I think the following quotes from a number of church historians may be of interest to all who seek to know the truth.
“Sunday (dies solis. . . .’day of the sun,’ because dedicated to the sun), the
first day of the week, was adopted by the early Christians as a day of
worship. The ‘sun’ of Latin adoration they interpreted as the ‘Sun of
Righteousness.’ . . . . No regulations for its observance are laid down in the
New Testament, nor, indeed, is its observance even enjoined.” The Schaff-
Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, (New York: Funk &
Wagnalls, volume 4, article, ‘Sunday,’ third edition, 1891), p. 2259.
its numbered week days, but by the close of the third century A. D. this
began to give way to the planetary week; and in the fourth and fifth
centuries the pagan designations became generally accepted in the western
half of Christendom. The use of the planetary names by Christians attests
the growing influence of astrological speculations introduced by converts
from paganism. . . . During these same centuries the spread of Oriental
solar worship, especially that of Mithra, in the Roman world, had already
led to the substitution by pagans of dies solis for dies Saturni, as the first
day of the planetary week. . . . Thus gradually a pagan institution was
ingrafted on Christianity.” Hutton Webster, Ph. D., Rest Days (New York:
Macmillan & Co., 1916), pp. 220, 221.
“The Gentiles were an idolatrous people who worshiped the sun, and
Sunday was their most sacred day. Now, in order to reach the people in this
new field, it seems but natural, as well as necessary, to make Sunday the
rest day of the Church. At this time it was necessary for the Church to
either adopt the Gentiles’ day or else have the Gentiles change their day.
To change the Gentiles’ day would have been an offense and stumbling
block to them. The Church could naturally reach them better by keeping
their day.” Dr. William Frederick, Sunday and the Christian Sabbath, pp.
169, 170.
“The Church made a sacred day of Sunday. . . . largely because it was the
weekly festival of the sun; for it was a definite Christian policy to take over
the pagan festivals endeared to the people by tradition, and to given them a
Christian significance.” Arthur Weigall, The Paganism in Our Christianity
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, copyright in 1928), p. 145.