Sun, Worship of {Ihliolatry). The worship of the great orb which insures to us light, warmth, and life is as ancient as history. It existed in the earliest ages among the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Persians, and Hindiis, and later among the Greeks and Romans of the West, venerating its object under the different names of Helios or Sol, or of Baal, Osiris, or Mithras. Various forms of sacrifice and prayer characterized this worship among the different nations, but they agreed in regard- ing the sun as a mighty and superior deity who ruled the world with an independent authority more or less complete. The Greeks alone did not render higher honors to the sun than to the other gods regarded as of superior rank. All Eastern nations considered it as practically the supreme divinity. The Romans, too, maintained the worship of the sun after Heliogabalus had introduced it and had built a temple to Sol. — Voll- mer, Worterb. d. Mythol. s. v. See Sun.
Sunadi was a Hindu divinity, the wife of Utanu- baden and mother of the famous Druva, a saint who ruled the kingdom of his father during 26,000 years, and was then translated by A^ishnu to the pole-star.
Sundanese Version. Sunda is a dialect spoken in the west of the island of Java, near the Straits of Sunda, and prevails over the third of the island. The dialect belongs to the great Polynesian stock of lan- guages, and the difficulties in mastering the same are best described by the Rev. G. J. Grashius, who studied the language with a view of rendering the translation of the Scriptures as idiomatic as possible. Mr. Grashius writes thus to the British and Foreign Bible Society {mth Report, 1864, p. 30) :
"You will not be surprised to hear that I have as yet obtained but little insight into the Sundanese language. And this is not exactly a consequence of the difficulty and extent of the subject which is to be mastered — no, it is oc-
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casioiied by the form in which the matter piesents itself. Propose to youiself to leani a laiii,'iia<:e which represents itself to you as a sea in niiiiialure, with all c«>nceivuble motions of swelling and floating objects. At one moment you see something, the next it disappears again; at one moment yon think you have got hold of something, and formed a right conception of it, and the next you perceive that you are mistaken.
"The study of the Snndanese is, for the greatest part, made more dif&cult by the childisliness which character- izes the language. There is no by-law in it, but yet such a composition of laws tliat a novice experiences an anx- ious feeling on tirst making acquaintance with it — anx- ious, namely, whether he will [lenetrate with jilea^ure into that childish form of thinking and speaking. The fear which at this point I enttMlained begins gradually ti> van- ish, and 1 hope soon to be able to speak and write the Snndanese well, if God will but bless and prosper my un- dertaking.
"By-and-by I shall master the vocabulary; but in this I by no means hurry myself, because otherwise I miglit easily take things for granted which, by a closer insight into matters and significations, I should be obliged to un- learn. To unlearn takes time, and is very unprofitable for the freshness of mind which is a first requisite for the study of the Suudanese language."
In 1870 the British and Foreign Bible Societj-'s Report shows the publication of the Gospel of St. Luke in tiie Snndanese, and this seems to be the only part printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society, while the Dutch Bible Society has printed tiie New Test., trans- lated b\' iVIr. Coolsma, wlio has also translated the Old Test. From the 1-^th (1878) Annual Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society we see that the Netherlands Missionary Union have requested the Lon- don committee to undertake the publication of Mr. Coolsma's translation of the Old Test., and that the committee have resolved to print the book of (ienesis on receiving satisfactory reports as to the reception of Mr. Coolsma's New-Test, translation. (B. P.)
Sunday. I. Name and Change of Day. — Sunday is the name of the tirst day of the week, adopted by the first Christians from the Roman calendar (Lat. Dies Solis), Day of the Sitn, so called because it was dedi- cated to the worship of the sun. The Christians rein- terpreted the heathen name as implying the Sun of Righteousness with reference to his " arising" (Mai. iv, 2). It was also called Dies Funis (Day of Bread), be- cause it was an early custom to break bread on that day. It is called, also, the Lord's day, its sacred observ- ances being especially in his honor. The apostles them- selves introduced the religious observance of Sunday, meeting for divine service (Acts xx, 7; 1 Cor. xvi, 2), and the opposition in the Christian Church to Judaism early led to the substitution of Sunday for the Sabbath ; and in the epistle of Ignatius to the IMagnesians it is presupposed that even the Jews who had come over to Christianity adopted the same custom. See Syna-
GOGUK.
Sunday began, in 1064, at nones (8 P.M.) on Sat- urday and lasted until Monday. In 994 parishioners were required to attend even-song and nocturns on Sat- urday. In 696 the Lord's day was reckoned from even- ing to evening, but in 958 from Saturday nones till light on IMonday morning. Islip's Constitutions and the Councils of Aix (789), Frejus (791), and Frankfort (794) assign as the cause that vespers are the first of- fice of the morrow. The medi.eval tradition was that our Lord was born on Sunday, baptized on Tuesday, and began his fast on Wednesday.