noticed. IF pagans
gathered on the fi rst day of the week to worship
Apollo, Mithra, or some other Sun-god, this would not
correspond, week after week, to what we call Sunday.
For example: Suppose our calendar had eight days in
a week (instead of seven), and we met for Christian
worship at seven day intervals. This would require a
change of day each week! If we met the fi rst week on
Saturday, seven days later we would meet on Friday.
Seven days later we would meet on Thursday. Seven
days later we would meet on Wednesday, etc. There
is simply no way that the fi rst day—of an eight-day
cycle—will consistently correspond with the fi rst day
of a seven-day cycle. This cries out in a loud voice,
then, that the pagan Romans did not observe what
we call Sunday as a weekly sacred day!
The edict of Constantine, A. D. 321, was the very
fi rst time in Roman law that Sunday was set aside
as a holiday. It is pretty obvious then, isn’t it, that
Sunday had not been the pagan national holiday of
the Roman empire before this time!
There are some—atheists, agnostics, etc.—who try
to discredit Christianity by fi nding parallels in pagan
religions. They argue that Christianity, in its entirety,
was adopted from paganism. They do this by citing a
few similarities while ignoring vast differences. Often,
what may appear to be pagan is not pagan at all,
when it is studied out completely. Our present subject
provides a good example of this. Because the fi rst day
of the week is called “Sunday,” all someone has to
say is that this was the day each week when pagans
gathered to worship the Sun-god, and people believe
it. From here it is only another step for someone to
claim the practice of Christians meeting on Sunday
came from pagan sun worship!
Some Christian groups have spent millions of dollars
promoting the idea that Sunday worship came
from paganism. Some believe that in the end-time all
Christians will be forced to worship on Sunday—that
this will tie in with the mark of the Beast! I believe,
from my studies over the years, these claims are seriously
fl awed. It is my opinion that there are issues
of greater importance—but I am not throwing stones
at anyone! I accept as Christians all who know Jesus
Christ as Lord—those who love him and whose lives
have been changed by him—regardless of denominational
tag. Over the years, I have had the opportunity
to speak for many churches and groups—including
those who meet on Saturday, as well as many who
meet on Sunday. I have fi ne friends and pastors, for
whom I have the highest regard, in both camps.
In this article I have purposely tried to keep the
focus on the question, “Did Sunday Worship Come
From Paganism?”—without branching out into other
details and issues. For the reasons I have briefl y
stated here, I must reject the idea that Sunday was
a well-established, popular, weekly holiday in the
pagan world—so popular that church leaders gave in
to the pressure, rebelled against God, and adopted it
as the day for Christian worship. How could Sunday
worship have come from paganism, when Sunday was
never a pagan holiday?
—RALPH WOODROW

I Guess The pagan charge, holds no water