By Nyron Medina
Excerpts taken from the aforementioned bookelet
The first movement to bring Sunday
exaltation keeping to the seventh day
Sabbath keeping churches happened over the Neo-Pasach or New Passover (called the Lord's supper) being perverted. This is what we were told about the New Passover. As “often” as we keep it; we were not given a day or any stipulated date. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.
10. However, there were two separate times in which the New Passover was kept in the early church.
a. One was on every seventh day Sabbath, which is “as oft” as the church wanted it.
b. The other was on the 14th of the first month, Nisan, the date of the death of Jesus on the cross.
11. Here is the keeping of the New Passover on every seventh day Sabbath. It is called the “sacred mysteries”.
“Almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries [the Lord's supper] on the Sabbath of every week ... Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, book 5, chap. 22.
12. Here is the keeping of the New Passover on the 14th day of the first month Nisan of each year. Polycrates, near the end of the second century, said.
“He (John) fell asleep at Ephesus. And
Polycarp in Smyrna, who was a bishop
and martyr. ... All these observed the
fourteenth day of the Passover [Pascha]
according to the Gospel, deviating in no
respect, but following the rule of faith.”
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book V. Chap. XXIV, secs. 1 to 6.
13. To understand how the New Passover
was used to bring Sunday exaltation to the
seventh day Sabbath keeping churches, we need to focus a bit on something called Gnosticism. This heresy which is the first trumpet was warned against by various writers of the Bible. Acts 20:26-31; 2 Peter 2:1-3,17-22; Jude 4.
14. Where did Gnosticism originate and take on the forms of Christianity? We are told that this occurred at Alexandria in Egypt.
“The place where this striving developed
into a great system was at Alexandria in Egypt. Here there was an intermingling
of the different religions of the empire,
out of which finally grew a great system known as Gnosticism. The greatest
influence in this movement was the
affiliation of the different schools and
religions at Alexandria—one of the
greatest university cities in the world at
the beginning of the Christian era. Here
nearly every religion had its school of learning, and here the teachers and the students of these different faiths mingled and discussed their philosophies and
religious ideas. As a result they fused
their beliefs into a conglomerate mass of opinions that later spread throughout the Christian church.” W.E. Straw, Origin of Sunday Observance, p. 39.
It was Gnosticism that honored Sunday
exaltation first in honor of the sun which was their Christ. We are told.
“When did they worship this deity?
Neander says, They celebrated the Sunday every week, not on account of its reference into the resurrection of Christ, for that would have been inconsistent with their Docetism, but as the day consecrated to the sun, which was in fact their Christ.” Ibid, pp. 42-43.
Gnosticism eventually became fused
with the forms of Christianity at
Alexandria, and thus became known
as Christian gnosticism, the type of
Christianity existent in Alexandria by
the second century A.C.B.
“Gnosticism evidently had a great influence upon the church members at Alexandria, for whenever we hear from any of them during the first two centuries, it is from men who strongly manifest the sentiments of the Gnostics.” Ibid, p. 47.
The three major men who came from
Alexandrian Gnosticism with the
Alexandrian brand of Christianity,
were the men who gave us the first
of the major perversion of the Sabbath.
“Barnabas, Justin, and Clement are three great men of the church [all recognized as Catholic Church Fathers] who were tinged with Gnosticism. They are also the three who gave us our first information regarding Sunday observance.” Ibid, p. 55.
The following is true from Christian
Gnosticism from Alexandria.
i. Barnabas is the first to call the first
day of the week (Sunday) after the
Sabbath of the seventh day, the eight day of the week, and he related it to the resurrection of Jesus.
ii. Justin follows Barnabas in calling
the first day of the week the eight. But he says that it had a certain
mysterious regard.
iii. Clement of Alexandria becomes the very first person to call Sunday the first day of the week the Lord's day, while he rejects the seventh day
Sabbath.
19. But the point is, that it was Christian
Gnosticism from Alexandria that infiltrated the churches at Rome and eventually
polluted their faith and changed their
Religious image. Thus the religion of the church of Rome did not originate from
Peter or the other apostles, it came from
Alexandrian Gnosticism. We are told.
“Although semi-Gnostic ideas seem to
have appeared among Christians first
at Alexandria, yet it is not long before we see an effort put forth to establish them
at Rome, the capital of the empire.
Valentinus went from Alexandria to Rome and labored for some twenty years during the first half of the second century.
Basilides had a large following at both
Alexandria and Rome.” W.E. Straw, Origin of Sunday Observance, p. 44.
20. Now that the leaders of the various
churches in the city of Rome were
infiltrated with Gnosticism, it must be
understood that they did not hold Sunday exaltation in honor of sun worship, they held it in honor of the resurrection of Christ as a secondary thing. Here is the real meaning of Sunday exaltation in its first theology.
“Further, He verily says to them: “Your
new moons, and your Sabbaths, I cannot bear.” See how He says: The present
Sabbath are not acceptable to Me, but those [are acceptable] which I have made, in which, having made all things rest,
I shall make the eight day a beginning,
that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we celebrate the eight day in festivity, on which also Jesus rose from the dead; and having manifested Himself, He ascended into the heavens.” The
Epistle of Barnabas, Chap. XV.
“But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead.” Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chap. LXVII.
a. Thus we see that the first day of
the week meant the following major concepts, to Christian Gnosticism.
i. The beginning of another world, i.e., a new world order.
ii. A change in darkness and matter,
making the world, i.e., the making of a new world.
iii. The resurrection of Christ was a
secondary meaning.
b. This is precisely why we are told that Sunday has a mysterious import the Sabbath day did not have.
“It is possible for us to show how
the eight day possessed a certain
mysterious import, which the seventh day did not possess …” Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chap, XXIV.
21. Thus Sunday exaltation called the eight day really meant the following to Christian Gnostics and the Church of Rome.
a. The first day was merely the beginning of the creation of a new world. Genesis 1:1,2,5.
b. The first day was the separation of light from darkness, or the creation of light. Genesis 1:3-5.
c. Thus the first day (called the eight day) symbolized an unfinished creation, but with light existing to guide one onwards in creating.
d. Thus to Sunday exaltation keepers the first day symbolizes their efforts to take the first light and go forward creating a new world according to their ideas.
22. It was with this meaning that the church at Rome decided to exalt Sunday to seventh day Sabbath keeping churches, to capture these churches and make them over in their own image, in order to take over
the Roman Empire they had made into a new world. A bishop of a church in Rome heavily corrupted by Alexandrian Christian Gnosticism set a plot in motion to capture seventh day Sabbath keeping churches with Sunday exaltation. He formulated
a new concept of the New Passover.
Here is Rome's new concept of the Passover
contrasted with the previously two existing two concept of it that brought no conflict to the early church.
i. A passover on the Sabbath day.
ii. A passover on the 14th of Nisan of each year.
iii. A passover on a Sunday of each year expressing the resurrection of Christ. (Rome's idea).
Here is what the bishop of Rome did
to create a Sunday passover under the
influence of Gnostical Christianity.
a. He chose a day in the first month of
Nisan after the 14th.
b. This day would be the first Sunday
after the full moon and 14th of the first month.
c. This day will be dedicated to the
celebration of the bread and wine,
not in honor of Christ’s death, but in honor of His Resurrection.
d. The day was called the name Easter (Ishtar) after the name of the moon
goddess that was worshipped on the
full moon of that month.
24. We are told of the men who executed the Sunday Passover plan that would capture the churches and eventually make a new world out of the Roman Empire—a city of God.
“According to the historical testimony cited above, this variation from earlier practice did not begin to manifest itself in the church of Rome as far back as the time of the apostles, but from the time of Bishop Xystus (early in the reign of Hadrian, A.D. 117-138). It developed further during the episcopates of his successors--Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius I, Anicetus, and Soter—on to that of Victor I.” Robert L. Odom, Sabbath and Sunday in Early Christianity, pp. 116-117.
This is further confirmed, because
Eusebius in his history book in the
fourth century, going backwards tells us the following.
“We mean Anicetus, and Pius, and
Hyginus, and Telesphorus, and Xystus. They neither observed it [Nisan 14]
themselves, nor did they permit those
after them to do so.” Eusebius,
Ecclesiastical History, secs. 14-17.
Again, another early Christian writer
by the name of Irenaeus confirms the
order of those bishops of a church in
Rome that sought to get churches to
observe throughout the Roman Empire,
a Sunday Passover. We are told:
“The Roman practice is traced by
Irenaeus back from Victor I to variances, divergences, and innovations that had spring up in the observance of the
ecclesiastical Pascha in the times of
Victor's predecessors—Soter, Anicetus,
Pius I, Hyginus, Telesphorus, and Xystus I (in the reign of Emperor Hadrian) and no further.” Robert L. Odem, Sabbath and Sunday in Early Christianity, p. 167.
27. Thus we are told that by the middle of the second century, a Sunday Passover began in a church in Rome, and began to spread to other churches as ordered by the bishop of that church in Rome who was seeking exaltation and power. So that it was Pius I in the chain of bishops of the church in Rome who first brought Sunday exaltation to the church. We are told.
“Though agitation for the Roman
innovation may have begun during the
episcopates of the Roman bishops Sixtus I and Telephorus (in the reign of Hadrian, AD 117 to138), Roman Catholic tradition definitely points to Pius I as the bishop who instituted the holding of the Lord's Supper on Sunday in the yearly celebration of the ecclesiastical Pascha. A well-known, unabridged, modern English dictionary has stated that Pius I is traditionally believed to have instituted the observance of Sunday by Christians.” Ibid, p. 107.
Thus we see that it was Pius I that brought Sunday exaltation to the seventh day
Sabbath keeping Christian churches in Rome. He did it by the use of a Sunday Passover. Again we are told.
“There is a tradition that he [Pius]
first caused Sunday to be observed
by Christians. Pius I was bishop of
the Roman church from about AD 143
to 158.... One notable happening listed
by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, in his Chronicon is this: ‘It was commanded by
Pius that the Lord's resurrection should
be celebrated on the Lord's day [Sunday], which was confirmed by later pontiffs.” Ibid, p. 108.
Still later to Pius I, Victor I also decreed that the passover should be celebrated on
a Sunday as decreed by Rome. Many churches in Asia and other places refused, at which Victor, disfellowshipped all
these churches as if he had control of them. This shows that a Sunday Passover was being used by the bishop of Rome to seize control of these seventh day Sabbath keeping churches. We are told.
“In the last decade of the second century Victor I, bishop of Rome, persuaded a few other bishops to join him in drawing up an ecclesiastical decree that Sunday should be made the principal day in the observance of the annual ecclesiastical Pascha. This aroused a storm of controversy …” Ibid, p. 162.
“The Roman party had deviated from ‘the tradition of an ancient custom’ by taking away from it something and adding to it something else. That is, the Roman
party was charged with alteration and
innovation in the celebration of the
ecclesiastical Pascha. On the other hand, the Roman Church and its partisans
insisted that the holding of the Lord's
Supper should be deferred until the
Sunday following Nisan 14, and that
then the fast should be terminated.
Victor I and the bishops siding with him drew up an ecclesiastical decree, that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be celebrated on no other but the Lord's day [Sunday] and that we should
observe the close of the paschal fast on this day only.” Ibid, p. 165.
30. Because the churches refused Victor I's command as erroneous, and that he did not have and authority to tell them what to do, he disfellowshipped all those churches.
“Thereupon Victor, who presided over
the church at Rome, immediately
attempted to cut off from the common
unity the parishes of all Asia, with the churches that agreed with them, as
heterodox, and he wrote letters and
declared all the brethren there wholly
excommunicated.” Ibid, p. 164.
Although the bishops of other churches spoke to Victor and by this restrained him, yet he was able to capture many churches to his Sunday Passover. Here is what we are told.
“Hence, the geographical areas represented by Eusebius as being on the Roman side in the time of Victor I were (1) Rome, (2) Gaul, (3) Pontus, (4) Osrhoene, (5) Alexandria, and (6) part of Palestine, plus (7) a man in Corinth.” Ibid, p. 170.
32. However the battle between Sunday
Passover churches in the orbit of Rome, and other churches that observe a 14th
Nisan Passover continued and would not be settled until the advent of Emperor
Constantine many years later. Here is what we are told.
“And so the Paschal dispute was to remain unsettled until the nominal conversion
of the Emperor Constantine I, who would make an imperial decree, in AD 325, to
enforce the observance of Sunday by
Christians as the big day of Paschal
festivities.” Ibid, p. 174.
33. As the second and third centuries ended and the fourth began this Passover
Sunday that was celebrated only on one Sunday of the year (the Sunday after the 14th of Nisan and the full moon), was
decreed to be followed as a practice every Sunday by the church of Rome in a Church Council. Here is what we are told.
“The regional church council held C.A.D.
305 at Elvira, near Granada, Spain, is
the earliest synod on record for that
country. One of more than forty
ecclesiastics attending it was Hosius,
bishop of Cordova, who later served the
Roman Emperor Constantine I as his
adviser on church affairs. He did not,
however, preside at this synod. This
council's more than eighty decrees are
severe. Canon 21 decreed: If anyone
dwelling in a city should not attend
church on three Lord's day [Sunday], let him abstain [from the communion] for a short period, so that he may appear to
be reproved. That is the first recorded
instance of a church council legislating
in favor of weekly observance of Sunday, and it is the earliest record of penalty being imposed upon anybody for not attending church on that day.” Ibid,
p. 236.
This statement shows quite a lot about
the churches in the Roman Empire being
captured into Sunday exaltation keeping away from the seventh day Sabbath. These points need to be carefully considered.
i. Sometime in the third century, the Sunday Passover began to become a regular festival not to be kept only once a year, but to be kept every Sunday.
ii. What indeed is Sunday keeping as
kept by all Sunday exalting churches? It is a Sunday Passover made a
regular observance on the first day of each week—Sunday.
iii. Thus by the third and fourth centuries, many of the churches were keeping
the seventh day Sabbath and at the same time observing a weekly Sunday Passover.
However it was Emperor Constantine
under the influence of Sunday exaltation
bishops that then decreed a Sunday law in 321 A.C.B. A Sunday law is merely a weekly Sunday Passover required by the law for all citizens to keep.
“The first Sunday law known to have
been issued by a civil government was
that decreed by Constantine the Great on March 7, 321.” Ibid, p. 255.
“Thus Constantine issued at least six civil edicts concerning Sunday observance: (1) the law of March 7, 321, which ordered courts tradesmen and townspeople to rest on Sunday: (2) a law in June of the same year, which permitted emancipation of slaves on Sunday.” Ibid, p. 257.
36. Clearly, a Sunday law is indeed a weekly Sunday Passover being made to imitate the rest provision of the seventh day Sabbath as required by law for all to observe.
Observe this explanation chart.
Then Constantine also passed a law
enforcing a yearly Sunday Passover for
all the churches in the Roman Empire to
keep. This act would capture dissident
churches to the church in Rome for fear of
penalty.
“What was in effect a Sunday law for
Easter was issued in 325 by Constantine
in the form of a lengthy imperial letter in connection with the Council of Nicaea.” Ibid, p. 256.
“ ... a law in 325 which enjoined upon all Christians strict adherence to the decision of the council of Nicaea concerning the
annual celebration of the ecclesiastical Pascha on Sunday.” Ibid, 257.
“The synodical letter sent out by the
Nicene Council stated that all the brethren in the East who have heretofore kept the [Paschal] festival when the Jews did, will henceforth conform to the Roman and to us. Since the time of Victor I the Roman bishops have decreed and anathematized, but their verbal blasts could not compel the Quartodecimans and others to conform to their dictates. Now Sylvester I, the
Roman bishop, had the backing of a decree by a major synod and an edict by a civil power willing and ready to use the law-enforcing agencies of the state to punish dissenters. The Quartodecimans and
others who differed with the Roman
church in teaching and practice concerning the observance of the ecclesiastical Pascha now had to face a new opponent—the
imperial might of Rome. The emperor's edict could be used as a cudgel to
oppressed and destroy Christians who
followed their convictions in this religious matter.” Ibid, p. 278.
38. This decree from the government indeed marked a turning point for the church of Rome, it now had the aid of the state to
capture the churches that refused to
accept its Sunday Passover and thus exalt Sunday against the seventh day Sabbath. We are told.
“But when the emperor convened the Council of Nicaea and collaborated with
it against Arius and his followers, and against those Christians who observed the ecclesiastical Pascha on a day other then Sunday, it marked a major turning point in Church history.… This is the first example of civil punishment of heresy; and it is the beginning of a long succession of civil
persecutions for all departures from the catholic faith.” Ibid, p. 279.
We can now summarize the results of
the history we have looked in the following important points.
a. Easter Sunday is not a Sunday that
celebrates the resurrection of Christ. It is a relic of a vehicle that was used by the church of Rome to capture seventh day Sabbath keeping churches and turn them into Sunday exaltation churches like Rome and Alexandria.
b. By decrees, councils, and the aid of
the Roman government the church
of Rome was able to use its Sunday Passover to capture and change seventh day keeping churches into churches
exalting Sunday thus giving the church authority over them.
c. The church of Rome replaced the
seventh day Sabbath by use of its
yearly Sunday Passover, when it was made a weekly first day event reviling
the seventh day Sabbath.
d. Sunday, the first day of the week, crouched as a passover, meant a new world. And so the church of Rome used it to bring a new world in the Roman world, a world in which the bishop of Rome had the assumed authority of Christ; and the Church took over the empire.
e. The final capture of all religions in the world will be attempted when a global Sunday law is enforced. This is the new world that Sunday as the first day means. FIN.
Comments
Post a Comment