This is very important knowledge pertaining to to the developing of Sunday Exaltation by Rome (please copy)
The following is a list of the bishops of Rome that can be indited for having built up Sunday, first day worship, in the period of the first head of the Papacy, and which formed the Papacy.
i. Sixtus I and Telesphorus: (Between 116-138 A.C.B.). They may have started the Holy Week Sunday Passover. Perhaps they were influenced by Alexandrian Gnostical Christianity. “
Though agitation for the Roman innovation may have begun during the episcopates of the Roman bishops Sixtus I and Telesphorus…” Robert L. Odom, Sabbath and Sunday in Early Christianity, p. 107.
“The Roman practice is traced by Irenaeus back from Victor I (189-199 A.C.B.) to variances, divergencies, and innovations that had sprung up in the observance of the ecclesiastical Pascha in the times of Victor’s predecessors—Soter, Anicetus, Pius I, Hyginus, Telesphorus, and Xystus (Sixtus I) (in the reign of Emperor Hadrian) -and no further”. Ibid, p. 167.
ii. Hyginus: (138-142)
“This bishop kept the Sunday Passover as an example to the early church. “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 (Sixtus I) (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”. Ibid. p. 117. “We mean Anicetus, and Pius, and Hyginus, and Telesphorus, and Xystus (Sixtus I). They neither observed it (Nisan 14) themselves, nor did they permit those after them to do so”. Ibid, p. 123.
iii. Pius I, (142-155): He was the first to decree a Sunday Passover to the churches. The first head begins at his date 142 A.C.B. “In brief, Pius I is credited in ecclesiastical tradition handed down through many centuries by prominent clerics of the Roman Church-(1) with having made Sunday a church festival commemorating the resurrection of Christ; and (2) with doing this by making the first day of the week the principal day in the celebration of the ecclesiastical Pascha each year”. Ibid, p. 114.
iv. Anicetus, (155-166): Concerning this bishop of Rome we are told of the following incident, in which he tried to turn Polycarp an aged disciple of the deceased John the Apostle, from the 14th Nisan Passover, to observe the Roman Sunday Passover. When Polycarp tried to encourage him to follow the 14th Nisan, he refused. We are told: “For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other Apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anietus to observe it, as he said that he ought to follow the customs of the presbyters that had preceded him”. Ibid, p. 123
v. Soter, (166-175): Soter further helped develop and maintain the Sunday Passover. We are told:
“It (the Sunday Passover) developed further during the episcopates of his (Sixtus I) successors-Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius I, Anicetus, and Soter…”. Ibid, p. 117.
vi. Eleuterius, (175-189): This bishop fought for a Sunday Passover in the church until division came. “During the episcopate of Eleutherius, bishop of Rome (C. A. D. 174-189), the Paschal controversy resulted in a division within the Roman church itself. The leader in the opposition to the Roman bishop was Blastus, a presbyter of that church. In a brief report of this affair, an early writer says that there is Blastus, who would latently introduce Judaism. For he says the Passover (Pascha) is not to be kept otherwise than according to the law of Moses, on the fourteenth day of the month”. Ibid, p. 139.
vii. Victor I (189-199): This bishop of Rome was the first to presume that he had authority over the consciences of Christians and churches in the Roman empire, that he can decree a Sunday Passover for all to follow, and dis-fellowshipped whole churches who refused to follow his Sunday Passover heresy. 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…” Robert L. Odom, Sabbath and Sunday in Early Christianity, p. 162. “Synods and assemblies of bishops were held on this account, and all, with one consent, through mutual correspondence 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”. Eusebius, quoted in, Ibid, p. 162. “Hence they made the previous day, the seventh-day Sabbath, a day of fasting in their yearly Paschal observance. They considered it fitting to climax the celebrating of the Paschal season, by commemorating the resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week. The fact that Christ had died as the true Paschal Lamb on Nisan 14, and that on that date the Holy Supper had been instituted as a memorial of His death, but not of His resurrection meant less to them than did this sort of Sunday observance”. Ibid, pp. 165-166. “Let us note how many areas are shown by Eusebius to have been on the side of Victor I in this dispute. The synodical letters of endorsement of the Roman practice came from: (1) the Church of Rome, under Victor I; (2) that of Lyon, Gaul, under Irenaeus; (3) that of Amastris, Pontus, under Palmas; (4) that of Jerusalem, under Narcissus; (5) that of Caesarea, under Theophius; (6)that of Tyre, under Cassius;
(7) that of Ptolemais, under Clarus. In addition, there was (8) one from the churches in Osrhoene, and (9) a personal letter from Bacchylus, of Corinth. While there is no letter from the church of Alexandria on the subject, yet other evidence seems to indicate (10) that it was favorable to the Roman practice. Thus there were eight local parishes, counting that of Alexandria, for the Roman side of the controversy. Bacchylus, it is obvious, was not able to swing his parish of Corinth over to Victor’s cause, though he personally favored it. Moreover, it must be noted that the parishes of Tyre, Ptolemais, Jerusalem, and Caesarea were in such close proximity to each other geographically, that, they appear to have written jointly their approval. Hence, 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.
What about those that did not agree with Victor I? We are told: “And Eusebius says that Victor I attempted to cut off from the common unity the parishes of all Asia, with the churches that agreed with them, as heterodox (that is, those that agreed that the Lord’s Supper should be eaten on the 14th of the first lunar month each year)”. Ibid, p. 171.
“Jerome speaks of Victor I, as thinking that the many bishops of Asia and the East, who with the Jews celebrated the passover (Pascha), on the fourteenth day of the new moon, were to be condemned”. Ibid, p. 171. “Irenaeus reveals that even in Rome itself, that had been Quartodecimans (fourteenth day-ers) and none of them had been denied communion with the church because of that, until Victor became its bishop. This intolerant bishop not only had Blastus, a Quartodeciman presbyter of the church in Rome, excommunicated but he now attempted to do the same of all the churches of Asia and the East”. Ibid, p. 172. “The arrogance of Victor I backfired against him, when he sent out letters presuming to declare the Quartodeciman (fourteenth day-ers), churches cut off from the common unity; this did not please the bishops. And they be-sought him to consider the things of peace, and of neighbourly unity and love. Words of theirs are extant sharply rebuking Victor”. Ibid, p. 173. Exalting Sunday, the first day of the week, always reciprocates in the person extreme and over reaching arrogance which is the papal seat and the seat of Satan seeking to be God with God. “This is the first instance in which a bishop of Rome is known to have tried to dictate to other Christian Churches beside his own. By his course of action Victor I presumed to arrogate to himself ecclesiastical authority and jurisdiction over other Bishops and Churches of Christendom, and thus to set himself up as supreme above them. The reaction of the other bishops generally to the arrogance of Victor clearly shows that they did not acknowledge him to be the supreme pastor over the universal church, and that they did not consider themselves and their parishes subject to his jurisdiction”. Ibid, p. 174
n] Though there have been other bishops of Rome from Victor I to Sylvester I that all exalted Sunday pre-eminence, yet we cannot touch all. However, somewhere between 200 A.C.B. and 304 A.C.B., the churches began keeping a regular weekly Sunday Passover, while the weekly seventh day Sabbath was yet maintained. However, the very first evidence of a Church Council that decrees Sunday attendance, and the first evidence that a Sunday Passover was now not a yearly occurrence, but a weekly celebration, is seen in the Council of Elvira in 305 A.C.B.
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”. Ibid, p. 236
i. Evidence that a successive weekly Sunday Passover was being decreed for the church to follow is seen in this Canon 21. It states:
“If anyone dwelling in a city should not attend church on three Lord’s days (Sundays), let him abstain (from the communion) for a short period, so that he may appear to be reproved”. Quoted in, Ibid, p.236.
ii. Concerning this canon,
We are told:
“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 a penalty being imposed upon anybody for not attending church on that day”. Ibid, p. 236.
iii. And again we are further told: “Canons 21 and 26 of the Council of Elvira show that in those churches that the council represented in Spain early in the fourth century, religious regard was shown for both the Sabbath and the Sunday, as it was also among some Christians in other lands at that time (305 A.C.B.)”. ibid, p. 240.
O] The very first bishop of Rome that is on record of claiming to transfer the rest of the seventh day Sabbath to the first day of the week, and to give names to the day exalting Sunday as the chief day of the week was Sylvester I who ruled the church from 314 A.C.B.-335 A.C.B. Of Sylvester I we are told: “Pope Sylvester instructed the clergy to keep the feriae. And, indeed, from an old custom he called the first day (of the week) the “Lord’s (day)”, on which the light was made in the beginning and also the resurrection of Christ is celebrated”. Rabanus Maurus (776-856), quoted in, Ibid, p. 247.
i. It was Sylvester I that named the days of the week “the first of the Lord’s day”, “the second of the Lord’s day (Tuesday)”, etc., all this was done to exalt Sunday. Bede, and English monk (672-735) tells us: “The week consists of seven days, and the eight day is the same as the first, to which it returns, and on which the week begins again. The gentiles gave to these (days) names from the planets, believing that from the sun they themselves had a spirit, from the moon a body, from Mars blood, from Mercury mind and speech, from Jupiter moderation, from Venus sensual desire, (and) from Saturn slowness (of movement). But the holy Sylvester ordered that they be called feriae (calling the first “Lord’s day”), imitating the Hebrews, who (named them) the “first from the Sabbath”, the “second from the Sabbath”, and so the rest by number”. Quoted in, Ibid, p. 246.
ii. Sylvester I was the first to claim or decree that the rest of the Sabbath should be transferred to the Lord’s day (Sunday). “Pope Sylvester, first among the Romans ordered that the names of the days (of the week), which they previously called after the name of their gods, that is, (the day) of the Sun, (the day) of the Moon, (the day) of Mars, (the day) of Mercury, (the day) of Jupiter, (the day) of Venus, (the day) of Saturn, they should call feriae thereafter, that is, the first feria, the second feria, the third feria, the fourth feria, the fifth feria, the sixth feria, because, that in the beginning of Genesis, it is written that God said concerning each day: on the first, “Let there be light”, on the second, “Let there be a firmament”; on the third, “Let the earth bring forth verdure”, etc. But he (Sylvester) ordered (them) to call the Sabbath by the ancient term of the law, (to call) the first feria the “Lord’s day”, because on it the Lord rose (from the dead). Moreover, the same pope decreed that the rest of the Sabbath should be transferred rather to the Lord’s day (Sunday), in order that on that day we should rest from worldly works for the praise of God”, Ibid, pp. 247-248.
iii. Concerning this statement we are told: “According to this statement, he (Sylvester I) was the first bishop to introduce the idea that the divinely appointed rest of the Sabbath day should be transferred to the first day of the week. This is significant, especially in view of the fact that it was during Sylvester’s pontificate that the Emperor of Rome issued the first civil laws compelling men to rest from secular labor on Sunday, and Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, was the first theologian on record to present arguments, allegedly from the Scriptures, that Christ did transfer the rest of the Sabbath day to Sunday’. Ibid, p. 248.
iv. It must be understood that Sylvester I also retained the decree to fast on every Sabbath when the Greeks attempted to show this to be wrong. “… the Greeks met with the blessed Sylvester, raising against the Romans the question concerning the fast of the Sabbath, to whom he replied with these words: “It ought to suffice for the authority of our course, that we know that the Apostles first regarded it. Nevertheless, since a reason is demanded by your charity, it is to be given: If every Lord’s day (Sunday) is regarded on account of the resurrection of the Lord it is right that every Sabbath day be given over to a fast on account of the burial, in order that those who weep with the apostles concerning the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, may deserve to rejoice with them concerning His resurrection”. But the Greeks said that one (day) was the Sabbath of the burial, on which once in the year the fast is to be observed. To whom Pope Sylvester said: “If every Lord’s day (Sunday) is thought to be adorned with the glory of the resurrection, every day of (His) burial which precedes it is to be given to fasting, in order that he who will have wept, over the death, may rejoice with merit concerning the resurrection”. Ibid, pp. 249-250.
P] In the development of the first head of the Papacy, there was civil Sunday laws that were influenced by the developing Sunday-keeping church. This is the content of the first Sunday law in 321 A.C.B., on March, 7.
“Let all judges and townspeople and occupations of all trades rest on the venerable day of the Sun (Sunday); 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 ploughing grain and trenching vineyards, lest at the time the advantage of the moment granted by the provision of heaven be lost”. Quoted in Ibid, p. 255.
i. A second Sunday law was promulgated by Constantine on July 3, 321 A.C.B.; it states: “In as much as it should seem most improper that the day of the Sun (Sunday), noted for its veneration, be occupied in wrangling discussions and obnoxious contention of parties, so it is agreeable and pleasing to be performed on that day what is principally vowed; and also all, may have liberty on this festive day for emancipation and manumission (of slaves), and acts concerning these matters may not be prohibited”. Quoted in, Ibid, pp. 255-256.
ii. Concerning these two civil Sunday Laws we are told the following facts: “Constantine’s Sunday laws reveal, in themselves, that their promulgation was prompted by religious motivation. The first such edict commanded that the people rest “on the venerable day of the Sun” (venerabili die Solis). The qualifying Latin term venerabili was universally understood to mean that which was venerated, or revered, with religious regard”. Ibid, pp. 261-262.
iii. Why did Constantine enforce his Sunday laws? Eusebius his personal friend and biographer tell us: “And the blessed prince labored to make all men do this, as it were making a vow, to make all men little by little religious”. Quoted in, Ibid, p. 262. “The statements of Eusebius reveal that Constantine intended that his Sunday laws should be a boon to the cause of those Christians who observed Sunday as the Lord’s day”. Ibid, p. 265.
“In the early part of the fourth century, the emperor Constantine issued a decree making Sunday a public festival throughout the Roman Empire. The day of the sun was reverenced by his pagan subjects and was honored by Christians; it was the Emperor’s policy to unite the conflicting interests of heathenism and Christianity. He was urged to do this by the bishops of the church, who, inspired by ambition and thirst for power, perceived that if the same day was observed by both Christians and the heathen, it would promote the nominal acceptance of Christianity by pagans and thus advance the power and glory of the church. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 53.
Q] The next major event to complete the first head of the Papacy is the Council of Nicea in 325 A.C.B. Here is the reason why the council was convened- “It was convened to settle two major religious controversies among Christians:
(1) a theological dispute started (c. 318) in Alexandria, Egypt, by the presbyter Arius concerning the nature of Christ and His relationship to the Godhead; and
(2) the longstanding disagreement, concerning the time when the ecclesiastical Pascha (Easter) should be observed every year”. Robert L. Odom, Sabbath and Sunday in Early Christianity, p. 267
i. At last, the controversy over a “fourteenth passover and a Sunday Passover, started by Sixtus I in about 116 A.C.B. and raging in Christendom for almost three hundred years, was about to be officially dealth with, and legislated in favor of Sunday veneration. Concerning the ruling for a Sunday Passover in the Council of Nicea we are told: “The ruling of the council on the Paschal controversy is jubilantly reported by Eusebius in these words:
‘The result was that they were not only united as concerning the Faith, but that the time for the celebration of the salutary feast of Easter ( Pascha ) was agreed on by all’. That is, ‘the council decided that the Paschal feast should be celebrated at the same time in every place’. Another account says that they agreed to celebrate the holy festival upon the same day, the council sent a synodical letter to the churches in Alexandria and various places in the north of Africa, that stated concerning the ecclesiastical Pascha ‘that all the brethren in the East who have heretofore kept this (Paschal) festival when the Jews did, will henceforth conform to the Romans and to us, and to all who from the earliest time have observed our period of celebrating Easter’. Ibid p. 270.
ii. We are further told: “That doubtless was gratifying news for Sylvester. The Roman church’s triumph in its long struggle to bring all other churches into line with her in observing the ecclesiastical Pascha yearly on Sunday was due to the collaboration of Constantine as emperor of the Roman Empire. He confirmed and sanctioned the decrees of the council’s decision on that matter”. Ibid, p. 271 “Nevertheless, the ruling of the Council of Nicea that the Pascha should be observed by all Christians on Sunday each year on the same day observed by Rome, was a tremendous victory for the church of Rome. The news concerning it must have made Sylvester I smile with great satisfaction, especially when he read the statement in the Roman emperor’s epistolary decreed to all the bishops of the churches of Christendom”. Ibid, pp. 245-246
iii. The reaction of Sylvester I to the Church of Rome’s success in getting its teaching on Sunday Passover to be legislated for all by the Emperor of Rome was seen in a church council he re-convened in the same year 325 A.C.B. in the city of Rome later.
We are told:
“The largest Sunday-keeping religious organization on earth has preserved what purports to be Sylvester’s thinking on the matter. That tradition says that a church council held in Rome in 325, not long after the Nicene Council, decreed: ‘It is commanded to all the bishops and presbyters to maintain the observance of the Pascha from the fourteenth (day of the) moon until the twenty-first, so that the Lord’s day (Sunday) may shine forth’. Ibid, p. 246.
iv. By the year 325 A.C.B. the papacy with Satan’s seat was now established in the city of Rome. It was built by the exaltation of the first day of the week, Sunday, as a counter position to the seventh day Sabbath. But with the first head of the papacy fully formed, here are the facts that occurred. “The synodical letter sent out by the Nicene Council stated that “all the brethren in the East who have heretofore kept this (Paschal) festival when the Jews did, will henceforth conform to the Romans and to us”… The Quartodecimans (fourteenth day-ers) 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 oppress and destroy Christians who followed their convictions in this religious matter”. Ibid, p. 278 “This is the first example of the civil punishment of heresy; and it is the beginning of a long succession of civil persecutions for all departures from the Catholic faith. Before the union of church and state ecclesiastical excommunication was the extreme penalty. Now banishment and afterwards even the death penalty were added, because all offenses against the church were regarded as at the same time crimes against the state and civil society.” Philip Schaff, quoted in, Ibid, p. 279
“Thus the Nicene Council was historically a very important step in the formation and establishment of a Roman Catholic (universal) church… the emperor’s epistolary edict of 325 commanded all Christians, without exception, to obey the Nicene Council’s decree that the ecclesiastical Pascha should be observed on one and the same day every year. This imperial decree was aimed specifically at the Quartodeciman Christians, and certain others, to coerce them to adopt the practice followed by the church of Rome, which insisted that the ecclesiastical Pascha should be observed on Sunday every year. Moreover, the emperor’s edict threatened dissidents who would follow their religious conviction, with dire punishment, if they should refuse to comply with the order. It gave to a select group of clergymen monopolistic control over the observance of the ecclesiastical Pascha through the collaboration of the civil power. That imperial decree was another legal precedent set for future rulers to act similarly concerning synods and ecclesiastical matters in the years that lay ahead”. Ibid, p. 280.
m) A summary of the development of the first head of the Papacy from 140 A.C.B.to 325 A.C.B.is as follows:
i. Certain pastors of a certain church in Rome developed a Holy Week doctrine in which the Passover would be celebrated on a Sunday yearly. This was done against those who kept the Passover on the 14th of the first lunar month every year.
ii. This Sunday passover was first taught and decreed to the church in Rome by Pius I. He was the first to bring Sunday to the church.
iii. This act of Pius marks the beginning of the first head of the Papacy which we have named the “Sunday veneration head”.
iv. Various bishops of this particular church in the city of Rome all exalted a Sunday Passover until Victor I, 189-199, who forcefully decreed that all churches should keep the yearly Sunday Passover or be dis-fellowshipped.
v. Somewhere between 200 A.C.B. and 305 A.C.B., the Sunday Passover was made a weekly observation in honor of the resurrection of Christ, thus the churches were keeping the Sabbath and the first day of the week simultaneously.
vi. Fasts were placed upon the observation of the seventh day Sabbath thus down grading it in contrast to Sunday.
vii. By 321 A.C.B. the Roman Emperor was influenced by bishops to legislate two civil Sunday laws.
viii. By 325 A.C.B. in the Council of Nicea, a Sunday Passover was decreed for all Christians to follow after the Roman Church, on pain of penalty from the civil authorities. This was decreed by Emperor Constantine for the Roman Empire.
ix. Thus by 325 A.C.B. the first head of the papacy was fully developed by the use of Sunday veneration causing the development of a powerful bishop of Rome sitting on Satan’s Seat of seeking to be God with God.
x. This powerful seat of authority over the consciences of men was Satan’s Seat which he gave to the bishop of a church in the city of Rome by means of his ability to deceive, and by the use of the exaltation of the first day of the week against the seventh day Sabbath.
. This was the first stage in the development of the ideology of Sundayism from the Catholic Holy Week that contains a Sunday Passover to the legislation of a Sunday civil law in 321, and the legislation of the Roman Sunday Passover in 325 in the whole Roman Empire.
xii. Sunday exaltation created the Papacy which in turn further exalted Sunday, and behind all this was Lucifer who got the exaltation of being God with God through the false fourth office which he gave to the bishop of a church in the city of Rome.
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