Debunking the Claim: “Sunday Worship Emerged from Apostasy”

The assertion that Sunday worship was a second-century apostasy born of anti-Judaism, Roman sun cults, and the growing authority of the Church of Rome sounds plausible to the modern ear only when history is flattened and context ignored. When we turn to the primary sources of early Christianity and the testimony of respected historians like Everett Ferguson, the theory crumbles under its own weight. Sunday worship, far from being a deviation, was a natural continuation of apostolic practice rooted in the resurrection of Christ, the event that transformed history itself.

1. Was Sunday worship born out of anti-Judaism?

If the first Christians were Jews, and indeed they were, then why would they deliberately adopt a new day of worship merely to spite their own people? Would fishermen from Galilee, tax collectors, and tentmakers suddenly replace a divine commandment just to differentiate themselves from their kin?

Early Christians did not abandon the Sabbath because of hostility toward Jews, but because the resurrection of Christ gave new theological meaning to time itself. Sunday became known as “the Lord’s Day” (Kyriake hemera), not “the anti-Jewish day.”

As Everett Ferguson notes in his Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (2nd ed., Routledge, 2013, pp. 1007–1008), early Christian worship on Sunday “was a memorial of the resurrection and not a rejection of the Sabbath.” Ferguson further explains that “the first day of the week held significance already in the apostolic era,” citing Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2, where believers gathered and gave offerings on that day.

Consider Ignatius of Antioch (A.D. 107), who wrote to the Magnesians (9:1):

“If those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again through Him...”

Is Ignatius here expressing anti-Jewish sentiment? Or is he proclaiming the resurrection as the dawn of a new creation? The difference is theological, not ethnic. Sunday was not a protest against Judaism; it was a celebration of Christ’s victory over death.

2. Did the Roman sun cult influence Christian Sunday worship?

It is often claimed that since the Romans honored the Sun on “dies Solis” (the day of the sun), Christians merely baptized a pagan custom. But this is a case of confusing coincidence with causation. Does the fact that both the Romans and Christians used the same day mean one copied the other? To argue so is like saying that because both the U.S. and France celebrate holidays on a “Monday,” one borrowed the calendar from the other.

The worship of the sun god was widespread, but the Christian observance of the first day is recorded before the cult of Sol Invictus became prominent. For instance, Justin Martyr (A.D. 150) wrote in his First Apology (67):

“We all hold our common assembly on the day of the Sun, 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 Savior on the same day rose from the dead.”

Notice Justin’s reasoning: creation and resurrection, not solar veneration. The sun cult explanation ignores this double symbolism. If Christians were adopting pagan worship, why would they fill their assemblies with readings from the Hebrew Scriptures, psalms, and Eucharist, all centered on the risen Christ and none on Helios or Mithras?

As Ferguson and other scholars such as Robert L. Wilken (The Christians as the Romans Saw Them, Yale University Press, 1984) point out, the early church’s Sunday observance was theological, not syncretistic. The resemblance of terminology (“day of the sun”) was linguistic convenience, not doctrinal corruption.

3. Was the change driven by the authority of the Roman Church?

If Rome had unilaterally changed the day of worship, wouldn’t we see fierce resistance from Eastern churches like Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, known for their independence? Yet all these communities, as the record shows, worshiped on Sunday well before Rome’s influence was dominant.

The Didache (late first century) already instructs Christians:

“On the Lord’s own day, gather together and break bread…” (Didache 14:1)

That text predates any centralized Roman ecclesiastical authority. Likewise, Bardaisan of Edessa (early 2nd century, in Mesopotamia far from Rome) mentions Christians observing Sunday. The universality of the practice across languages, cultures, and distances suggests not Roman coercion but apostolic origin.

Would all these geographically scattered believers, speaking Greek, Syriac, and Latin, spontaneously agree to shift their day of worship without communication or controversy? Only if they shared a common apostolic tradition, the memory of the day Christ rose.

4. The Theological Fulfillment of the Sabbath

To understand early Christian Sunday worship, one must grasp its continuity with, not its replacement of, the Sabbath. The Sabbath looked back to God’s rest in creation; the Lord’s Day looked forward to God’s rest in the new creation. The Sabbath was the shadow; Sunday was the day of Christ's resurrection, the substance (cf. Colossians 2:16–17).

Thus, Sunday was not a different day of the week to replace Saturday; it was a different dimension of meaning, the beginning of the “eighth day”, symbolizing eternal life. As the Epistle of Barnabas (15:9) puts it:

“We keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead.”

Is it apostasy to celebrate the fulfillment of what the Sabbath foreshadowed? Or is it fidelity to the divine story that began in Genesis and culminated in the empty tomb?

Conclusion: Sunday Worship is a Continuity, Not Corruption

When all the evidence is laid bare, the claim that Sunday worship was a second-century apostasy collapses. The earliest Christian writings, spanning continents and cultures, consistently show that believers gathered on the first day of the week not because of Roman influence, anti-Jewish sentiment, or pagan assimilation, but because on that day, Christ rose and time itself was reborn.

Sunday worship is not the mark of apostasy; it is the memorial of resurrection. To call it otherwise is to misunderstand both history and theology, mistaking the sunrise for the Son itself.

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References

• Everett Ferguson (ed.), Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2013), pp. 1007–1008.

• Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians 9:1–2.

• Justin Martyr, First Apology 67.

• Didache 14:1.

• Epistle of Barnabas 15:9.

• Robert L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (Yale University Press, 1984).

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