Jerusalem and the
Origin of Sunday

The Ebionites

Some argue that Eusebius’ statement that the liberal group of the Ebionites observed not only "the Sabbath and the rest of the discipline of the Jews" but also "the Lord’s day as a memorial of the resurrection of the Saviour," means that some Jewish Christians must have observed Sunday from the earliest times. The assumption is that these Jewish Christians would not have appropriated the worship day of the Gentile Church after they had broken away from it. (61) The weakness of this thesis is that it rests on several gratuitous suppositions. It is assumed, for instance, that the liberal group of the Ebionites who observed Sunday represent the followers of the "original Sunday practice of Jewish Christianity" while the conservative group who kept the Sabbath represent some backsliders who "for some reason or other may have later given it [i.e. Sunday] up." (62) In the light of the profound respect for the law which, as we noticed above, characterized the primitive Jewish Christians, it is indeed hard to believe that these who began as liberals turned into conservatives later and not vice versa. It should be noted that Eusebius wrote his account of the Ebionites almost two and a half centuries after the destruction of Jerusalem, without specifying the time of their adoption of Sunday observance. Note that though Irenaeus (ca. A.D. 130-200), a much earlier source, provides a report almost identical to that of Eusebius, he makes no mention of any Sunday observance. (63) It is possible therefore that a group of Jewish Christians, desiring to join the main body of the Church, adopted Sunday observance at a later date while still retaining their Sabbath keeping.

Another false supposition is that the Ebionites represent or at least can be related to the primitive Jewish Christians. It is true that both stressed the importance of the observance of the law, but they differed radically from each other on their view of the nature of Christ. The Ebionites’ Christology was in fact like that of the Gnostics, regarding Christ as a plain and common man "who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary." (64) Such a Christological error can hardly be attributed to the primitive Jewish Christians. Therefore, on account of such a fundamental doctrinal difference the Ebionites, as well noted by J. Daniélou, "should not be confused purely and simply with the heirs of the first, Aramaic-speaking, Christians who fled to Transjordan after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70." (65) Marcel Simon, in fact, argues on the basis of information provided by Epiphanius that "the sect of the Ebionites appears to be the result of a confluence between original Jewish Christian and a pre-Christian Jewish sect." (66)

The origin of this heterodox Jewish Christian sect can hardly be placed in New Testament times. We know for instance that at the time of Justin, Jewish-Christians were characterized not by Christological heresy but by two opposite tendencies toward the law: some who did not demand Gentile Christians "to be circumcised, or to keep the Sabbath or to observe any other such ceremonies ;" others who wanted "to compel Gentiles . . . to live in all respects according to the law given by Moses." (67) Note should be taken of the fact that according to Justin’s account, both the milder and the stricter class of Jewish Christians stressed the observance of the Sabbath. No mention is made of their keeping Sunday. If the Jewish Christians already had adopted Sunday in addition to their Sabbath keeping, Justin almost certainly would have alluded to it sometime in his repeated debates on the Sabbath issue reported in his Dialogue with Trypho. What better way to encourage his Jewish friend Trypho and his people to observe Sunday than by pointing to their kinsmen, the Jewish Christians, who were already doing so! But the absence of any reference to Sunday observance by Jewish Christians, coupled with the very efforts Justin makes to show from the Old Testament the superiority of Sunday over the Sabbath, presupposes that in his time Sunday observance was alien to both Jews and Jewish-Christians.

The Nazarenes

That primitive Jewish Christians did not observe Sunday is supported also by the testimony of Epiphanius regarding the "orthodox" Jewish Christian sect of the Nazarenes. The Bishop reports that "the sect originated after the flight from Jerusalem, when the disciples were living in Pella, having left the city according to Christ’s word and migrated to the mountains because of its imminent siege. Therefore in this manner it arose when those of whom we spoke were living in Perea. From there the heresy of the Nazarenes first began." (68)

These Nazarenes, whose existence in the fourth century is attested even by Jerome, (69) appear to be the direct descendants of the Christian community of Jerusalem which migrated to Pella. M. Simon well assesses their identity when he writes that

"they are characterized essentially by their tenacious attachment to Jewish observances. If they became heretics in the eyes of the Mother Church, it is simply because they remained fixed on outmoded positions. They well represent, though Epiphanius is energetically refusing to admit it, the very direct descendants of the primitive community, of which our author knows that it was designated by the Jews by the same name of Nazarenes." (70)

If the Nazarenes, as most scholars maintain, are indeed the "direct descendants of the primitive community of Jerusalem," we would expect these (and not the Ebionites) to have retained the original practice of Jewish Christianity. One should read what Epiphanius has to say about them, particularly with regard to their day of worship. In spite of the Bishop’s attempt to denigrate them as "heretics" in the rather extensive account that he gives of their beliefs, there is nothing heterodoxical about them. After identifying them with the Jews for using the same Old Testament books (hardly a heresy!), he continues:

"The Nazarenes do not differ in any essential thing from them [i.e. Jews], since they practice the custom and doctrines prescribed by the Jewish law, except that they believe in Christ. They believe in the resurrection of the dead and that the universe was created by God. They preach that God is one and that Jesus Christ is his Son. They are very learned in the Hebrew language. They read the law .. Therefore they differ both from the Jews and from the Christians; from the former, because they believe in Christ; from the true Christians because they fulfill till now Jewish rites as the circumcision, the Sabbath and others." (71)

This picture of the Nazarenes matches very well that of the Jerusalem Church we have reconstructed earlier. The possibility exists therefore that the Nazarenes represent the survival of both the ethnic and theological legacy of primitive Jewish Christianity. (72) The fact that they retained Sabbath keeping as one of their distinguishing marks shows persuasively that this was the original day of worship of the Jerusalem Church and that no change from Sabbath to Sunday occurred among Palestinian Jewish Christians after the destruction of the city.

The Malediction of the Christians

Another indication of the survival of Sabbath observance among Jewish Christians in Palestine is provided, though indirectly, by the test introduced by the rabbinical authorities to detect the presence of Christians in the synagogue. The test consisted in a curse that was incorporated in the daily prayer—Shemoneh Esreh —and was to be pronounced against the Christians by any participant in the synagogue service. Marcel Simon reports the Palestinian text of the curse and suggests also the date of its introduction, which most scholars accept:

"It is on the suggestion of R. Gamaliel II, a little after the fall of Jerusalem and very likely in the neighborhood of the year A.D. 80, that was inserted in the Schemoneh Esreh the famous formula against the Minim: ‘May the apostate have not any hope and may the empire of pride be uprooted promptly in our days. May the Nazarenes and the Minim perish in an instant, may they all be erased from the book of life, that they may not be counted among the righteous. Blessed be Thou, O God, who bringest down the proud.’ " (73)

That this malediction was regularly pronounced in the synagogues is confirmed by the testimonies of several Fathers. (74) Jerome, for instance, writes explicitly, "three times daily in all the synagogues under the name of the Nazarenes you curse the Christians. (75) The purpose of the formula was not simply to curse the Christians as apostate, but as Marcel Simon observes, it constituted "a truthful test" to discover them. He explains that

"since all the members of the community could be called upon in turn, in the absence of the official priests, to officiate in the public worship, the method was certain: the participant contaminated with heresy had necessarily to hesitate to pronounce, with this benediction, his own condemnation. The Talmud stated very clearly: "Whenever someone made a mistake in any benediction of the Minim, he was to be called back to his place because supposedly he was a Min" (76)

The fact that after the destruction of Jerusalem a test was introduced by the Palestinian rabbinical authorities to bar the Christians’ presence and/ or participation in the synagogue service, indicates that many Jewish Christians in Palestine still considered themselves essentially as Jews. (77) Their acceptance of Christ as the Messiah did not preclude their attending the Sabbath services at the synagogue. The existence of this situation discredits therefore any attempt to make Jewish Christians responsible at this time for the substitution of Sunday worship for Sabbath keeping.

Hadrian’s Policy

Additional indirect indications of the permanence of Sabbath observance in the Jerusalem Church after A.D. 70 are provided by the events connected with the destruction of the city by Hadrian in A.D. 135. The Emperor, after ruthlessly crushing the Bar Kokhba revolt (A.D. 132-135), rebuilt on the ruins of Jerusalem a new Roman city, Aelia Capitolina. (78) At this time harsh restrictions were imposed on the Jews. They were expelled from the city, forbidden categorically to re-enter it and prohibited to practice their religion, particularly their two characteristic customs, the Sabbath and circumcision. The rabbinical sources speak abundantly of the restrictions imposed by Hadrian, whose reign is commonly referred to as "the age of persecution—shemad" or "the age of the edict—gezarah." (79) The following quotation is a sample of statements often found in the Talmud regarding Hadrian’s anti-Jewish policies:

"The Government of Rome had issued a decree that they should not study the Torah and that they should not circumcise their sons and that they should profane the Sabbath. What did Judah b. Shammu’a and his colleagues do? They went and consulted a certain matron whom all the Roman notables used to visit. She said to them: ‘Go and make proclamation of your sorrows at night time.’ They went and proclaimed at night, crying, ‘Alas, in heaven’s name, are we not your brothers, are we not the sons of one mother? Why are we different from every nation and tongue that you issue such harsh decrees against us?’ " (80)

These repressive measures taken by the Emperor against Jews affected not only the general attitude of Christians at large toward the Jews, but especially the ethnic composition and theological orientation of the Jerusalem Church. On the latter Eusebius reports:

"And thus, when the city had been emptied of the Jewish nation and had suffered the total destruction of its ancient inhabitants, it was colonized by a different race, and the Roman city which subsequently arose changed its name and was called Aelia, in honor of the emperor Aelius Adrian. And as the Church there was now composed of Gentiles, the first one to assume the government of it after the bishops of the circumcision was Marcus." (81)

The fact that as a result of Hadrian’s edict Judaeo-Christian members and bishops were replaced by Gentile ones, indicates that a clear distinction was made at that time between the two. We would assume that the distinction was limited not only to the racial factor, but that it included also a new theological orientation in particular toward characteristic Jewish festivities such as Passover and the Sabbath. This hypothesis is supported by the testimony of Epiphanius, who in his lengthy report about the controversy over date of the celebration of Passover states: "The controversy arose [etarakthe—literally, was stirred up] after the exodus of the bishops of the circumcision [A. D. 135] and it has continued until our time. (82) The Bishop makes specific reference to the fifteen Judaeo-Christian bishops who administered the Church of Jerusalem up to A.D. 135 and who up to that time had practiced the Quartodeciman Passover since they based themselves on a document known as the Apostolic Constitutions— diataseis ton apostolon— where the following rule is given:

"you shall not change the calculation of time, but you shall celebrate it at the same time as your brethren who came out from the circumcision. With them observe the Passover." (83)

Though Epiphanius is not always a trustworthy source, his information about the observance of the Quartodeciman Passover by the Jerusalem Church up to A.D. 135, and about the controversy which arose at that time deserves credibility for several reasons. The report harmonizes well with what we know about the theological orientation of the Jerusalem Church from the sources we examined earlier. Moreover, in this instance the Bishop is merely reporting what the Audians (84) (a sect that refused to accept the decree of the Council of Nicaea on the Paschal reckoning) believed, namely, that they were following the Apostles’ example and authority (as expressed in the Apostolic Constitutions) by observing Passover on Nisan 14. Epiphanius does not challenge the authenticity of this alleged Apostolic decree, but argues gratuitously that the Audians had misunderstood its meaning, since it was the intention of the Apostles that all should come to the unity of faith by eventually adopting the Easter Sunday date in place of Nisan 14. The weakness of such an interpretation is shown by his very mention (of what apparently was a known and accepted fact) that the controversy over the date of the celebration of Passover arose after the time of the exodus of the bishops of the circumcision," thus clearly implying that prior to that time the Quartodeciman reckoning was unanimously followed. (85)

The Passover controversy, which we shall later examine, was apparently provoked by a minority group who refused to abandon the Quartodeciman practice and to accept the Easter Sunday innovation. (86) The fact that the controversy over the Passover date arose not prior to but at the time when the new anti-Judaic policy of the Emperor caused a reconstitution of the Jerusalem Church with Gentile members and leaders suggests, first, that up to that time the Church, composed primarily of Judaeo-Christians, had been loyal to basic Jewish religious institutions, such as Passover and the Sabbath; and secondly that certain changes, particularly in the liturgical calendar, were occasioned by the new repressive measures taken by the Emperor against Jewish religious practices. This question will receive further consideration in our study of the relationship between Easter Sunday and the weekly Sunday. We shall notice then that apparently both festivities, which were and still are interrelated, originated contemporaneously in the same place and owing to the same causes. (87)

These historical data which we have briefly considered discredit any attempt to make the Jerusalem Church, prior to A.D. 135, the champion of liturgical innovations such as Sunday worship. We have found that of all the Christian Churches, this was seemingly both racially and theologically the one closest and most loyal to Jewish religious traditions. (88) After A.D. 135 when Jerusalem was rebuilt as a pagan Roman colony—Aelia Capitolina— , it lost its political and religious prestige for both Jews and Christians. It would be vain therefore after this time to probe further into the origin of Sunday observance among the small new Gentile Church in the city, of which nothing is known for the second century with the exception of few uncertain names of bishops.

Our investigation into the origin of Sunday observance has so far assumed a negative approach. It has shown how unfounded is the claim that the primitive community of Jerusalem instituted Sunday worship to commemorate the Easter resurrection and/or the appearances of Christ by means of the Lord’s Supper celebration. This effort, however, has not provided an alternative answer to the question of the place, time and causes of the origin of Sunday keeping. To this task therefore we shall now address ourselves, endeavoring to reconstruct a picture which we contend is historically accurate.