59.Tertullian, On Idolatry 14 ANF III, p. 70: "How... wicked to celebrate them [i.e., pagan festivals] among brethren! . . . The Saturnalia and New-year and Midwinter’s festivals and Matronalia are frequented—presents come and go—New-year’s gifts—games join their noise—banquets join their din! Oh, better fidelity of the nations to their own sect, which claims no solemnity of the Christians for itself!"
60. Jack Lindsay, Origin of Astrology, 1972, provides in chapter 20 "Pagan and Christians" (pp. 373-400) a valuable and concise survey of the influence of astrological beliefs on early Christianity. Origen complains that many Christians believed that nothing could happen unless it had been decreed by the stars (Philocalia, 23). H. Dumaine and De Rossi point out that the names of the planetary week used in Christian funerary inscriptions reflect the prevailing superstition, according to which the day mentioned belonged to the protecting star ("Dimanche" DACL IV, 872-875; cf. E. Schürer (fn. 20), pp. 35-39). The Fathers protested against such beliefs. Philaster, Bishop of Brescia (d. ca. A.D. 397) condemns as heresy the prevailing belief that "the name of the days of the Sun, of the Moon . . . had been established by God at the creation of the world. . . . The pagans, that is, the Greeks have set up such names and with the names also the notion that mankind depends from the seven stars" (Liber de haeresibus 113, PL 12, 1257). In a document attributed to Priscillian (ca. A.D. 340-385) anathema is pronounced against those Christians who "in their sacred ceremonies, venerate and acknowledge as gods the Sun, Moon... and all the heavenly host, which are detestable idols worthy of the Gehenna" (Tractatus undecim, CSEL 18, p.14); cf. Martin of Braga, De correctione rusticorum ed. C. W. Barlow, 1950, p. 189; Augustin, In Psalmos 61, 23, CCL 39, p. 792.
61. A number of examples can be seen in F. Cumont, Textes et monunrents II, p. 202, no. 29; p. 210, no. 38; p. 241, no. 73; p. 290, no. 145; p. 311, no. 169; p. 350, no. 248; p. 434, no. 379.
62. See E. Kirschbaum, The Tomb of St. Peter and St. Paul, 1959, pp. 3Sf.; P. Testini, Archaelogia Cristiana, 1958, p. 167. The mosaic came to light during the recent excavations (1953-1957) under the altar of St. Peter’s basilica; cf. an artistic reproduction of Christ portrayed as Sol Invictus in F. Cumont (fn. 61), I, p. 123, table no. 6.
63. Justin, Dialogue 121, ANF I, p. 109 contrasts the devotion of Sun-worshipers with that of the Christians, who on account of the word of Christ who "is more blazing and bright than the might of the sun ... have suffered and still suffer, all kinds of torments rather than deny their faith in Him." In a document attributed to Melito, Bishop of Sardis (d. ca. A.D. 190) a striking parallelism is established between Christ and the sun: "But if the sun with the stars and the moon wash in the ocean, why should not Christ also wash in the Jordan? The king of the heavens and the leader of creation, the sun of the east who both appeared to the dead in Hades and to the living in the world, and this only Sun rose from Heaven" (On Baptism, ed. J. B. Pitra, Analecta Sacra Spicilegio Solesmensi, 1884, 2,5). Clement of Alexandria (ca. A.D. 150-215) elaborates diffusely on the symbol of Christ as true Light and true Sun and applies to Christ a common pagan designation for a heavenly god: "pantepoptes"—the one who looks down on all." Clement skillfully urges the pagans to abandon their rites of divination and be initiated instead into Christ the true Sun and Light (see Protrepticus II, 114, 1, GCS 1,80, 16; Stromateis 7,3,21,6, GCS 3, 15, 28; Paedagogus 3,8,44,1, GCS 1, 262, 7). Origen (ca. A.D. 185-254) manifests the same predilection for the denomination "Sun of Justice": "Christ is the Sun of Justice; if the moon is united, which is the Church, it will be filled by His light" (In Numeros homilia 23, 5, GCS 7, 217, 24; cf. In Leviticum homilia 9, GCS 6, 438, 19). Cyprian (d. A.D. 258) Bishop of Carthage exhorts believers "to pray at sunrise to commemorate the resurrection ... and to pray at the setting of the sun ... for the advent of Christ" (De oratione 35, CSEL 3, 292). Ambrose (A.D. 339-397), Bishop of Milan, to counteract the widespread Sun-cult, frequently contrasts Christ "lumen verum et Sol iustitiae—true light and Sun of justice" with the "Sol iniquitatis—Sun of iniquity" (In Psalmos 118, sermo 19,6 CSEL 62, 425, 4f). A. J. Vermeulen, The Semantic Developntent of Gloria in Early Christian Latin, 1956, p. 170, comments that Christians did not adopt an exclusive apologetic attitude, but "they took a much easier view of certain pagan customs, conventions and images and saw no objection, after ridding them of their pagan content, to adapting them to Christian thought." J. Daniélou, Bible and Liturgy, p. 299, offers a similar observation. Eusebius of Alexandria (ca. A.D. 500) writes: "I know many who worship and pray to the Sun. For at the time the sun is rising they pray and say, ‘Have mercy upon us,’ and not only sun-worshipers and heretics do this, but also Christians, departing from the faith, mingle with heretics" (PG 86, 453). That the problem assumed alarming proportions is indicated by the vigorous attack of Pope Leo the Great (d. A.D. 461) against the veneration of the Sun by many Christians (Sermon 27, In Nativitate Domini, PL 54, 218). F. J. D6lger, Sol Salutis. Gebet und Gesang in christlichen Altertum. Mit besonderer Riicksicht auf die Ostung in Gebet und Liturgie, 1925, provides especially in chapters 20 and 21 an extensive documentation of the influence of Sun-worship on the Christian liturgy.
64. Dan. 6:11; 2 Chron. 6:34f; cf. Jewish Encyclopedia, 1907, s.v. ‘‘Prayer."
65. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 1,26, ANF I, p. 352.
66. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 7, 7, 43, GCS 3, 32.
67. Origen, De oratione 32, GCS 2, 400, 23.
68. Apostolic Constitutions 2, 57, 2 and 14, specific instructions are given to ensure that both the church building and the congregation face the orient. Moreover believers are urged to "pray to God eastward, who ascended to the heaven of heavens to the east; remembering also the ancient situation of paradise in the east. . ." (ANF VII, p. 42); cf. Didascalia 2, 57, 3; Hippolytus, De Antichristo 59, GCS 1, 2, 39-40; Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (A.D. 315-386) instructed his baptismal candidates to face first the West, the devil’s domain, and facing that direction, they were to say: "I renounce you Satan" and then after "severing all ancient bonds with hell, the Paradise of God, which is planted in the East is open to you" (Catechesibus 1,9, Monumenta eucharistica, ed. J. Quasten, 2,79). An early Christian Syrian author tells us: "The Apostles therefore established that you should pray toward the east, because ‘as the lightning which lighteneth from the east is seen even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be,’ that by this we may know and understand that He will appear suddenly from the east" (Didascalie d’Addai 2, 1, see F. Dolger (fn. 5) p. 72, n. 3); cf. also Basil, De Spiritu Sancto27, 64, PG 32, 189; Gregory of Nyssa, De oratione Domini 5, PG 44, 1184; Augustine, De sermone Domini in morte 2, 5, 18, PL 34, 1277.
69. See above fn. 48.
70. F. A. Regan, Dies Dominica, p. 196,
71. In the Philocalian calendar (A.D. 354) the 25th of December is designated as "N[atalis] Invicti—The birthday of the invincible one" (CIL I, part 2, p. 236); Julian the Apostate, a nephew of Constantine and a devotee of Mithra, says regarding this pagan festival: "Before the beginning of the year, at the end of the month which is called after Saturn [December], we celebrate in honor of Helios [the Sun] the most splendid games, and we dedicate the festival to the Invincible Sun. That festival may the ruling gods grant me to praise and to celebrate with sacrifice! And above all the others may Helios [the Sun] himself, the king of all, grant me this" (Julian, The Orations of Julian, Hymn to King Helios 155, LCL p. 429); Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion Among Greeks and Romans, 1960, p. 89: "A very general observance required that on the 25th of December the birth of the ‘new Sun’ should be celebrated, when after the winter solstice the days began to lengthen and the ‘invincible’ star triumphed again over darkness"; for texts on the Mithraic celebration of Dec. 25th see CIL I, p. 140; Gordon J. Laing, Survivals of Roman Religion, 1931, pp. 58-65, argues persuasively that many of the customs of the ancient Roman Saturnalia (Dec. 17-23) were transferred to the Christmas season. G. Brumer, Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft, 1935, p. 178f and K. Prumm, Stimmen der Zeit, 1939, p. 215, date the festival of December 25 back to the Emperor Aurelian (A. D. 270-275), whose fondness for the worship of the Sun is well known. The hypothesis rests on Augustine’s censure of the Donatists (PL 38, 1033) for failing to observe January 6th. This, however, hardly implies that Christians celebrated Christ’s birthday on December 25th already at that time.
72. An exception is the comment of an unknown Syrian writer who wrote in the margin of the Expositio in Evangelia of Bar-salibaeus (d. A.D. 1171) as follows: "Therefore the reason why the aforesaid solemnity was transferred by the Fathers from the 6th of January to the 25th of December, they explain to have been as follows: It was a solemn rite among the pagans to celebrate the festival of the rising of the sun on this very day, December 25th. Furthermore, to augment the solemnity of the day, they were accustomed to kindle fires, to which rites they were accustomed to invite and admit even Christian people. When therefore the Teachers observed that Christians were inclined to this custom, they contrived a council and established on this day the festival of the true Rising" (J. S. Assemanus, Bibliotheca orientalis 2, 164, trans. by P. Cotton, From Sabbath to Sunday, 1933, pp. 144-145).
73. Augustine, Sermo in Nativit ate Domini 7, PL 38, 1007 and 1032, enjoins Christians to worship at Christmas not the sun but its Creator; Leo the Great (fn. 63) rebukes those Christians who at Christmas celebrated the birth of the sun rather than that of Christ.
74. L. Duchesne, Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution, 1919, pp. 260f., presents this hypothesis as a possibility. M. Righetti, Manuale di Storia Liturgica, 1955, II, pp. 68-69, explains that the date of March 25th "though historically unfounded, was based on astronomical-allegorical considerations, namely that on the day of the vernal equinox the world was created." According to this theory, on the same date of March 25 creation began and Christ, as Augustine says, was "conceived and crucified" (De trinitate 4, 5, PL 42, 894); cf. Hippolytus, In Danielem commentarius 4, 23, for a similar view.
75. 0. Cullmann, The Early Church, 1956, p. 29. Cullmann maintains that two factors contributed "to the separation of the festival of Christ’s birth from Epiphany, and to the transference of the former to December 25th," namely, "the dogmatic development of christology at the beginning of the fourth century" and the influence of the pagan festival held in honor of the Sun—god on December 25. Theologically, Cullmann argues, it became necessary, after the condemnation at the Council of Nicaea of the doctrine that God the Son did not become incarnate at his birth, to dissociate the festival of the birth from that of the Epiphany. Both festivals were celebrated, especially in the East, on January 5th-6th (as birth-baptism), and this must have been objectionable, since the birth of Christ commemorated under the common theme of "Epiphany=appearing," could easily be misinterpreted heretically. This theological explanation, though very ingenious, hardly justifies the adoption of December 25, especially in the West. In fact, to be able to speak of separation of the two festivities, it is necessary to prove first of all that in Rome, Christians had previously celebrated Christmas on January 6, a fact that we have not found.
76. Joseph A. Jungmann, The Early Liturgy to the Time of Gregory the Great, 1962, p. 147; L. Duchesne (fn. 74), p. 26, also recognizes this as a more plausible explanation: "A better explanation is that based on the festival of Natalis Invicti, which appears in the pagan calendar of the Philocalian collection under the 25th of December. . . . One is inclined to believe that the Roman Catholic Church made the choice of the 25th of December in order to enter into rivalry with Mithraism"; John Ferguson, The Religions of the Roman Empire, 1970, p. 239, defends the same view; cf. Franz Cumont (fn. 71), p. 89 and (fn. 51), I, p. 342: "It appears certain that the commemoration of the nativity was placed on December 25, because on the winter solstice was celebrated the rebirth of the invincible god. By adopting this date ... the ecclesiastical authorities purified somehow some pagan customs which they could not suppress."
77. Gaston H. Halsberghe (fn. 6), p. 174; 0. Cullmann (fn. 75), p. 35, explicitly states: "The choice of the dates themselves, both January 6th and December 25th, was determined by the fact that both these days were pagan festivals whose meaning provided a starting point for the specifically Christian conception of Christmas"; the same view is emphatically expressed by B. Botte, Les Origines de la Noël et de l’Épiphanie, 1932, p. 14; cf. C. Mohrmann, "Epiphania," Revue des Sciences Philosophiques (1937): 672.
78 T. Mommsen, Chronography of Philocalus of the Year 354, 1850, p. 631; L. Duchesne, Bulletin critique, 1890, p. 41, has established that the calendar goes back to 336, because the Depositio nra rtyrum is preceded in the Philocalian by the Depositium episcoporum of Rome, which lists Sylvester (d. A.D. 335) as the last pope.
79. M. Righetti (fn. 74), II, p. 67; this view is widely held: see L. Duchesne above fn. 76; 0. Cullmann (fn. 75), p. 30: "The Roman Church intentionally opposed to this pagan nature cult its own festival of light, the festival of the birth of Christ."
80. B. Botte (fn. 41), pp. 14f; see above fn. 75.
81. Q. Cullmann (fn. 75), p. 32; for a concise account of the diffusion of and opposition to the Roman Christmas, see M. Righetti (fn. 74), II, pp. 70f.
82. Joseph A. Jungmann (fn. 76), p. 151.
83. See above fn. 63.
84. Eusebius, Cominentaria in Psalmos 91, PG 23, 1169-1172; cf. below fn. 112.
85. Note that Justin Martyr, long before Eusebius, alludes to the same two motivations (though not so explicitly) in his I Apology 67, see above p. 230 and below p. 265.
86. Jerome, In die dominica Paschae homilia CCL 78, 550, 1, 52; the same in Augustine, Contra Faustum 18,5; in Sermo 226, PL 38, 1099, Augustine explains that Sunday is the day of light because on the first day of creation "God said, ‘Let there be light! And there was light. And God separated the light from darkness. And God called the light day and the darkness night" (Gen. 1:2-5).
87. Maximus of Turin, Homilia 61, PL 57, 371; Gaudentius, Bishop of Brescia (ca. A.D. 400), Sermo 9, De evangelica lectione 2, PL 20, 916 and De Exodo sermo 1, PL 20, 845, explains that the Lord’s day became first in relationship to the Sabbath, because on that day the Sun of righteousness has appeared, dispelling the darkness of the Jews, melting the ice of the pagans and restoring the world to its primordial order; Eusebius, Life of Constantine 4, 18, NPNF 2nd, I, p. 544, explicitly states: "The Savior’s day which derives its name from light and from the sun"; cf. Hilary of Poitiers, Tractatus in Psalmos 67, 6, CSEL 27, 280; Athanasius, Expositio in Psalmos 67, 34, PG 27, 303; Ambrose, Hexaemeron 4, 2, 7; and Epistula 44, PL 16, 1138.
88. F. H. Colson (fn. 20), p. 94.
89. See above fns. 48, 58 and 60.
90. Tertullian, On Idolatry 14, ANE III, p. 70; Martin of Braga, De correctione rusticorum, ed. C. W. Barlow, 1950, p. 189, forcefully rebukes Christians, saying: "What madness it is therefore, that one who has been baptized in the faith of Christ should not worship on the Lord’s day, the day on which Christ rose from the dead, but says rather that he worships the day of Jupiter and Mercury. . . . These have no day but were adulterers and magicians... and died in evil."
91. We found this to be true also in the case of Christmas. Only later were Christians willing to explicitly admit the borrowing of a pagan festival; see above fn. 72.
92. This point is well made by F. A. Regan, Dies Dominica, p. 157.
93. For instance, Justin Martyr, Dialogue 121, ANF I, p. 260, associates Christ with the Sun on the basis of Scriptural texts: "The word of His truth and wisdom is more ardent and more light-giving than the rays of the sun... Hence also the Scripture said, ‘His name shall rise above the sun.’ And again Zechariah says, ‘His name is the East.’"
94. Psalm 84:11 applies the title sun to God Himself: "For the Lord God is a sun and a shield"; Psalm 72:17, alluding to the Messiah, says: "May his name endure forever, his fame continue as long as the sun"; cf. Isaiah 9:2; 60:1-3, 19-20; Zechariah 3:8.
95. John 1:4-5.
96. John 1:9.
97. John 5:35.
98. John 8:12; cf. 9:4-5.
99. John 12 :34.
100. Rev. 22 :4. In the inaugural vision John describes Christ’s face "like the sun shining in full strength" (Rev. 1:16). Note also that when Christ was transfigured before Peter, James and John, it is said: "his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light" (Matt. 17:2). See F.A. Regan, Die Dominica, pp. 157-163 for further texts and discussion.
101. E. Lohse, "sabbaton," TDNT VII, p. 29, fn. 228, admits this possibility: "A contributory factor was undoubtedly the fact that from the first century B.C., the seven-day week named after the planets had been increasingly adopted in the Hellenistic-Roman world. The day of Saturn was generally regarded as an unlucky day, while Sunday which followed it was a particularly good day."
102. See above fn. 58.
103. Eusebius, Commentaria in Psalmos 91, PG 23, 1169-1172.
104. Justin, I Apology 67; the passage is quoted and discussed above, pp. 230-231.
105. Justin, Dialogue 121, see fn. 93.
106. Macrobius, Saturnalia 1, 9, 9 speaks of the sun as "opening the day in the orient and closing it in the occident"; Juvenal, Satirae 14,280: "Herculeus heard the roaring sun in the bottom of the sea" and "The sun roars when it rises as when a red hot iron is immersed in water."
107. Melito of Sardis, Fragment VIIIb, 4, SC 123, p. 233; Zeno of Verona frequently uses solar metaphors to explain Christian teachings. He compares the baptism of the neophytes to immersion of the sun in the ocean and the rising of the sun to the immortal glory promised to the believers (Liber II, 46, PL 11, 503A and 504).
108. F.H. Colson (fn. 20), p. 92.
109. B. Botte (fn. 41), p. 21.
110. F. H. Colson (fn. 20), p. 93.
111. Maximus of Turin, Homilia 61, PL 57, 371.
112. Eusebius, Life of Constantine 4, 18, NPNF 2nd, I, p. 544.
113. Several scholars support this conclusion: Franz Cumont (fn. 53), p. 163, affirms: "The preeminence assigned to the dies solis also certainly contributed to the general recognition of Sunday as a holiday"; P. Cotton (fn. 72), p. 130, similarly notes: "It cannot be denied that the pagan use of Sun-day has had an appreciable effect upon Christianity in bringing the Christian Sun-day into preeminence in the Church as the sole day of worship"; cf. F. H. Colson (fn. 20), p. VI; 0. Cullman (fn. 75) acknowledges the association between the resurrection and the day of the Sun by the middle of the second century: "From the middle of the second century the term ‘Sunday’ occurs for the former ‘Lord’s Day’ This means that the Christians’ thought about the redemptive act of the resurrection of Christ . . . had already become associated with the symbolism of the sun." Cullmann, however, fails to prove that the designation "Lord’s day" is prior to that of "Sunday."
