Sabbath "Remains" for the People of God Heb 4

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A CRITICAL HISTORY
OFTHE SABBATH AND THE SUNDAY
IN THECHRISTIAN CHURCH

(SECOND EDITION, REVISED)
BY A. H. LEWIS D. D., LL.D.,
Author of "Biblical Teachings concerning the Sabbath and the Sunday," "History of Sunday Legislation", "Paganism Surviving In Christianity," etc., etc.

CHAPTER III. THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS.

MATERIAL for the history of Christianity during the century immediately succeeding the apostolic period is meager and imperfect. The earlier post-apostolic writings are fragmentary. In many instances neither the date of the treatise nor the name of the author are known. Forgeries abound. Apocryphal Gospels and Epistles meet the investigator at every step, leading the unwary and over-credulous astray. The stream of written Christian history which runs through the Gospels and the Book of Acts drops out of sight like a "lost river" for a time, and when it reappears is not a little polluted by what has been gathered in its underground wanderings. The best products of the sub-apostolic age are known as the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. A comparison of these with the New Testament shows that they fall infinitely below the apostolic standard. There is a great gulf between them. Since Sunday has no history in the New Testament, its advocates in modern times have labored strenuously to find some support for it in the earlier post-apostolic productions. We will examine these in their order, and at length, in order to correct the wrong conclusions and the perversion of facts which come from such loose writing.


THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME, TO THE CORINTHIANS.

This was probably written about the year 97 A.D. A few defenders of Sunday have referred to or quoted from this Epistle, seeking inferential argument in favor of their theories. The passages are as follows:

"These things therefore being manifest to us, and since we look into the depths of the divine knowledge, it behooves us to do all things in [their proper] order, which the Lord has commanded us to perform at stated times. He has enjoined offerings [to be presented] and service to be performed [to Him], and that not thoughtlessly or irregularly but at the appointed times and hours. Where and by whom He desires these things to be done, He Himself has fixed by His own supreme will, in order that all things being piously done according to His good pleasure, may be acceptable unto Him. Those, therefore, who present their offerings at the appointed times, are accepted and blessed; for inasmuch as they follow the laws of the Lord, they sin not. For His own peculiar services are assigned to the high priest, and their own proper place is prescribed to the priests, and their own special ministrations devolve on the Levites. The layman is bound by the laws that pertain to laymen.

Let every one of you, brethren, give thanks to God in his own order, living in all good conscience, with becoming gravity, and not going beyond the rule of the Ministry prescribed to him. Not in every place, brethren, are the daily sacrifices offered, or the peace-offerings, or the sin-offerings and trespass-offerings, but in Jerusalem only. And even there they are not offered in any place, but only at the altar before the temple, that which is offered being first carefully examined by the high priests and the ministers already mentioned. Those, therefore, who do anything beyond that which is agreeable to His will, are punished with death. Ye see, brethren, that the greater the knowledge that has been vouchsafed to us, the greater also is the danger to which we are exposed. (Clement to the Corinthians, chapters 40, 41. Ante-Nicene Christian Librarv, Vol. I., pp. 35, 36. T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh.)

The foregoing evidently refers to the temple worship. Certainly it contains nothing relative to any change of the Sabbath, abrogation of the Sabbath law, or introduction of Sunday. Neither is there any reference or hint relative to any such thing in any other part of the epistle. A writer who is thus particular concerning the ceremonies of an outgoing system could not fail to note so prominent a feature of the new system as Sunday-observance would have been.

HERMAS.

Next in order is a long allegory, which is attributed to the Hermas, who is mentioned in Romans 16:14. This allegory makes no allusion to the Lord's-day or to the Sunday. Its date is placed by the editors of Clark's edition of 1879, during the reign of Hadrian or Antonius Pius, i.e., between 117 and 161 A. D.

POLYCARP.

Next comes the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, which has been attributed by some to a disciple of St. John, but the best authorities give its probable date as about the middle of the second century. This is also silent concerning Sunday.

PAPIAS.

Fragments of writings attributed to Papias, who is said to have been martyred about 163 A.D. contain no reference to Sunday. Thus three out of five of these "Fathers," Clement, Hermas and Papias, are found to be wholly silent concerning the question at issue. The two remaining ones we shall find to be spurious productions which possess no value as authorities.


BARNABAS.

First of these two comes the Catholic Epistle of Barnabas. This has been attributed to the companion of St. Paul in his missionary labors, and dated as early as A.D. 71. The following from standard authorities will show that such claims are false. Neander speaks as follows:

"The writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers are, alas! come down to us, for the most part, in a very uncertain condition; partly, because in early times writings were counterfeited, under the name of these venerable men of the church, in order to propagate certain opinions or principles; partly, because those writings which they had really published were adulterated, and especially so to serve a Judao-hierarchical party, which would fain crush the free evangelical spirit. We should here, in the first place, have to name Bamabas, the well known fellow traveler of St. Paul, if a letter, which was first known in the second century, in the Alexandrian church, under his name, and which bore the inscription of a Catholic epistle, was really his composition. But it is impossible that we should acknowledge this epistle to belong to that Barnabis who was worthy to be the companion of the apostolic labors of St. Paul, and had received his name from the power of his animated discourses in the churches. We find, also, nothing to induce us to believe the author of the Epistle was desirous of being considered Barnabas. But since its spirit and its mode of conception corresponded to the Alexandrian taste, it may have happened, that as the author's name was unknown, and persons were desirous of giving it authority, a report was spread abroad in Alexandria, that Barnabas was the author." (History of the Christian Church of the First Three Centuries, pp. 407, 408, Rose's Trans.)

Mosheim says:

"The Epistle of Barnabas was the production of some Jew, who most probably lived in this [the second] century, and whose mean abilities and superstitious attachment to Jewish fables, show, notwithstanding the uprightness of his intentions, that he must have been a very different person from the true Barnabas who was St. Paul's companion." (Church History, Vol. 1, p. 113, Maclaine's Trans.)

Also from the same author:

"For what is suggested by some of its having been written by that Barnabas who was the friend and companion of St. Paul, the futility of such a notion is easily to be made apparent from the letter itself. Several of the opinions and interpretations of Scripture which it contains, having in them so little, either of truth, or dignity, or force, as to render it impossible that they ever could have proceeded from the pen of a man divinely inspired." (Historical Commentaries, Century 2, See. 53.)

Eusebius says:

"Among the rejected writings must be reckoned also the Acts of Paul, and the so-called Shepherd, and the Apocalypse of Peter, and in addition to these the extant Epistle of Barnabas, and the so-called Teachings of the Apostles." (Church History, Book III., chap. 25, Sec. 4. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I., p. 156.

Prof. Hackett says:

"The letter still extant, which was known as that of Bamabas, even in the second century, cannot be defended as genuine. (Commentary on Acts, p. 251.)

Millner says:

"Of the Apostle Barnabas, nothing is known, except what is recorded in the Acts. There we have an honorable enconium of his character, and a particular description of his joint labors with St. Paul. It is a great injury to him, to apprehend the Epistle which goes by his name to be his." (Vol. I., p. 126, Church History. Boston, 1809.)

Kitto says:

"The so-called Epistle of Barnabas, probably a forgery of the second century." (Cyclopedia Biblical Literature, article Lord's-day.)
Sir William Domville, after an exhaustive examination of the whole question, concludes as follows:

"But the Epistle was not written by Bamabas; it is not merely "unworthy of him," it would be a disgrace to him, and, what is of much more consequence, it would be a disgrace to the Christian religion, as being the production of one of the authorized teachers of that religion in the time of the apostles, which circumstance would seriously damage the evidence of its divine origin." (An Examination of the Six Texts, p. 233.)

Prof. W.D. Killen, a prominent representative of the Presbyterian church in Ireland, bears testimony as follows:

"The tract known as the "Epistle of Barnabas" was probably composed in A.D. 135. It is the production, apparently, of a convert from Judaism, who took special pleasure in allegorical interpretation of Scripture." (History of the Ancient Church, p. 367. New York, 1859. See also The Old Catholic Church, pp. 8, 13. T. & T. Clark, 1871.)

Rev. Lyman Coleman says:

"The Epistle of Barnabas, bearing the honored name of the companion of Paul in his missionary labors, is evidently spurious. It abounds in fabulous narratives, mystic allegorical interpretations of the Old Testament, and fanciful conceits; and is generally agreed by the learned to be of no authority. Neander supposes it to have originated in the Alexandrian school; but at what particular time he does not define. (Ancient Christianity Exemplified. chap. 2, sec. 2, p. 47. Philadelphia, 1852.)

Dr. Schaff rejects the theory that the Epistle is genuine, and says:

"The author was probably a converted Jew from Alexandria (perhaps by the name Barnabas, which would easily explain the confusion), to judge from his familiarity with Jewish literature, and, apparently, with Philo, and his allegorical method in handling the Old Testament. In Egypt his Epistle was first known and most esteemed, and the Sinaitic Bible which contains it was probably written in Alexandria or Caesarea in Palestine. The readers were chiefly Jewish Christians in Egypt, and the East, who overestimated the Mosaic traditions and ceremonies." (History Christian Church, Vol. II., p. 677. New York, 1883.)

The Encyclopedia of Religious knowledge (article Barnabas' Epistle), speaking of Barnabas the companion of Paul, says:

"He could not be the author of a work so full of forced allegories, extravagant and unwarrantable explications of Scripture, together with stories concerning beasts, and such like conceits, as make up the first part of this Epistle."
In the presence of the foregoing evidence, but one conclusion is possible, viz., the Epistle of Barnabas is a vague, fanciful production of some unknown author, forged at an uncertain date in the second century. The passage quoted in favor of Sunday observance reads as follows:
"Further, also, it is written concerning the Sabbath in the Decalogue which [the Lord] spoke, face to face, to Moses on Mount Sinai, "And sanctify ye the Sabbath of the Lord with clean hands and a pure heart." And he says in another place, "If my sons keep the Sabbath, then will I cause my mercy to rest upon them." The Sabbath is mentioned at the beginning of the creation [thus]: "And God made in six days the works of His hands, and made an end on the seventh day, and rested on it, and sanctified it." Attend, my children, to the meaning of this expression, "He finished in six days." This implieth that the Lord will finish all things in six thousand years, for a day is with Him a thousand years. And He Himself testifieth, saying "Behold, to-day will be as a thousand years." Therefore, my children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, all things will be finished. "And He rested on the seventh day." This meaneth: When His Son, coming [again], shall destroy the time of the wicked man, and judge the ungodly, and change the sun, and the moon, and the stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day. Moreover, He says, "Thou shalt sanctify it with pure hands and a pure heart." If, therefore, any one can now sanctify the day which God hath sanctified, except he is pure in heart in all things, we are deceived. Behold, therefore: certainly then one properly resting sanctifies it, when we ourselves, having received the promise, wickedness no longer existing, and all things having been made new by the Lord, shall be able to work righteousness. Then we shall be able to sanctify it, having been first sanctified ourselves. Further, He says to them, "Your new moons and your Sabbaths I cannot endure." Ye perceive how he speaks: Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but that is which I have made, [namely this,] when, giving rest to all things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead. And when He had manifested Himself, He ascended into the heavens." (Epistle of Barnabas, chapter 15. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. I., pp. 127, 128.)

It is to be regretted that many writers in favor of Sunday have quoted only the last clause of the foregoing beginning with the words, "For which cause," etc. They have thus perverted the meaning and sought to make it appear that the "resurrection" was the main reason assigned for "observing the eighth day with gladness." Whereas, the fanciful notions concerning the creation and the millennium constituted the main reason for such notice of the eighth day. Hence, another conclusion must be added, viz.: If any persons joined with the forger of this Epistle in observing the eighth day, their action was predicated on grounds very far removed from common sense, and from the Word of God.

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IGNATIUS.

One production which is classed with the "Apostolic Fathers" remains to be examined - the Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians. This production, like that attributed to Barnabas, is a forgery, and the passage adduced in favor of Sunday is caricatured into a seeming reference only by interpolating the word day. In support of these statements, we offer the following testimony. First, the passage in full, with its contexts. This Epistle exists in two forms, a longer and a shorter; both are given here:

LONGER FORM.

"If, then, those who were conversant with the ancient Scriptures came to newness of hope, expecting the coming of Christ, as the Lord teaches us when He says, "If ye had believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me;" and again, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad; for before Abraham was, I am;" how shall we be able to live without Him? The prophets were His servants, and foresaw Him by the Spirit, and waited for Him as their teacher, and expected Him as their Lord and Saviour, saying, "He will come and save us." Let us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner, and rejoice in days of idleness; for "he that does not work, let him not eat." For say the [holy] oracles, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread." But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not eating things prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and plaudits which have no sense in them. And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's-day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days [of the week]. Looking forward to this, the prophet declared, "To the end, for the eighth day," on which our life both sprang up again, and the victory over death was obtained in Christ, whom the children of perdition, the enemies of the Saviour, deny, " whose god is their belly, who mind earthly things," who are "lovers of pleasure, and not lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." These make merchandise of Christ, corrupting His word, and giving up Jesus to sale: they are corrupters of women, and covetous of other men's possessions, swallowing up wealth insatiably; from whom may ye be delivered by the mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ!"

SHORTER FORM.

"If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's-day, on which also our life has sprung up again by him and by his death - whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master - how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead." (Ignatius to the Magnesians, chapter 9. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 1., pp. 180-182.)

Without noting the grammatical construction of the sentence, the reader will see that the passage as it reads is untruthful, since it asserts that the "most holy prophets" ceased to keep Sabbaths, and kept the Lord's-day. The discussion concerning this passage in Kitto's Encyclopedia of Biblical Literature (article Lord's-day) is so full that it is here quoted somewhat at length as follows:

"But we must here notice one other passage of earlier date than any of these, which has often been referred to as bearing on the subject of the Lord's-day, though it certainly contains no mention of it. It occurs in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians (about A.D. 100). The whole passage is confessedly obscure, and the text may be corrupt. It has, however, been understood in a totally different sense, and as referring to a distinct subject; and such we confess appears to us to be the most obvious and natural construction of it.

Then follows an analysis of the Greek text, showing that interpolating the word "day" does violence to the Grammatical construction, and to the obvious meaning of the passage. After such an analysis the Encyclopedia adds the following translation of the passage:

"If those who lived under the old dispensation have come to the newness of hope, no longer keeping Sabbaths, but living according to our Lord's life, (in which, as it were, our life has risen again, through him, and his death, [which some deny], through whom we have received the mystery, etc., . . . ) how shall we be able to live without him?" etc.

In this way (allowing for the involved style of the whole) the meaning seems to us simple, consistent, and grammatical, without any gratuitous introduction of words understood; and this view has been followed by many, though it is a subject on which considerable controversy has existed. On this view, the passage does not refer at all to the Lord's-day; but even on the opposite supposition, it cannot be regarded as affording any positive evidence to the early use of the term "Lord’s-day" (for which it is often cited) since the material word it hemera – day - is purely conjectural. It however offers an instance of that species of contrast, which the Early Fathers were so fond of drawing between the Christian and Jewish dispensations, and between the new life of the Christian and the ceremonial spirit of the law, to which the Lord's-day (if it be imagined to be referred to) is represented as opposed."

The foregoing rendering and interpretation are fully sustained by a late writer of high authority concerning Sunday, James Augustus Hessey, D. C. L. Relative to the passage under consideration he says:

"Ignatius, the disciple of St. John, is the first writer whom I shall quote. Here is a passage from his Epistle to the Magnesians, containing, as you will observe, a contrast between Judaism and Christianity, and, as an exemplification of it, an opposition between sabbatizing and living the life of the Lord …. If they, then, who were concerned in old things, arrived at a newness of hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living according to the Lord's life, by which our life sprung up by him, and by his death, (whom certain persons deny,) . . . how can we live without him, whose disciples even the prophets were, and in spirit waited for Him as their teacher? Wherefore, He whom they justly waited for, when He came, raised them up from the dead. . . . We have been made His disciples, let us live according to Christianity. (Bampton Lectures, preached before the University of Oxford, in the year 1860, p. 41.)

Sir William Domville makes the following just criticism:

"It seems not a little strange that the Archbishop should so widely depart from the literal translation, which is this: "No longer observing Sabbaths, but living according to the Lord's life, in which also our life is sprung up." For there is no phrase or word in the original which corresponds to the phrase, "the Lord's-day," or to the word "keeping." In a note referring to this word, the Archbishop says: "Or living according to;" so that he acknowledges this translation would be correct, but the consequence of his throwing it into a note is to lead the reader to suppose that, though the original may be so translated, the preferable translation is that which is given in the text, when in truth, so far from being a preferable translation it is no translation at all. (Sabbath, etc., p. 242.)

This examination of the passage has been made thus full in order to show that there is no reference to Sunday-keeping except by a fraudulent and unscholarly translation, and by interpolation. The examination has also proceeded upon the supposition that the Epistle is genuine. That it is not genuine will fully appear from the following testimony:

Dr. Killen gives the following history of the Epistles ascribed to Ignatius:

"In the sixteenth century, fifteen letters were brought out from beneath the hoary mantle of antiquity, and offered to the world as the productions of the pastor of Antioch. Scholars refused to receive them on the terms required, and forthwith eight of them were admitted to be forgeries. In the seventeenth century, the seven remaining letters, in a somewhat altered form, again came forth from obscurity, and claimed to be the works of Ignatius. Again discerning critics refused to acknowledge their pretensions; but curiosity was aroused by this second apparition, and many expressed an earnest desire to obtain a sight of the real Epistles. Greece, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were ransacked in search of them, and at length three letters are found. The discovery creates general gratulation; it is confessed that four of the Epistles, so lately asserted to be genuine, are apocryphal, and it is boldly said that the three now forthcoming are above challenge. But truth still refuses to be compromised, and sternly disowns these claimants for her approbation. The internal evidence of these three Epistles abundantly attests that, like the last three books of the Sibyl, they are only the last shifts of a grave imposture. (Ancient Church, sec. 2, chap. 3.)

In a note, Doctor Killen adds that "Bunsen rather reluctantly admits that the highest literary authority of the last century, the late Dr. Neander, declined to recognize even the Syriac version of the Ignatian Epistles."

Rev. Lyman Coleman testifies in the following words:

"Certain it is that these Epistles, if not an entire forgery, are so filled with interpolations and forgeries as to be of no historical value with reference to the primitive Christians and the apostolic churches. (Ancient Christianity Exemplified, chap. 1, see. 2, p. 48.)

John Calvin says:

"Nothing can be more absurd than the impertinences which have been published under the name of Ignatius. (Institutes, Book 1, chap. 13.)

Rev. Roswell D. Hitchcock, D. D., late Professor of Church History in Union Theological Seminary, in an article on the "Origin and Growth of Episcopacy," sums up the case as follows:

"1. Killen, the Irish Presbyterian, thinks these Ignatian Epistles all spurious, but is of the opinion that the Syriac three were the first to be forged in the time of Origen [185 - 254 A. D.], soon after which they were translated into Greek, and others were added before the time of Eusebius, who is admitted to have had the seven.

2. Baur and Hilgenfeld think them all spurious, but are of the opinion that the seven of the shorter Greek recensions were the first to be forged after 150 A.D., and that the Syriac three are simply fragmentary translations from the Greek.

3. Cureton, Bunsen, Ritschel, and Lipsius contend for the Genuineness of the Syriac three. This as the matter now stands, appears to be the weakest position of all.

4. A strong array of the ablest and soundest critics, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, such is Moehler and Gieseler, Hefele and Uhlhorn, may still be found on the side of the shorter Greek recension." (American Presbyterian and Theological Review, January, 1867.)
The following conclusions seem to be just and imperative:

1. The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians is a forgery, made long after the death of Ignatius.

2. It makes no mention of the Sunday or Lord's-day.

3. To interpolate the word "day" in the oft quoted passage perverts the meaning, and destroys the grammatical arrangement of the sentence. Whatever opinion any one may adopt concerning the Ignatian Epistles, the fact remains that a correct rendering of the text gives no support to Sunday-observance.
Thus it appears that there is absolutely no explicit testimony in favor of Sunday, or the Lord's-day as referring to Sunday, by any of the "Apostolic Fathers".


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CHAPTER V. JUSTIN MARTYR, THE F’IRST DIRECT REFERENCE TO SUNDAY, AND THE RISE OF NO-SABBATHISM.

THE middle of the second century marks the beginning of a new era in the Sabbath question. The first direct and indisputable reference to any form of Sunday-observance by Christians is made it this time, and simultaneously and by the same man the no-Sabbath theory is propounded. Up to this time, the Scriptures had held the better part of the church to the Sabbath as taught in the Decalogue. Polytheism and heathen philosophy ignored this idea, and openly proclaimed a type of no-lawism and absolute no-Sabbathism. It was a part of the fruitage which came from the corrupting of the church and the gospel by admixture with heathen fancies and speculations. Under the sway of these loose ideas, Sunday, already a festival among the heathen, found gradual welcome at the hands of the semi-Christianized leaders in the church, and final recognition by a still less Christianized form of civil government during the third and fourth centuries. Justin Martyr stands as a prominent representative of this no-Sabbathism, and also as an apologist for Christianity, who sought to soften the fury of the heathen persecutors by claiming a similarity between Christianity and heathenism. The entire passage concerning Sunday is as follows; only a part of it is usually quoted by writers who claim that Sunday is the Sabbath:

"And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgiving, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succors the orphans and widows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For he was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday), and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration." ( The First Apology of Justin, chapter 67. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 2, pp. 65, 66.)

The foregoing extracts will be better understood if the reader remembers that the author was a Grecian philosopher who accepted - we dare not say was converted to Christianity, after reaching the age of manhood, and who retained many of his heathen notions and sympathies through life. The days referred to, Saturn’s and the Sun’s, are designated only by their heathen names, and the reasons which are given for meeting on Sunday are at once fanciful and unscriptural. The passage shows Justin in his true place is an Apologist, who sympathized with both parties, and sought to soften the feelings of the Emperor by indicating those points in which Christianity and heathenism agreed. The following extracts from the same author show that he could not entertain any idea of the Sun’s day as being in any sense the Sabbath, or even a Sabbath. In his Dialogue with Trypho, the Jew, the differences between Justin’s theories of Christianity and Judaism are strongly set forth, and the Sabbath is frequently referred to. In the 23d section of the Dialogue he says:
"You have no need of a second circumcision, though you glory greatly in the flesh. The new law requires you to keep perpetual Sabbath, and you, because you are idle for one day, suppose you are pious, not discerning why this has been commanded you; and if you eat unleavened bread, you say the will of God has been fulfilled. The Lord our God does not take pleasure in such observances: if there is any perjured person or a thief among you, let him cease to be so; if any adulterer, let him repent; then he has kept the sweet and true Sabbaths of God. If any one has impure hands, let him wash and be pure." (Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 2. Dialogue with Trypho, chap. 12, p. 101.)

In another place he says:

"But if we do not admit this, we shall be liable to fall into foolish opinions, as if it were not the same God who existed in the times of Enoch and all the rest, who neither was circumcised after the flesh, nor observed Sabbaths, nor any other rites, seeing that Moses enjoined such observances; or that God has not wished each race of mankind continually to perform the same righteous actions; to admit which, seems to be ridiculous and absurd. Therefore we must confess that He who is ever the same, has commanded these and such like institutions on account of sinful men, and we must declare Him to be benevolent, fore-knowing, needing nothing, righteous and good. But if this be not so, tell me, sir, what you think of those matters which we are investigating. And when no one responded:
"Wherefore, Trypho, I will proclaim to you, and to those who wish to become proselytes, the divine message which I heard from that man. Do you see that the elements are not idle, and keep no Sabbaths Remain as you were born. For if there was no need of circumcision before Abraham, or of the observance of Sabbaths, of feasts, and sacrifices, before Moses; no more need is there of them now, after that, according to the will of God, Jesus Christ the Son of God has been born without sin, of a virgin sprung from the stock of Abraham." (Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 2. Dialogue with Trypho, chap. 23, pp. 115, 116.)

Be it here remembered that the Sabbath is often referred to in Justin’s Dialogue, and that in the passage just quoted he is answering a charge which Trypho brings against Christians, who, he declares, "differ in nothing from the heathen in their manner of living, because they neither observe festivals, nor Sabbaths, nor the rite of circumcision. (Dialogue, chap. 10.)

Justin’s reply seeks to defend himself against the charge by showing that such things were not required of men under the gospel. In this way, Justin shows that he did not predicate any observance of Sunday upon the Fourth Commandment, or upon any transfer of the "Jewish" to the "Christian" Sabbath. He does not link Sunday with the former dispensation by any such claims. In the forty-first section of the Dialogue he gives another fanciful reason in addition to those given in the Apology for giving Sunday a religious pre-eminence. This reason he expresses in the following words:
The command of circumcision, again, bidding [them] always circumcise the children on the eighth day, was a type of the true circumcision, by which we are circumcised from deceit and iniquity through Him who rose from the dead on the first day after the Sabbath, [namely through] our Lord Jesus Christ. For the first day after the Sabbath, remaining the first of all the days, is called, however, the eighth, according to the number of all the days of the cycle, and [yet] remains the first." (Ante- Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 2, p. 139.)

Thus it appears that Justin is at once the first of the "Fathers" who makes any authentic mention of the pre-eminence of Sunday among Christians, and the first exponent of absolute no-Sabbathism. It is also pertinent to note, as Dr. Hessey has done, (Sunday, p. 43, sec. 11,) that Justin always uses sabbatizeiv "with exclusive reference to the Jewish law," and that "he carefully distinguishes Saturday [Sabbath], the day after which our Lord was crucified, from Sunday upon which he rose from the dead." In the face of these facts, it is manifestly unjust to claim Justin as an advocate of the sacredness of Sunday in any sense. It were better to let him stand in his true place as the exponent of semi-pagan no-Sabbathism.

What we do learn from Justin, inferences and suppositions aside, is this: At the middle of the second century, certain Christians held some form of religious service on Sunday. All that Justin says is compatible with the idea that the day was not regarded as a Sabbath, and his silence concerning any sabbatic observance is strong negative proof, of the absence of any such idea. His no-Sabbathism is added proof of this. It is further apparent that since be undertook to describe the things which were done on Sunday, and to give the reasons therefor, that had anything like the modern theory of a Sunday Sabbath then obtained, he must have mentioned the fact. Domville sums up the case as follows:

"This inference appears irresistible when we further consider that Justin, in this part of his Apololgy, is professedly intending to describe the mode in which Christians observed the Sunday. . . . He evidently intends to give all information requisite to an accurate knowledge of the subject he treats upon. He is even so particular as to tell the Emperor why the Sunday was observed; and he does, in fact, specify every active duty belonging to the day, the Scripture reading, the exhortation, the public prayer, the Sacrament, and the alms-giving: why then should he not also inform the Emperor of the one inactive duty of the day, the duty of abstaining from doing in it any manner of work ?

If such was the custom of Christians in Justin's time, his description of their Sunday duties was essentially defective. . . . But even were it probable he should intend to omit all mention of it in his Apology to the Emperor, it would be impossible to imagine any sufficient cause for his remaining silent on the subject in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew; and this whether the Dialogue was real or imaginary, for if the latter, Justin would still, as Dr. Lardner has observed, "chose to write in character.'' The testimony of Justin, therefore, proves most clearly two facts of great importance in the Sabbath controversy; the one, that the Christians in his time observed the Sunday as a prayer day, the other that they did not observe it as a Sabbath-day. (Sabbath, Examination of the Six Texts: p. 274, seq. London, 1849.)

Such is the summary of the case at the year 150 A.D. No-Sabbathisrn, and a form of Sunday-observance were born at the same time. Trained in heathen philosophies until manhood, Justin accepted Christianity as a better philosophy than he had found before. Such a man, and those like him, could scarcely do other than build a system quite unlike apostolic Christianity. That which they did build was a paganized rather than an apostolic type.

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CHAPTER VII. TERTULLIAN AND HIS FOLLOWERS.

THE following, from the pen of Neander, will fairly introduce the next writer to be examined:

"Quintus Septimus Tertullianus was born in the later years of the second century, probably at Carthage, and was the son of a centurion in the service of the Proconsul at Carthage. He was at first an advocate or rhetorician, and arrived at manhood before he was converted to Christianity; and be then obtained, if the account given by Jerome is correct, the office of a Presbyter. . . . He was a man of ardent mind, warm disposition, and deeply serious character, accustomed to give himself up with all his soul and strength to the object of his love, and haughtily to reject all which was uncongenial to that object. He had a fund of great and multifarious knowledge, but it was confusedly heaped up in his mind without scientific arrangement. His depth of thought was not united with logical clearness and judgment; a warm ungoverned imagination that dwelt in sensuous images was his ruling power." (Church History, First Three Centuries, p. 425.)

Tertullian wrote extensively concerning almost all points of Christian doctrine. The following extracts will show what his opinions were relative to the Sunday:

"It follows, accordingly, that, in so far as the abolition of carnal circumcision and of the old law is being demonstrated as having been consummated at its specific times, so also the observance of the Sabbath is being demonstrated to have been temporary.

For the Jews say, that from the beginning God sanctified the seventh day, by resting on it from all His works which He made; and that thence it was, likewise, that Moses said to the people: "Remember the day of the Sabbaths, to sanctify it: every servile work ye shall not do therein, except what pertaineth to life." Whence [we Christians] understand that we still more ought to observe a Sabbath from all "servile work" always, and not only every seventh day, but through all time. And through this arises the question for us, what Sabbath God willed us to keep? For the Scriptures point to a Sabbath eternal and a Sabbath temporal. For Isaiah the prophet says, "Your Sabbaths my soul hateth;" and in another place he says, "My Sabbaths ye have profaned." Whence we discern that the temporal Sabbath is human, and the eternal Sabbath is accounted divine; concerning which He predicts through Isaiah: "And there shall be," He says, "month after month, and day after day, and Sabbath after Sabbath, and all flesh shall come to adore in Jerusalem, saith the Lord;" which we understand to have been fulfilled in the times of Christ, when "all flesh" - that is, every nation – "came to adore in Jerusalem" God the Father, through Jesus Christ His Son, as was predicted through the prophet; "Behold, proselytes through me shall go unto Thee." Thus, therefore, before this temporal Sabbath, there was withal an eternal Sabbath foreshown and foretold; just as before the carnal circumcision there was withal a spiritual circumcision foreshown. In short, let them teach us [as we have already premised] that Adam observed the Sabbath; or that Abel, when offering tc, God a holv victim, pleased Him by a religious reverence for the Sabbath; or that Enoch, when translated, had been a keeper of the Sabbath; or that Noah the ark-builder observed, on account of the deluge, an immense Sabbath; or that Abraham, in observance of the Sabbath, offered Isaac his son; or that Melchizedek in his priesthood received the law of the Sabbath.

But the Jews are sure to say, that ever since this precept was given through Moses, the observance has been binding. Manifest accordingly it is, that the precept was not eternal nor spiritual, but temporal, which would one day cease. In short, so true is it that it is not in the exemption from work of the Sabbath - that is, of the seventh day - that the celebration of this solemnity is to consist, that Joshua, the son of Nun, at the time that he was reducing the city of Jericho by war, stated that he had received from God a precept to order the people that priests should carry the ark of the testament of God seven days, making the circuit of the city; and thus, when the seventh day's circuit had been performed, the walls of the city would spontaneously fall. Which was so done; and when the space of the seventh day was finished, just as was predicted, down fell the walls of the city. Whence it is manifestly shown, that in the number of those seven days there intervened a Sabbath-day. For seven days, whencesoever they may have commenced, must necessarially include within them a Sabbath-day; on which day not only must the priests have worked, but the city must have been made a prey by the edge of the sword by all the people of Israel. Nor is it doubtful that they ‘wrought servile work,’ when in obedience to God's precept, they drave the preys of war. For in the times of the Maccabees, too, they did bravery in fighting on the Sabbaths, and routed their foreign foes, and recalled the law of their fathers to the primitive style of life by fighting on the Sabbaths. Nor should I think it was any other law which they [thus] vindicated, than the one in which they remembered the existence of the prescript touching "the day of the Sabbaths."

Whence it is manifest that the force of such precepts was temporary, and respected the necessity of present circumstances; and that it was not with a view to its observance in perpetuity that God formerly gave them such a law." (Tertullian, "An Answer to the Jews," chapter 4. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 18, pp. 211-213.)

The foregoing shows that Tertullian was a warm advocate of the no-Sabbath theory. His views reveal a fuller development of that no-lawism which appeared fifty years before, in the writings of Justin. Tertullian's ardent nature accepted and proclaimed the full fruitage of this theory, as is shown by the following from another work:

"The Holy Spirit upbraids the Jews with their holydays. "Your Sabbaths and new moons, and ceremonies," says he, "my soul hateth." By us to whom Sabbaths are strange, and the new moons and festivals formally beloved by God, the Saturnalia and New Year's and Midwinter's festivals and Matronalia are frequented - presents come and go - New Year's gifts - games join their noise -banquets join their din. Oh, better fidelity of the nations to their own sect, which claims no solemnity of the Christians for itself. Not the Lord's-day, not Pentecost, even if they had known them, would they have shared with us; for they would fear lest they should seem to be Christians. We are not apprehensive lest we seem to be heathens. If any indulgence is to be granted to the flesh, you have it. I will not say your own days, but more too; for to the heathens each festive day occurs but once annually; you have a festive day every eighth day. Call out the individual solemnities of the nations, and set them out in a row, they will not be able to make up a Pentecost. (Tertullian on Idolatry, chapter 14. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 11, pp. 162, 163.)

Here we have the native character of the Sunday truly set forth. "If thou must needs have some indulgence to the fiesh, thou hast it every eighth day." Such was the unavoidable fruitage of this semi-pagan festivalism, a fruitage which poisoned the church as fast as it ripened.
Certain other passages from Tertullian are much sought after by writers in favor of Sunday; among them is the following, only a part of which is usually given:

"Even in pleading tradition, written authority you say, must de demanded. Let us inquire, therefore, whether tradition, unless it be written, should not be admitted. Certainly we shall say that it ought not to be admitted, if no cases of other practices which, without any written instrument, we maintain on the ground of tradition alone, and the countenance thereafter of custom affords us any precedent. To deal with this matter briefly, I shall begin with baptism. When we are going to enter the water, but a little before, in the presence of the congregation and under the hand of the President, we solemnly profess that we disown the devil and his pomp, and his angels. Hereupon we are thrice immersed, making a somewhat ampler pledge than the Lord has appointed in the Gospel. Then, when we are taken up [as new-born children] we taste first of all a mixture of milk and honey, and from that day we refrain from the daily bath for a whole week. We take also, in meetings before daybreak, and from the hand of none but the Presidents, the sacrament of the Eucharist. which the Lord both commanded to be eaten at mealtimes, and enjoined to be taken by all [alike]. As often as the anniversary comes round, we make offerings for the dead as birthday honors. We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord's-day to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Whitsunday. We feel pained should any wine or bread, even though our own, be cast upon the ground. At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign [of the cross]." (Tertullian, De Corona, chapter 13. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 11, p. 336.)

Again Tertullian says:

"In the matter of kneeling, also, prayer is subject to diversity of observance, through the act of some few who abstain from kneeling on the Sabbath; and since this dissension is particularly on its trial before the churches, the Lord wilt give his grace that the dissentients may either yield, or else indulge their opinion without offense to others. We, however, (just as we have received), only on the day of the Lord's resurrection ought to guard not only against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude; deferring even our business, lest we give any place to the devil. Similarly too, in the period of Pentecost; which period we distinguish by the same solemnity of exultation. But who would hesitate every day to prostrate himself before God, at least in the first prayer with which we enter on the daylight. At fasts, moreover, and Stations, no prayer should be made without kneeling, and the remaining customary marks of humility; for [then] we are not only praying, but deprecating [wrath], and making satisfaction to God our Lord. Touching times of prayer nothing at all his been prescribed, except clearly "to pray at every time and place."" (Tertullian On Prayer, chapter 23. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 11, p. 199.)

In order to understand the foregoing, the reader will need to remember that "kneeling" was deemed an expression of sorrow not suited to the joyful festivals, but rather befitting to the sorrowful fasts. The suggestion relative to "deferring even our business" is made to impress the idea that nothing should be allowed to interrupt the joys of the day. The expression is far from denoting a sabbatic rest, especially since the whole "season of Pentecost" was to be spent in this manner, with the same immunity from kneeling and from care.

Bishop Kaye sums up the testimony of Tertullian concerning the question before us in the following statements:

"From incidental notices scattered over Tertullian's works, we collect that Sunday, or the Lord's-day, was regarded by the primitive Christians as a day of rejoicing and that to fast upon it was unlawful. The word Sabbatum is always used to designate, not the first, but the seventh day of the week, which appears in Tertullian's time to have been also kept as a day of rejoicing. . . . The custom of observing every Saturday as a fast, which became general throughout the Western church, does not appear to have existed in Tertullian's time. That men who like our author, on all occasions contended that the ritual and ceremonial law of Moses had ceased, should observe the seventh day of the week as a festival, is, perhaps, to be ascribed to a desire of conciliating the Jewish converts. (Eccl. Hist. of the Second and Third Centuries, Illustrated from the writings of Tertullian, p. 388. London, 1845.)

The foregoing suggestion of Bishop Kaye concerning the consistency of Tertullian's positions and statements leads us to say in passing that consistency was not Tertullian's strong point. He often contradicts himself, asserting in one treatise that which he denies in another. The first quotation which have presented to the reader is full of no-Sabbathism. In other places he asserts the perpetuity of the Sabbath, at least in a spiritual sense. Note the following:
"Similarly on other points also, you reproach him with fickleness and instability for contradictions in his commandments, such as that he forbade work to be done on Sabbath-days, and yet at the siege of Jericho ordered the ark to be carried round the walls during eight days; in other words, of course, actually on the Sabbath. You do not, however, consider the law of the Sabbath; they are human works, not divine, which it prohibits. For it says, "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work." What work? Of course your own. The conclusion is, that from the Sabbath-day he removes those works which he had before enjoined for the six days, that is your own works; in other words, human works of daily life. Now, the carrying around of the ark is evidently not an ordinary daily duty, nor yet a human one; but a rare and a sacred work, and, as being then ordered by the direct precept of God, a divine one. And I might fully explain what this signified, were it not a lengthy process to open out the forms of all the Creator's proofs, which You would, moreover, probably refuse to allow. It is more to the point, if you be confuted on plain matters by the simplicity of truth rather than curious reasoning. Thus, in the present instance, there is a clear distinction respecting the Sabbath's prohibition of human labors, not divine ones. Accordingly, the man who went and gathered sticks on the Sabbath-day was punished with death. For it was his own work which he did; and this the law forbade. They, however, who on the Sabbath carried the ark around Jericho, did it with impunity. For it was not their own work, but God's which they executed, and that, too, from his express commandment. (Against Marcion, book 2, chapter 21. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 7, pp. 100, 101.)

The late J. N. Andrews aptly describes the position and character of Tertullian in the following words:

"This writer contradicts himself in the most extraordinary manner concerning the Sabbath and the law of God. He asserts that the Sabbath was abolished by Christ, and elsewhere emphatically declares that he did not abolish it. He says that Joshua violated the Sabbath, and then expressly declares that he did not violate it. He says that Christ broke the Sabbath, and then shows that he never did this. He represents the eighth day as more honorable than the seventh, and elsewhere states just the reverse. He asserts that the law is abolished, and in other places affirms its perpetual obligation. He speaks of the Lord's-day as the eighth day, and is the second of the early writers who makes an application of this term to Sunday, if we allow Clement to have really spoken of it. But though he thus uses the term like Clement he also like him teaches a perpetual Lord's-day, or, like Justin Martyr, a perpetual Sabbath in the observance of every day. And with the observance of Sunday as the Lord's-day he brings in "offerings for the dead" and the perpetual use of the sign of the cross. But he expressly affirms that these things rest, not upon the authority of the Scriptures, but wholly, upon that of tradition and custom. And though he speaks of the Sabbath as abrogated by Christ, he expressly contradicts this by asserting that Christ "did not at all rescind the Sabbath," and that he imparted an additional sanctity to that day which from the beginning had been consecrated by the benediction of the Father. This strange mingling of light and darkness plainly indicates the age in which this author lived. He was not so far removed from the time of the apostles but that many clear rays of divine truth shone upon him; and he was far enough advanced in the age of apostasy to have its dense darkness materially affect him. He stood on the line between expiring day and advancing night. Sometimes the law of God was unspeakably sacred; at other times tradition was of higher authority than the law. Sometimes divine institutions were alone precious in his estimation, at others he was better satisfied with those which were sustained only by custom and tradition. (Testimony of the Fathers, pp. 63, 64.)

Mr. Andrews evidently refers to book 4, chap. 12 of "Against Marcion," in which Tertullian, with many strange twistings and turnings, discusses the question as to whether Christ broke or annulled the Sabbath. As the passage makes no reference to Sunday, our pages do not yield it space. It will be found in Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. 7, pp. 215-220.

The lesson which is taught in the writings of Tertullian, and which is especially pertinent to our present inquiry is this. Under the influence of no-Sabbathism, at the close of the second century, the observance of the Sabbath was declining, and the Sun's day had become a festival for "indolence to the flesh."

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CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

comes next in the order of our examination. He died about the beginning of the third century. The quotations from this author are generally made from fragmentary writings called Stromata, Miscellaneous Discourses. By ingenious paraphrasing and by interpolating here and there a word, careless and prejudiced authors have attempted to draw evidence from Clement in favor of a transfer of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. (M.A.A. Phelp's "Perpetuity of the Sabbath," Boston, 1841; and Mr. James' "Four Sermons," London, 1830, are prominent examples of misuse of Clement's words.) An eminent critic and commentator upon the writings of Clement confutes this claim in the following words:

"I deem it scarcely necessary to observe that Clement never applies the name Sabbath to the first day of the week, which he calls the Lord's-day." (Some Account of the Writings and Opinions of Clement of Alexandria, by John, Bishop of Lincolon, p. 413. London, 1835.)

We select a passage or two from the mystical references which Clement makes to the Sabbath and Sabbath-keeping to illustrate his theories. Of the Fourth Commandment he says:

"And the fourth word is that which intimates that the world was created by God, and that he gave us the seventh day as a rest, on account of the trouble that there is in life. For God is incapable of weariness, and suffering, and want. But we who bear flesh need rest. The seventh day, therefore, is proclaimed a rest - abstraction from ills – preparing for the Primal Day, our true rest; which, in truth, is the first creation of light, in which all things are viewed and possessed. From this day the first wisdom and knowledge illuminate us. For the light of truth, a light true, casting no shadow, is the Spirit of God indivisibly divided to all, who are sanctified by faith, holding the place of a luminary, in order to the knowledge of real existences. By following him, therefore, through our whole life, we become impassible; and this is rest.

Wherefore Solomon also says, that before heaven and earth, and all existences, Wisdom had arisen in the Almighty; the participation of which - that which is by power, I mean, not that by essence - teaches a man to know by apprehension things divine and human. Having reached this point, we must mention these things by the way; since the discourse has turned on the seventh and the eighth. For the eighth may possibly turn out to be properly the seventh, and the seventh manifestly the sixth, and the latter properly the Sabbath, and the seventh a day of work. For the creation of the world was concluded in six days. For the motion of the sun from solstice to solstice is completed in six months in the course of which, at one time the leaves fall, and at another plants bud and seeds come to maturity. And they say that the embryo is perfected exactly in the sixth month, that is in one hundred and eighty days in addition to the two and a half as Polybus, the physician, relates in his book "On the Eighth Month," and Aristotle, the philosopher, in his book: "On Nature." Hence the Pythagoreans, as I think, reckon six the perfect number, from the creation of the world, according to the prophet, and call it Meseuthys and Marriage, from its being the middle of the even numbers, that is of ten and two. For it is manifestly at an equal distance from both." (Clement of Alexandria, "The Miscellanies," Book 6, chapter 16. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 12, p. 386.)

His theory concerning the observance of days and times is clearly set forth in the following:

"Now we are commanded to reverence and to honor the same one, being persuaded that he is Word, Saviour and Leader, and by him, the Father, not on special days, as some others, but doing this continually in our whole life, and in every way. Certainly the elect race justified by the precept says, "Seven times a day have I praised thee." Whence not in a specified place, or selected temple, or at certain festivals and on appointed days, but during his whole life, the Gnostic in every place, even if he be alone by himself, and wherever be has any of those who have exercised the like faith, honors God, that is, acknowledges his gratitude for the knowledge of the way to live.

And if the presence of a good man, through the respect and reverence which he inspires, always improves him with whom he associates, with much more reason does not he who always holds uninterrupted converse with God by knowledge, life and thanksgiving, grow at every step superior to himself in all respects - in conduct, in words, in disposition? Such an one is persuaded that God is ever beside him, and does not suppose that he is confined in certain limited places; so that under the idea that at times he is without him, he may indulge in excesses night and day.

Holding festival, then in our whole life, persuaded that God is altogether on every side present, we cultivate our fields, praising; we sail the sea, hymning; in all the rest of our conversation we conduct ourselves according to rule. The Gnostic, then, is very closely allied to God, being at once grave and cheerful in all things, grave on account of the bent of his soul toward the Divinity, and cheerful on account of his consideration of the blessings of humanity which God has given us." (Clement of Alexandria, "The Miscellanies," Book 7, chapter 7. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 12, p. 431.)

In another place Clement sets forth his idea of days in which it appears that he discards the observance of any specific day, and teaches that the observance of both the Sabbath and the Sunday is accomplished by living as the true Gnostic ought to live. Speaking of the Gnostic, the name Clement applies to a Christian, he says:

"He knows also the enigmas of the fasting of those days – I mean the Fourth and the Preparation. For the one has its name from Hermes, and the other from Aphrodite. He fasts in his life, in respect of covetousness and voluptuousness, from which all the vices grow. For we have already often shown above the three varieties of fornication, according to the apostle - love of pleasure, love of money, idolatry. He fasts, then, according to the law, abstaining from bad deeds, and according to the perfection of the Gospel, from evil thoughts. Temptations are applied to him, not for his purification, but, as we have said, for the good of his neighbors, if, making trial of toils and pains, he has despised and passed them by.
The same holds of pleasure. For it is the highest achievement for one who has had trial of it, afterwards to abstain. For what great thing is it, if a man restrains himself in what he knows not? He, in fulfillment of the precept, according to the Gospel, keeps the Lord's-day, when be abandons an evil disposition, and assumes that of the Gnostic, glorifying the Lord's resurrection in himself. Further also, when he has received the comprehension of scientific speculation, he deems that he sees the Lord, directing his eyes toward things invisible, although he seems to look on what he does not wish to look on; chastising the faculty of vision, when be perceives himself pleasurably affected by the application of his eyes; since he wishes to see and hear that alone which concerns him." (Clement of Alexandria, "The Miscellanies," Book 7, chapter 12. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 12, p. 461.)

Thus the reader finds Clement teaching the same no-Sabbathism, and making the same analogies and contrasts between the old and new dispensations, and between sin and holiness, which abound in the representative writings of his time. We have already quoted from Clement a passage in which, as Bishop Kaye remarks, Clement is trying to bring out the properties and virtues of the numbers 6, 7, and 8, the hidden meanings of which numbers he frequently speaks of. Some writers have paraphrased and interpolated that passage trying to make it appear that he is drawing a contrast between the seventh and eighth day. In connection with what we have quoted, Clement's discussion concerning the numbers 7 and 8 becomes too gross to be fit for this page. Further quotations from him are not necessary to show that be belongs to the extreme school of no-Sabbathists, and that his teachings were destructive of all true Sabbath-observance.

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CYPRIAN.

Cyprian was Bishop of Carthage. He died A. D. 258. His views concerning the Sunday were patterned after those of Tertullian. Neander states that "the study of the writings of Tertullian had plainly a peculiar influence on the doctrinal development of Cyprian. Jerome relates, after a tradition supposed to come from the secretary of Cyprian, that he daily read some part of Tertullian's writings, and was accustomed to call him by no other name than that of Master." The passage usually quoted in favor of the Sunday is from his Epistles. He is considering the proper time for the baptism of infants, and says:

"For in respect of the observance of the eighth day in the Jewish circumcision of the flesh, a sacrament was given beforehand in shadow and in usage; but when Christ came it was fulfilled in truth. For because the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, was to be that on which the Lord should rise again, and should quicken us, and give us circumcision of the spirit, the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, and the Lord's-day, went before in the figure; which figure ceased when by and by the truth came, and spiritual circumcision was given to us. (Cyprian, Epistle 58, section 4. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 8, p. 198.)

Such vague, unmeaning mysticism needs no comment. Instead of showing that these writers deemed Sunday to be either a Sabbath, or the Sabbath, it rather shows how much the works of these leading men of the third century are marred by their efforts to find a hidden meaning in all ceremonies, numbers, and days.


CONCLUSIONS.

The foregoing are all of the important witnesses in favor of the Sunday for the first three centuries. Collating their testimony, the following conclusions are unavoidable:

1. No traces of the observance of the Sunday are found until about the middle of the second century. Those appear first in Justin Martyr's First Apology. The leading reason assigned by him for its observance is founded on a mystical interpretation of certain passages supposed to refer to the millennium. The supposed resurrection of Christ on that day is mentioned incidentally as a secondary reason. About the close of the second century, the idea of commemorating the resurrection by the observance of the Sunday increases, and the term "Lord's-day" begins to be applied to it.

2. During the third century, no-lawism and the no-Sabbath theory gain the ascendency in the theories of the leaders. The representative writers of that century teach that there is no sacred time under the gospel dispensation. That no days are holy, and no observance of specific times religiously binding. That the true idea of the Sabbath consists in rest from sin. The fancies of Cyprian concerning circumcision as a type of the eighth day appear toward the close of the third century.

3. The observance of the Sunday which then prevailed was not sabbatic. In the second century there is no trace of the sabbatic idea connected with it. It is a day, some part of which is used for the purpose of public religious instruction. In the third century the celebration of the Lord's Supper on Sunday seems to have become quite general. This was also celebrated regularly on the Sabbath. The interdiction of business and kneeling on that day which appears during the last half of the third century, was made because business cares interrupted the festal enjoyment of the day, and not because any true idea as of a Sabbath was entertained. This is shown from the language of those passages in which such interdiction appears, and in the fact that these same writers plead strenuously for the Sabbath as a life-rest from sin, and not as a weekly rest from labor. Dr. Hessey, in speaking of the Sunday at this period, says:

"It was never confounded with the Sabbath, but was carefully distinguished from it as an institution under the law of liberty, observed in a different way and with different feelings, and exempt from the severity of the provisions which were supposed to characterize the Sabbath. (Lectures on Sunday, p. 49. London, 1866.)

Robert Cox, speaking of the close of the third century, gives the following:

"But although Christian theology had not at this time assumed the systematic form which it afterward attained, there is no ground for saying that the Fathers, or "the Church," represented by them, had formed no theory, Sabbatarian or dominical of the Lord's-day. Often did the question occur to them, Why do we honor the first day of the week and assemble for worship upon it? And to this question not one of them who lived before the reign of Constantine has either answered, with Mr. Gilfillan, "Because the Fourth Commandment binds the Christian Church as it did the Jews, and the Sabbath-day was changed by Christ or his apostles from Saturday to Sunday," or replied with Dr. Hessey, "Because the apostles, who had a divine commission, appointed the Lord's-day to be observed as a Christian festival." On the contrary, they give sundry other reasons of their own, fanciful in most cases, and ridiculous in some. The best of them is that on the first day the Saviour had risen from the dead; and the others chiefly are, that on the first day God changed darkness and matter, and made the world; that on a Sunday Jesus Christ appeared to and instructed his disciples; that the command to circumcise children on the eighth day was a type of the true circumcision, by which we were circumcised from error and wickedness through our Lord, who rose from the dead on the first day of the week; and that manna was first given to the Israelites on a Sunday. From which the inevitable inference is, that they neither had found in Scripture any commandment - primeval, Mosaic or Christian - appointing the Lord's-day to be honored or observed, nor knew from tradition any such commandment delivered by Jesus or his apostles. (Sabbath Literature, Vol. 1, p. 353.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

 

The follwoing from the same source as the previous posts.

CHAPTER IX.

POST-APOSTOLIC HISTORY OF THE SABBATH TO THE FOURTH CENTURY.

IN former chapters we have seen that the current of Sabbath history runs full and clear through the Gospels and the book of Acts. Those post-apostolic writings which are assigned the earliest place show no trace of any practice or teaching opposed to the doctrine and practice of Christ and his apostles on this point. The first mention of any form of Sunday-observance, or of no-Sabbathism, appears simultaneously, and in the same man, Justin, about the middle of the second century. These theories, so antagonistic to the teachings of Christ and the Apostles, did not and could not appear until the heathen element gained control of the church.

Since the Sabbath was a prominent feature in Judaism, the bitter prejudice which grew up between the heathen and the Jewish elements in the church bore heavily upon it; and when the heathen element gained control of the church, it set about the development of theories and practices which would efface, if possible, this so-called feature of Judaism from the church. The fact that Justin and his successors pressed their no-Sabbath philosophy shows that the Sabbath was yet vigorous in its hold upon the church, even after the Jewish element had been driven out. The strongest weapon with which no-Sabbathism fought the Sabbath during the last half of the second century, and the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, was that the observance of the Sabbath was Judaistic. It is clear that if the Sabbath had died during the new Testament period, as some claim, it could not have been resurrected and restored to such vigor by the Pagan element in the church as to make it necessary for that same element to introduce its no-Sabbath philosophy as a weapon against the Sabbath. The urgency with which no-Sabbathism was pressed from the time of Justin forward shows that the Sabbath had a hold even on Gentile Christians, which could not be broken except by continued appeal to man's natural desires for a weekly festival of "indulgence to the flesh," as Tertullian calls Sunday. Viewed in the light of the philosophy of history, the fact that the Sabbath was so persistently opposed, and at length legislated against, in that portion of the church which had been for several generations under the control of the Gentile Christians, is more than an answer to the assertion that the Sabbath ceased to be observed during the apostolic period.

Another important fact must be remembered here. The authors of no-Sabbathism which began with Justin were men of Pagan rather than Apostolic culture. The doctrine was a residuum of Pagan philosophy. There was a modicum of Christian truth in that part of the theory which some propounded that the true Christian made every day a Sabbath. But that statement is rather a description of certain results in high spiritual culture which can never be attained except through the agency of the Sabbath in lifting men to that high standard. Another element of truth was that the Sabbath should not be kept by idleness, as the Jews were charged with keeping it. But the fundamental misconception lay in teaching that the law was abrogated, that men were free from restraint. These elements of truth gilded the theory to eyes which looked with bitter prejudice on all things associated with Judaism, while the fundamental, practical lawlessness of the theory was regarded as its great merit by the prevailing Paganism. Men whose gods were only enlarged editions of themselves, reveling on Olympus, and delighting in sensuous indulgences, were not ready to embrace the new religion until the rigidness of the Fourth Commandment had been so softened that the Sabbath could be put aside, and a weekly festival put along side of it, and at length in its place. But the facts show that in spite of this abrogation of the Sabbath in the theories of the philosophers, the influence of Apostolic Christianity was so strong that the people continued to keep the Sabbath long after the philosopher had condemned it. Keep in mind the fact that neither the Sunday festival nor the doctrine of no-Sabbathism appear in history until a half century after the time when Uhlhorn says the Western wing of the church was ruptured from the Jewish element, and filled with Pagan converts.

But evidence is not wanting to show that the no-Sabbathism of Justin and his successors was not universally accepted, and that it was opposed by some whose theories were far more apostolic than Justin's philosophic vagaries were. Irenaeus, who was Bishop of Lyons, France, during the latter part of the second century, wrote his noted work Against Heresies about 185 A.D., about twenty years after the death of Justin. He treats the idea that Christ abolished the Sabbath as a heresy, as it was, from the apostolic standpoint. These are his words:

"For the Lord vindicated Abraham's posterity by loosing them from bondage and calling them to salvation, as be did in the case of the woman whom be healed, saying openly to those who had not faith like Abraham, "ye hypocrites, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath-days loose his ox or his ass, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath-days?" It is clear, therefore, that he loosed and vivified those who believed in him as Abraham did, doing nothing contrary to the law when he healed upon the Sabbath-day. For the law did not prohibit men from being healed upon the Sabbaths: [on the contrary,] it even circumcised them upon that day, and gave command that the offices should be performed by the priests for the people; yea it did not disallow the healing even of dumb animals. Both at Siloam and on frequent subsequent occasions, did he perform cures upon the Sabbath; and for this reason many used to resort to him on the Sabbath-days. For the law commanded them to abstain from every servile work, that is from all grasping after wealth which is procured by trading and by other worldly business; but it exhorted them to attend to the exercises of the soul, which consist in reflection, and to addresses of a beneficial kind for their neighbor's benefit. And, therefore, the Lord reproveth those who unjustly blamed him for having healed upon the Sabbath-days. For he did not make void, but fulfilled the law, by performing the offices of the high priest, propitiating God for men, and cleansing the lepers, healing the sick, and himself suffering death, that exiled man might go forth from condemnation, and might return without fear to his own inheritance." (Irenaeus Against Heresies, Book 4, chapter 8, Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. 5, p. 397.

We have also certain "Remains" of one Archelaus, a Bishop who also wrote against Heresies. His Disputation with Manes dates probably from 280 A.D. In this he speaks as follows: (Sec. 42.)

"Again as to the assertion that the Sabbath has been abolished, we deny that he has abolished it plainly (plane). For he was himself also Lord of the Sabbath. And this, the law's relation to the Sabbath, was like the servant who his charge of the bridegroom's couch, and who prepares the same with all carefulness, and does not suffer it to be disturbed or touched by any stranger, but keeps it intact against the time of the bridegroom's arrival; so that when be is come, the bed may be used as it pleases himself, or as it is granted to those to use it whom he has bidden enter along with him. (Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. 20, p. 373.)

Tertullian is more noted as a voluminous writer than as a consistent one. He sometimes advocates no-Sabbathism undisguisedly; but at other times he taught a more Scriptural doctrine. The exact date of his writings against Marcion is unknown, although the first book is fixed at 208 A.D. The fourth book came at a later period. Bishop Kaye supposes his death to have occurred about 220 A.D. We may safely conclude that the fourth book against Marcion appeared during the first quarter of the third century. Chapter 12 of that book is "Concerning Christ's authority over the Sabbath," etc. His conclusions are as follows:
"Thus Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath. He kept the law thereof, and both in the former case did a work which was beneficial to the life of his disciples (for he indulged them with the relief of food when they were hungry), and in the present instance cured the withered hand, in each case intimating by facts, "I came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it"; although Marcion has gagged his mouth by this word. For even in the case before us he fulfilled the law, while interpreting its condition. [Moreover.] He exhibits in a clear light the different kinds of work, while doing what the law excepts from the sacredness of the Sabbath, [and] while imparting to the Sabbath-day itself, which from the beginning, had been consecrated by the benediction of the Father, an additional sanctity by his own beneficent action. For he furnished to this day divine safeguards - a course which his adversary would have pursued for some other days, to avoid honoring the Creator's Sabbath, and restoring to the Sabbath the works which were proper for it. Since, in like manner, the prophet Elisha, on this day restored to life the dead son of the Shunammite woman, you see, O Pharisee, and you, too, O Marcion, how that it was [proper employment] for the Creator's Sabbaths of old to do good, to save life, not to destroy it; how that Christ introduced nothing new, which was not after the example, the Gentleness, the mercy, and the prediction also of the Creator. For in this very example he fulfills the prophetic announcement of a specific healing: "The weak hands are strengthened," as were also, "the feeble knees," in the sick of the palsy. (Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. 7, pp. 219, 220.)

If Tertullian, in the above, contradicts his own words in other places, the ultimate test is not between his inconsistencies, but between his theories and the facts of the Bible. Judged by this standard, the foregoing is essentially correct. Incidental proof that the Sabbath, in its proper character, and under its proper name, continued through the centuries, while no-Sabbathism was developing, is found in the fact that Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea, who was a mathematician of repute, prepared a Chronology of Easter, evidently to aid in the settlement of that much-discussed question. The date of that work is placed in the latter part of the third century. This "Easter table" uses the terms Sabbath and Lord's-day in their regular order, showing how the names and the days were then held. (Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. 14, p. 423.)

The foregoing extracts show that no-Sabbathism did not come in unchallenged, but that it was opposed as a heresy, and that the truth was defended on good and Scriptural grounds. There is no reason to believe that Sunday gained any pre-eminence over the Sabbath, even though it did appeal to the lower elements of men's nature by its festal character, until after the time of Constantine, when it was exalted through civil legislation.

No one claims that the "Longer" form of the Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians is genuine. Its date is unknown; but we deem it to belong to the last half of the fourth century, or to the fifth. But we are willing, for sake of the argument, to grant it an Ante-Nicene place, that is, before 325 A.D. Whenever it was written, it shows that at that time the writer taught a just and Scriptural view of Sabbath-observance, and asked for Sunday only a festal character. It was to him the "Queen" of the days because it was a feast as opposed to the Sabbath, the Friday, and the Wednesday, which were held to be sorrowful fasts. In chapter 9 - Long Form - speaking of Christ, the writer says:

"The prophets were his servants, and foresaw him by the Spirit, and waited for him as their Teacher, and expected him as their Lord and Saviour, saving, "He will come and save us." Let us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner, and rejoice in days of idleness; for "he that does not work, let him not eat." For say the [holy] oracles, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread." But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not eating things prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and plaudits which have no sense in them. And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's-day as a festival, the resurrection day, the queen and chief of all the days [of the week]. (Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. 3, p. 181.)

The foregoing from authors who wrote previous to the fourth century is fully sustained by the statements of both earlier and later historians.

Socrates, whose work was brought down to 439 A.D., in his Ecclesiastical History (Book 5, chap. 22) tells of the various practices respecting the celebration of Easter, baptism, fasting, marriage, public assemblies and other rites and ceremonies. The references to the Sabbath in this chapter as related to public assemblies and the observance of Easter show that it still held a prominent and in many respects its proper place in the Christian church. He says:

"Such is the difference in the churches on the subject of fasts. Nor is there less variation in regard to religious assemblies. For although almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, have ceased to do this. The Egyptians in the neighborhood of Alexandria, and the inhabitants of Thebais, hold their religious assemblies on the Sabbath, but do not participate of the mysteries in the manner usual among Christians in general: for after having eaten and satisfied themselves with food of all kinds, in the evening making their offerings they partake of the mysteries." (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Second Series, Vol. 2, p. 132.)

In another place Socrates, speaking of the conflict between the Orthodox Christians and the Arians as to their services and public assembles, says:

"The Arians, as we have said, held their meetings without the city. As often, therefore, as the festal days occurred - I mean Saturday [Sabbath] and Lord's-day - in each week, on which assemblies are usually held in the churches, they congregated within the city gates about the public squares, and sang responsive verses adapted to the Arian heresy. This they did during the greater part of the night; and again in the morning, chanting the same songs which they called responsive, they paraded through the midst of the city, and so passed out of the gates to go to their places of assembly. (Ecc. History, Book 6, chap. 8. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Second Series, Vol. 2, p. 144.)

Sozomen, a contemporary of Socrates, writing probably ten or fifteen years later (about A.D. 460), has the following:

"Assemblies are not held in all churches on the same time or manner. The people of Constantinople, and almost everywhere, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the first day of the week, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria. There are several cities and villages in Egypt where, contrary to the usage established elsewhere, the people meet together on Sabbath evenings, and, although they have dined previously, partake of the mysteries. The same prayers and psalms are not recited nor the same lections read on the same occasions in all churches." (Ecc. History, Book 7, chap. 19. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Second Series, Vol. 2, p. 390.)

The reader will readily see why the Sabbath was not observed at Rome and Alexandria. Sozomen wrote nearly one hundred and fifty years after the passage of the first "Sunday Law" by Constantine, and the subsequent enactments against the Sabbath.

Thus men living in the fifth century, and having access to all the existing material, bear testimony to the fact that it was the almost universal custom of the church at that time to observe the Sabbath. Corresponding with the foregoing is the testimony of modern writers.
Lyman Coleman says:

"The observance of the Lord's-day, as the first day of the week, was at first introduced as a separate institution. Both this and the Jewish Sabbath were kept for some time; finally, the latter passed wholly over into the former, which now took the place of the ancient Sabbath of the Israelites. But their Sabbath, the last day of the week, was strictly kept, in connection with that of the first day, for a long time after the overthrow of the temple and its worship. Down even to the fifth century, the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Christian church but with a rigor and solemnity gradually diminishing; until it was wholly discontinued. . . . Both were observed in the Christian church down to the fifth century, with this difference, that in the Eastern church both days were regarded as joyful occasions; but in the Western, the Jewish Sabbath was kept as a fast. (Ancient Christianity Exemplified, chap. 26, sec. 2.)

Heylyn, after giving the words of Ambrose, that he fasted when at Rome on the Sabbath, and when away from Rome did not, adds:

"Nay, which is more, St. Augustine tells us, that many times in Africa, one and the self church, at least the several churches in the self-same province had some that dined upon the Sabbath, and some that fasted. And in this difference it stood a long time together, till, in the end, the Roman church obtained the cause, and Saturday became a fast almost through all the parts of the Western world. I say of the Western world, and of that alone; the Eastern churches being so far from altering their ancient custom, that, in the sixth Council of Constantinople, Anno, 692, they did admonish those of Rome to forbear fasting on that day, upon pain of censure." (Hist. of the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 2, sec. 3.)

King, discussing the passage from Ignatius, of which we have spoken, on page 16 ff, says:
"So that their not Sabbatizing did not exclude their keeping of the Lord's-day, nor the Christian, but only the Judaical observance of the Sabbath, or seventh day; for the Eastern churches, in compliance with the Jewish converts, who were numerous in those parts, performed on the seventh day the same public religious services that they did on the first day, observing both the one and the other, as a festival. Whence Origen enumerates Saturday as one of the four feasts solemnized in his time, though, on the contrary, some of the Western churches, that they might not seem to Judaize, fasted on Saturday. So that, besides the Lord's-day, Saturday was an usual season whereon many churches solomnized their religious services. ("Primitive Church," first published 1691, pp. 126, 127.)

An old work on the "Morality of the Fourth Commandment," by William Twisse, D. D., has the following:

"Yet, for some hundred years in the primitive church, not the Lord's-day only, but the seventh day also, was religiously observed, not by Ebion and Cerinthus only, but by pious Christians also, as Baronius writeth, and Gomarus confesseth, and Rivert also. (P. 9, London, 1641.)

"A Learned Treatise of the Sabbath," by Edward Brerewood, Professor in Gresham College, London, has the following:

"And especially because it is certain (and little do you know of the ancient condition of the church if you know it not) that the ancient Sabbath did remain and was observed (together with the celebration of the Lord's-day) by the Christians of the East Church, above three hundred years after our Saviour's death." (P. 77, London, 1630.)

The learned Joseph Bingham, says:
"We also find in ancient writers frequent mention made of religious assemblies on the Saturday, or seventh day of the week, which was the Jewish Sabbath. It is not easy to tell either the original of this practice, or the reasons of it, because the writers of the first ages are altogether silent about it. In the Latin churches [excepting Milan] it was kept as a fast; but in all the Greek churches, as a festival; I consider it here only as a day of public divine service, on which, as the authors who mention it assure us, all the same offices were performed as were used to be on the Lord's-day. For Athanasius, who is one of the first that mentions it, says: They met on the Sabbath, not that they were infected with Judaism, but to worship Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath. And Timotheus, one of his successors in the See of Alexandria, says, the communion was administered on this day, as on the Lord's-day. Which were the only days in the week that the Communion was received by the Christians of his time at Alexandria. Socrates is a little more particular about the service; for he says: In their assemblies on this day they celebrated the communion; only the churches of Egypt and Thebais differed in this from the rest of the world, and even from their neighbors at Alexandria, that they had the communion at evening service. In another place, speaking of the churches of Constantinople, in the time of Chrysostom, he reckons Saturday and Lord's-day, the two great weekly festivals, on which they always held church assemblies. And Cassian takes notice of the Egyptian churches that among them the service of the Lord's-day and the Sabbath, was always the same; for they had the lessons then read out of the New Testament only, one out of the Gospels; and the other out of the Epistles or the Acts of the Apostles; whereas, on other days they had them partly out of the Old Testament, and partly out of the New. In another place be observes that in the monasteries of Egypt and Thebais, they had no public assemblies on other days, besides morning and evening, except upon Saturday and the Lord's-day, when they met at, three o'clock, that is, nine in the morning, to celebrate the Communion. (Antiquities of the Christian Church, Book 13, chap. 9, see. 3.)

William Cave, D. D., in a work entitled "Primitive Christianity," testifies as follows:

"Next to the Lord's-day, the Sabbath, or Saturday, for so the word Sabbatum is constantly used in the writings of the fathers when speaking of it as it relates to Christians, was held by them in great veneration, and especially in the Eastern parts, honored with all the public solemnities of religion. For which we are to know, that the Gospel in those parts mainly prevailing amongst the Jews, they being generally the first converts to the Christian faith, they still retained a mighty reverence for the Mosaic institutions, and especially for the Sabbath, as that which had been appointed by God himself (as the memorial of his rest from the work of creation) settled by their great master Moses and celebrated by their ancestors for so many ages as the solemn day of their public worship, and were therefore very loth that it should be wholly antiquated and laid aside. . . . Hence they usually had most parts of divine service performed upon that day; they met together for public prayers, for reading the Scriptures, celebration of the Sacraments, and such like duties. This is plain, not only from some passages in Ignatius, and Clemens, his Constitutions, but from writers of more unquestionable credit and authority. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria tells us that they assemble on Saturdays, not that they were infected with Judaism, but only to worship Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath; and Socrates speaking of the usual times of their public meeting, calls the Sabbath and the Lord's-day, the weekly festivals on which the congregation was wont to meet in the church for the performance of divine services. Therefore the council of Laodicea amongst other things decreed (Can.16), that upon Saturdays the gospels and other scriptures should be read. . . . Upon this day also, as well as upon Sunday, all fasts were severely prohibited (an infallible argument they counted it a festival day) one Saturday in the year only excepted, viz.: that before Easter day, which was always observed as a solemn fast; things so commonly known as to need no proof. . . . Thus stood the case in the Eastern church; in those in the West we find it somewhat different. Amongst them it was not observed as a religious festival, but kept as a constant fast. The reason whereof (as it is given by Pope Innocent, in an epistle to the Bishop of Eugubium, where he treats of this very case) seems most probable. "If (says he) we commemorate Christ's resurrection, not only at Easter, but every Lord's-day, and fast upon Friday because it was the day of his passion, we ought not to pass by Saturday, which is the middle time between the days of grief and joy; the apostles themselves spending those two days, (viz.) Friday and the Sabbath, in great sorrow and heaviness; and he thinks no doubt ought to be made, but that the apostles fasted upon those two days; whence the church had a tradition, that the sacraments were not to be administered on those days, and therefore concludes that every Saturday, or Sabbath, ought to be kept a fast. To the same purpose the council of Illiberis ordained that a Saturday festival was an error that ought to be reformed, and that men ought to fast on every Sabbath. But, though this seems to have been the general practice, yet it did not obtain in all places of the West alike. In Italy itself, it was otherwise at Milan, where Saturday was a festival; and it is said in the life of Saint Ambrose, who was bishop of that See, that he constantly dined as well upon Saturday as the Lord's-day, and used also upon that day to preach to the people. (P. 117-119, Oxford, 1846.)

Dr. Charles Hase says:

"The Roman church regarded Saturday as a fast day in direct opposition to those who regarded it is a Sabbath. (History of the Christian Church, p. 67, paragraph 69, New York, 1855.)
Rev. James Cragie Robertson states that:
"In memory of our Lord's betrayal and crucifixion the fourth and sixth days of each week were kept as fasts, by abstaining from food until the hour at which he gave up the Ghost, the ninth hour, or 3 P.M. In the manner of observing the seventh day the Eastern church differed from the Western. The Orientals, influenced by the neighborhood of the Jews, and by the ideas of Jewish converts, regarded it as a continuation of the Mosaic Sabbath, and celebrated it almost in the same manner as the Lord's-day; while their brethren in the West - although not until after the time of Tertullian, extended to it the fast of the preceding day. (History of the Church, p. 158, London. 1854.)

Rev. Philip Schaff bears the following testimony:

"The observance of the Sabbath among the Jewish Christians gradually ceased. Yet the Eastern church to this day marks the seventh day of the week (excepting only the Easter Sabbath) by omitting fasting, and by standing in prayer; while the Latin church, in direct opposition to Judaism, made Saturday a fast day. The controversy on this point began as early as the end of the second century. Wednesday, and especially Friday, were devoted to the weekly commemoration of the sufferings and death of the Lord, and observed as days of penance, or watch days, and half fasting, (which lasted till three o'clock in the afternoon.) (History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, p. 205. New York 1883.)

Neander recognizes the observance of the Sabbath by the church in general during the first three centuries:

"In the Western churches, particularly the Roman, where opposition to Judaism was the prevailing tendency, this very opposition produced the custom of celebrating the Saturday in particular as a fast day. This difference in customs would of course be striking where members of the Oriental church spent their Sabbath-day in the Western church." (History of the Christian religion and church, during the first three centuries, p. 186, Rose's translation. Nearly the same language is used in his General History, Vol. 1, P. 298, Torrey's translation.)

Gieseler bears the following testimony:
"While the Christians of Palestine, who kept the whole Jewish law, celebrated of course all the Jewish festivals, the heathen converts observed only the Sabbath, and, in remembrance of the closing scenes of our Saviour's life, the Passover though without the Jewish superstitions. Besides these, the Sunday, as the day of our Saviour's resurrection, was devoted to religious worship. (Church History, Apostolic Age to A. D. 70, sec. 29.)

In the prolegomena to the "Institutes of John Cassian," which were written about 420 A.D., we find an incidental reference to the practice of the Monks of that time which shows the observance of the Sabbath up to the end of the first quarter of the fifth century even in the Western church. These are the words:
"He was an aged priest who had lived for years the life of an Anchorite, only leaving his cell for the purpose of going to the church, which was five miles off, on Saturday and Sunday, and returning with a large bucket of water on his shoulders to last him for the week. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Second Series, Vol. 11, p. 187.)

Gregory the Great gives us a glimpse of the position which the Sabbath and Sunday occupied at Rome when he was Pope. He was ordained Sept. 3, 590 A.D., and held the office about fifteen years. The Epistle quoted below dates from the year 602-3 A. D. The first Epistle of Book 13 is addressed "To the Roman Citizens" as follows:
"Gregory, servant of the servants of God, to his most beloved sons the Roman citizens. It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the Sabbath-day. What else can I call these but preachers of Antichrist, who, when he comes, will cause the Sabbath-day is well as the Lord's-day to be kept free from all work. For, because he pretends to die and rise again, he wishes the Lord's-day to be kept in reverence; and, because be compels the people to Judaize that be may bring back the outward rite of the law, and subject the perfidy of the Jews to himself, he wishes the Sabbath to be observed.

For this which is said by the prophet, ye shall bring in no burden through your gates on the Sabbath-day (Jer. 17:24), could be held to as long as it was lawful for the law to be observed according to the letter. But after that the grace of Almighty God, our Lord Jesus Christ has appeared, the commandments of the law which were spoken figuratively cannot be kept according to the letter. For, if anyone says that this about the Sabbath is to be kept, he must needs say that carnal sacrifices are to be offered; he must say too that the commandment about the circumcision of the body is still to be retained. But let him hear the Apostle Paul saying in opposition to him. If ye be circumcised, Christ profiteth you nothing. (Gal. 5: 2.)

We therefore accept spiritually, and hold spiritually this which is written about the Sabbath. For the Sabbath means rest. But we have the true Sabbath in our Redeemer Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. And who so acknowledges the light of faith in Him, if he draws the sins of concupiscence through his eyes into his soul, he introduces burdens through the gates on the Sabbath-day. We introduce, then, no burden through the gates on the Sabbath-day if we draw no weights of sin through the bodily senses to the soul. For we read that the same our Lord and Redeemer did many works on the Sabbath-day, so that he reproved the Jews, saying, Which of you doth not loose his ox or his ass on the Sabbath-day, and lead him away to watering. (Luke 13:15?) If, then, the very Truth in person commanded that the Sabbath should not be kept according to the letter, whoso keeps the rest of the Sabbath according to the letter of the law, whom else does he contradict but the Truth himself?

Another thing also has been brought to my knowledge; namely that it has been preached to you by perverse men that no one ought to wash on the Lords-day. And indeed if anyone craves to wash for luxury and pleasure, neither on any other day do we allow this to be done. But if it is for bodily need, neither on the Lord's-day do we forbid it. For it is written, No man ever hated his own flesh but nourisheth it and cherisheth it. (Ephe. 5: 29.) And again it is written, Make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. (Romans 13:14.) He, then, who forbids provision for the flesh in the lusts thereof certainly allows it in the needs thereof. For, if it is sin to wash the body on the Lord's-day, neither ought the face to be washed on that day. But if this is allowed for a part of the body, why is it denied for the whole body when need requires? On the Lord's-day, however, there should be a cessation of earthly labor, and attention given in every way to prayers so that if anything is done negligently during the six days, it may be expiated by supplications on the day of the Lord's resurrection. (Epistles, Book 13, Epistle 1, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Second Series, Vol. 13, p. 92.)

Thus appears an unbroken chain of evidence, showing that the Sabbath was generally observed by the Christian church for centuries after Christ. Its decline was more rapid in the Western or Romanized branch of the church, where it was made a sorrowful fast, and where no-Sabbathism was pushed to the front. The Eastern church, less corrupted by Romish influences, retained the Sabbath more nearly after the New Testament conception. Let it be borne in mind also that the writers quoted in this chapter wrote after the rupture between the Jewish and the Pagan elements in the church, which began to occur at the opening of the second century. The evidence here presented shows that even in the West the Sabbath continued to hold its place as late as the seventh century, although condemned by the Catholic church and legislated against. With such facts within the reach of every student of the Sabbath question, it is difficult to understand how men can repeat the assertion so frequently made, that the Sabbath was not observed by Christians after the resurrection of Christ. Inexcusable ignorance, or worse, is the only explanation in such a case.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

 

More from the same source.

CONSTITUTIONS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES.

The question of their date, authorship, etc., is stated by the Encyclopedia Britannica as follows:

"According to some authors, they are first quoted in the Acts of the Synod of Constantinople, in 394 A.D., and in those of the Synods of Ephesus and Chalcedon, in 431 and 451 A.D. Some have said that they are mentioned in the Decretum de libris recipiendis, issued by Pope Gelasius, (492 - 496 A.D.) while others have pointed out that the name occurs in those manuscripts only which have the decree of Hormisdas, (514 - 523). Perhaps the soundest decision is, that the collection is not mentioned in history until about the end of the 5th century; it is undoubted that it was in existence before the beginning of the sixth, for the Latin translation of the first fifty canons dates from the year 500 A.D. (Vol. 2, p. 170, American Reprint, 9th edition.)

Dr. Hessey speaks of the Constitutions as follows:

"I have delayed until now the consideration of the remarkable document called the "Apostolic Constitutions." It is impossible, for many reasons to suppose that it was written by Clemens Romanus. And its whole tone, and its preceptive manner, and the state of things to which it alludes, make the notion of its being even an Ante-Nicene collection very questionable. It is probably to be relegated to the latter part of the fourth or the earlier part of the fifth century. (Lectures on Sunday, p. 76.)

In his note, 203, Hessev quotes Lardner in favor of the date as given by him. In Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. 17, page 4, of Introductory Notice of Constitutions, we find this:

"Modern critics are equally at sea in determining the date of the collections of canons given at the end of the eighth book. Most believe that some of them belong to the Apostolic Age, while others are of a comparatively late date."

The safest conclusion seems to be this. The Constitutions describe a state of things which came about gradually between the third and sixth centuries, and are of value as collateral historic evidence; as such, the references to the Sabbath question are given below. Book I., which is "Concerning the Laity," does not refer to the question. Book II. treats of "Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons." In this are the following references to the question under consideration. Chapter 36 treats of the Ten Commandments as follows:

"Have before thine eyes the fear of God, and always remember the Ten Commandments of God - to love the one and only Lord God with all thy strength, to give no heed to idols, or any other beings, as being lifeless gods, or irrational beings or demons. Consider the manifold workmanship of God, which received its beginning through Christ. Thou shalt observe the Sabbath, on account of him who ceased from his work of creation, but ceased not from his work of providence: it is a rest for meditation of the law, not for idleness of the hands." (Ante-Nicene Lib., Vol. 17, pp. 65, 66, of Apostolic Constitutions.)

Nothing is said in this chapter about any observance of Sunday. In accepting the idea that Christians should not go to law before unbelievers, there is reference to a custom by which the Bishop, Presbyters and Deacons heard and decided questions of difference between brethren. Several chapters are occupied in giving directions concerning such adjudications. The 47th chapter indicates that such courts were held on the Sabbath and on the Sunday. The instructions are as follows:

"Let your judicatures be held on the second day of the week, that if any controversy arise about your sentence, having an interval till the Sabbath, you may be able to set the controversy right, and to reduce those to peace who have the contests one with another, against the Lord's-day." (Ante-Nicene Lib., Vol. 17, p. 75), of Apostolic Constitutions.)

Chapter 59 gives directions concerning public assemblies in the following words:
"When thou instructest the people, Oh Bishop, command and exhort them to come constantly to church morning and evening every day, and by no means to forsake it on any account, but to assemble together continually. . . . Be not careless of yourselves, neither deprive your Saviour of his own members, neither divide his body nor disperse his members, neither prefer the occasions of this life to the Word of God; but assemble yourselves together every day, morning and evening, singing psalms and praying in the Lord's house, in the morning singing the sixty-second Psalm, and in the evening the hundred and fortieth, but principally on the Sabbath-day. And on the day of our Lord's resurrection, which is the Lord's-day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that made the universe by Jesus, and sent him to us, and condescended to let him suffer, and raised him from the dead. Otherwise what apology will he make to God who does not assemble on that day to hear the saving word concerning the resurrection, on which we pray thrice standing, in memory of him who arose in three days, in which is performed the reading of the prophets, the preaching of the gospel, the oblation of the sacrifice, the gift of the holy food." (Ante-Nicene Lib., Vol. 18, pp. 87, 88, of Apostolic Constitutions.)

Book III., " Concerning Widows; " and Book IV., "Concerning Orphans," are silent on the Sabbath question. Book V., See. 18, is "On Feast Days and Fast Days;" chapter 18 is as follows:

"Do you, therefore, fast on the days of the passover, beginning from the second day of the week until the preparation, and the Sabbath, six days, making use of only bread, and salt and herbs and water for your drink; but do you abstain on these days from wine and flesh, for they are days of lamentation and not of feasting. Do ye who are able fast the day of the preparation and the Sabbath-day entirely, tasting nothing till the cock-crowing of the night but if any one is not able to join them both togetber, at least let him observe the Sabbath-day; for the Lord says somewhere, speaking of himself: "When the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, in those days shall they fast." In these days, therefore, he was taken away from us by the Jews, falsely so named, and fastened to the cross, and was numbered among the transgressors. . . . Chap. 20. - We enjoin you to fast every fourth day of the week, and every day of the preparation, and the surplusage of your fast bestown upon the needy; every Sabbath-day excepting one, and every Lord's-day, hold your solemn assemblies, and rejoice; for he will be guilty of sin who fasts on the Lord's-day, being the day of the resurrection, or during the time of Pentecost, or, in general, who is sad on a festival day to the Lord. For on them we ought to rejoice, and not to mourn. (Ante-Nicene Lib., Vol. 17, pp. 138, 143 of Apostolic Constitutions.)

Book VI., treats of "Heresies," etc., and contains nothing pertinent to the Sabbath question. Book VII., chapter 23, discusses the time for fasting in nearly the same language already quoted from Book V. It is as follows:

"But let not your fasts be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second and fifth days of the week. But do you either fast the entire five days, or on the fourth day of the week, and on the day of the preparation, because on the fourth day the condemnation went out against the Lord. Judas then promising to betray him for money; and you must fast on the day of the preparation, because on that day the Lord suffered the death of the cross under Pontius Pilate. But keep the Sabbath and the Lord's-day festival; because the former is the memorial of the creation, and the latter of the resurrection. But there is one only Sabbath to be observed by you in the whole year, which is that of our Lord's burial, on which men ought to keep a fast, but not a festival. For inasmuch as the Creator was then under the earth, the sorrow for him is more forcible than the joy for the creation; for the Creator is more honorable by nature and dignity than his own creatures." (Ante-Nicene Lib., Vol. 17, p. 186 of Apostolic Constitutions.)

Chapter 36 gives a form of prayer in which Sabbath and Lord's-day appear as follows:

"Oh Lord Almighty, thou hast created the world by Christ, and hast appointed the Sabbath in memory thereof. because that on that day thou hast made us rest from our works, for the meditation upon thy laws. Thou hast also appointed festivals for the rejoicing of our souls, that we might come into the remembrance of that wisdom which was created by thee; how he submitted to be made of a woman on our account. He appeared in life, and demonstrated himself in his baptism; how he that appeared is both God and man. He suffered for us by thy permission, and died, and rose again by thy power; on which account we solemnly assemble to celebrate the feast of the resurrection on the Lord's-day, and rejoice on account of him who has conquered death, and has brought life and immortality to light. . . . Thou didst enjoin the observation of the Sabbath, not affording them an occasion of idleness, but an opportunity of piety for their knowledge of thy power, and the prohibition of evils, having limited them as within an holy circuit for the sake of doctrine, for rejoicing upon the seventh period. . . . On this account he permitted men every Sabbath to rest, that so no one might be willing to send one word out of his mouth in anger on the day of the Sabbath. For the Sabbath is the ceasing of the creation, the completion of the world, the inquiry after laws, and the grateful praise to God for the blessings he has bestowed upon men. All which the Lord's-day excels, and shows the Mediator himself, the Provider, the Lawgiver, the cause of the resurrection, the First-born of the whole creation, God the Word, and man, who was born of Mary alone, without a man, who lived holily, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died and rose again from the dead. So that the Lord's-day commands us to offer unto thee, O Lord, thanksgiving for all. For this is the grace afforded by thee, which on account of its greatness has obscured all other blessings. (Ante-Nicene Lib., Vol. 17, pp. 196, 197 of Apostolic Constitutions.)

Book VIII., chapter 33, presents a law said to have been made by the apostles, Peter and Paul, in the following words:

"I Peter and Paul do make the following Constitutions, Let the slaves work five days, but on the Sabbath-day and the Lord's-day let them have leisure to go to church for instruction in piety. We have said that the Sabbath is on account of the creation, and the Lord's-day of the resurrection. Let slaves rest from their work all the great week, and that which follows it - for the one in memory of the passion, and the other of the resurrection; and there is need they should be instructed who it is that suffered and rose again, and who it is permitted him to suffer, and raised him again. Let them have rest from their work on the ascension, because it was the conclusion of the dispensation by Christ. Let them rest at Pentecost because of the coming of the Holy Spirit, which was given to those that believed in Christ. Let them rest on the festival of his birth, because on it the unexpected favor was granted to men, that Jesus Christ, the Logos of God, should be born of the virgin Mary, for the salvation of the world. Let them rest on the festival of the Epiphany, because on it a manifestation took place of the divinity of Christ, for the Father bore testimony to him at the baptism, and the Paraclete, in the form of a dove, pointed out to the bystanders him to whom testimony was borne. Let them rest on the days of the Apostles; for they were appointed your teachers [to bring you] to Christ, and made you worthy of the Spirit. Let them rest on the day of the first martyr, Stephen, and of the other holy martyrs who preferred Christ to their own life." (Ante-Nicene Lib., Vol. 17, pp. 246, 247 of Apostolic Constitutions.)

When we are told that Paul and Peter wrote or taught such things as the above, we can easily judge as to the genuineness of the "Constitutions." But the above is of worth as indicating the mass of holidays, which had grown up at the beginning of the Dark Ages. Book VIII. closes with

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

 

CHAPTER XV.

THE SABBATH IN THE WESTERN CHURCH DURING THE DARK AGES.

PAPACY never succeeded in driving the Sabbath wholly from its dominions. As the Romanized church gradually expelled the Sabbath from the Orthodox body, those who were loyal to the law of God and the practices of the apostolic church stood firm, regardless of excommunication and persecution. Dissenters who kept the Sabbath existed under different names and forms of organization from the time of the first Pope to the Reformation. They were either the descendants of those who fled from the heathen persecutions previous to the time of Constantine, or else those who, when he began to rule the church and force false practices upon it, refused submission and sought seclusion and freedom to obey God in the wilderness in and around the Alps. In their earlier history they were known as Nazarenes, Cerinthians and Hypsistarii, and later as Vaudois, Cathari, Toulousians, Albigenses, Petrobrusians, Passagii, and Waldenses. We shall speak of them in general under this latter name. They believed the Romish church to be the "Anti-Christ" spoken of in the New Testament. Their doctrines were comparatively pure and Scriptural, and their lives were holy, in contrast with the ecclesiastical corruption which surrounded them. The reigning church hated and followed them with its persecutions. In consequence of this unscrupulous opposition, it is difficult to learn all the facts concerning them, since only perverted accounts have come to us through the hands of their enemies. Before the age of printing, their books were few; and from time to time these were destroyed by their persecutors, so that we have only fragments from their own writers. At the beginning of the twelfth century they had grown in strength and numbers to such an extent as to call forth earnest opposition and bloody persecution from the Papal power. Their enemies have made many unreasonable and false charges concerning their doctrines and practices, but all agree that they rejected the doctrine of "Church Authority," and appealed to the Bible as their only rule of faith and practice. They condemn the usurpations, the innovations, the pomp and formality, the worldliness and immorality of the Romish hierarchy. Even their bitter enemies have not denied that which all accord to them, viz., moral excellence and holiness of life far in advance of their times and surroundings.

There are three lines of argument which show that these dissenters were Sabbath-keepers.

1. Apriori argument, founded upon the following facts. They accepted the Bible as their only standard. They were familiar with the Old Testament, and held it in great esteem. They acknowledged no custom or doctrine is binding upon Christians which was not established before the ascension of Christ. Such a people must have rejected those feasts which the church had appointed, and must have observed the Sabbath. But there is direct testimony showing their antiquity, their high moral character and piety, and their special character as Sabbath-keepers.

The following from the pen of Mr. Benedict, the Baptist historian, shows that it is almost a miracle that any information concerning them has come down to this time:

"As scarcely any fragment of their history remains, all we know of them is from the accounts of their enemies, which were always uttered in a style of censure and complaint; and without which we should not have known that millions of them ever existed. It was the settled policy of Rome to obliterate every vestige of opposition to her decrees and doctrines, everything heretical, whether persons or writings, by which the faithful would be liable to be contaminated and led astray. In conformity to this their fixed determination, all books and records of their opposers were hunted up and committed to the flames. Before the art of printing was discovered in the fifteenth century, all books were made with a pen; the copies, of course, were so few that their concealment was much more difficult than it would be now, and if a few of them escaped the vigilance of the inquisitors, they would be soon worn out and gone. None of them could be admitted and preserved in the public libraries of the Catholics from the ravages of time, and the hands of barbarians with which all parts of Europe were at different times overwhelmed. (History of the Baptists, p. 50. New York, 1848.)

Dean Waddington bears testimony as follows:

"Rainer Sacho, a Dominican, says of the Waldenses: "There is no sect so dangerous as the Leonists, for three reasons: first, it is the most ancient; some say it is as old as Sylvester, others, as the apostles themselves. Secondly, it is very generally disseminated; there is no country where it has not gained some footing. Third, while other sects are profane, and blasphemous, this retains the utmost show of piety; they live justly before men, and believe nothing concerning God which is not good."" (Church History, chap. 22, sec. 1.)

This same writer, Sacho, admits that they flourished at least five hundred years before the time of Peter Waldo. Their great antiquity is also allowed by Gretzer, a Jesuit, who wrote against them. Cratitz, in his "History of the United Brethren," speaks of this class of Christians in the following words:

"These ancient Christians date their origin from the beginning of the fourth century, when one Leo, at the great revolution in Religion under Constantine the Great, opposed the innovations of Sylvester, Bishop of Rome. Nay, Rieger goes further still, taking them for the remains of the people of the valleys, who, when the Apostle Paul, as is said, made a journey over the Alps into Spain, were converted to Christ. (Latrobe's Trans., p. 16. London, 1780.)

Jortin bears the following testimony:

"In the seventh century, Christianity was preached in China by the Nestorians and the Valdenses who abhorred the papal usurpations, and are supposed to have settled themselves in the valleys of the Piedmont." (Eccl. Hist., Vol. 2, sec. 38.)

President Edwards says:

"Some of the popish writers themselves own that that people never submitted to the Church of Rome. One of the popish writers speaking of the Waldenses, says: The heresy of the Waldenses is the oldest in the world. It is supposed that this people first betook themselves to this desert, secret place among the mountains to hide themselves from the severity of the heathen persecutions, which were before Constantine the Great, and thus the woman fled into the wilderness from the face of the serpent. Rev. 12:6-14. And the people being settled there, their posterity continued there from age to age afterward; and being, as it were, by natural walls as well as God's grace separated from the rest of the world, never partook of the overflowing corruption. . . . Theodore Belvedere, a popish monk, says that the heresy had always been in the valleys. In the preface to the French Bible the translators say that they (the Valdenses) have always had the full enjoyment of the heavenly truth contained in the Holy Scriptures ever since they were enriched with the same by the apostles, having preserved, in fair manuscripts the entire Bible in their native tongue from generation to generation. (History of Redemption, pp. 293, 294.)

Thus history furnishes full and explicit testimony concerning the antiquity of these un-Romanized Christians, showing that their separation began very early, and that they never submitted to the Papal power, nor accepted its false teachings. Their numbers is a matter of no less interest than their antiquity. Jones bears the following testimony:

"Even in the twelfth century their numbers abounded in the neighborhood of Cologne in Flanders, the south of France, Savoy, and Milan. They were increased, says Egbert, to great multitudes throughout all countries, and although they seem not to have attracted attention in any remarkable degree previous to this period, yet, as it is obvious they could not have sprung up in a day, it is not an unfair inference that they must have long existed as a people wholly distinct from the Catholic church, though, amidst the political squabbles of the clergy, it was their good fortune to be almost entirely overlooked. …. Toward the middle of the twelfth century, a small society of tbe Puritans, as they were called by some, or Waldenses, as they are termed by others, or Paulicians as they are denominated by our old monkish historian, William of Newburg, made their appearance in England. This latter writer speaking of them says: "They came originally from Gascoyne, where, being as numerous is the sand of the sea, they sorely infested France, Italy, Spain and England. (Hist. of the Waldenses, Vol. 1, chap. 4, see. 3, pp. 509, 510. London, 1816.)

Benedict says:

"In the thirteenth century, from the accounts of Catholic historians, all of whom speak of the Waldenses in terms of complaint and reproach, they had founded individual churches, or were spread out in colonies in Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Bohemia, Poland, Lithuania, Albania, Lombardy, Milan, Romagna, Vicenza, Florence, Valeponetine, Constantinople, Philadelphia, Sclavonia, Bulgaria, Diognitia, Livonia, Saramatia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Briton, and Piedmont. (Hist. of the Baptists, p. 31.)
It is not claimed that there was perfect agreement in sentiment on all points among these different sects in all the different localities. That they agreed on the fundamental point of rejecting the Romish Hierarchy, and appealing to the Bible as the only standard of faith and practice, is undeniable. The following testimonies will show what they were in these respects. Allix speaks as follows:

"They can say a great part of the Old and New Testaments by heart. They despise the decretals, and the sayings and expositions of holy men, and only cleave to the text of Scripture. . . . They say that the doctrine of Christ and his apostles is sufficient to salvation, without any church statutes and ordinances. That the traditions of the church are no better than the traditions of the Pharisees; and that greater stress is laid on the observation of human traditions than on the keeping of the law of God. "Why do you transgress the law of God by your traditions?" They condemn all approved ecclesiastical customs which they do not read of in the gospel, as the observation of Candlemas, Palm Sunday, the reconciliation of penitents, and the adoration of the cross on Good Friday. They despise the feast of Easter and all other festivals of Christ and the Saints, because of their being multiplied to that vast number, and say that one day is as good as another, and work upon holy days where they can do it without being taken notice of. . . . They declare themselves to be the apostles' successors, to have apostolic authority, and the keys of binding and loosing. They hold the church of Rome to be the Whore of Babylon, and that all who obey her are damned, especially the clergy that are subject to her since the time of Pope Sylvester. . . . They hold that none of the ordinances of the church that have been introduced since Christ's ascension ought to be observed, being of no worth; the feasts, fasts, orders, blessings, officers of the church and the like, they utterly reject." (Ecc. Hist. of the Ancient Piedmont Church, pp. 209. 216, 217. London, 1690.)

This is said of them in Bohemia. As late as the time of Erasmus these Bohemians continued to keep the Sabbath with great strictness, as will be seen by the following.

An old German historian, John Sleidan, speaking of a sect in Bohemia called "Picards," says:

"They admit of nothing but the Bible. They choose their own priests and bishops; deny no man marriage, perform no offices for the dead, and have but very few holy days and ceremonies. (Historv of the Reformation, etc., p. 53. London, 1689.)

These are the same people to whom Erasmus refers, representing them as extremely strict in observing the Sabbath. Robert Cox, (Sabbath Literature, Vol. 2, pp. 201,202) quotes from Erasmus, and comments as follows:

"With reference to the origin of this sect [Seventh-day Baptists], I find a passage in Erasmus, that at the early period of the Reformation when he wrote, there were Sabbatarians in Bohemia, who not only kept the seventh day, but were said to be so scrupulous in resting on it, that if anything went into their eyes they would not remove it till the morrow. He says: Nunc audimus apud Bohemos exoriri novum Judaeorum genus Sabbatarios appellant, qui tanta superstitone servant Sabbatum, ut si quid eo die inciderit in oculum, nolint eximere; quasi non sufficiat eis pro Sabbato Eies Dominicus qui Apostolis etiam erat sacer, aut quasi Christas non satis expresserit quantum tribuendum sit Sabbatti." (De Amabili Ecclesiae Concordia, Op. tom., V, p. 506; Lugd. Bat., 1704.)

Hospinian of Zurich, in his treatise De Festis Judaeorum et Ethnicorum, Cap. iii, (Tiguri.-1592.) replies to the arguments of these Sabbatarians. (Sabbath Literature, Vol. 2, pp. 201, 202.)

The story concerning their extreme strictness on the Sabbath is probably a mistake. But inasmuch as they accepted the Bible as their only guide, it is not wonderful that they refused to place the "Dies Dominicus before the Sabbath," since the Bible gives no authority for such a course. Doctor Hessey refers to these same Sabbatarians as the origin of the present Seventh-day Baptists. A voluminous work by Alexander Ross, speaking of those people at the beginning of the Reformation, says:

"Some only will observe the Lord's-day; some only the Sabbath; some both, and some neither." (A View of All Religions in the World, etc., p. 237. London, 1653.)

In his history of the Christian church, Jones gives their "confession of faith," article tenth of which is as follows:

"Moreover, we have ever regarded all the inventions of men (in affairs of religion) as an unspeakable abomination before God; such as the festival days and vigils of the saints, and what is called holy water, the abstaining from flesh on certain days, and such like things, but above all, the Masses. (History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, p. 43. New York, 1824.)

On page 65 of the same volume Jones quotes various other authorities. Claudius Seisselius, Archbishop of Turin, is pleased to say:

"Their heresy excepted, they generally live a purer life than the Christians. They never swear but by compulsion, and rarely take the name of God in vain. They fulfill their promises with punctuality, and living for the most part in poverty, they profess to preserve the apostolic life and doctrine. They also profess it to be their desire to overcome only by the simplicity of faith, by purity of conscience, and by integrity of life not by philosophical niceties, and theological subtleties. And he very candidly admits that, "In their lives and morals they are perfect, irreprehensible, and without reproach among men, addicting themselves with all their might to observe the commandments of God."
Lielenstenius, a Dominitian, speaking of the Waldenses of Bohemia, says: "I say that in morals and life they are good, true in words, unanimous in brotherly love, but their faith is incorrigible and vile as I have shown in ‘my Treatise.’" (History of the Waldenses, Vol. 2, p. 71. London, 1816.)

Again Jones says:

"Louis XII., king of France, being informed by the enemies of the Waldenses, inhabiting a part of the province of Provence, that several henious crimes were laid to their account, sent the Master of Requests, and a certain doctor of the Sorbonne, who was confessor to his majesty, to make inquiry into this matter. On their return, they reported that they had visited all the parishes where they dwelt, had inspected their places of worship, but that they had found there no images, nor signs of ornaments belonging to the Mass, nor any of the ceremonies of the Romish church; much less could they discover any traces of the crimes with which they were charged. On the contrary, they kept the Sabbath-day, observed the ordinance of baptism, according to the Primitive church, and instructed their children in the articles of Christian faith, and the commandments of God. (History Christian Church, chap. 5, sec. 1. New York, 1824.)

Eccolampadius, Luther, Beza, Bullinger, De Vignaux, Chassagnon, Milton and others unite in bearing testimony to their uprightness and faithful adherence to the Word of God. Their observance of the Sabbath is also further attested as follows. Jones says:

"Because they would not observe saints' day they were falsely supposed to neglect the Sabbath also, and called Inzabbatati, or Insabbtathists. (History Christian Church chap. 5, sec. 1. New York, 1824.)

Benedict has the following:

"We find that the Waldenses were sometimes called Insabbathos, that is regardless of Sabbaths. Mr. Milner supposes this name was given to them because they observed not the Romish festivals and rested from their ordinary occupations only on Sundays. A Sabbatarian would suppose that it was because they met for worship on the seventh day, and did not regard the first day Sabbath. (Hist. Baptists, Vol. 2, p. 412. Ed. 1831.)

Not only must a Sabbatarian thus conclude, but all must agree; since no fact is better established than this, viz., that the Sunday was understood to be purely a church festival, one of the very things which they rejected. Blair's History of the Waldenses gives the following:
"Among the documents we have by the same peoples is an explanation of the ten commandments, dated by Boyer, 1120. It contains a compendium of Christian morality. Supreme love to God is enforced, and recourse to the influence of the planets and to sorcerers is condemned. The evil of worshiping God by images and idols is pointed out. A solemn oath to confirm anything doubtful is admitted, but profane swearing is forbidden. Observation of the Sabbath, by ceasing from worldly labors and from sin, by good works, and by promoting the edification of the soul, through prayer and hearing the word, is enjoined. Whatever is preached without Scripture proof, is accounted no better than fables. (Vol. 1, pp. 216, 220. Edinburg, 1833.)

From a historical work of the early part of the seventeenth century, entitled "Purchase's Pilgrimages," a sort of universal history, we learn that the Waldenses, in different localities, "Keep Saturday holy, nor esteem Saturday fasts lawful. But on Easter, even, they have solemn services on Saturdays, eat flesh, and feast it bravely, like the Jews." (Vol. 2, p.1269. London, 1625.)

During the twelfth century they were known in some parts of France and Italy as Passaginians. Of these Mosheim has the following:
"Like the other sects already mentioned, they had the utmost aversion to the dominion and discipline of the church of Rome; but they were, at the same time, distinguished by two religious tenets, which were peculiar to themselves. The first was a notion that the observation of the law of Moses, in everything except the offering of sacrifices, was obligatory upon Christians, in consequence of which they circumcised their followers, abstain from those meats, the use of which was prohibited under the Mosaic economy, and celebrated the Jewish Sabbath. (Eccl. Hist., Vol. 3, p. 127. London, 1810.)

The charge of circumcision is made only by their enemies, the Romanists, and is not well sustained; but if it were true, they were not Jews, but, even as their enemies admit, were most blameless and worthy Christians. Concerning this charge, Benedict says:

"The account of their practicing circumcision is undoubtedly a slanderous story, forced by their enemies, and probably arose in this way: Because they observed the seventh day, they were called, by way of derision, Jews, as the Sabbatarians are frequently at this day; and if they were Jews they either did, or ought to, circumcise their followers. This was probably the reasoning of their enemies. But that they actually practiced the bloody rite is altogether improbable. (Hist. Baptists, Vol. 2, pp. 412-418. Ed. 1813.)

Another direct and important testimony is found in a "Treatise on the Sabbath," by Bishop White. Speaking of Sabbath-keeping as opposed to the practice of the church and as heretical, he says:

"It was thus condemned in the Nazarenes and in the Cerinthians, in the Ebionites and in the Hypsistarii. The ancient Synod of Laodicea made a decree against it, chap. 29; also Gregory the Great affirmed that it was Judaical. In St. Bernard's days it was condemned in the Petrobrussians. The same, likewise being revised in Luther's time, by Carlstadt, Sternberg, and by some secretaries among the Anabaptists, hath both then, and ever since, been condemned as Jewish and heretical. (P. S. London, 1635.)

The various and slanderous charges of corruption and religious excesses which certain Romish writers have made against the Waldenses are truthfully and fairly disposed of by Mr. W. S. Gully, in a work entitled "Valdenses," etc.:

"We may, therefore, consider that all the licentious tales which have been told at the expense of Valdo and his disciples, were the inventions of aftertimes. That individuals among them may have broached some extravagant and fanatical dogmas is not improbable, but we have no contemporary evidence in proof of their having departed from the strictest rules of moral and religious purity, or of their having been guilty of any other than the unpardonable offense of disobeying a spiritual authority which had become as tyrannical in the exercise of its power as it was remiss in the discharge of the sacred trusts committed to it. "The worst thing that can be said of them," said the inquisitor Reiner, whose business it was to accuse and hunt them down, "is that they detest the Romish church." (P. 57, Edinburg edition.

Allix reproduces the following testimony from high Roman Catholic authority:

"The Bishop of Meaux highly chargeth Beza for saving that the Waldenses time out of mind, had stiffly opposed the abuses of the Romish church, and that they held their doctrine from father to son ever since the year 120, as they had heard and received it from the elders and ancestors. He tells us that the first disciples of Waldo were content to allege for themselves, that they had separated themselves from the Romish church at the time when, under Pope Sylvester, she had accepted of temporal endowments and possessions. (History Churches of Piedmont, p. 177.)

Other testimony might be added, but the case does not demand it. It is clear that when the great apostacy began, which culminated in the establishment of the Papacy and the union of Church and State, there were those who refused to join with the apostate throng, or recognize its unscriptural doctrines; that they rejected the false dogma of church infallibility, and adhered to the Bible, Old and New Testaments, as the only divine authority and rule of Christian living. As a result of this their lives were holier and purer than those of the apostate church. Being driven from the central arena of ecclesiastical and civil strife, they increased in strength and numbers until they came to be feared by their enemies, when they were eagerly hunted, relentlessly condemned, and slaughtered without mercy. In common with the other truths of the Bible, they obeyed the law of the Fourth Commandment and kept God's Sabbath. Their history forms a strong link in the unbroken chain of Sabbath-keepers which unites the years when the "Lord of the Sabbath" walked upon the earth with these years in which he is marshaling his forces for its final vindication. Traces of these Sabbath-keepers are still found in the Alps.

OK enough already.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

 

Don't advertise your ignorance so, and don't judge in things you show total inability.

 

Dear Keith,

All your above quotations come long after the time that mattered. That makes them rather useless imformation.
Where did Sunday sacredness - ondeed Sunday-worship - begin? That's the important question.

I have just added to my web-page my latest book on just this topic - The Origin of Sunday Sacredness - Galatians 4. You may find it on http://www.biblestudents.co.za.
Before anything else - I have nothing to do with the Russelites.

But to the point: Sunday "Observation" - or, "worship / divination / venaration / service", began already in the first century after Christ, and during the Apostolic Age!
Galatians 4:8-10 is as solid prove of it as you will ever find.
Next Sunday-propogandist was Justin Martyr.
Neither Barnabas nor Ignatius knew or said a thing about Sunday-observance. For Ignatius "The Lord's Day" was the Sabbath; and for Barnabas "the Eighth Day" was symbolised by the Sabbath.
You may also find my study of the 2nd century apologetics around the Sabbath from my page, in the book so described there.

But Sunday idolatry all had its beginnings already in Paul's day, and I challenge the world's scholarship to prove me wrong.

 

Said Jim, (AV1611jim),

"It (the Sabbath) is NOT there in Heb 3-4."

That is too sweeping a statement, dear Jim!
In fact, says this Scripture in 4:4-5: "Thus God concerning the Seventh Day spoke: And God the Seventh Day rested from ALL His works". Remember this is a New Testament statement about God's works - it therefore implies God's works in Jesus Christ!
It does not surprise therefore, that when supplying the ultimate REASON for being of "A KEEPING OF THE SABBATH DAY" in 4:9, that reason or basis or explanation consists of and directly calls on the ultimate, ALL-encompassing WORK of God - according to Ephesians 1:19 further - "WHEN HE RAISED CHRIST FROM THE DEAD" and "JESUS GAVE THEM REST ... FOR HE THAT ENTERED INTO HIS REST, RESTED FROM HIS OWN WORKS AS GOD ..."!
The 'anapausis / katapausis' of Hebrews 3-4 is NOT the Sabbath, but is Jesus Christ; JUST SO, the 'sabbatismos' of 4:9 is NOT Christ, but is BASED on Christ and on God's works - "all the works of God" - "finished / perfected / completed".
plainer it cannot be said than how it is said, not by me or by any 'sabbatharians', but "spoken" by "God in these last days ... in the SON!"

Who is next to dare declare this is viloating the Scriptures? Come on, audacious liars, who?

 

I do not find them "useless". They are good historic corrections to some of the usages that many have sought to make of the supposed ECF sources. It shows which ones are without historic support.

Clears away some of the muddy water surrounding claims about the ECFs.

It also shows what they did NOT say in support of a supposed change of the Sabbath Commandment.

In Christ,

Bob </font>[/QUOTE]Sorry Bob, I sommer fell in into this discussion - haven't got an overall picture.
After my recent study of Gal.4:10 I'm in a fighting mood, so tired have I become of the tereotype defence against the Christian Sabbath in the Word of God for His People! - a defence for what? : for nothing but idolatry and false prophetic claim! (changing the Scriptures to suit satanic doctrine)!

So I'm not getting the picture here fully yet. What, for example, does "the EFC's" stand for?

 

Since I could not get your link to work - what is in Gal 4:8-10 that points to Sunday?? (I Know it references the observance of pagan days -- I just don't see where weekly first day observance is mentioned).

In Christ,

Bob </font>[/QUOTE]It needs not be "mentioned" in order to be IMPLIED; and being implied it there absolutely is implied. Where - you know - does the 'names' of the week-days come from? From NOTHING but its "VENERATION/OBSERVATION/SUPERSTITIOUS WORSHIP"; from NOTHING but the "SLAVING/BONDAGE/SERVICE" - "weak and beggarly", idolatrous stuff - payed it by the PAGANS; "DIVINATION" of their OWN and erstwhile "by-nature-not-GODS/ELEMENTS/PRINCIPLES/PRINCIPALTIES/LORDS/RULERS" - the heavenly bodies "studied with great veneration and awe"! To THESE 'not-gods' the Galatians "returned" and "DESIRED/LUSTED/WANTONLY URGED" to "PRAY TO" again and be "IN BONDAGE TO" "AGAIN". Paul declared: You're cut off from Christ ... you're fallen from grace" FOR IT! "IN VAIN all my effort on you", IDOLATERS!

 

'Emperor worship' called on the worship - 'divination'- making god - of the emperor. It might have entailed making of the emperor some celetial body or something; but the OBJECT of 'worship', was the person of the emperor. This 'phenomenon' actuallly developed only later in history, and in Christian literature is FIRST seen in Polycarp's martyrdom.

In Galatians the well-known mythological 'gods' of TIME, "days, months, seasons, and years" are not only mentioned, but implied in Paul's contrasting the "knowledge" of God, to their 'divination', as well as in the presupposed universal 'knowledge' of the god/goddess 'wisdom' "of the world", as contained in the "stoicheia" - the "ELEMENTAL (things)" or basic constituent parts thereof. Of the physical "world" - "kosmos", the constituent parts or 'elemental gods' were earth (dust), water, wind and fire - the parallel 'stoicheia' of the invisible 'world of time', "days, months, seasons and years". Compare Wisdom 7:17, for the 'parallellism' or "conclusive concepts" between the basic components or "powers". Here is my translation of the passage:
"For in his (wisdom's) hands are both we and our word,
all wisdom also and maturity,
For he gave me conclusive knowledge of the things that are,
namely,
how the world came together and the ruling of the priniples (stoicheiohn),
the elementals, beginning, end and centre of TIMES, (chronohn) (days and months),
the alternating of the tropics and changes of seasons (kairohn),
the turning of YEARS and stellar arrangements,
the NATURE (physeis) of living things and the furies of the beasts (reference to horoscopic 'principles'/'powers'),
the violence of winds and the mentality of people,
the advantages of plants and the powers of roots,
-ALL SUCH THINGS AS ARE SECRET OR MANIFEST, I know! (says 'Wisdom').