SATANS MULTIPLE ATTACKS AGAINST THE SABBATH! Roman Emperor Hadrians Anti-Sabbath Laws After 135 A.D. radical changes occurred in the Jewish world. In that year, the Roman Emperor Hadrian crushed the Second Jewish Revolt which had been unsuccessfully led by Bar-Kokhba. Jerusalem became a Roman colony from which Jews (and Jewish Christians) were excluded. Hadrian renamed the city Aelia Capitolina and, more important still, he outlawed the practice of the Jewish religion in general and of Sabbath keeping in particular throughout the empire! A whole body of Adversos Judaeos (Against all Jews) literature began to appear at this time. Following the Roman lead, Christians developed a Christian theology of separation from and contempt toward the Jews. Characteristic Jewish customs such as circumcision and Sabbath keeping were castigated! There are indications that Sunday observance was introduced at this time as an attempt to emphasize to the Roman authorities the Christian distinction from Judaism! New religious festivals such as Sunday keeping could be adopted and enforced only by a church that had severed it ties with Judaism. As we have seen, this excludes the Jerusalem Church prior to 135 A.D. After 135 A.D. the Jerusalem Church lost is religious prestige and went almost into oblivion, so it could hardly have pioneered such an important a change. Rome and the Origin of Sunday The most likely church for the source of this change is the Church of Rome. Here can be found the social, religious and political conditions which permitted and encouraged the abandonment of Sabbath keeping and the adoption of Sunday worship instead! Predominance of Gentile Converts Contrary to most Eastern churches, the Church of Rome was predominantly composed of Gentile converts. Paul in his Epistle to this Church explicitly affirms: I am speaking to you Gentiles (Romans 11:13). The predominant Gentile membership apparently contributed to an early Christian differentiation from the Jews in Rome. In 64 A.D., for instance, Nero placed the charge of arson exclusively on Christians, thus distinguishing them from the Jews! Repressive Measures Beginning with the First Jewish Revolt against Rome (66 A.D.), various repressive measures-military, political and fiscal-were imposed upon the Jews, especially as their resurgent nationalism resulted in violent uprisings in many places outside of Palestine. Militarily, Vespasian and Titus crushed the First Jewish Revolt; and Hadrian, the Second Jewish Revolt (132-135 A.D.). Politically, Vespasian (69-79 A.D.) abolished the Sanhedrin and the office of the High Priest; later Hadrian outlawed the practice of Judaism altogether (ca. 135 A.D.). Fiscally, the Jews were subjected to a discriminatory tax (the fiscus judaicus) which was introduced by Vespasian and increased first by Domitian (81-96 A.D.) and later by Hadrian! Anti-Jewish Contempt That these repressive measures were intensely experience in Rome is indicated by the contemptuous anti-Jewish literary comments of such writers as Seneca (d. 65 A.D.), Persius (34-62 A.D.), Petronius (ca. 66 A.D.), Quintillian (ca. 35-100 A.D.), Martial (ca. 40-104 A.D.), Plutarch (ca. 46-119 A.D.), Juvenal (125 A.D.) and Tacitus (ca. 55-120 A.D.), all of whom lived in Rome most of their professional lives. They revile the Jews racially and culturally, deriding Sabbathkeeping and circumcision as examples of Judaisms degrading superstitions! The mounting hostility of the Roman populace against the Jews forced Titus, though unwilling (invitus), to ask the Jewess Berenice, sister of Herod the Younger, whom he wanted to marry, to leave Rome. These circumstances as well as the conflict between Jews and Christians, apparently encouraged not only the production of a whole body of anti-Jewish literature in which a Christian theology of contempt for the Jews was developed, but also the repudiation of characteristic Jewish customs such as Sabbath keeping! Measures Taken by the Church of Rome The Church of Rome adopted concrete measures to wean Christians away from Sabbathkeeping and to encourage Sunday worship instead. Justin Martyr, for instance, writing in the mid-second century reduces the observance of the Sabbath to a temporary Mosaic ordinance which God imposed exclusively on the Jews as a mark to single them out for punishment they so well deserve for their infidelities. This kind of negative reinterpretation of the Sabbath led Christians to transform their Sabbath observance from a day of feasting, joy and religious celebration into a day of fasting, with no eucharistic celebration or religious assemblies permitted. The Saturday fast served not only to express sorrow for Christs death, but also, as emphatically stated by Pope Sylvester (314-335 A.D.), to show contempt for the Jews (exsecratione Judaeorum) and for their Sabbath feasting (destructione ciborum). The sadness and hunger resulting from the fast would enable Christians to avoid appearing to observe the Sabbath with the Jews and would encourage them to enter more eagerly and joyfully into the observance of Sunday! Because the basic function of the Saturday fast was to discourage Sabbath keeping and to enhance Sunday worship, it seems likely that the Saturday fast and Sunday worship both originated contemporaneously and at the same place. There is no question that the Saturday fast was introduced by the Church of Rome! Differentiation From the Jews While the exact date of the origin of Easter Sunday may be a subject of dispute, there seems to be a consensus of scholarly opinion that it was in Rome that the new custom was introduced to avoid even the semblance of Judaism. Constantine, in his letter to the Christian bishops at the Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.) exemplifies the marked anti-Judaic motivation for the repudiation of the Quartodeciman Passover. He writes: We ought not therefore to have anything in common with the Jews, for the Savior has shown us another way . . . In unanimously adopting this mode [i.e. Eastern Sunday] we desire, dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews. This letter of the Council of Nicaea represents the culmination of a controversy initiated two centuries earlier which centered in Rome. The same anti-Judaic motivations which caused the replacement of the Jewish Quartodeciman Passover with Easter Sunday also accounts for the contemporaneous substitution of Sabbath keeping with Sunday worship! This argument is supported not only by the fact that the Jewish Sabbath shared the same anti-Judaic condemnation as the Jewish Quartodeciman Passover, but also by the close nexus between the observance of the annual Easter Saturday-Sunday (a fast followed by a day of joy) and that of its weekly counterpart (the Saturday fast followed by Sunday worship). The basic unity between these annual and weekly observances is explicitly affirmed by the Fathers, and further suggests a common origin in the Church of Rome at the same time and owing to similar causes! youtube/watch?v=ZSCNgJVdYE4
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 21:46:39 +0000
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