The Pope Nor the Roman Catholic Church changed

Sabbath to Sunday
By Robert K. Sanders

The importance of this article is to show one of the main doctrines of Seventh-day Adventist
Church is that the Pope of Rome changed the seventh day Sabbath to Sunday worship, and those
that keep the Pope's Sabbath (Sunday) will receive the MARK OF THE BEAST, when a national
Sunday law is enforced before the return of Christ.

Ellen G. White's (EGW) visions of seeing the Pope changing the Sabbath to Sunday. If the Pope
indeed changed the Sabbath to Sunday, history should tell us the name of this Pope and the year
it was changed.

The Catholic Church claims changing the Sabbath to Sunday but has never named the Pope
that made the change.

Ellen White's Visions of the Pope Changing the Sabbath to Sunday

EGW: "I saw that God had not changed the Sabbath, for He never changes. But the
Pope had changed it from the seventh to the first day of the week: for he was to
change time and laws." A Word to the Little Flock, "A Vision, April 7, 1847", p. 18.

EGW: "In a view given June 27, 1850, My accompanying angel said, "Time is
almost finished. ..."The Pope had changed the day of rest from the seventh to the first
day of the week." Early Writings, "Mark of the Beast", p. 65.

Now if we can show that there is no record of any Pope changing the Sabbath to Sunday, what
does that do with the vision of Ellen G. White who claims she saw the Pope making the change and
those that worship on Sunday will receive the MARK OF THE BEAST?

The Catholic Church Claims Changing the Sabbath to Sunday

The Catholic Church has always recorded their church history which is found in the Vatican
Library. They have never provided any documentation that the Pope of Rome ever changed the
Sabbath to Sunday at anytime in history. Their claim has always been that the change was made
by the church.

Church documents and Catechisms teach that it was their church that made the change, but
they cannot provide documentation when this change took place.
 The Catholic church adopted Sunday as a day of worship, and over time, it took on the
characteristics of the Sabbath being a day of rest. The thought that God did not, and does not
require any day for Christians does not even enter the mind of a Sabbatarian. The idea of no day
being required is absurd in their mind, and is as such dismissed without honest examination.
Sabbatarians resorts to black and white logic; an “either / or” thinking where no other possibilities
are entertained as possible. They ignore the fact that the old covenant that included the Sabbath
that God gave only to Israel ended at Calvary. They ignore the fact that Sabbath keeping
command cannot be found in the new covenant.

This you should note: because the Catholic Church makes the claim of changing the Sabbath,
does not make it so. For example their claim that their church goes back to the Apostolic Church
and that Peter was the first Pope is only believed by their church. SDAs as well as other non
Catholic Christians do not accept the Papal doctrine of the primacy of Peter or Papal infallibility.

The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine

By Rev. Peter Geiermann, C. SS. R.B., Herder Book Co., Saint Louis, Mo. 1946

THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.

Q. What is the Third Commandment?

A. The Third Commandment is: Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.

Q. Which is the Sabbath day?

A. Saturday is the Sabbath day.

Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the
solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.

Q. Why did the Catholic Church substitute Sunday for Saturday?

A. The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday, because Christ rose from the dead on a
Sunday and the Holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles on a Sunday.

Q. By what authority did the church substitute Sunday for Saturday?

A. The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday by the plenitude of that divine power which
Jesus Christ bestowed upon her.

Q. What does the Third Commandment command?

A. The Third Commandment commands, us to sanctify Sunday as the Lord's Day.

Notice in the Convert's Catechism, 'by what authority did the church transferred the Sabbath to
Sunday', and that it was 'the divine power which Jesus Christ bestowed upon her.' The Pope is not
credited to making the change of Sabbath to Sunday.
 I wrote to a Catholic apologist and asked the name of the Pope that changed the Sabbath to
Sunday and the year this took place and here is his reply:

"If any Pope changed it, it would have had to been Peter because the Apostles
worshipped on Sunday instead of Saturday. Acts 20:7 "And upon the first day of the
week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them,
ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight."

The Catholic Church specifically says that Sunday is NOT the Sabbath.

Section 2175 of the Catechism states: "Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath
which it follows chronologically every week". Sunday is the "Lord's Day", the first day of the week,
and the day that Christ rose from the dead.

Ellen G. White's Vision of Those That Keep the Pope's Sabbath (Sunday) Will Receive the
Mark of the Beast

When EGW uses the term 'I saw' she is wanting everyone to know she was a privileged person
and God was having direct communication with her through visions.

EGW: I saw all that "would not receive the mark of the Beast, and of his Image, in
their foreheads or in their hands," could not buy or sell.[ O REV. 13: 15--17.] I saw
that the number (666) of the Image Beast was made up;[ P REV. 13: 18.] and that it
was the Beast that changed the Sabbath, and the Image Beast had followed on after,
and kept the Pope's, and not God's Sabbath. And all we were required to do, was to
give up God's Sabbath, and keep the Pope's, and then we should have the mark of the
Beast, and of his image. A Word to the Little Flock, page 19, paragraph 1, April 7,
1847.

In the above vision, EGW sees the 'number of the Image Beast already made up.' If the number
'of the image beast was made up' which EGW tells us is Protestants that follow the Pope's Sunday,
was made up (completed) in 1847, how then can this be applied again to those living at the end of
the world that receives the MARK OF THE BEAST? EGW used the term 'we' instead of they to
denote the present time of her vision.

 First of all, there never was a Pope that changed the Sabbath to Sunday.

 Second, worshipping as a church on Sunday was never a "papal day." Early Christians in
the first century were worshipping on Sunday long before the beginning of the Catholic
Church and the Popes took upon themselves the doctrine of infallibility. These early
Christians called Sunday "the Lord's Day."
  Third, Christians that meet for worship on Sunday are not worshipping the Beast of
Revelation, nor are they worshipping the sun god, but our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Adventist publications publish that Pope Sylvester changed the Sabbath to Sunday.

Rabanus Maurus (776-856), abbot of Fulda and later archbishop of Mainz,

Germany, was rated one of the greatest theologians of his age and probably the most
cultured man of his time, and exceptionally learned in patristics. Besides, he was a
zealous defender of the papacy and its teachings. In one of his works, he says,

Pope Sylvester instructed the clergy to keep the feriae. And, indeed, from
an old custom he called the first day [of the week] the "Lord's [day]," on which
the light was made in the beginning and also the resurrection of Christ is
celebrated.

Rabanus Maurus does not mean to say that Sylvester was the first man who
referred to the days of the week as feriae or who first started the observance of
Sunday among Christians. He means that, according to the testimony of Roman
Catholic writers, Sylvester confirmed those practices (observance of Sunday) and
made them official insofar as his church was concerned. Hence Rabanus says
elsewhere in his writings:

But he [Sylvester] ordered [them] to call the Sabbath by the ancient term of the
law, [to call] the first feria the "Lord's day," because on it the Lord rose [from the
dead], Moreover, the same pope decreed that the rest of the Sabbath should be
transferred rather to the Lord's day [Sunday], in order that on that day we should rest
from worldly works for the praise of God. Sabbath and Sunday in Early Christianity, by
Robert L. Odom, © 1977 by the Review and Herald Publishing Association (An
Adventist publishing house), pages 247-248.

The above quote by Rabanus Maurus about Sylvester I, is suspect becasue the first day of the
week was already called "the Lord's day" in the first century. Sylvester did not invent the term.
Also how do we know the reliability of Rabanus Maurus and that he was not using forged or fake
material? In any case it does not prove that he was not the pope/bishop to make the change as
Maurus says that he "confirmed those practices and made them official". Very little is known about
what really happened in the reign of Sylvester I.

The SDAs claims are based on second-hand information from Rabanus Maurus which are
probably spurious documents.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on Pope Sylvester

 "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 with 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 from the Catholic Encyclopedia

"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 used for rest in the early 200's already

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.
And what Rabanus Maurus reports of Sylvester corresponds to later developments, after some
controversy about viewing Sunday in terms of a Sabbath.
 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.

This is a second hand account by Rabanus Maurus, and probably based on legend derived from
those forgeries made to promote the authority of the pope.

Sunday was well established as 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.

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 JP2) confirmed it.

Seeing that the Jewish Sabbath ended with the old covenant how can a pope change the
Sabbath into a Sunday Sabbath without a command from God? Transference and replacement
theology is a methodology of deception and not truth.

For SDAs to prove Sylvester I changed the Sabbath to Sunday, you would have to go back in
time and film the events or bring back documents for us to look at. You would need to quote
Sylvester, not other people quoting later forged works, or you would need to show that the
discussion you quote is not based on forged works ... and that Sylvester did more than just
mention the day the way later popes/councils did, which in no way established the day as an
official practice.

SDAs have offered money for a texts in the Bible that the Sabbath was changed to Sunday.
They should be able to provide the proof to support their prophet's vision, that the Pope changing
the day of worship from Sabbath to Sunday and the date.

I offer $100.00 to the first person that sends me the name of the Pope and the year
he changed the Sabbath to Sunday with documented proof. I will be most happy to
publish the Pope's name on Truth or Fables web site.