The Wellnes 7 things you should know about the Pope | Page 11

Constantine Made Sunday a Civil Rest Day
When Emperor Constantine I—a pagan sun-worshipper—came to power in A.D. 313, he legalized Christianity and made the first
Sunday-keeping law. His infamous Sunday enforcement law of March 7, A.D. 321, reads as follows: “On the venerable Day of the
Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” (Codex Justinianus 3.12.3, trans. Philip
Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 5th ed. (New York, 1902), 3:380, note 1.)The Sunday law was officially confirmed by the
Roman Papacy. The Council of Laodicea in A.D. 364 decreed, “Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday but shall work
on that day; but the Lord’s day they shall especially honour, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If,
however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ” (Strand, op. cit., citing Charles J. Hefele, A History of the
Councils of the Church, 2 [Edinburgh, 1876] 316).
Cardinal Gibbons, in Faith of Our Fathers, 92nd ed., p. 89, freely admits, “You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and
you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday,
a day which we [the Catholic Church] never sanctify.”
Again, “The Catholic Church, … by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday” (The Catholic Mirror,
official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893).
“Protestants do not realize that by observing Sunday, they accept the authority of the spokesperson of the Church, the Pope” (Our
Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950).
“Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change [Saturday Sabbath to Sunday] was her act... And the act is a mark of her
ecclesiastical authority in religious things” (H.F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons).
“Sunday is our mark of authority… the church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact”
(Catholic Record of London, Ontario Sept 1, 1923).
“As late as 1626 the Jesuits established the Inquisition in Abyssinia to crush out the observance of the Sabbath (see Gibbon, ch.
47, last paragraph, and he says, "The Abyssinians were taught to work and play on the Sabbath"), and has Ro