(Introductory picture of the Roman stick calendar of the Baths of Titus, is not included in this article)
As you look at the calendar on the wall from day to day, have you thought of its interesting connection with paganism that dominated the Roman world when Christ and His apostles lived on earth?
Take the months, for example. January was named after Janus, the Roman god with two faces, one of which looked forward while the other looked backward. February�s name was derived from the Latin word aperire (to open), because it is the month of the opening of the budded leaves and flowers. May was named in honor of the goddess Maia, the mother of Hermes. June was called after Juno, the sister and wife of Jupiter. July bears the name of Julius Caesar, the dictator who reformed the Roman calendar in 46 and 45 B.C. August was named in honor of Augustus Caesar, the Roman emperor who ruled the world at the time the Saviour was born. (Luke 2:1-7.) The names September, October, November, and December mean "seventh," "eighth," and "ninth," and "tenth" respectively, because originally the Roman calendar year began with March instead of January.
Looking a little lower down on your calendar, you see that the names of the days of the week are also of pagan origin. Among the Romans they were dies Solis (the day of the Sun--Sunday), dies Lunae (the day of the Moon--Monday), dies Mars (the day of Mars�Marsday), dies Mercurii (the day of Mercury--Mercuryday), dies Jovis (the day of Jupiter--Jupiterday), dies Veneris (the day of Venus--Venusday), and dies Saturni (the day of Saturn--Saturnday). In Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and some other languages the days of the week still have these names in a modified form.
When the use of the week of days named after the planetary gods--Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn--spread from Rome into the Teutonic regions of Europe, our Anglo-Saxon ancestors gave the days the names of their heathen deities--Sun, Moon, Tiw, Woden, Thor, Friga, and Saturn--corresponding to those of the Romans. Hence the English-speaking people call the days of the week by the following planetary titles: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Neither the passing of time nor the preaching of Christianity has erased those names of pagan gods from the calendar. In Bible times neither the Jews nor the Christians called the days of the week after the heavenly bodies. The dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other sources of information are practically unanimous in assuring us that this nomenclature of the days of the week is of heathen origin. Exhaustive research has brought forth abundant evidence to confirm this conclusion.
The worship of the heavenly bodies as gods began in the distant past. Becoming popular in ancient Chaldea, it spread to nearly all the world. The stars were divided into two classes--those that were stationary or "fixed," and those that moved or "wandered." The latter were called "planets" (wanderers). The Sun and the Moon were also regarded as being planets like Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. These seven planetary divinities were believed to be the principal rulers of the visible universe. This regard for them was based on an ancient Babylonian conception of the universe, which prevailed everywhere in scientific thought except among the true worshipers of God and a few very studious pagan philosophers. That notion was that the whole universe revolved above and beneath the earth just as a wagon wheel turns over and under an axle. The earth was supposed to be the hub around which all creation turned. This concept prevailed generally until Copernicus convinced men of its falsity a little more than 300 years ago.
The heathen was taught that over his head there were eight heavens, one above another, and that at death his soul must ascend through all of them in order to reach a place of perfection and supreme bliss. The first heaven was that of the Moon; above it was the second, that of Mercury; above this was the third, that of Venus; above it was the fourth, that of the Sun; above it was the fifth, that of Mars; above it was the sixth, that of Jupiter; and above it was the seventh, that of Saturn. A planetary god was supposed to rule over each of them. The heaven of the Moon was said to be the lowest (nearest to the earth), while that of Saturn was the highest (farthest from the earth). And above these seven planetary heavens there was supposed to be another, that of the "fixed stars." For the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn appeared to move about, while the rest of the heavenly bodies always seemed to stay in one place. This eighth heaven--that of the fixed stars--was believed to be the abode of the Demiurge, the builder and spiritual ruler of the universe. The whole cosmos of eight heavens was imagined to be a mighty celestial machine that turned over and beneath the earth like a big Ferris wheel, emitting at the same time a sublime music that could be detected only by mental perception.
But when we turn to the Holy Scriptures, we find that the original week of seven days was established by the Creator when He made the world in six days and rested on the seventh. At that time "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it [made it holy]: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." Genesis 2:3. "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it [made it holy]." Exodus 20:11. Thus "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Exodus 20:10. It is rightly called "the Lord's day" (Revelation 1:10), for "the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day" (Matthew 12:8). He calls it "My holy day." Isaiah 58:13. And to men He says, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Exodus 20:8.
Because the week of seven days ended with the Sabbath, the seventh day, which was divinely set apart as holy for the worship of the Creator, it is no surprise that Satan, the real god of paganism (1 Corinthians 10:20; Deuteronomy 32:16, 17), should devise a counterfeit week intended to do away with the Sabbath of the true God.
Astrology, or pagan astronomy, assigned each of the 24 hours of the day to a planetary god after the order of their supposed positions above the earth--(1) Saturn, (2) Jupiter, (3) Mars, (4) Sun, (5) Venus, (6) Mercury, (7) and Moon. The planetary god having the lordship of the first hour of the day was declared to be the lord of that day. Hence, if Saturn should have the lordship of the first hour of the day, it would be called the day of Saturn (Saturday). The hours for the whole of Saturn's day would be assigned thus to the planetary gods: (1) Saturn, (2) Jupiter, (3) Mars, (4) Sun, (5) Venus, (6) Mercury, (7) Moon, (8) Saturn, (9) Jupiter, (10) Mars, (11) Sun, (12) Venus, (13) Mercury, (14) Moon, (15) Saturn, (16) Jupiter, (17) Mars, (18) Sun, (19) Venus, (20) Mercury, (21) Moon, (22) Saturn, (23) Jupiter, (24) Mars.
Because the last hour of Saturn's day is assigned to Mars, the first hour of the following day would belong to the Sun, the next planetary god in the order. This makes the Sun the lord of that day, so that it is called "the day of the Sun" (Sunday). After the hours of Sunday have been assigned to the planetary gods in their turn, the first hour of the next day is found to pertain to the Moon, so that it is "the day of the Moon" (Monday), etc. Thus the heathen astrologers developed as a basis for their prognostications a calendrical system whereby the hours and the days would go on in an endless cycle under the supposed lordship of those seven planetary gods.
While we have good reasons for believing that the planetary week is of Babylonian origin, we do not know the definite place where, or the exact date when, men first began to call the days after the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. However, it is certain that it was in vogue among the Greeks and Romans when Christ and His apostles lived on earth.
Dio Cassius, an ancient pagan historian who explains the system in detail, assures us that the naming of the days after the planetary gods was in use in the first century B.C. (Roman History, bk. 37, chaps. 16 and 17; bk. 49, chap. 22) This heathen historian states, for example, that in 63 B.C. Pompey captured Jerusalem, and during the siege took special advantage of "the day of Saturn," on which the Jews rested. (Roman History, bk. 37, chaps. 16 and 17.) Josephus, the Hebrew priest-historian who was a contemporary of the Apostle John, confirms this testimony of Dio Cassius, saying that Pompey did so act on "the seventh days," which were "the Sabbath days," and on which the Jews rested from labor. (Wars of the Jews, bk. 1, chap. 7, sect. 3; bk. 2, chap. 16, sect. 4; Antiquities of the Jews, bk. 4, chap. 4, sects, 2 and 3.) Strabo, the pagan geographer who wrote in the reign of Caesar Augustus, testifies to the same facts. (Geography, bk. 16, chap. 2, sect. 40.)
Dio Cassius also reports that the Roman general Gaius Sosius captured Jerusalem "on the day of Saturn" in 37 B.C., a day the Jews regarded as sacred. (Roman History, bk. 49, chap. 22.) He says that it was "the day even then called the day of Saturn." (See also Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, bk. 14, chap. 16, sect. 4.)
Horace makes reference to Jupiter's day (Thursday). (Satires, bk. 2, sat. 3, lines 288-290; Pomponius Porphyrio, commentaries on Q. Horatium Flaccus, discourse 2, chap. 3, line 290.) And Tibullus, a contemporary of Horace, wrote of Saturn's day (Saturday). (Elegies, bk. 1, elegy 3, lines 17 and 18.) Both of these Latin poets were heathen and lived during the reign of Caesar Augustus.
The Sabine Calendar, marble fragments of which were discovered in central Italy in 1795, is said by archaeologists to have been in use between 19 B.C. and A.D. 4. The first column of this calendar gives the days of the month in their numerical order. The second column registers the seven days of the week in their order by means of the capital letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The third column shows the market days (nundinae) in their order by means of the capital letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H. This Roman calendar is believed to have the days registered in accord with the order followed in the planetary week.
Another stone calendar fragment, found in the region of Puteoli and assigned by archaeologists to the first century after the birth of Jesus, clearly shows the names of the days of Mercury (Wednesday), Jupiter (Thursday), and Venus (Friday).
Apollonius of Tyana, a pagan contemporary of Christ and the apostles, had seven finger rings "named after the seven stars," and he "wore each of these in turn on the day of the week which bore its name."--Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, bk. 1, chap. 18; bk. 3, chap. 41; Eusebius, Treatise against the Life of Apollonius of Tyana Written by Philostratus, and Occasioned by the Parallel Drawn by Hierocles between Him and Christ, chap. 22.
Petronius, a heathen contemporary of Paul, and a victim also of the emperor Nero, describes a calendar used in the home of a Roman rich man, and says that the days dedicated to the seven planetary stars were marked with distinctive knobs. (Satyricon, chap. 30.) This type of calendar is called a "stick calendar" by archaeologists, because a knobbed peg of metal, bone, or wood was inserted into a hole bored just beneath each figure of the planetary gods depicted on the calendar tablet. As we day by day turn the leaves in our desk calendars, so the ancients moved the peg with its distinctive knob from one hole to another beneath the figures or names of the planetary gods representing the days of the week in their stick calendars.
Frontinus, a pagan Roman army officer who wrote about the time that John penned the book of Revelation, says that the Roman armies captured Jerusalem "on the day of Saturn" in A.D. 70. (The Stratagems, bk. 2, chap. 1, sect. 17.) Dio Cassius, describing this fall of Jerusalem, remarked: "Thus was Jerusalem destroyed on the very day of Saturn, the day which even now the Jews reverence most."-- Roman History, bk. 65, chap. 7.
Very interesting archaeological evidence of the use of the week of days named after the planetary gods comes from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, Roman cities destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius on August 24, A.D. 79.
In Herculaneum has been found, inscribed in Greek, upon a wall, a list entitled "Days of the Gods" in capital letters, and beneath it there appears in the same language and in captial letters the names of the seven planetary gods in the exact order as they were used for the days of the week in the pagan calendars. A painting showing the seven figures of the planetary gods in the exact order they follow in the days of the week was also found there.
In Pompeii archaeologists found a Latin list of the planetary gods in the order they hold in the pagan week. A beautiful set of paintings of the same seven deities in the order of the days of the pagan week was also brought to light there. A Latin inscription found there contains a date, and specifically says, "It was the day of the Sun." Another Latin inscription mentions "the day of the Moon." A third inscription, also in Latin, definitely giving the date as "the consulate of Augustus Caesar Nero and Cossus Lentulus, the son of Lentulus," which was A.D. 60, specifically mentions "the day of the Sun."
In the Baths of Titus, the emperor who destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70, archaeologists have found a public stick calendar. "Beside each week day, monthly constellation, and day of the month, is a hole, in which a small knob was found. By the transposition of these knobs, the months, the days of the month, and the days of the week were indicated."--Theo. Mommsen, "Uber den Chronographen vom Jahre 354," in Abhandlungen der Philologisch-Historischen Classe der Koniglich Sachsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenchaften, Band 1, p. 569.
The evidence of the use of the pagan planetary week in the Roman world during the second, third, and fourth centuries of the Christian era is much more abundant.
The planetary week played a very important part in the worship of the Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus), the Romanized cult of Mithraism. During the early centuries of the Christian Era, Mithraism was the great pagan rival of Christianity. When Augustus Caesar became ruler of the Roman world, Mithraism (a system of Babylonian and Persian religious beliefs) was already spreading westward from Asia to become popular in Europe.
"As the Mithras worship was such a rival of the early Christian worship," writes Camden M. Cobern, "it may be added that in 1915 there was opened under the church of St. Clement at Rome, and made accessible to visitors, the foundations of a temple of Mithras built during the reign of Augustus. The sacred font was found, also a part of the altar and the remains of ancient sacrifices which proved to be wild boars. (See C.R. Acad. Inscri., 1915, pp. 203-311.)"--The New Archaeological Discoveries, ninth edition, p. 506.
By the middle of the second century Mithraic sun worship was popular among the Romans. The emperor Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138-161) erected a temple to Mithra at Ostia, the seaport city a few miles below the Roman capital. In his First Apology (chap. 66) to this pagan emperor and his subjects, Justin Martyr referred to the Mithraic mysteries as things which his readers either knew by personal experience or could easily learn by inquiry. In his Dialogue with Trypho (chaps. 70 and 78) he twice mentions Mithraism. The name of Antoninus Pius, it is said, can still be seen inscribed on the base of the famous temple of the Sun at Baalbek (Heliopolis) in Syria.
The worship of the Invincible Sun steadily increased in popularity with the Roman rulers and their subjects. Aurelian (A.D. 270-275), whose mother was a priestess of the Sun, made this solar cult the official religion of the empire. His biographer, Flavius Vopiscus, says of him: "He set the priesthoods in order, he constructed the Temple of the Sun, and he founded its college of pontiffs; and he also allotted funds for making repairs and paying attendants."--The Deified Aurelian, Chap. 35.
That emperor officially declared that solar deity to be "Sol Dominus Imperii Romani" (The Sun, the Lord of the Roman Empire). This title appears repeatedly on his coinage. (H. Mattingly and E. A. Sydenham, Roman Imperial Coinage, vol. 5, part 1, pp. 264, 312; S.W. Stevenson, C.R. Smith, and F.W. Madden, A Dictionary of Roman Coins, p. 753, art. "Sol"; The Cambridge Ancient History, volume 5 of Plates, pp. 238 and 239, is shown a photographic reproduction of coins minted by Aurelian. The Latin inscription on the pieces of money clearly shows the titles Sol Dominus Imperii Romani and Sol Invicto.)
Sun worship continued to be the official religion of the Roman Empire until Constantine I defeated Licinius in A.D. 323, after which it was supplanted by Romanized Christianity. Julian the Apostate (A.D. 361-363) vainly attempted to restore the worship of the Sun to its former place as the official religion of the Roman Empire.
It was natural that in the worship of the Sun the day of the Sun (Sunday) would be regarded as a very sacred festival by the heathen. In the first civil law enforcing the observance of Sunday as a day of rest among the Roman people, the emperor Constantine, who issued the edict in A.D. 321, speaks of it as "the venerable day of the Sun."--Code of Justinian, bk. 3, title 12, law 3.
Likewise in another law, issued a few months later, the same emperor spoke of it as "the day of the Sun, noted for its veneration."--Code of Theodosius, bk. 16, title 10, law 1.
While little information has been preserved to show how the heathen observed Sunday, yet in a statement concerning Sunday-keeping Tertullian (about A.D. 200) made this charge against them: "You certainly are the ones who also received the Sun into the register of the seven days, and from among the days preferred it, on which day you leave off the bath, or you may defer it until the evening, or you may devote it [Sunday] to idleness and eating."--Apology, chap. 16. (Translated from the Latin text in J.P. Migne's Patrologia Latina, vol. 1, cols. 369-372, which reads as follows: "Vos certe estis, qui etiam in laterculum septem dierum Solem recipistis, et ex diebus ipsum praelegistis, quo die lavacrum subtrahatis, aut in vesperam, differatis, aut otium et prandium curetis."
Sunday Among Christians
Near the middle of the second century Sunday observance was introduced into the Christian community at Rome as a church festival commemorating the resurrection of Jesus, who rose from the sepulcher on the first day of the week. Polycarp, a prominent bishop of the churches in Asia Minor and a man said to have been ordained to the minstry by apostolic hands, went to Rome to protest to Bishop Anicetus against this innovation. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, bk. 5, chap. 24.) The Roman bishop refused to yield. A terrible war had been waged between the Romans and the Jews during the years 131 to 135, and hatred on the part of the Romans toward anything that savored of Judaism was intense. Hadrian, the emperor of Rome at that time, issued an edict strictly prohibiting the observance of the Sabbath (the seventh day). This doubtless was a strong incentive to the bishop of Rome to make Sunday a weekly religious festival for his followers to keep, because Judaism was as unpopular in Rome in A.D. 135 as Nazism was in Washington, D.C., in 1945.
Not long after Polycarp's visit to Rome, Justin Martyr notified the emperor Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138-161) that his followers held meetings on Sunday. "On that called the day of the Sun," he wrote, "an assembly is had of all those dwelling in the cities and rural districts....And on the day of the Sun we make an assembling of all together, because it is the first day, on which God, having changed the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead on the same day."--First Apology, chap. 67. (Translated from the Greek text in J.P. Migne's Patrologia Graeca, vol. 6, cols. 429-432.)
About the year 185 Clement of Alexandria, a professed Christian who was steeped in pagan philosophy, first speaks of Sunday as "the Lord's day." (Miscellanies, bk. 5, chap. 14.) This was an ambiguous title to use at that time, for the Invincible Sun, the planetary god of the pagan Sunday, was also referred to as Dominus (Lord) by the heathen. Indeed, an ancient sepulchral inscription found by archaeologists in Sicily contains the following epitaph of a child: "He was born, O Lord of good things, on the 15th day before the Kalends of November, on the day of Saturn; he lived 10 months; (and) he died on the 10th day before the Kalends of September, on the Lord's day of the Sun."--G. Kaibel, Inscriptiones Graecae, vol 14, Inscriptiones Italiae et Siciliae, p. 129, no. 525; A. Kirchhoff, Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, vol. 4, p. 506, no. 9475.
Tertullian, writing early in the third century, says that the well-informed pagans mistook the Sunday-keeping Christians for sun worshipers. "Others, certainly more cultured, think that the Sun is the god of the Christians, because it is known that we pray toward the east [the sunrising] and make a festivity on the day of the Sun. Do you do less?"--Apology, chap. 16.
On the seventh of March, A.D. 321, Constantine I issued the first law ever promulgated by a civil government to enforce Sunday observance upon men.
"Let all judges and townspeople and all occupations of trade rest on the venerable day of the Sun; nevertheless, let those who are situated in the rural districts freely and with full liberty attend to the cultivation of the fields, because it frequently happens that no other day may be so fitting for the planting of grain and setting out of vineyards, lest at the time the commodities conceded by the provision of Heaven be lost. Given on the Nones (the 7th) of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls, each of them for the second time."-- Code of Justinian, bk. 3, title 12, law 3.
Constantine issued at least six Sunday laws. In addition to the one already quoted, he promulgated another in June of A.D. 321 to make it lawful to grant emancipation and manumission to slaves on Sunday. (Code of Theodosius, bk. 2, title 8, law 1.) He also issued a decree that permitted Christian soldiers observing Sunday to attend church on that day. In another edict he commanded that the heathen troops be marched out on the drill field on Sunday to recite a prayer, composed by the emperor himself, which might be addressed to any deity adored by men. (Eusebius, Life of Constantine, bk. 4, chaps. 18-20.) An inscription found in a Salvonian bath, rebuilt by Constantine, reads: "Also by the provision of his [Constantine's] piety, he ordained that markets (nundinae be held on the day of the Sun perpetually throughout the year."--Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (1863 ed.), vol. 3, part 1, p. 523, no. 4121.
When the Council of Nicaea, in A.D.325, voted that the Easter festival of the resurrection of Jesus should be celebrated on Sunday every year, instead of on whatever day of the week the sixteenth day of the first lunar month (Nisan) should happen to fall, Constantine issued an imperial edict in the form of a letter ordering all Christians to obey the decree of the council. (Eusebius, Life of Constantine, bk. 3, chaps. 5, 6, 17-20.)
In the meantime the Sabbath, the seventh day, was still observed by most Christians as God's sacred day of rest; but Sunday was until then considered by the majority as a merry ecclesiastical holiday in honor of the Saviour's resurrection.
By the Council of Laodicea, held later in the fourth century, the keeping of the Sabbath by resting from labor was strictly forbidden. "Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday," says the canon 29, "but shall work on that day; but the Lord's day [Sunday] they shall especially honor, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ."--C.J. Hefele, A History of the Church Councils, vol. 2, p. 316. In the original text the Greek word for Saturday is "Sabbath."
A currently used Roman Catholic catechism calls attention to this eclipse of the Sabbath by Sunday:
"Q. Which is the Sabbath day? "A. Saturday is the Sabbath day. "Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? "A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the [Roman] Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."--Peter Geiermann, The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, edition of 1957, p. 50.
From the fourth century onward church leaders and civil magistrates continually forced Sunday observance upon the people of Christendom by means of laws and penalties. Centuries later, the Protestant Reformers, finding Sunday keeping already rooted and grounded by custom, were reluctant to abandon it and return to the observance of the true Lord's day, which is the Sabbath. (Matthew 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5; Revelation 1:10.)
In section 249 of his encyclical letter Mater et Magistra, dated May 15, 1961, Pope John XXIII referred to the Sabbath commandment in the Decalogue (Exodus 20:8-11). But disregarding the fact that God says: "The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God," the pope boldly declared in section 251: "The [Roman] Catholic Church has decreed for many centuries that Christians observe this day of rest on Sunday."
James Cardinal Gibbon, in his popular book The Faith of Our Fathers, which has appeared in many editions, has said in chapter 8 ("The Church and the Bible"): "Not to mention other examples, is not every Christian obliged to sanctify Sunday and to abstain on that day from unnecessary servile work? Is not the observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties? But you may search the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify."
Every believer in Christ who would live in obedience to the Holy Scriptures ought to keep the seventh day. Seventh-day Adventists, whose ranks are swelling with hundreds of thousands of people who have turned from Roman Catholicism, the various denominations of Protestantism, and many other religious faiths, have been foremost in taking a consistent position respecting the law of God. Of them it can be truly said, "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Revelation 14:12.
If you have any questions or comments about this lesson, you can email me at: [email protected]