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Christian doctrine and practice addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius and his adopted sons about A.D. 150 has a chapter in which the Christian weekly meeting is described. The whole chapter has an immense importance for the student of Christian antiquities, but I need only quote a small part of it. 'It is on what is called the Sun's day that all who abide in the town or the country come together,' (here follows an account of the reading of the Gospels at the meeting and the celebration of the Eucharist), 'and we meet on the Sun's day because it is the first day on which God formed darkness and mere matter into the world and Jesus Christ, our saviour, rose from the dead. For on the day before Saturn's day they crucified him, and on the day after Saturn's day which is the Sun's day he appeared to his apostles and disciples and taught them the things which I have transmitted for your examination.' Two points in this passage may be noted. First Justin assumes that two of the planetary names, Saturn's day and Sun's day, will be known to the Emperors, but he does not mention by name the day of Venus. It has been suggested that he does not wish to sully his page with the name of the adulterous goddess; I cannot think that this is at all likely. Saturn also is the hero of discreditable stories which Christian fathers were not slow to satirize. I have been inclined to suggest that Justin was hazy about the week-names, or at any rate
