Sunday is the Sun's day, dies Solis in Latin, first of the seven day planetary week and the day that opens the cycle because the Sun's hour opens it at every sunrise. English keeps the Latin planet directly rather than substituting a Germanic god, unlike most of the week, because early Christian England read the day as the Lord's day and the Sun's own name carried no pagan deity English speakers felt the need to replace. Traditionally associated with vitality, the self, authority and beginnings, following the qualities classical astrology assigns the Sun itself.
Facts
Observance
Observance NoteChristian tradition keeps Sunday as the Lord's Day and the primary day of communal worship, in memory of the resurrection, a practice attested from the earliest post-apostolic writers onward. 2 Observance NoteIn the grimoire scheme of the planetary hours, each day is divided into twelve daylight and twelve night hours cycling through the seven planets in the Chaldean order, and the first hour after sunrise always belongs to the day's own planet; on Sunday that first hour, and the day itself, belongs to the Sun. 3 Origins
Origin of the NameEnglish keeps the Latin planet's own name rather than a Germanic substitute. 1 Attributions
Ruling Planet Learn More
Why Sunday Kept Its Latin Name
The seven day week did not begin as a religious institution but as an astrological one: the planetary hours, cycling the seven classical planets through the twenty four hours of each day in a fixed order, always land the first hour after sunrise three planets further along than the day before, and naming each day for the planet ruling its first hour is what produces the week itself. Sunday takes the Sun's hour first, so it is dies Solis, the Sun's day, in the Latin that spread this system across the Roman world. Most of the Germanic languages later replaced the Latin planets with roughly equivalent native gods, a process called interpretatio germanica, but the Sun and the Moon needed no substitute: sunne and mona were already the ordinary Germanic words for the bodies themselves, so English simply carried the Latin day name across intact rather than swapping in a god's name as it did for Tuesday through Friday.
Christian usage layered a second meaning on top without displacing the astrological one, reading Sunday as the Lord's day in honour of the resurrection, a naming convention that spread through Romance languages as domingo, domenica and dimanche while the Germanic languages, English among them, kept the older planetary name in everyday use. The result is a day whose calendar position is fixed by an ancient astrological reckoning and whose religious significance was added centuries later onto a name that already existed for other reasons entirely.
Sources Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and BeliefsJohn Lindow with Deutsche MythologieJacob Grimm
The Sun's Day in Practice
Classical and medieval astrology reads each day of the week through the character of its ruling planet, and Sunday carries the Sun's own significations: vitality, the conscious self, authority, honour and new undertakings. A working timed to Sunday, in the older magical and astrological literature that pairs planetary days with planetary hours, was considered strengthened when it also fell within an hour ruled by the Sun, the doubled attribution reinforcing rather than merely repeating the day's own character.
Because Sunday opens the seven day cycle, it also carries associations of beginning that have less to do with the Sun's specific nature and more to do with its position: the first day of a new week inherits some of the symbolism of any first thing, a fresh start set against the six days that follow and complete the cycle before it starts again. That double association, solar vitality on one hand and simple positional primacy on the other, is why Sunday appears in astrological and folk tradition alike as an auspicious day for beginnings even in traditions that do not otherwise emphasize planetary rulership.
Sources A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion with Grimoires: A History of Magic BooksOwen Davies
Connections
Associated With
Source De Heptarchia Mystica (Sloane MS 3191), Joseph H. Peterson's editionJohn Dee, edited by Joseph H. Peterson
Source De Heptarchia Mystica (Sloane MS 3191), Joseph H. Peterson's editionJohn Dee, edited by Joseph H. Peterson
Gold, Metals Agrippa's occult philosophy assigns gold to the Sun among the seven planetary metals, the same correspondence already recorded as gold's own ruling planet.
Source Three Books of Occult PhilosophyHeinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Michael is paired with Sunday and the Sun in the scheme of the planetary hours that also names the weekday. That scheme runs through the grimoires, not Agrippa, whose own table gives the Sun to Raphael instead.
Source Grimoires: A History of Magic BooksOwen Davies
Sun, Planets Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Corresponds To
In jyotisha, Sunday (Ravivara) is the vara ruled by Surya, the Sun graha, the same day-lord scheme that gives every weekday its Sanskrit name.
Source Brihat Parashara Hora ShastraSage Parashara (attributed)
Named For
Sun, Planets Sunday is dies Solis, the Sun's day; English kept the planet name directly.
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Observed In
Christian tradition keeps Sunday as the Lord's Day and the primary day of communal worship, in memory of the resurrection.
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Related To
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Sources
1. A History of Western Astrology
2. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source 3. Grimoires: A History of Magic Books
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