Well Sunday worship has an origin, but it may not be one you like..
"Sun worship characterized many of the early religions. In the Old World it was important in ancient cultures, such as those of Babylon, Egypt, Persia, North India, Greece, Rome....
Connected with sun worship, the observance of the first day of the week, the sun-day, played an important role in the pagan world. The North British Review called Sunday "The wild solar holiday of all times," and Constantine, in his famous Sunday edict, styled it "the venerable day of the sun."
I didn't reply to this post when it was originally done, but when you later re-posted all of this in another topic I did respond to it. As you bumped this topic again, I think I'll respond here with the points I did there for people who may not have seen the response there (this will, however, be a bit updated with some additional information).
As is often the case for you, though, the post is just a bunch of quotes you copied and pasted from someone else without apparently doing any verification of any of the quotes offered.
Anyway, the claim being made here is that "observance of the first day of the week, the sun-day, played an important role in the pagan world" which is supposedly what is going to be proved by the subsequent examples. Let us look at them.
Babylonians
Bel, the sun-god, whose proper name was Marduk, was the patrol god of the Babylonians. To him they dedicated the first day of the week. Their calendar was adjusted in such a way that the first day of every month was also the first day of the week.
"It is clear that the first day of every month was originally a day of rest and fasting."--Langdon, Babylonian Menlogies and Semitic Calendars, p. 86.
This declares that the first day of the week was dedicated to Bel/Marduk and the calendar was adjusted so the first day of every month was also the first day of the week, the latter of which is necessary for this to have any semblance to Sunday worship, because obviously the first day of the month isn't the same as the first day of the week. But this claim is made without any evidence. The quote you offer says nothing about it. I don't think the book being cited says it either; certainly,
the page being cited doesn't. Your already tenuous claim this has anything to do with Sunday worship in Christianity collapses completely without the first day of the month also being the first day of the week, yet you offer no evidence for it.
Things get even worse, because your quote isn't the full sentence. The full sentence reads: "It is clear that the first day of the month was originally a day of rest and fasting: so were days 7, 9, 14, 19, 21, 28, 29, 30." So even if we suppose that the first day of the month was always the first day of the week (which again you cited no evidence for), it's only one of nine days of the month to do have the rest/fasting! Not evidence of Sunday worship.
Egyptians
In ancient Egypt the sun-cult originated at Heliopolis. The early sun-god of the ancient Egyptians was Re, and later Osiris, who came to be also the god of the dead and of the resurrection.
"Sunday (day of the sun) as the name of the first day of the week is derived from Egyptian astrology." --Catholic Encyclopedia, Art. Sunday.
There's an interesting sleight of hand here; it says the name Sunday came from Egyptian astrology, then tries to associate that with Ra, even though... no evidence is actually given that Sunday was of particular importance to the Egyptians, or even that Ra worship had any association with Sunday.
Medo-Persian
"Each day in the week, the planet to which the day was sacred was invoked in a fixed spot in the crypt; and Sunday, over which the sun presided, was especially holy." --Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra, p. 167.
The issues with here are a bit complex. So, The Mysteris of Mithra is a work by Franz Cumont about Mithraism written over a century ago. There is some good information in it, but it isn't without its issues, such as some parts of it being based far more on Cumont's own speculations than actual evidence. But for a good while, Cumont was basically seen as the authority on Mithraism and thus his claims, even the speculative ones, were trusted and repeated by many. Mithraic scholarship has since moved on from him and some of his ideas rejected, but even the rejected ones are still repeated by people.
For example, Cumont claimed that December 25 was the birthday of Mithra, which led to a lot of people repeating this claim, and one you can still find today. But
as Roger Pearse demonstrates here, Cumont doesn't really offer evidence for this other than speculation.
Still, what do later Mithra scholars say? Looking at a few works more up to date by actual Mithraic scholars, I don't see them accepting this.
The proceedings of the first annual conference of Mithraic Studies (1975) contain
two volumes of essays. Searching for "Sunday" and "Sundays" turns up zero matches that they regarded it as a holy day. Roger Beck, an expert on Mithraism, mentions Sunday zero times in his 2006 work "
The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire" which provides an overview of their practices. The major 1984 work
"Mithras" by Reinhold Merkelbach is in German so it's harder for me to look into things, but I can still do a search. The German word for Sunday is "Sonntag" and plural "Sonntage" so I can search for that. "Sonntag" shows up only once, in a list of days of the week in different languages. No apparent mention of it being their big day of worship.
But what was Cumont's original reasoning for Sunday being their primary day of worship? I have noticed that when people assert that Sunday was particularly holy to Mithraists, they either give no source or defer back to Cumont; as noted, modern Mithras scholars don't seem to accept it (I admit my research was a bit cursory on that point, though). So what was the reasoning Cumont offered? Well, it's asserted without evidence in the English translation. But as Roger Pearse noted, the English one leaves out some things from the original French.
The argument can be found, in French,
here. I don't know French. But we do have online automated translations that can give me the gist of things, and I am actually aided by a citation you offer later. This is jumping ahead, but the Hutton Webster citation at the end of your post refers to Cumont's work in a footnote and says:
"According to the testimony of Celsus, as quoted by Origen (Contra Celsum, vi., 21), the seven planets played an important role in the Mithraic mysteries. The chief position was naturally assigned to the sun, from which circumstance Cumont concludes, not only that the planetary week was known to Mithraism, but also that the
dies Solis "etait evidemment le plus sacré de l'hebdomade pour les fideles de mithra, et, comme les Chrétiens, ils devaient sanctifer le dimanche et non pas le sabbat." See F. Cumont,
Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mysteres de Mithra, Brussels, 1896-1899, i, 118 sq., ii, 31."
This tracks with what I can make out of the original French. But notice something interesting. It doesn't say there's any document that clearly shows the followers of Mithras esteemed Sunday any more holy than the rest of the week, but rather that this was Cumont's interpretation of a remark by Celsus (Celsus says nothing of Sunday himself). Cumont's conclusion that Sunday "was obviously the most sacred of the hebdomad for the faithful of mithra, and, like the Christians, they had to sanctify Sunday and not the Sabbath" (translation of the French) is simply a speculation on his part, and a rather wild one when one gets down to it. Celsus, as quoted by Origen in Contra Celsums
book 6, chapter 22 (the above citation incorrectly says it's Chapter 21), mentions how the followers of Mithra had a ladder with gates, and on the top of it an eighth gate, which apparently showed the route souls could take to get from Earth to heaven or back. The gates are, in order: Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Moon, and Sun, which match up to the names of the days of the week in Latin/Greek, starting with Saturday (Saturn) and moving backwards until you reach Sunday (Sun). However, it takes a lot of speculation to take this, which technically says nothing about any days to begin with, and suppose it meant they took Sunday as the most holy just because the Sun was the highest gate (heck, even if these did provide evidence of importance of worship days--which is quite speculative--it's entirely possible they viewed Saturday as the most important because it was the first one mentioned).
So at the end of the day, this all really seems to just be a
speculation by Franz Cumont that a lot of people just accepted as true and therefore repeated. If it is in fact more than a speculation, then a primary source should be offered saying that followers of Mithra did esteem Sunday as particularly important.
So it does not appear that Sunday was in fact the worship date of followers of Mithra... or, at least, that it was any more important than any other day of the week.
Indians
Among the Hindus, every Sunday was a holy day. One author writes:
"The different days enjoy degrees of veneration according to certain qualities which [the Hindus] attribute to [the days of the week]. They distinguish, for example, the Sunday, because it is the day of the sun and the beginning of the week." --Albiruni's India, II, p. 185.
The actual name of the work is Alb
eruni's India. Ordinarily this would be a minor note, but it does show how the source is just being copied and pasted without verification.
Also,
the actual text differs slightly from what is offered by the quote. It says "The single days enjoy different degrees of veneration according to certain qualities which they attribute to them. They distinguish, e.g., the Sunday, because it is the day of the sun and the beginning of the week, as the Friday is distinguished in Islam." Admittedly, there is little difference in meaning, and unlike other cases in this list where I show that the quotes were apparently edited to conceal information--but it's still an error.
Anyway, this quote doesn't say Sunday was a "holy day", or at least any holier than any other day. It just says they have different qualities attributed, and it says as an
example that Sunday is distinguished by being the day of the sun and the beginning of the week. It says nothing about it getting higher reverence at all.
Koreans
"Buddha is reported to have been of solar descent, as were the Incas of Peru and are the present royal house of Japan (whose ancestress is stated to have been the sun-goddess Amaterasu)." --E. Royston Pike, Encyclopecia of Religion, Art. Sun Worship.
This says nothing at all about Sunday, so who cares?
Germans
"The most ancient Germans being pagans, and having appropriated their first day of the week to the peculiar adoration to the sun, whereof, that day doth yet in our English tongue retain the name of Sunday." --Verstegan, Antiquities, p. 10.
A work from the the 17th century that makes
a vague, brief, uncited claim that they had "peculiar adoration to the sun" on Sunday is not exactly what one would call particularly strong evidence that they actually viewed Sunday as particularly important in a religious sense.
Greeks
"At Sparta on the first day of every month the king made a sacrificial offering to Apollon [or Appollo], the sun-god, and the same practice was carried on at Athens." --Cook, Zeus, II, p. 237.
First day of every month ≠ first day of the week. Also, your quote deceitfully edits what the work
actually says: "At Sparta on the first
and seventh days of every month the kings sacrificed to Apollon... At Athens the first
and seventh days of every month were sacred to Apollon." (my ellipsis just cuts out some in-line citations) Aside from the paraphrasing regarding Athens, one finds it rather interesting that your quote chooses to ignore the fact the
seventh day of the month was also important in this.
Romans
"The first day of the week was the Mithraic Sunday before it was the Christian, and December 25 was Mithra's birthday." --E. Royston Pike, Encyclopedia of Religion, Art. Mithraism.
As discussed earlier, the idea that Mithra's birthday was December 25 was a
speculation that Franz Cumont had, but which is not attested anywhere--or, at least, no one has ever been able to point to any attestation of it. And the idea of there being a "Mithraic Sunday" (at least of greater importance than any other day of the week) appears to have been a speculation on his part also. So it's pretty obvious this source is just taking its claims straight from Cumont. While an older source relying on Cumont is a bit understandable given that for a while he was the main person who actually wrote about Mithra so people had to take information from him, it shows it's out of date.
Mithraism and Christianism
The popular worship of Mithra [the "Invincible Sun-god"] became so pre-eminent in the Roman Empire in the days of Constantine, that he decreed "The Venerable Day of the Sun" to be the weekly rest day of the Empire.
One authority points out the influence of Mithraism on Christianity, saying:
"It [Mithraism] had so much acceptance that it was able to impose on the Christian world its own Sun-day in place of the Sabbath, its Sun's birthday, 25th December, as the birthday of Jesus." --G. Murray, Christianity in the Light of Modern Knowledge, pp. 73, 74.
This has the same problem as the above, but is even worse. You see,
the above quote cuts off mid-sentence:
"It had so much acceptance that it was able to impose on the Christian world its own Sun-Day in place of the Sabbath, its Sun's birthday, 25th December, as the birthday of Jesus; its Magi and its Shepherd hailing the divine star, and various of its Easter celebrations."
We've already discussed how the issues with the December 25 and Sunday claims. The claim of Easter celebrations is too vague to assess, but seems dubious. And the "Magi and its Shepherd hailing the divine star" is wrong too as far as I am aware. One finds it interesting that the quote is cut off in mid sentence, as if it's trying to obscure the fact that it asserts that the Magi and Shepherds are taken from Mithraism.
Still another author says: "The early Christians had at first adopted the Jewish seven-day week, with 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.
...During these same centuries the spread of Oriental solar worships, especially that of Mithra, in the Roman world, had already led to the substitution by the pagans of dies Solis (Sun-day) for dies Saturni (Saturday), as the first day of the planetary week...Thus gradually a pagan institution was engrafted on Christianity." --Hutton Webster, Rest Days, pp. 220, 221.
The first portion is rather irrelevant (it only concerns what names were used for the days of the week). As for the latter, it essentially admits in a footnote it was taken from Franz Cumont, but Cumont's work was speculative on this matter, as noted earlier.
The claim that "the observance of the first day of the week, the sun-day, played an important role in the pagan world" is simply not supported by the evidence it offered. It is also obvious that these quotes were not checked given the errors in some of them, and whoever came up with them originally was not exactly honestly in their representations due to editing (or even
changing!) parts of the quotes that hurts their claims.
