Beast of Revelation.pdf - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

The Beast of Revelation
planets” were—in week-day order—Sol (the sun), Luna (the
moon), Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. The first day
belonged to the sun.
As so many other pagan themes had been taken up by the false
Roman Church, so too would elements of sun worship, including
the honoring of the first day of the week, as briefly noted earlier.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica records, “The earliest recognition
of the observance of Sunday as a legal duty is a constitution of
Constantine in 321 A.D., enacting that all courts of justice, inhabitants
of towns, and workshops were to be at rest on Sunday (venerabili
die solis)” (“Sunday,” 11th ed.). By this Latin term, more
properly translated “venerable day of the Sun,” Constantine was
identifying the first day of the week with that day which was honored
by custom from ancient times as the day dedicated to Sol, the
sun. Thus, this professing Christian, though still an apparent sun
worshiper, branded the so-called “Lord’s Day” on Christianity.
However, the church of Rome had long honored this day.
Durant states, “The serious temper of the Jewish Sabbath was
transferred to the Christian Sunday that replaced it in the second
century” (p. 599). The original true apostles continued to
observe the same Sabbath the Jews did—Friday sunset to Saturday
sunset. Indeed, the Catholic Church itself proudly 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” (James
Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers, 1917). “The Church,”
a Catholic study course tells us, “transferred the obligation from
Saturday to Sunday” (Father Smith Instructs Jackson).
So this is one way in which the little horn of Daniel 7 would
“change times and law.” And he would “persecute the saints of
the Most High” (v. 25) who would not go along with his blasphemous
changes. In 365, the Catholic Council of Laodicea
ruled, “Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but
must work on that day, rather honoring the Lord’s Day, resting
then as Christians. But if any shall be found Judaizing, let them
be anathema from Christ” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
48