The Christians in Bithynia were observing church in 110 AD on Sunday and it had nothing to do with any teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. See Pliny’s letter to Trajan.
>>>The Christians in Bithynia were observing church in 110 AD on Sunday and it had nothing to do with any teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. See Pliny’s letter to Trajan.>>>
I’m going to quote from Dr. Samuele Bacchicchi’s “From the Sabbath to Sunday” which traces the origin of Sunday keeping to the Roman Catholic church. Dr. Bacchiocchi received his Ph’d from the Vatican University, that is the Gregorian, and received the Pope’s medal for his thesis which provides conclusive proof that A. there is no Bible support for Sunday keeping and B. Sunday keeping came into the church over 100 years after the apostolic church.
On page 96 and 97, The late Dr. Bacchiocchi addresses this letter....and I quote:
“A letter from Pliny, governor of Bithynia, (dated A.D. 112) to the
Emperor Trajan, sheds light on this question.22 There the governor, who asks
the Emperor to instruct him on the procedure to follow in processing the
Christians, reports what he had found out about the Christians’ “guilt” through
long interrogations united with torture. He states that Christians on “an appointed day (stato die) had been accustomed to meet before daybreak” for a
religious service. Later on the same day (apparently in the evening) they met
again to partake of “ordinary and harmless food.” He then adds, “from all
these things they desisted after my edict which, in accordance with your
orders, prohibited the associations (he taeriae).”23 It is clear that Christian
gatherings came under the suspicion of the hetaeriae because they shared an
obvious resemblance, namely, both assembled for their communal meals in
the evening of appointed days.
We are not informed to what extent the prohibition of the hetaeriae
was applied in the whole empire.24 It would appear however that any kind of
fraternity was viewed with suspicion. Trajan (A.D. 117-138), for instance,
Three New Testament Texts and the Origin of Sunday 94
turned down Pliny’s request for permission to constitute a firemen guild that
would not exceed one hundred and fifty members, in order to protect the city
of Nicomedia from future fires. The Emperor’s rationale is that “whatever
title we give them, and whatever our object in giving it, men who are banded
together for a common end will all the same become a political association
before long.”
That Christians came under this kind of suspicion is indicated by the
protest of Tertullian (ca. A.D. 160-225) against the insinuation that the Christian agape meal was a “factio” (a meeting of the hetaeria’s kind). After describing the nature of the agape feasts, the North African Bishop writes:
“Give the congregation of the Christians its due, and hold it unlawful, if it is
like assemblies of the illicit sort: by all means let it be condemned, if any
complaint can be validly laid against it, such as lies against secret factions.
But who has ever suffered harm from our assemblies? We are in our congregations just what we are when separated from each other; ... when the pious,
when the pure assemble in congregation, you ought not to call that a faction
but a curia—i.e., the court of God.”25
This prevailing suspicion that the Christians’ religious meals were a
kind of illegal assemblies, coupled with the accusation that these were
Thyestean banquets,26 could explain the reason for Paul’s indefinite references to the time of the gatherings. To avoid giving rise to such suspicions,
the Christians in Corinth may well have changed from week to week both
the day and the place of their evening Lord’s Supper meals.
Almost all authors maintain that the “appointed day—stato die” on
which according to Pliny Christians gathered, is Sunday.27 W. Rordorf, for
instance, holds that “Stato die cannot easily be satisfactorily understood except as a reference to Sunday.”28 If this prevailing interpretation is correct,
then Rordorf’s conclusion that “Paul ordered the setting aside of money to
take place on Sunday . . . because the Christians had already begun to fix
their calendar by reference to the weekly Sunday,” 29 would deserve consideration. (Note however that about fifty years separate the two documents
and during that period of time, as we shall notice, changes could readily
have occurred).
But, does “stato die” necessarily refer to a regularly recurring Sunday meeting? The term “status” (a participle of sisto) which means “appointed, established, fixed, determined, regular” does not exclusively imply
a fixed recurring day, when used in reference to time, but also one which is
appointed or established. The gathering then could recur periodically but not
necessarily on the self-same day.
Three New Testament Texts and the Origin of Sunday 95
The context suggests also several reasons why “stato die” could possibly be a day fixed from week to week. Christians were denounced, processed and condemned in the province. This is indicated by the fact that
Pliny upon his arrival found the problem already existing. To avoid giving
cause of suspicion it is possible that Christians every week changed the day
and place of their gathering. Moreover, the governor by means of interrogation and torture had obtained detailed information regarding the time of the
day and the manner in which the Christian assembly was conducted. But in
regard to the actual day he found out only that they gathered on a “stated
day.”
If Christians in Bithynia were already gathering regularly on Sunday, they would have confessed this as they disclosed the rest of their worship activities. We shall notice that a few decades later (ca. A.D. 150) Justin
Martyr explicitly and emphatically informs the Emperor that Christians gathered on “the day of the Sun,”30 apparently as a means of creating a favorable
impression. Let us note also that Pliny was cautiously appealing to the Emperor for a more humane application of the anti-Christian law which by condemning Christians indiscriminately was causing their killing without regard to their age, sex or attitude. 31 If Pliny had found that they gathered on
the day of the Sun, would he not presumably have mentioned this fact in
order to present the Christian worship in a more favorable light? We shall
later show that the day of the Sun enjoyed in the Roman world a certain
prestige and veneration.
In the light of this excursus we conclude that the “appointed day” of
Pliny is not necessarily the selfsame day of the week, unless it was the Sabbath, which possibly Pliny prefers not to mention to avoid placing Christians in a worse light by associating them with the Jews. The latter revolted
during Trajan’s time in Libya, Cyrene, Egypt, Cyprus and Mesopotania.
Extensive massacres took place before these revolts were crushed.32 To report to Trajan that the Christians gathered weekly on the day of Saturn like
the Jews would have encouraged the Emperor to take harsher measures, the
very thing Pliny’s letter wished to discourage. Any attempt therefore to draw
support for Paul’s first-day coIlection~plan from Pliny’s testimony appears
unwarranted.