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  • From: kraft AT ccat.sas.upenn.edu (Robert Kraft)
  • To: corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Sunday Worship
  • Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 00:37:37 -0400 (EDT)


Robert Brenchley asks about evidence for Sunday worship by Christians.
Much of it is summarized in my article from the 1960s,
<t>SOME NOTES ON SABBATH OBSERVANCE IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY</(t)>
(Andrews University Seminar Studies 3 (1965) 18-33),
which is available on the internet --

gopher://ccat.sas.upenn.edu:70/00/journals/kraftpub/Christianity/sabbath

-- if anyone is interested.

Among the conclusions:

"By way of summary, it seems that the following conclusions
are in line with the evidence: (1) Sunday observance was being
[Page 32] urged <e>instead of</(e)> Sabbath rest as early as the
beginning of the 2d century<n>\34/; (2) at the same time, a
considerable segment of the Christian population continued to
observe the (Jewish) Sabbath in some form or other--apparently
this continued to be a live issue on into the 4th century in some
areas; (3) some Christian communities observed <e>both</(e)>Sab-
bath <e>and</(e)> Sunday at least from the 3d century, and
probably earlier, but there was a widespread attempt to divorce
Sabbath observance from the ideas of solemnity (fasting) and
idleness by making it a day of meditation and rejoicing (like
Sunday)--that is, Sabbath "rest" was interpreted in a much wider
sense than Rabbinic Judaism would permit. In the 4th century,
when the Church and the Roman Empire were rapidly moving towards
alliance, thus allowing the "ecumenical" Church to emerge visibly
(and vocally), the official observance of Sunday rest gained
political as well as religious overtones...."

\34/For further details, see S. V. McCasland, "The
Origin of the Lord's Day," JBL 49 (1930), 65-82; and more
recently W. Rordorf, <gn>Der Sonntag</(gn)> (Zurich, 1962);
Dugmore, "Lord's Day and Easter" in Cullmann Festschrift (Suppl.
to <ln>Novum Testamentum</(ln)> 6 [1962]), pp. 282-92. No
doubt the complex problem of the separation of Church and Syna-
gogue in the 1st and 2d centuries, with its inevitable antago-
nisms, was a factor here; also the anti-Jewish edicts of emperors
like Hadrian would have provided added incentive for Christians
to dissociate themselves from certain Jewish practices....

Bob
--
Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827
kraft AT ccat.sas.upenn.edu
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html



  • Sunday Worship, Robert Kraft, 04/14/2000

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