• Log In
Catholicism and Adventism
Discussing Seventh-day Adventism from a Catholic and biblical perspective, and then just some other stuff too
  • Home
  • Intro
    • Mary, the Theotokos
    • Introductory articles
    • About me
    • My views on Adventism
    • Blog rules and ToS
    • Contact
    • Books / videos I recommend
    • Various links
    • Eastern Christianity links
  • The Sabbath
    • The Sabbath – Articles
    • The Old Testament Sabbath and Christians
    • The Sabbath and the First Day in the New Testament
  • Adventist teachings
    • General
    • Prophecy
    • Anti-Catholic propaganda
    • Falsehoods about the Catholic Church
    • Christian holy days
    • The state of the dead
    • Diet and alcohol
    • Adventists and Abortion
    • Baptism
    • Jesus – God or not?
    • The Bible and the Clear Word
    • Ellen White, prophetess
    • Samuele Bacchiocchi
    • Converts from Adventism / Sabbatarianism
  • Catholicism
    • Catholic teaching and defence
    • The Early Church
    • Eastern Christianity
    • The Mass – video collection
    • What Catholics Believe
  • Debates
  • Prophecy
  • Misc topics
    • Books / videos I recommend
    • Herbert Armstrong
    • Mormonism
    • Jehovah’s Witnesses
    • Various links
  • Abortion
  • What Catholics Believe
  • Pope Francis, the Latin Mass … updated
  • Ellen White’s inspiration …
  • Pope Benedict’s final blessing
  • 3 horns and Ostrogoths
  • Pope Sylvester I – who changed the Sabbath?
  • Adventists abusing Socrates
  • Bacchiocchi, 666, VFD
  • Why a bishop may not drink grape juice
  • Is Easter pagan?
  • The Mass – videos
  • Line upon line
  • 1 Cor 16:2 …
  • Statues and idols …
  • Whose truth is the real truth, and how can we know?
  • Catholic discussions on Facebook

About

  • Mary, the Θεοτόκος
  • Blog rules and ToS
  • About me
  • Contact
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS

Free ebook

Free ebook

Click the image

We’re on Facebook!

Catholic discussion of Adventism

Catholic discussion of Adventism

@CatholicAndSDA@CatholicAndSDA

Saint Blogs Parish

New Evangelists Monthly

Scoop.it!

Catholicism and Adventism on Scoop.it!

Subscribe

Subscribe to posts via email [via Wordpress]

Recent posts

  • Michael Scheifler and Pope Vicarius II
  • Jesus our Rising Sun, Light of the World
  • Twitter discussion – an Easter Egg
  • Thus saith Ellen, part 5 – The day and the hour
  • Thus saith Ellen, part 4 – The 10 commandments
  • Thus saith Ellen, part 3 – Jesus is not God
  • Thus saith Ellen, part 2 – Call no man Father?
  • Thus saith Ellen, part 1 – Christians pray to Satan?
  • Abortion and Seventh-day Adventism
  • Why biological monogenism for humans is almost certain

Recent comments

  • Stephen Korsman on Thus saith Ellen, part 4 – The 10 commandments
  • Don Watson on Thus saith Ellen, part 4 – The 10 commandments
  • ASÍ DIJO ELENA G. WHITE, LA PROFETISA DEL ADVENTISMO DEL SÉPTIMO DÍA (Parte 1) – EL BLOG DEL APOLOGISTA CRISTIANO/ INGº. MARIO OLCESE SANGUINETI (LIMA/PERÚ) on Thus saith Ellen, part 1 – Christians pray to Satan?
  • Vjatjeslav on Abortion and Seventh-day Adventism
  • Stephen Korsman on Adventist abortion is the healing ministry of Jesus
  • Nick on Adventist abortion is the healing ministry of Jesus
  • Was Jesus the son of Mary? | Catholicism and Adventism on Mary, the Theotokos
  • Stephen Korsman on Jewish holy days fulfilled
  • Atmakur on Jewish holy days fulfilled
  • Free ebook – Catholic Discussion of Seventh-day Adventism | Catholicism and Adventism on Index – Catholic Discussion of Seventh-day Adventism

Archives

  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • April 2008
  • July 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005
  • June 2005
  • December 2004
  • April 2004
  • February 2004
  • December 2003
  • November 2003
  • October 2003
  • February 2003
  • January 2003
  • November 2001
  • September 2001
  • August 2001
  • December 1999
  • April 1999
  • September 1998
  • July 1998
  • December 1997

Categories

  • Adventism
  • Blog admin
  • Catholic
  • Family
  • Liturgy
  • Other religions
  • Prophecy
  • Sabbath
  • Thus saith Ellen
  • Virology
  • What Catholics Believe

Tags

10 Commandments Abortion Adventism Adventist Anti-Catholic Apostles Bible Catholic Catholic Church Christian worship Church Fathers Conversion Daniel Dies Domini Diet Easter Ellen White Ellen White Eucharist First Day Gregorian University Holy Day Honest quoting Icons Jesus Law Mary Mass New Covenant Novena Old Covenant Orthodox Papacy Passover Pope Pope Benedict XVI Prophecy Resurrection Sabbath Saints Samuele Bacchiocchi Soul sleep Statues Sunday Trinity

Books I recommend

  • Books / videos

Blogs I read

  • Shameless Popery
  • Fr. Z’s Blog – What Does The Prayer Really Say?
  • Biblical Evidence for Catholicism
  • The Joys of Being Catholic
  • It’s Okay NOT to be a Seventh-day Adventist
  • The Eye of the Tiber
  • Bread from Heaven
  • Creative Minority Report
  • New Liturgical Movement
  • Etheldredasplace

Credits and info

  • Copyright
  • Credits
  • About me
  • Contact
Society blog
Fight Spam! Click Here!
« The return of Christ
Christmas is not pagan »

More on Sunday and Pope Sylvester I

December 20, 2006
By Stephen Korsman
Fb-Button
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

This is a follow-up to the posts entitled Constantine, the Papacy, and the real origins of Sunday and Pope Sylvester I – who changed the Sabbath?

Michael Schiefler has been trying to squeeze more water out of a stone on his anti-Catholic website.  I commented on it before.  He seems to think he has the name of the Pope that changed the Sabbath to Sunday nailed down – Pope Sylvester I. Scheifler is basing his claims on second-hand information based on what are probably spurious documents. The Catholic Encyclopedia article on Pope Sylvester says the following:

This was the era of Constantine the Great, when the public position of the Church so greatly improved, a change which must certainly have been very noticeable at Rome; it is consequently to be regretted that there is so little authoritative information concerning Sylvester’s pontificate. At an early date legend brings him into close relationship wtih the first Christian emperor, but in a way that is contrary to historical fact. These legends were introduced especially into the “Vita beati Sylvestri” (Duchesne, loc. cit., Introd., cix sq.) which appeared in the East and has been preserved in Greek, Syriac, and Latin in the “Constitutum Sylvestri”-an apocryphal account of an alleged Roman council which belongs to the Symmachian forgeries and appeared between 501 and 508, and also in the “Donatio Constantini”. The accounts given in all these writings concerning the persecution of Sylvester, the healing and baptism of Constantine, the emperor’s gift to the pope, the rights granted to the latter, and the council of 275 bishops at Rome, are entirely legendary.

In the article on Sunday:

The Council of Elvira (300) decreed: “If anyone in the city neglects to come to church for three Sundays, let him be excommunicated for a short time so that he may be corrected” (xxi).

So there we have a formal decree on Sunday from prior to Sylvester, although not a Roman or ecumenical council, but it establishes the formal nature of Sunday in the Christian world.

The same article mentions Tertullian:

“We, however (just as tradition has taught us), on the day of the Lord’s Resurrection ought to guard not only against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude, deferring even our businesses lest we give any place to the devil” (“De orat.”, xxiii; cf. “Ad nation.”, I, xiii; “Apolog.”, xvi).

Tertullian establishes that Sunday was already used for rest in the early 200’s.

The same article says:

A Council of Laodicea, held toward the end of the fourth century, was content to prescribe that on the Lord’s Day the faithful were to abstain from work as far as possible. At the beginning of the sixth century St. Caesarius, as we have seen, and others showed an inclination to apply the law of the Jewish Sabbath to the observance of the Christian Sunday. The Council held at Orleans in 538 reprobated this tendency as Jewish and non-Christian.

So what Laodicea decided was nothing new – it had been going on for ages.  And what Rabanus Maurus reports of Pope Sylvester corresponds with later developments, after some controversy about viewing Sunday in terms of a Sabbath, and is in keeping with the time of the forgeries rather than the time of Sylvester.

There isn’t even certainty that the council of Laodicea fell within the lifetime of Sylvester … and Laodicea is also used by Adventists as the decree which changed the Sabbath to Sunday.  Can they not make up their minds?  If they had real evidence, why are they so confused?

Very little is known about what really happened in the reign of Sylvester, and nothing I can find online confirms this Sunday issue, apart from claims like Scheifler’s, either based on simple unsupported claims, or on questionable history.  (As are the Catholic bulletin clippings that Scheifler presents on his site.)

So Scheifler’s info is second hand, and probably based on legend derived from those forgeries, which were made to promote the authority of the pope.

That Sunday was being kept as the Lord’s Day is well-established by then – in both the Church Fathers and official gatherings of bishops.  That it was used as a day of rest was established in Tertullian’s time.  That it replaced the Sabbath as a Sabbath-like concept was not formally accepted for several centuries to come.  So did Sylvester do anything new?

If Sylvester DID simply confirm Sunday observance, it is meaningless in light of a well-established practice, as it would be nothing more than a mere mention, the way later councils and popes (such as HH Pope John Paul II) confirmed it.  Popes and Councils reiterate things many times, for various reasons, and never are repetitions considered to be an establishment of an idea or a rule.  Unless you really need to stretch a point, which is what Scheifler needs to do.

If Scheifler really wants to make his point stick, he’d have to go back in time and film the events or bring back documents for us to look at.  More practically, he’d need to quote Sylvester, not other people quoting later forged works, or he’d need to show that the discussion he quotes is not based on forged works … and he’d also need to show that Sylvester did more than just mention the day the way later popes/councils did, which in no way established the observance of the day as an official practice.

Your reaction to this post:
  • I agree ()
  • I disagree ()
  • I am not sure ()
  • Awesome ()
  • Interesting ()
  • Boring ()

More from my site

  • Pope Sylvester I – who changed the Sabbath?Pope Sylvester I – who changed the Sabbath?
  • Constantine, the Papacy, and the real origins of SundayConstantine, the Papacy, and the real origins of Sunday
  • What Catholics Believe – Sunday observanceWhat Catholics Believe – Sunday observance
  • Who changed the Sabbath?Who changed the Sabbath?
  • The Sabbath and the 8th dayThe Sabbath and the 8th day
  • Erol – 1 Corinthians 16 verses 1-2Erol – 1 Corinthians 16 verses 1-2
Fb-Button

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google
  • Reddit
  • Pinterest

Tags: Adventist, Apostles, Catholic Church, Church Fathers, Constantine, Council of Elvira, Council of Laodicea, Ecumenical council, Honest quoting, Lord's Day, Michael Scheifler, Papacy, Pope, Pope Sylvester I, Sabbath, Sunday, Tertullian

« The return of Christ
Christmas is not pagan »
Flag Counter

Copyright © 2018 Catholicism and Adventism. All Rights Reserved.
Magazine Basic theme designed by Themes by bavotasan.com.
Powered by WordPress.
»
«