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| - Christianised rituals were among the cultural features of the Mediterranean world that were adapted by the Early Christians, as part of the thorough-going Christianization of pagan culture, which included the landscape (see Christianised sites) and the calendar (see Christianised calendar). The obvious connection to Jewish rituals of Christian practices such as the Eucharist and Baptism, is often argued to be by design. Christian tradition places these Christian use of these activities as having originated in the life of Jesus, as attested by the Biblical narratives (e.g. the Baptism of Jesus for Baptism, and Last Supper for the Eucharist), and the Biblical incidents are said to be examples of Jewish ritual (e.g. Baptism as ritual cleansing, and the Last Supper as a passover seder). Howeve
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| abstract
| - Christianised rituals were among the cultural features of the Mediterranean world that were adapted by the Early Christians, as part of the thorough-going Christianization of pagan culture, which included the landscape (see Christianised sites) and the calendar (see Christianised calendar). The obvious connection to Jewish rituals of Christian practices such as the Eucharist and Baptism, is often argued to be by design. Christian tradition places these Christian use of these activities as having originated in the life of Jesus, as attested by the Biblical narratives (e.g. the Baptism of Jesus for Baptism, and Last Supper for the Eucharist), and the Biblical incidents are said to be examples of Jewish ritual (e.g. Baptism as ritual cleansing, and the Last Supper as a passover seder). However, these practices are also present in several non-Christian, non-Jewish, ancient religions, a fact that made several church fathers uncomfortable. So similar were the practices of major rivals, such as Mithraism, and so obviously did they occur before the existence of Christianity, and unconnected to Judaism, that church fathers such as Tertullian and Justin Martyr argued that Satan himself had given the rituals to the rival religions, as a sort-of prophetic mockery. According to several secular scholars, the fact that even early Christian church fathers admitted that the other religions used these rituals, and that they admitted the other religions used them first, suggests that Christianity adopted them from these sources, and the biblical narrative was invented later to justify Christian usage. As Christianity emerged from Judaism in one way or another, many religious practices were initially similar; on the weight of Biblical evidence (such as Acts 3:1; 5:27-42; 21:18-26; 24:5; 24:14; 28:22), early Christians are usually assumed to have kept most Jewish customs, including the observation of the Sabbath from Friday's sunset to Saturday's sunset. However, by the time of the Council of Laodicea, the number of Christians observing the Friday-Saturday sabbath was in a minority; the council of Laodicea ruled that Sunday should be the holy day, and went to the extreme of even outlawing resting during the Friday-Saturday period. It is unclear why early Christians moved to observing Sunday in preference to the Friday-Saturday period, though several scholars have argued that the Friday-Saturday observation became unpopular when the church attempted to distance itself from Judaism, after the Jewish-Roman wars. Socrates Scholasticus, an early historian of the church, argued that Sunday was chosen due to some ancient tradition, though without specifying what the tradition was. In the time preceding the Council of Laodicea, Sunday was the day dedicated by the Romans to the form of Mithras known as Sol Invictus (the unconquerable sun), and several historians have proposed that the observation of Sunday as holy by Christians began as an osmotic process, under the influence of the significant, and historically noted, similarities between Christianity and Mithraism, the other major religion in the Roman Empire of the fourth century. Those who allege that Christianity began as a form of Osiris-Dionysus mystery religion instead sometimes argue that Sunday had always been the holy day in Christianity, and it was keeping the Friday-Saturday period that was a development, in this case happening due to the influence of Judaism. The sign of the cross, a gesture consisting of hand motions that outline a cross, is often considered by Christians to be a purely Christian symbol, though, like the cross itself, the gesture predates Christianity. The earliest form of the gesture in Christianity is the three point tau cross, which was the main form known to early Christian writers such as Tertullian; the tau cross was not completely T shaped but was based on an early form of tau which had a small stroke above the cross bar, though too small to make the gesture have more than three points. The tau cross appeared in the Egyptian religion. Tertullian himself wrote that initiates into the Mithras religion used this gesture, and were marked on the forehead with the Tau cross. The religious symbolism of the tau cross appears to originate with the mystery religion of Tammuz, one of the Osiris-Dionysus group, whose initial T has an obvious significance, and spread from there to surrounding countries including Israel (whence Ezekiel's awareness of it) and from there to Egypt.
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