Sunday service instead of Saturday?

[lsayre]

When and why did the Christian churches move services from Saturday to Sunday? Can this move be attributed to any individual?

[StephenGoranson]

Some relevant information and bibliography are provided in my article:

"7 vs. 8: The Battle Over the Holy Day at Dura-Europos"
https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/Dura-Europos.pdf

As to the second question: no, not just one person.

[andrewcriddle]

See Didache date uncertain probably early 2nd century CE.

But every Lord's day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations.

Lord's day is almost certainly Sunday.

The Didache appears to be explicitly contrasting its ritual week with that of the Jews.

But let not your fasts be with the hypocrites; for they fast on the second and fifth day of the week; but fast on the fourth day and the Preparation (Friday).

Andrew Criddle

[Steven Avery]

Some relevant information and bibliography are provided in my article:

"7 vs. 8: The Battle Over the Holy Day at Dura-Europos"
https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/Dura-Europos.pdf

It is interesting, including the historic 8th-day references, but I don't really see it by the proposed pictorial symbology extrapolation, without an actual word about the Sabbath.

Here is an example of the interpretative stretch.

"On the north wall's upper register, we see Jesus healing the paralytic. Jesus and the healed man gesture to a third man, not mentioned in the Bible, who is still on a bed.21 According to John 5, this healing takes place in Jerusalem on the Sabbath; “the Jews” complain that it is unlawful for the healed man to carry his bed on the Sabbath. The third man (and by extension, the viewer), therefore, is invited to be healed and to defy the Sabbath proscription. In short, in these paintings the seventh-day Sabbath is rejected in favor of the eighth-day Lord’s Day."

Nahh. The debate in John 5 was whether a healing could take place on the Sabbath, not what day is the Sabbath. The paintings are not saying a thing about the "Lord's Day" as Sunday and a good day for a healing.

[Steven Avery]

When and why did the Christian churches move services from Saturday to Sunday? Can this move be attributed to any individual?

Many writers seemed to have a blasé view of the Decalogue.

Here is a quote from Richard Bauckham, another resource would be the writings of Samuele R. Bacchiocchi, including From Sabbath to Sunday. Plus various internet polemics.

8. “Sabbath and Sunday in the Post-Apostolic Church,” by R J Bauckham
in From Sabbath to Lord's Day edited by D. A. Carson
p. 267-268

With the exception of Pseudo-Barnabas, no Christian writer before Tertullian104 refers to the Sabbath commandment as part of the Decalogue. This is extraordinary in view of the fact that the Decalogue undoubtedly held a central place in early Christian ethical instruction, so much so that it may have been on account of Christian use that it was withdrawn from the synagogue liturgy early in the second century.105 But extant examples of early Christian paraenesis based on the Decalogue106 show that it was used with considerable selectiveness and flexibility, and normally with reference only to the second table. In none of the extant examples does the Sabbath commandment appear in any form.

Gentile Christians took over the Jewish regard for the Decalogue as the epitome of the Law, but translated this into an identification of the Decalogue with the law of nature common to Christians and Jews.107 As the law' of nature, the Decalogue was written on the hearts of the pre-Mosaic patriarchs, and must be sharply distinguished from the rest of the Mosaic legislation, which consisted of temporary' commandments "given for bondage and for a sign" to Israel.108 Yet the Sabbath is never treated with the special regard that its place in the Decalogue would seem to demand; rather it is consistently classed with the temporary ceremonial law.

104 De Pud. 5.

105 R. M. Grant. "The Decalogue in Early Christianity.” HTR 40 (1947): 2; C. W. Dugmore. The Influence of the Synagogue upon the Divine Office (London: Oxford University Press. 1944). p. 29; hut cf. Rordorf. Sunday, p. 106 n. I.

106 Pliny. Ep. 10:96-97; Did. 2, Barn. 19; Aristides, Apol. 15:3-5; Thcophilus, Ad Autol. 2:34-35; 3:9; cf. Justin, Dial. 12:3. Already in the New Testament: Romans 13:9; 1 Timothv L9-10.

l07 Irenacus, Adv. Haer. 4:13:4.

I08 lrenaeus, Adv. Haer. 4:16:3.

[Steven Avery]

Markus Vinzent is good on this topic.
Although I think he overdoes the attempt to disconnect the resurrection from the Sunday change, since some of the church writer quotes are strong on this point.

starting here on p 195
Christ's Resurrection in Early Christianity: and the Making of the New Testament
https://books.google.com/books?id=WmM3DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA195

... The ‘conventional explanation of the Christian Sunday’, which has been ‘based on the fact of Jesus’ Resurrection on Easter Sunday', an ‘opportunity' for Christians to remember it every week on the Sunday’, has been dismissed.11 The New Testament never refers to the ‘day of the Resurrection’,12 a name that appears much later in Christianity; instead, any naming and dating remains closely linked to the Jewish Sabbath. Both Paul and Luke speak of ‘the first day after the Sabbath’ (Greek).13 We find in the New Testament no trace of any linking of the Christian gathering to the Resurrection that could have suggested ‘that one should introduce a new sacred day in its memory; on the contrary one could cite Origen representing the early Christian scepticism to highlight the Sunday: “For the perfect Christian every day is a Lord's day'".14 Nothing indicates that the first weekday in the life of the early church was a “holy day” on an analogy with the Sabbath in the life of the Jewish people'.

(Quoting from Riesenfeld)
... Hence, there is no ‘simple explanation’ that ‘Sunday is observed because Jesus rose on that day’; on the contrary, it is ‘a petitio principii' whereby scholars have a fixed idea according to their own weekly practice, whereas in early Christianity the celebration might just as well have been a ‘monthly or annual' gathering and ‘still be an observance of that particular day’.16

If the origin of the ‘Sunday’ does not lie in the Easter experience, then where does the ‘Sunday’ and its combination with the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ come from? When did Christians first gather to ‘break bread' on the first day of the week? ‘The justification of the Sunday feast with reference to Jesus' Resurrection surfaces only in the second century with great reluctance’, and is mentioned in only three of our many sources (IgnMagn. 9:1; Barn. 15:9: Justin, 1Apol 67:7), as we shall discuss below.

(quoting from Rordorf)
In the earliest texts which bear on the Christian Sunday there is absolutely no mention of Jesus’ Resurrection, and when the Resurrection docs appear [in the three mentioned texts| one has the impression that this motivation may be a secondary addition.17

===============

This continues with the Lord's Day on p 202 and a few pages are not online here.

[Leucius Charinus]

When and why did the Christian churches move services from Saturday to Sunday? Can this move be attributed to any individual?

Sabbath in Christianity

Early Christians, at first mainly Jewish, observed the seventh-day Sabbath with prayer and rest, and gathered on the seventh day, Saturday, reckoned in Jewish tradition as beginning, like the other days, at sunset on what would now be considered Friday evening. As early as the late 2nd Century AD, Sunday was introduced by a few local churches, in addition to keeping the weekly Sabbath, so that they could evangelise to the pagan Gentiles who had revered Sunday in honour of their sun-god, given Sunday was too pure to do so.

It was not until the Council of Laodicea, in the 4th Century AD, that the non observance of Sabbath was officially approved and replaced with Sunday, following Emperor Constantines blue laws in 321AD ***. Despite the change to Sunday, however, many churches continued to keep the weekly Sabbath throughout different periods in Christian history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_in_Christianity

*** Blue law

The Roman Emperor Constantine promulgated the first known law regarding prohibition of Sunday labour for apparent religion-associated reasons in A.D. 321:

• On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.
  
  — Codex Justinianus, lib. 3, tit. 12, 3
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law

[Steven Avery]

The AD 321 edict from Constantine was more involved than the above, and was essentially an affirmation of the pagan/heathen view of the Sun, although Eusebius might have tried to paint it with a Christian facade.

Facts of Faith (1942)
Christian Edwardson
https://biblesabbath.org/wordpress/wp-c ... y-1942.pdf

And Sunday, “the venerable day of the sun,” was the popular holiday of Mithraism.

... Constantine's Sunday law of 321 A. D. reads as follows:

"On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or for vineplanting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them for the second time."

- "Codex Justinianus, lib. 3, lit. 12, 3"; translated in "History of the Christian Church," Philip Schaff, D. D, (7-vol. ed.) Vol. III, p. 380. New York: 1884.

,...

Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, and an admirer of Constantine, co-operated with him in bringing "the venerable day of the sun" into the Christian church. Speaking of Pope Sylvester, Constantine, and himself, he says:

"All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath these we have transferred to the Lord's day, as more appropriately belonging to it, because it has a precedence and is first in rank, and more honourable than the Jewish Sabbath. For on that day in making the world, God said, 'Let there be light, and there was light.”
- "Commentary on the Psalms"; quoted in "Literature on the Sabbath Question," Robert Cox, Vol. I, p. 361.

Eusebius evidently used the strongest argument he knew as proof for Sunday-keeping; but advocates of this new holiday had probably not yet conceived the idea that Christ's resurrection would be an argument in favor of Sunday-keeping, so he used creation instead.

This comment about the resurrection sounds like an overstatement, but it is interesting that Eusebius did not use the resurrection argument, and used the even weaker creation argument.

Grotius gets involved with this as well with some pithy commentary.
Edwardson quotes him, p. 71-72, however only in part:

That the Christians at this time were still keeping the Sabbath can be seen from the following statement of Hugo Grotius, quoted by Robert Cox, F. S. A. Scot.:

"He refers to Eusebius for proof that Constantine, besides issuing his well-known edict that labor should be suspended on Sunday, enacted that the people should not be brought before the law courts on the seventh day of the week, which also, he adds, was long observed by the primitive Christians as a day for religious meetings. . . . And this, says he, 'refutes those who think that the Lord's day was substituted for the Sabbath - a thing nowhere mentioned either by Christ or His apostles."'

-"Opera Omnia Theologica," Hugo Grotius (died 1645), (London: 1679); quoted in "Literature of the Sabbath Question," Cox, Vol. I, p. 223. Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, 1865

The Robert Cox page has more about the Grotius quote:

The Literature of the Sabbath Question, Volume 1 (1865)
Robert Cox
https://books.google.com/books?id=DJIIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA223

We can conclude that Edwardson did not include all of Grotius because his overall position was not supporting sabbath-keeping.

Even later at Nicaea with Constantine the big issue was the Quartodecian controversy

[Steven Avery]

The Quarterly Review (1897)
The Lord’s Day p. 36-67
Review of 4 books
https://books.google.com/books?id=bshMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA49

The edicts are reviewed, note this about Laodecia c. AD 363.

Laodecian canon … is especially noteworthy as furnishing the first hint from within the church of any parallel on the Lord’s day to Sabbatical observance. The direction is that

‘Christians are not to Judaize and rest on the Sabbath day, but preferring tho Lord’s Day in honour, are on it, if possible, to rest as Christians. But if they are found to Judaize, let them be anathema from Christ.'

What is condemned, however, is to Judaize, to rest on the Sabbath. They are not to honour the seventh day, but are to honour the first; and on the Lord’s Day, moreover, the rest is not to be Judaic, but Christian ; and even this is conditional.