DOMENICA. — From (dies) Dominica, “the Lord’s day.” Debate continues concerning the time, place, and manner in which this day was added to the Jewish Sabbath and then replaced it as the day requiring weekly rest. The opinion is nevertheless gaining increasing acceptance that the feast originated in Jerusalem, before the dispersion of the Apostles, as a weekly liturgical and eucharistic gathering intended to commemorate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which took place on the first day of the week. Rationalists and modernists, on the other hand, have made it a derivation from solar and Mithraic cults; but the facts stand against them. It is true that there is evidence of a planetary week, originating in Babylonia, later passing into Egypt, spreading among the Greeks and, at the beginning of the Empire, among the Romans; it bore a certain analogy to the Hebrew week, which, however, made the Sabbath the concluding day, whereas in the pagan week it began the cycle. Indeed, the d. was called prima sabbati, una sabbati, dies octava, to signify that it had been added to the Jewish Sabbath, as an invitation to continue the religious practices begun on the preceding day. Outside the Jewish world, however, pagan usage prevailed. Justin (I Apol., 67) says that Christians assembled on the d. “because this first day is the day on which God created the world and because our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead on that same day.” It should be noted, however, that the clearest and earliest testimonies concerning the d. come from the territories of Palestine, Syria, and Greece, where solar worship gained less of a foothold.
Callewaert draws direct arguments for the origin of the d. in a Jewish environment from two New Testament passages dating from 54–56: “Now concerning the collections for the saints, as I gave orders to the churches of Galatia, so you also must do. On the first day of the week (οὐκτά μλυστζβάντο), let each of you put aside and store up whatever he has prospered in” (I Cor. 16:1–2). “We stayed (at Troas) seven days. And on the first day of the week, when we had assembled to break bread, Paul, who was going to depart the next day, spoke to them and prolonged his discourse until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered” (Act. 20:7–8). S. Paul, then, would have taken advantage of the customary weekly gathering, which was furnished with a certain solemnity because of the mysteries celebrated there.
The word d. finds its earliest attestations outside the Jewish world. S. John in the Apocalypse (1:10) calls it dominica dies; the Didaché (chap. XIV), written in Syria at the beginning of the second century, says Dominica Domini; s. Ignatius of Antioch simply says dominica (ad Magnesius, IX); s. Justin, on the other hand, says dies solii, in accordance with pagan usage, referring to the day in the planetary week assigned to the sun, just as Monday was assigned to the moon.
The weekly commemoration of Christ’s Resurrection gave rise to many rites. One was to spend the night between Saturday and the d. in prayer, in the “breaking of bread,” and, in some places, in expectation of the glorious return of the Master. The following are likewise explained: the character of joy always associated with this day, to the exclusion of fasting and other penance; the ceremony of sprinkling with holy water before the solemn Mass, representing Baptism administered in its most solemn form at dawn on Easter; and the complete dedication of the d. to God, with the prohibition of celebrating on it feasts of saints, unless they are of the first or second class (from Pius X onward).
The regular celebration of Mass was established, and the faithful regarded it as a duty equal to that still practiced on the Sabbath in the synagogue; it would later replace the latter, while for the Gentiles it immediately became the rite of the new faith. The Didaché attests to the practice; s. Justin emphasizes its obligatory character; Tertullian (De idol., 14) its importance. The Council of Elvira in the year 300 (Mansi, II, 1 ff.) reproached those who were negligent in fulfilling it, and it appears as a precise obligation in the Council of Agde in 506 (Mansi, VIII, 326 ff.). Mass was ordinarily to be attended in one’s own parish church; but from the thirteenth century onward, the innovations of the mendicant Orders increasingly weakened this ancient ordinance, despite its continued confirmation for several centuries by synodal decrees. With the bull Intellecimus of 1517, Leo X partly ratified the new practice by permitting Mass to be heard in the churches of the said Orders; the Council of Trent (sess. XXII) was content with a simple exhortation; the CIC (can. 1249) establishes that the precept is fulfilled at any Catholic rite, in the open air, in churches, in public and semipublic oratories, and in cemetery chapels; private oratories are excluded unless they enjoy a privilege.
The first Christians practiced rest on the Sabbath, but the gradual and progressive detachment from Jewish customs and the penetration of Christian doctrine into the social organism transferred the law of rest to the d.; Tertullian already attests to this (Ad nativum, 1, 15; Apol., 16), but perhaps the force of his words should not be pressed: in fact, it seems that work was discontinued only for as long as was necessary to attend the liturgy. In substance, the law of Constantine of 321 (Codex Theodosianus, ed. Mommsen, 1, 87) says the same thing; it was only at the Council of Orléans in 538 (Mansi, IX, 16 ff.) that manual labor was directly condemned.
That rest was in some manner observed even in the afterlife, through the suspension of the punishments of hell and purgatory, is asserted by legendary documents. In recent decades, the continued evolution of forms of life and the advance of new needs have led to the treatment of the theme—the sanctification of the d.—in liturgical congresses and pastoral letters. The encyclical Mediator Dei of Pius XII reaffirmed the traditional forms: “The d. and feast days must be consecrated to divine worship, by which God is adored and the soul nourished with heavenly food; and although the Church prescribes only that the faithful abstain from servile work and attend the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and gives no precept concerning evening worship, nevertheless ... it is undoubtedly necessary that all should go to our temples, to be instructed in the truth of the Catholic faith, to sing the praises of God, and to be enriched by the priest with the Eucharistic blessing” (AAS, 39 [1947], pp. 575–76).