The Apocryphal Sunday

1. Content: The Sunday as a day of rest and a day for worship is generally perceived as one central identity marker of a society shaped by Christianity until today. Nevertheless, it is a matter of debate in several culture clashes nowadays: Christian culture vs other (non-) religious cultures, Christian culture vs economic interests. Therefore, it is important to analyze on a scientific level the first emergence of a Sunday veneration in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. However, the development of a Christian Sunday culture took several centuries until the Early Middle Ages, although already in 321 AD, Constantine had decreed a law to rest on the sacred Sun-Day. The project aims answering the following questions: What was the reason for and the effect of Constantines law? What did it mean for the Roman calendar in general? Did Sunday take over the role of the nundinae? What was the reason for the hesitant Christian reception? What did Christians think of and do on Sunday? What was the influence of Judaism? What provoked the appearance of more Sunday laws and increased veneration of Sunday since the sixth century? Why do we have substantial apocryphal and pseudepigraphic writings on this theme? Have there been different positions on Sunday veneration in different Christian groups? Are there differences between the Latin West and Eastern regions? 2. Hypotheses: The importance of the Christian Sunday grew as one element among other aspects of Christianization and sacralization of the Christian society in Late Antiquity, including holy places and holy people. Especially the sixth century seemed to be an important watershed in this respect, when new apocryphal literature and pseudepigraphy dealing with the Sunday was produced. The elevation of Sunday reflected a unification of feasts that were formerly variously celebrated within different social and religious groups, and Sunday as a feast day arose out of the Christianization of calendars. 3. Methods: An intense investigation with the help of data bases, a biblical reference research and a manuscript network analysis will broaden the evidence for the history of Sunday veneration. The project relies on the scientific and interdisciplinary historical-critical analysis of these sources. 4. Innovation: The history of Sunday veneration is a completely neglected subject in research. In addition, former studies rely on now obsolete decline theories of church life and theology (Legalism, Judaization, Germanization). New insights into the process of Christianization of the Romans Empire, the relationship between East and West and the centuries of the so-called Völkerwanderung or Decline of the Roman Empire have to be takes as the basis for understanding the emergence of Sunday veneration.

The Apocryphal Sunday in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages The Christian Sunday as a day of rest is one central identity marker of a society shaped by Christianity. However, the development of a Christian Sunday culture took until the early Middle Ages, although already in 321 AD, Constantine had decreed a law to rest on the sacred Sun-Day. Based on intensive source research on Greek and Latin texts (4th to 7th century), the research project discovered that the diversity of opinions on what should and should not be done on Sunday is far greater than previously assumed. Not even in monasticism was the weekly rhythm organized in such a way that Sunday or Lord's Day was celebrated as a day off work. Rather, the focus was on the festive character of the day, which is why there are significantly more texts that prohibited fasting and kneeling on Sundays than regulated other behavior. In addition, Sunday practices were not standardized until much later than previously assumed, namely in the Carolingian period in the 8th and 9th centuries. In the process of the Christianization of time, Sunday tends to be at the end point of the development, after other festivals such as Easter, Ascension Day and Christmas had already been established as fixed points. The Sunday represented an element of the sacralization of the calendar, so that the day itself was seen as instituted by God from the creation of the world onwards and as possessing a salutary character for the Christian community. The project has also devoted itself intensively to the pseudepigraphical and apocryphal texts on Sunday. Here, anonymous authors apparently wanted to eliminate the ambiguity of Sunday and establish a clearly stricter Sunday worship, which meant a stronger regimentation of activities on this day. The impact of these texts cannot be measured. However, the Letter from Heaven in particular, a letter allegedly written by Christ himself and found on earth, was widely distributed, copied again and again and has been handed down in many languages. The project has broadened the manuscript basis of the tradition, intensively studied the versions of the Letter to Heaven and attempted to trace its history. It was apparently used time and again in times of crisis to explain misfortunes and catastrophes as a punishment and warning from God. A database (https://sola.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/de) was created for the project in collaboration with the ACDH, where text passages on the topic can be found with translations and brief commentaries. They are presented against the background of a timeline to enable users to interactively access the various texts themselves. In addition, a monograph, a conference proceedings and articles were published to disseminate the results.