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In Sunday: A History of the First Day from Babylonia to the Superbowl, Craig Harline traces Christian traditions and beliefs about Sunday. After a brief introduction to the origins of the seven-day week, he introduces the "Lord's Day." Early Christian Sunday practices were influenced by the Jewish Sabbath, and probably by the pagan Sun Day as well, writes Harline. But there is a range of opinion on exactly why they chose the first day of the week for communal worship. As Christianity gained prominence throughout the Mediterranean and Europe, celebrating Sunday as a special day became "nearly universal."

"Yet it wasn't merely the increased number of Christians that gave the Lord's Day its new stature between 300 and 800," writes Harline. " Just as important was the continued shaping of the day. This included adding 'rest' to the old tradition of 'worship' on the Lord's Day, continuing to formalize the day's worship, and the common use now by Christians of the very term 'Sun Day' [instead of 'the Lord's Day']."

Over time, the Sunday we know of formal worship services and (for most) a day off work, appeared on the horizon.

The trend toward a more visible Christianity, evident in the spread of literal rest on the Lord's Day, was also evident in changes in worship. In the first place, thanks to Christianity's official status after 392 and more free time than ever on the Lord's Day, worship became more public. Services began at midmorning now, rather than at inconvenient hours, and took place in clearly defined churches rather than in semi-secretive houses.

In the second place, worship on the Lord's Day became more formal. The elements and order of services were elaborated even further. Numerous brief statements of belief, or "creeds," were added to services to promote orthodoxy. For the same reason more and more collections of the sayings of safe, recognized authorities were assembled as well, and read aloud during services. Formalizing worship also included dividing congregations by gender, age, and marital status. Another sure sign of formalized worship was the increase in complaints from clergymen about casualness during services among the flock. John Chrysostom, lamenting—even then—that churches were filled on Easter and Christmas but empty on the Lord's Day, urged his audience to compel friends and enemies and wives and children alike to come to services weekly, even forcibly drag them along, as part of their Christian obligation to love their neighbor. And it wasn't enough that people merely show up to church: he complained about young men who giggled or laughed aloud during prayer or sermons, declaring it a wonder that thunderbolts were not cast down upon them. If such indifference was suffered by Chrysostom, whose name means "the golden mouth," then one may safely assume that other preachers suffered it as well.

One way to counter irreverence at Lord's Day services was to grab people's attention with yet another sign and method of formalization: increasingly dramatic liturgy, in the form of special music, vestments, processions, objects, and actions, all set in ever more impressive churches. Since the time of Paul, many Christians had argued that holiness was interior and that God could not be circumscribed in a particular building or place or object: the true dwelling place of God was the heart of the baptized Christian. But now more and more Christians began to see God in specific earthly places, especially churches, and even in the holy objects used within them. Pagans and Jews had likewise established holy places, but Christians gave their own explanation: if God had become incarnate in the physical world in the form of Jesus, and God had created the physical world, then surely other visible signs of him could be found on earth.

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October (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51