The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Complete Testimony of the Fathers of the First Three Centuries Concerning The Sabbath and First Day, by J. N. Andrews.

The testimony for first-day sacredness is very meager in the Scriptures, as even its own advocates must admit. But they have been wont to supply the deficiency by a plentiful array of testimonies from the early fathers of the church. Here, in time past, they have had the field all to themselves, and they have allowed their zeal for the change of the Sabbath to get the better of their honesty and their truthfulness. The first-day Sabbath was absolutely unknown before the time of Constantine. Nearly one hundred years elapsed after John was in vision on Patmos before the term “Lord’s day” was applied to the first day. During this time, it was called “the day of the sun,” “the first day of the week,” and “the eighth day.” The first writers who gave it the name of “Lord’s day,” state the remarkable fact that in their judgement the true Lord’s day consists of every day of a Christian’s life, a very convincing proof that they did not give this title to Sunday because John had so named it on Patmos. In fact, no one of those who give this title to Sunday ever assigned as a reason for so doing that it was thus called by John. Nor is there any intimation in one of the fathers that first-day observance was an act of obedience to the fourth commandment, nor one clear statement that ordinary labor on that day was sinful. In order to show these facts, I have undertaken to give every[Pg 4] testimony of every one of the fathers, prior to a. d. 325, who mentions either the Sabbath or the first day. Though some of these quotations are comparatively unimportant, others are of very great value. I have given them all, in order that the reader may actually possess their entire testimony. I have principally followed the translation of the “Ante-Nicene Christian Library,” and have in every case made use of first-day translations. The work has been one of great labor to me, and I trust will be found of much profit to the candid reader.

In this edition every quotation has been carefully compared with the works of the fathers from which they were taken. A few minor errors have been detected, but none of importance. The work is commended to the attention of candid inquirers with the prayer that God will make it instrumental in opening the eyes of many to the truth concerning his holy day.

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT.

With respect to the Sabbath, the religious world may be divided into three classes:—

It is inevitable that controversy should exist between these parties. Their first appeal is to the Bible, and this should decide the case; for it reveals man’s whole duty. But there is an appeal by the second party, and sometimes by the third, to another authority, the early fathers of the church, for the decision of the question.

The controversy stands thus: The second and third parties agree with the first that God did anciently require the observance of the seventh day; but both deny the doctrine of the first, that he still requires men to hallow that day; the second asserting that he has changed the Sabbath[Pg 6] to the first day of the week; and the third declaring that he has totally abolished the institution itself.

The first class plant themselves upon the plain letter of the law of God, and adduce those scriptures which teach the perpetuity and immutability of the moral law, and which show that the new covenant does not abrogate that law, but puts it into the heart of every Christian.

The second class attempt to prove the change of the Sabbath by quoting those texts which mention the first day of the week, and also those which are said to refer to it. The first day is, on such authority, called by this party the Christian Sabbath, and the fourth commandment is used by them to enforce this new Sabbath.

The third class adduce those texts which assert the dissolution of the old covenant; and those which teach the abolition of the ceremonial law with all its distinction of days, as new moons, feast days, and annual sabbaths; and also those texts which declare that men cannot be justified by that law which condemns sin; and from all these contend that the law and the Sabbath are both abolished.

But the first class answer to the second that the texts which they bring forward do not meet the case, inasmuch as they say nothing respecting the change of the Sabbath; and that it is not honest to use the fourth commandment to enforce the observance of a day not therein commanded. And the third class assent to this answer as truthful and just.

To the position of the third class, the first make this answer: That the old covenant was made between God and his people concerning[Pg 7] his law;[B] that it ceased because the people failed in its conditions, the keeping of the commandments; that the new covenant does not abrogate the law of God, but secures obedience to it by putting it into the heart of every Christian; that there are two systems of law, one being made up of typical and ceremonial precepts, and the other consisting of moral principles only; that those texts which speak of the abrogation of the handwriting of ordinances and of the distinction in meats, drinks, and days, pertain alone to this shadowy system, and never to the moral law which contains the Sabbath of the Lord; and that it is not the fault of the law, but of sinners, that they are condemned by it; and that justification being attained only by the sacrifice of Christ as a sin offering, is in itself a most powerful attestation to the perpetuity, immutability, and perfection, of that law which reveals sin. And to this answer the second class heartily assent.

But the second class have something further to say. The Bible, indeed, fails to assert the change of the Sabbath, but these persons have something else to offer, in their estimation, equally as good as the Scriptures. The early fathers of the church, who conversed with the apostles, or who conversed with some who had conversed with them, and those who followed for several generations, are by this class presented as authority, and their testimony is used to establish the so-called Christian Sabbath on a firm basis. And this is what they assert respecting the fathers:[Pg 8] That they distinctly teach the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, and that the first day is by divine authority the Christian Sabbath.

But the third class squarely deny this statement, and affirm that the fathers held the Sabbath as an institution made for the Jews when they came out of Egypt, and that Christ abolished it at his death. They also assert that the fathers held the first day, not as a Sabbath in which men must not labor lest they break a divine precept, but as an ecclesiastical institution, which they called the Lord’s day, and which was the proper day for religious assemblies because custom and tradition thus concurred. And so the third class answer the second by an explicit denial of its alleged facts. They also aim a blow at the first by the assertion that the early fathers taught the no-Sabbath doctrine, which must therefore be acknowledged as the real doctrine of the New Testament.

And now the first class respond to these conflicting statements of the second and the third. And here is their response:—

1. That our duty respecting the Sabbath, and respecting every other thing, can be learned only from the Scriptures.

2. That the first three hundred years after the apostles nearly accomplished the complete development of the great apostasy, which had commenced even in Paul’s time; and this age of apostatizing cannot be good authority for making changes in the law of God.

3. That only a small proportion of the ministers and teachers of this period have transmitted any writings to our time; and these are generally[Pg 9] fragments of the original works, and they have come down to us mainly through the hands of the Romanists, who have never scrupled to destroy or to corrupt that which witnesses against themselves, whenever it has been in their power to do it.

4. But inasmuch as these two classes, viz., those who maintain the first-day Sabbath, and those who deny the existence of any Sabbath, both appeal to these fathers for testimony with which to sustain themselves, and to put down the first class, viz., those who hallow the ancient Sabbath, it becomes necessary that the exact truth respecting the writings of that age, which now exist, should be shown. There is but one method of doing this which will effectually end the controversy. This is to give every one of their testimonies concerning the Sabbath and first-day in their own words. In doing this the following facts will appear:—

1. That in some important particulars there is a marked disagreement on this subject among them. For while some teach that the Sabbath originated at creation and should be hallowed even now, others assert that it began with the fall of the manna, and ended with the death of Christ. And while one class represent Christ as a violator of the Sabbath, another class represent him as sacredly hallowing it, and a third class declare that he certainly did violate it, and that he certainly never did, but always observed it! Some of them also affirm that the Sabbath was abolished, and in other places positively affirm that it is perpetuated and made more sacred than it formerly was. Moreover, some assert that the ten commandments are absolutely abolished,[Pg 10] whilst others declare that they are perpetuated, and are the tests of Christian character in this dispensation. Some call the day of Christ’s resurrection the first day of the week; others call it the day of the sun, and the eighth day; and a larger number call it the Lord’s day, but there are no examples of this application till the close of the second century. Some enjoin the observance of both the Sabbath and the first day, while others treat the seventh day as despicable.

2. But in several things of great importance there is perfect unity of sentiment. They always distinguish between the Sabbath and the first day of the week. The change of the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first is never mentioned in a single instance. They never term the first day the Christian Sabbath, nor do they treat it as a Sabbath of any kind. Nor is there a single declaration in any of them that labor on the first day of the week is sinful; the utmost that can be found being one or two vague expressions which do not necessarily have any such sense.

3. Many of the fathers call the first day of the week the Lord’s day. But none of them claim for it any scriptural authority, and some expressly state that it has none whatever, but rests solely upon custom and tradition.

4. But the writings of the fathers furnish positive proof that the Sabbath was observed in the Christian church down to the time when they wrote, and by no inconsiderable part of that body. For some of them expressly enjoined its observance, and even some of those who held that it was abolished speak of Christians who observed it, whom they would consent to fellowship if they would not make it a test.

[Pg 11]5. And now mark the work of apostasy: This work never begins by thrusting out God’s institutions, but always by bringing in those of men and at first only asking that they may be tolerated, while yet the ones ordained of God are sacredly observed. This, in time, being effected, the next effort is to make them equal with the divine. When this has been accomplished, the third stage of the process is to honor them above those divinely commanded; and this is speedily succeeded by the fourth, in which the divine institution is thrust out with contempt, and the whole ground given to its human rival.

6. Before the first three centuries had expired, apostasy concerning the Sabbath had, with many of the fathers, advanced to the third stage, and with a considerable number had already entered upon the fourth. For those fathers who hallow the Sabbath do generally associate with it the festival called by them the Lord’s day. And though they speak of the Sabbath as a divine institution, and never speak thus of the so-called Lord’s day, they do, nevertheless, give the greater honor to this human festival. So far had the apostasy progressed before the end of the third century, that only one thing more was needed to accomplish the work as far as the Sabbath was concerned, and this was to discard it, and to honor the Sunday festival alone. Some of the fathers had already gone thus far; and the work became general within five centuries after Christ.

7. The modern church historians make very conflicting statements respecting the Sabbath during the first centuries. Some pass over it almost in silence, or indicate that it was, at most, observed only by Jewish Christians. Others,[Pg 12] however, testify to its general observance by the Gentile Christians; yet some of these assert that the Sabbath was observed as a matter of expediency and not of moral obligation, because those who kept it did not believe the commandments were binding. (This is a great error, as will appear in due time.) What is said, however, by these modern historians is comparatively unimportant inasmuch as their sources of information were of necessity the very writings which are about to be quoted.

8. In the following pages will be found, in their own words, every statement [C] which the fathers of the first three centuries make by way of defining their views of the Sabbath and first-day. And even when they merely allude to either day in giving their views of other subjects, the nature of the allusion is stated, and, where practicable, the sentence or phrase containing it is quoted. The different writings are cited in the order in which they purport to have been written. A considerable number were not written by the persons to whom they were ascribed, but at a later date. As these have been largely quoted by first-day writers, they are here given in full. And even these writings possess a certain historical value. For though not written by the ones whose names they bear, they are known to have been in existence since the second or third century, and they give some idea of the views which then prevailed.

First of all let us hear the so-called “Apostolical[Pg 13] Constitutions.” These were not the work of the apostles, but they were in existence as early as the third century, and were then very generally believed to express the doctrine of the apostles. They do therefore furnish important historical testimony to the practice of the church at that time. Mosheim in his Historical Commentaries, Cent. 1, sect. 51, speaks thus of these “Constitutions”:—

Of the “Apostolical Constitutions,” Guericke’s Church History speaks thus:—

TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTOLICAL CONSTITUTIONS.

[Pg 14]This is sound Sabbatarian doctrine. But apostasy had begun its work in the establishment of the so-called Lord’s day, which was destined in time to drive out the Sabbath. The next mention of the Sabbath also introduces the festival called Lord’s day, but the reader will remember that this was written, not in the first century, but the third:—

By the term Lord’s day the first day of the week is here intended. But the writer does not call the first day the Sabbath, that term being applied to the seventh day.

The writer of these “Constitutions” this time gives the first day great prominence, though still honoring the Sabbath, and by no means giving that title to Sunday. But in book v., section 2, paragraph 10, we have a singular testimony to[Pg 15] the manner in which Sunday was spent. Thus the writer says:—

From this it appears that the so-called Lord’s day was a day of greater mirth than the other days of the week. In book v., section 3, paragraph 14, it is said:—

In book v., section 3, paragraph 15, the writer names the days on which Christians should fast:—

In paragraph 17, Christians are forbidden to “celebrate the day of the resurrection of our Lord on any other day than a Sunday.” In paragraph 18, they are again charged to fast on that one Sabbath which comes in connection with the anniversary of our Lord’s death. In paragraph 19, the first day of the week is four times called the Lord’s day. The period of 40 days from his resurrection to his ascension is to be observed. The[Pg 16] anniversary of Christ’s resurrection is to be celebrated by the supper.

The things here commanded can come only once in a year. These are the anniversary of Christ’s resurrection, and of that day on which he appeared to Thomas, and these were to be celebrated by the supper. The people were also to observe the day of the ascension on the fifth day of the week, forty days from his resurrection, on which day he finished his work. In paragraph 20, they are commanded to celebrate the anniversary of the Pentecost.

This was not a weekly but a yearly festival. Fasting is also set forth in this paragraph, but every Sabbath except the one Christ lay in the tomb is exempted from this fast, and every so-called Lord’s day:—

This writer asserts that it is a sin to fast or mourn on Sunday, but never intimates that it is a sin to labor on that day when not engaged in worship. We shall next learn that the decalogue is in agreement with the law of nature, and that it is of perpetual obligation:—

For this reason the writer truthfully testifies that God refused to accept their burnt-offerings and sacrifices, their new moons and their Sabbaths.

[Pg 18]This savors somewhat of the doctrine that all days are alike. Yet this cannot be the meaning; for in book vii., section 2, paragraph 23, he enjoins the observance of the Sabbath, and also of the Lord’s-day festival, but specifies one Sabbath in the year in which men should fast. Thus he says:—

In the same paragraph, in speaking of the resurrection of Christ, the writer says:—

In this paragraph he also states his views of[Pg 19] the Sabbath, and of the day which he calls the Lord’s day, giving the precedence to the latter:—

It is certainly noteworthy that the so-called Lord’s day, for which no divine warrant is produced, is here exalted above the Sabbath of the Lord notwithstanding the Sabbath is acknowledged to be the divine memorial of the creation, and to be expressly enjoined in the decalogue, which the writer declares to be of perpetual obligation. Tested by his own principles, he had far advanced in apostasy; for he held a human festival more honorable than one which he acknowledged to be ordained of God; and only a single step remained; viz., to set aside the commandment of God for the ordinance of man.

In book viii., section 2, paragraph 4, it is said, when a bishop has been chosen and is to be ordained,—

In book viii., section 4, paragraph 33, occurs the final mention of these two days in the so-called “Apostolical Constitutions.”

To this may be added the 64th Canon of the Apostles, which is appended to the “Constitutions”:—

Every mention of the Sabbath and first-day in that ancient book called “Apostolical Constitutions” is now before the reader. This book comes down to us from the third century, and contains what was at that time very generally believed to be the doctrine of the apostles. It is therefore valuable to us, not as authority respecting the teaching of the apostles, but as giving us a knowledge of the views and practices which prevailed in the third century. At the time these “Constitutions” were put in writing, the ten commandments were revered as the immutable rule of right, and the Sabbath of the Lord was by many observed as an act of obedience to the fourth commandment, and as the divine memorial of the creation. But the first-day festival had already attained such strength and influence as to clearly indicate that ere long it would claim the entire ground. But observe that the Sabbath and the so-called Lord’s day are treated as distinct institutions, and that no hint of the change of the Sabbath to the first day of the week is ever once given. The “Apostolical Constitutions” are cited first, not because written by[Pg 21] the apostles, but because of their title. For the same reason the so-called Epistle of Barnabas is quoted next, not because written by that apostle, for the proof is ample that it was not, but because it is often quoted by first-day writers as the words of the apostle Barnabas. It was in existence, however, as early as the middle of the second century, and, like the “Apostolical Constitutions,” is of value to us in that it gives some clue to the opinions which prevailed in the region where the writer lived, or at least which were held by his party.

TESTIMONY OF THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS.

The writer may have intended to assert the abolition of the sacrifices only, as this was his[Pg 22] special theme in this place. But he presently asserts the abolition of the Sabbath of the Lord. Here is his fifteenth chapter entire:—

Here are some very strange specimens of reasoning.[Pg 23] The substance of what he says relative to the present observance of the Sabbath appears to be this: No one “can now sanctify the day which God hath sanctified except he is pure in heart in all things.” But this cannot be the case until the present world shall pass away, “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.” Men cannot therefore keep the Sabbath while this wicked world lasts. And so he says, “Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to me.” That is to say, the keeping of the day which God has sanctified is not possible in such a wicked world. But though the seventh day cannot now be kept, the eighth day can be, and ought to be, because when the seventh thousand years are past there will be at the beginning of the eighth thousand the new creation. So the persons represented by this writer, do not attempt to keep the seventh day which God sanctified, for that is too pure to keep in this world, and can only be kept after the Saviour comes at the commencement of the seventh thousand years; but they “keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead.” Sunday, which God never sanctified, is exactly suitable for observance in the world as it now is. But the sanctified seventh day “we shall be able to sanctify” when all things have been made new. If our first-day friends think these words of some unknown writer of the second century more honorable to the first day of the week than to the seventh, they are welcome to them. Had[Pg 24] the writer said, “It is easier to keep Sunday than the Sabbath while the world is so wicked,” he would have stated the truth. But when in substance he says, “It is more acceptable to God to keep a common than a sanctified day while men are so sinful,” he excuses his disobedience by uttering a falsehood. Several things however should be noted:—

1. In this quotation we have the reasons of a no-Sabbath man for keeping the festival of Sunday. It is not God’s commandment, for there was none for that festival; but the day God hallowed being too pure to keep while the world is so wicked, Sunday is therefore kept till the return of the Lord, and then the seventh day shall be truly sanctified by those who now regard it not.

2. But this writer, though saying what he is able in behalf of the first day of the week, applies to it no sacred name. He does not call it Christian Sabbath, nor Lord’s day, but simply “the eighth day,” and this because it succeeds the seventh day of the week.

3. It is also to be noticed that he expressly dates the Sabbath from the creation.

4. The change of the Sabbath was unknown to this writer. He kept the Sunday festival, not because it was purer than the sanctified seventh day, but because the seventh day was too pure to keep while the world is so wicked.

TESTIMONY OF THE EPISTLE OF PLINY.

Pliny was the Roman governor of Bithynia in the years 103 and 104. He wrote a letter to the emperor Trajan, in which he states what he had[Pg 25] learned of the Christians as the result of examining them at his tribunal:—

The letter of Pliny is often referred to as though it testified that the Christians of Bithynia celebrated the first day of the week. Yet such is by no means the case, as the reader can plainly see. Coleman says of it (page 528):—

Such is the judgment of an able, candid, first-day church historian of good repute as a scholar. An anti-Sabbatarian writer of some repute speaks thus:—

Every candid person must acknowledge that it is unjust to represent the letter of Pliny as testifying in behalf of the so-called Christian Sabbath. Next in order of time come the reputed epistles of Ignatius.

TESTIMONY OF THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS.

Of the fifteen epistles ascribed to Ignatius, eight are, by universal consent, accounted spurious; and eminent scholars have questioned the genuineness of the remaining seven. There are, however, two forms to these seven, a longer and a shorter, and while some doubt exists as to the shorter form, the longer form is by common consent ascribed to a later age than that of Ignatius. But the epistle to the Magnesians, which exists both in the longer and in the shorter form, is the one from which first-day writers obtain Ignatius’ testimony in behalf of Sunday, and they quote for this both these forms. We therefore give both. Here is the shorter:—

This paragraph is the one out of which a part of a sentence is quoted to show that Ignatius testifies in behalf of the Lord’s-day festival, or[Pg 27] Christian Sabbath. But the so-called Lord’s day is only brought in by means of a false translation. This is the decisive sentence: μηκέτι σαϐϐατίζοντες ἀλλὰ κατὰ κυριακὴν ζωὴν ζῶντες; literally: “no longer sabbatizing, but living according to Lord’s life.”

Eminent first-day scholars have called attention to this fact, and have testified explicitly that the term Lord’s day has no right to appear in the translation; for the original is not κυριακὴν ἡμέραν, Lord’s day, but κυριακὴν ζωὴν, Lord’s life. This is absolutely decisive, and shows that something akin to fraud has to be used in order to find a reference in this place to the so-called Christian Sabbath.

But there is another fact quite as much to the point. The writer was not speaking of those then alive, but of the ancient prophets. This is proved by the opening and closing words of the above quotation, which first-day writers always omit. The so-called Lord’s day is inserted by a fraudulent translation; and now see what absurdity comes of it. The writer is speaking of the ancient prophets. If, therefore, the Sunday festival be inserted in this quotation from Ignatius he is made to declare that “the divinest prophets,” who “were brought up in the ancient order of things,” kept the first day and did not keep the Sabbath! Whereas, the truth is just the reverse of this. They certainly did keep the Sabbath, and did not keep the first day of the week. The writer speaks of the point when these men came “to the newness of hope,” which must be their individual conversion to God. They certainly did observe and enforce the Sabbath after this act of conversion. See Isa., chaps. 56, 58; Jer. 17;[Pg 28] Eze., chaps. 20, 22, 23. But they did also, as this writer truly affirms, live according to the Lord’s life. The sense of the writer respecting the prophets must therefore be this: “No longer [after their conversion to God] observing the Sabbath [merely, as natural men] but living according to the Lord’s life,” or “according to Christ Jesus.”

So much for the shorter form of the epistle to the Magnesians. Though the longer form is by almost universal consent of scholars and critics pronounced the work of some centuries after the time of Ignatius, yet as a portion of this also is often given by first-day writers to support Sunday, and given too as the words of Ignatius, we here present in full its reference to the first day of the week, and also to the Sabbath, which they generally omit. Here are its statements:—

This epistle, though the work of a later hand than that of Ignatius, is valuable for the light which it sheds upon the state of things when it[Pg 29] was written. It gives us a correct idea of the progress of apostasy with respect to the Sabbath in the time of the writer. He speaks against Jewish superstition in the observance of the Sabbath, and condemns days of idleness as contrary to the declaration, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread.” But by days of idleness he cannot refer to the Sabbath, for this would be to make the fourth commandment clash with this text, whereas they must harmonize, inasmuch as they existed together during the former dispensation. Moreover, the Sabbath, though a day of abstinence from labor, is not a day of idleness, but of active participation in religious duties. He enjoins its observance after a spiritual manner. And after the Sabbath has been thus observed, “let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s day as a festival, the resurrection day, the queen and chief of all the days.” The divine institution of the Sabbath was not yet done away, but the human institution of Sunday had become its equal, and was even commended above it. Not long after this, it took the whole ground, and the observance of the Sabbath was denounced as heretical and pernicious.

The reputed epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians in its shorter form does not allude to this subject. In its longer form, which is admitted to be the work of a later age than that of Ignatius, these expressions are found:—

In the epistle to the Philippians, which is universally[Pg 30] acknowledged to be the work of a later person than Ignatius, it is said:—

We have now given every allusion to the Sabbath and first-day that can be found in any writing attributed to Ignatius. We have seen that the term “Lord’s day” is not found in any sentence written by him. The first day is never called the Christian Sabbath, not even in the writings falsely attributed to him; nor is there in any of them a hint of the modern doctrine of the change of the Sabbath. Though falsely ascribed to Ignatius, and actually written in a later age, they are valuable in that they mark the progress of apostasy in the establishment of the Sunday festival. Moreover, they furnish conclusive evidence that the ancient Sabbath was retained for centuries in the so-called Catholic church, and that the Sunday festival was an institution entirely distinct from the Sabbath of the fourth commandment.

TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH AT SMYRNA.

The epistle of Polycarp makes no reference to the Sabbath nor to the first day of the week. But “the encyclical epistle of the church at Smyrna concerning the martyrdom of the holy Polycarp,” informs us that “the blessed Polycarp suffered martyrdom” “on the great Sabbath at the eighth hour.” Chapter xxi. The margin says: “The great Sabbath is that before the passover.” This day, thus mentioned, is not Sunday, but is the ancient Sabbath of the Lord.

TESTIMONY OF THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS.

This was written by an unknown author, and Diognetus himself is known only by name, no facts concerning him having come down to us. It dates from the first part of the second century. The writer speaks of “the superstition as respects the Sabbaths” which the Jews manifested, and he adds these words: “To speak falsely of God, as if he forbade us to do what is good on the Sabbath days—how is not this impious?” But there is nothing in this to which a commandment-keeper would object, or which he might not freely utter.

The “Recognitions of Clement” is a kind of philosophical and theological romance. It purports to have been written by Clement of Rome, in the time of the apostle Peter, but was actually written “somewhere in the first half of the third century.”

TESTIMONY OF THE RECOGNITIONS OF CLEMENT.

This is all that I find in this work relating to the Sabbath and the so-called Lord’s day. The writer held the ten commandments to be tests of character in the present dispensation. There is no reason to believe that he, or any other person in that age, held the Sunday festival as something to be observed in obedience to the fourth commandment.

TESTIMONY OF THE SYRIAC DOCUMENTS CONCERNING EDESSA.

On pages 35-55 of this work is given what purports to be “The Teaching of the Apostles.” On page 36, the ascension of the Lord is said to have been upon the “first day of the week, and the end of the Pentecost.” Two manifest falsehoods are here uttered; for the ascension was upon Thursday, and the Pentecost came ten days after the ascension. It is also said that the disciples came from Nazareth of Galilee to the mount of Olives on that selfsame day before the ascension, and yet that the ascension was “at the time of the early dawn.” But Nazareth was distant from the mount of Olives at least sixty miles!

On page 38, a commandment from the apostles is given: “On the first [day] of the week, let there be service, and the reading of the holy Scriptures, and the oblation,” because Christ arose on that day, was born on that day, ascended on that day, and will come again on that day. But here is one truth, one falsehood, and two mere assertions. The apostles are represented, on page[Pg 33] 39, as commanding a fast of forty days, and they add: “Then celebrate the day of the passion [Friday], and the day of the resurrection,” Sunday. But this would be only an annual celebration of these days.

And on pages 38 and 39 they are also represented as commanding service to be held on the fourth and sixth days of the week. The Sabbath is not mentioned in these “Documents,” which were written about the commencement of the fourth century, when, in many parts of the world, that day had ceased to be hallowed.

TESTIMONY OF JUSTIN MARTYR.

Justin’s “Apology” was written at Rome about the year 140. His “Dialogue with Trypho the Jew” was written some years later. In searching his works, we shall see how much greater progress apostasy had made at Rome than in the countries where those lived whose writings we have been examining. And yet nearly all these writings were composed at least a century later than those of Justin, though we have quoted them before quoting his, because of their asserted apostolic origin, or of their asserted origin within a few years of the times of the apostles.

It does not appear that Justin, and those at Rome who held with him in doctrine, paid the slightest regard to the ancient Sabbath. He speaks of it as abolished, and treats it with contempt.[Pg 34] Unlike some whose writings have been examined, he denies that it originated at creation, and asserts that it was made in the days of Moses. He also differs with some already quoted in that he denies the perpetuity of the law of ten commandments. In his estimation, the Sabbath was a Jewish institution, absolutely unknown to good men before the time of Moses, and of no authority whatever since the death of Christ. The idea of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh day of the week to the first, is not only never found in his writings, but is absolutely irreconcilable with such statements as the foregoing, which abound therein. And yet Justin Martyr is prominently and constantly cited in behalf of the so-called Christian Sabbath.

The Roman people observed a festival on the first day of the week in honor of the sun. And so Justin in his Apology, addressed to the emperor of Rome, tells that monarch that the Christians met on “the day of the sun,” for worship. He gives the day no sacred title, and does not even intimate that it was a day of abstinence from labor, only as they spent a portion of it in worship. Here are the words of his Apology on the Sunday festival:—

Not one word of this indicates that Justin considered the Sunday festival as a continuation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. On the contrary, he shows clearly that no such idea was cherished by him. For though the fourth commandment enjoins the observance of the seventh day because God rested on that day from the work of creation, Justin urged in behalf of the Sunday festival that it is the day on which he began his work. The honor paid to that festival was not therefore in Justin’s estimation in any sense an act of obedience to the fourth commandment. He mentions as his other reason for the celebration by Christians of “the day of the sun,” that the Saviour arose that day. But he claims no divine or apostolic precept for this celebration; the things which he says Christ taught his apostles being the doctrines which he had embodied in this Apology for the information of the emperor. And it is worthy of notice that though first-day writers assert that “Lord’s day” was the familiar title of the first day of the week in[Pg 36] the time of the Apocalypse, yet Justin, who is the first person after the sacred writers that mentions the first day, and this at a distance of only 44 years from the date of John’s vision upon Patmos, does not call it by that title, but by the name which it bore as a heathen festival! If it be said that the term was omitted because he was addressing a heathen emperor, there still remains the fact that he mentions the day quite a number of times in his “Dialogue with Trypho,” and yet never calls it “Lord’s day,” nor indeed does he call it by any name implying sacredness.

Now we present the statements concerning the Sabbath and first-day found in his “Dialogue with Trypho the Jew.” The impropriety, not to say dishonesty, of quoting Justin in behalf of the modern doctrine of the change of the Sabbath, will be obvious to all. He was a most decided no-law, no-Sabbath writer, who used the day commonly honored as a festival by the Romans, as the most suitable, or most convenient, day for public worship, a position identical with that of modern no-Sabbath men. Justin may be called a law man in this sense, however, that while he abolishes the ten commandments, he calls the gospel “the new law.” He is therefore really one who believes in the gospel and denies the law. But let us hear his own words. Trypho, having in chapter viii. advised Justin to observe the Sabbath, and “do all things which have been written in the law,” in chapter x. says to him, “You observe no festivals or Sabbaths.”

This was exactly adapted to bring out from Justin the answer that though he did not observe the seventh day as the Sabbath, he did thus rest on the first day, if it were true that that day was[Pg 37] with him a day of abstinence from labor. And now observe Justin’s answer given in chapter twelve:—

This language plainly implies that Justin held all days to be alike, and did not observe any one day as a day of abstinence from labor. But in chapter xviii., Justin asserts that the Sabbaths—and he doubtless includes the weekly with the annual—were enjoined upon the Jews for their wickedness:—

Not only does he declare that the Jews were commanded to keep the Sabbath because of their wickedness, but in chapter xix. he denies that any Sabbath existed before Moses. Thus, after naming Adam, Abel, Enoch, Lot, and Melchizedek, he says:—

[Pg 38]But though he thus denies the Sabbatic institution before the time of Moses, he presently makes this statement concerning the Jews:—

The Sabbath is indeed the memorial of the God that made the heavens and the earth. And what an absurdity to deny that that memorial was set up when the creative work was done, and to affirm that twenty-five hundred years intervened between the work and the memorial!

In chapter xxi. Justin asserts “that God enjoined you [the Jews] to keep the Sabbath, and imposed on you other precepts for a sign, as I have already said, on account of your unrighteousness, and that of your fathers,” &c., and quotes Ezekiel 20 to prove it. Yet that chapter declares that it was in order that they might know who was that being who sanctified them, i. e., that they might know that their God was the Creator, that the Sabbath was made to them a sign.

In chapter xxiii., he again asserts that “in the times of Enoch” no one “observed Sabbaths.” He then protests against Sabbatic observance as follows:—

That is to say, there was no Sabbatic institution[Pg 39] before Moses, and neither is there any since Christ. But in chapter xxiv., Justin undertakes to bring in an argument for Sunday, not as a Sabbath, but as having greater mystery in it, and as being more honorable than the seventh day. Thus, alluding to circumcision on the eighth day of a child’s life as an argument for the first-day festival, he says:—

That is to say, because God commanded the Hebrews to circumcise their children when they were eight days old, therefore all men should now esteem the first day of the week more honorable than the seventh day, which he commanded in the moral law, and which Justin himself, in chapter xix., terms “the memorial of God.” In chapter xxvi., Justin says to Trypho that—

And in proof of this, he quotes from Isa. 42, and 62, and 63, respecting the call of the Gentiles. Upon this (chapter xxvii.), Trypho the Jew very pertinently asks:—

These are bitter words from a Gentile who had been a pagan philosopher, and they are in no sense a just answer unless it can be shown that the law was given to the Jews because they were so wicked, and was withheld from the Gentiles because they were so righteous. The truth is just the reverse of this. Eph. 2. But to say something against the Sabbath, Justin asks:—

What Justin says concerning circumcision and sacrifices is absolutely without weight as an objection to the Sabbath, inasmuch as the commandment forbids, not the performance of religious duties, but our own work. Ex. 20:8-11. And his often repeated declaration that good men before the time of Moses did not keep the Sabbath, is mere assertion, inasmuch as God appointed it[Pg 41] to a holy use in the time of Adam, and we do know of some in the patriarchal age who kept God’s commandments, and were perfect before him.

In chapter xxix., Justin sneers at Sabbatic observance by saying, “Think it not strange that we drink hot water on the Sabbaths.” And as arguments against the Sabbath he says that God “directs the government of the universe on this day equally as on all others,” as though this were inconsistent with the present sacredness of the Sabbath, when it was also true that God thus governed the world in the period when Justin acknowledges the Sabbath to have been obligatory. And he again refers to the sacrifices and to those who lived in the patriarchal age.

In chapter xli., Justin again brings forward his argument for Sunday from circumcision:—

Sunday-keeping must be closely related to infant baptism, inasmuch as one of the chief arguments in modern times for the baptism of infants is drawn from the fact that God commanded the Hebrews to circumcise their male children; and Justin found his scriptural authority for first-day observance in the fact that this rite was to be performed when the child was eight days old! Yet this eighth day did not come on one day of the week, only, but on every day, and when it came on the seventh day it furnished Justin with[Pg 42] an argument against the sacredness of the Sabbath! But let it come on what day of the week it might (and it came on all alike), it was an argument for Sunday! O wonderful eighth day, that can thrive on that which is positively fatal to the seventh, and that can come every week on the first day thereof, though there be only seven days in each week!

In chapters xliii., and xlvi., and xcii., Justin reiterates the assertion that those who lived in the patriarchal age did not hallow the Sabbath. But as he adds no new thought to what has been already quoted from him, these need not be copied.

But in chapter xlvii., we have something of interest. Trypho asks Justin whether those who believe in Christ, and obey him, but who wish to “observe these [institutions] will be saved?” Justin answers: “In my opinion, Trypho, such an one will be saved, if he does not strive in every way to persuade other men ... to observe the same things as himself, telling them that they will not be saved unless they do so.” Trypho replied, “Why then have you said, ‘In my opinion, such an one will be saved,’ unless there are some who affirm that such will not be saved?”

In reply, Justin tells Trypho that there were those who would have no intercourse with, nor even extend hospitality to, such Christians as observed the law. And for himself he says:—

Justin’s language shows that there were Sabbath-keeping Christians in his time. Such of them as were of Jewish descent no doubt generally retained circumcision. But it is very unjust in him to represent the Gentile Sabbath-keepers as observing this rite. That there were many of these is evident from the so-called “Apostolical Constitutions,” and even from the Ignatian Epistles. One good thing, however, Justin does say. The keeping of the commandments he terms the performance of “the eternal and natural acts of righteousness.” He would consent to fellowship those who do these things provided they made them no test for others. He well knew in such case that the Sabbath would die out in a little time. Himself and the more popular party at Rome honored as their festival the day observed by the heathen Romans, as he reminds the emperor in his Apology, and he was willing to fellowship the Sabbath-keepers if they would not test him by the commandments, i. e., if they would fellowship him in violating them.

That Justin held to the abrogation of the ten commandments is also manifest. Trypho, in the tenth chapter of the Dialogue, having said to Justin, “You do not obey his commandments,” and again, “You do not observe the law,” Justin answers in chapter xi. as follows:—

We must, therefore, pronounce Justin a man who held to the abrogation of the ten commandments, and that the Sabbath was a Jewish institution which was unknown before Moses, and of no authority since Christ. He held Sunday to be the most suitable day for public worship, but not upon the ground that the Sabbath had been changed to it, for he cuts up the Sabbatic institution by the roots; and so far is he from calling this day the Christian Sabbath that he gives to it the name which it bore as a heathen festival.

TESTIMONY OF IRENÆUS.

This father was born “somewhere between a. d. 120 and a. d. 140.” He was “bishop of Lyons in France during the latter quarter of the second century,” being ordained to that office “probably about a. d. 177.” His work Against Heresies was written “between a. d. 182 and a. d. 188.” First-day writers assert that Irenæus “says that the Lord’s day was the Christian Sabbath.” They profess to quote from him these words: “On the Lord’s day every one of us Christians keeps the Sabbath, meditating on the law and rejoicing in the works of God.”

[Pg 45]No such language is found in any of the writings of this father. We will quote his entire testimony respecting the Sabbath and first-day, and the reader can judge. He speaks of Christ’s observance of the Sabbath, and shows that he did not violate the day. Thus he says:—

Irenæus certainly teaches a very different doctrine from that of Justin Martyr concerning the commandments. He believed that men must keep the commandments, in order to enter eternal life. He says further:—

[Pg 47]He also makes the observance of the decalogue the test of true piety. Thus he says:—

The precepts of the decalogue he rightly terms “natural precepts,” that is, precepts which constitute “the work of the law” written by nature in the hearts of all men, but marred by the presence of the carnal mind or law of sin in the members. That this law of God pertains alike to Jews and to Gentiles, he thus affirms:—

It is certain that Irenæus held the decalogue to be now binding on all men; for he says of it in the quotation above, “Which if any one does not observe, he has no salvation.” But, though not consistent with his statement respecting the decalogue as the law of nature, he classes the Sabbath with circumcision, when speaking of it as a sign between God and Israel, and says, “The Sabbaths taught that we should continue day by day in God’s service.” “Moreover the Sabbath of God, that is, the kingdom, was, as it were, indicated by created things; in which [kingdom], the man who shall have persevered in serving God shall, in a state of rest, partake of God’s table.” He says also of Abraham that he was “without observance of Sabbaths.” Book iv.[Pg 48] chap. xvi. sects. 1, 2. But in the same chapter he again asserts the perpetuity and authority of the decalogue in these words:—

This statement establishes the authority of each of the ten commandments in the gospel dispensation. Yet Irenæus seems to have regarded the fourth commandment as only a typical precept, and not of perpetual obligation like the others.

Irenæus regarded the Sabbath as something which pointed forward to the kingdom of God. Yet in stating this doctrine he actually indicates the origin of the Sabbath at creation, though, as we have seen, elsewhere asserting that it was not kept by Abraham. Thus, in speaking of the reward to be given the righteous, he says:—

Though Irenæus is made by first-day writers to bear a very explicit testimony that Sunday is[Pg 49] the Christian Sabbath, the following, which constitutes the seventh fragment of what is called the “Lost Writings of Irenæus,” is the only instance which I have found in a careful search through all his works in which he even mentions the first day. Here is the entire first-day testimony of this father:—

This is something very remarkable. It is not what Irenæus said, after all, but is what an unknown writer, in a work entitled Quæs. et Resp. ad Othod., says of him. And all that this writer says of Irenæus is that he declares the custom of not kneeling upon Sunday “took its rise from apostolic times”! It does not even appear that Irenæus even used the term Lord’s day as a title for the first day of the week. Its use in the present quotation is by the unknown writer to whom we are indebted for the statement here given respecting Irenæus. And this writer, whoever he be, is of the opinion that the Pentecost is of equal consequence with the so-called Lord’s day! And well he may so judge, inasmuch as both of these Catholic festivals are only established by the authority of the church. The testimony of Irenæus in behalf of Sunday does therefore amount simply to this: That the resurrection[Pg 50] is to be commemorated by “not bending the knee upon Sunday”!

The fiftieth fragment of the “Lost Writings of Irenæus” is derived from the Nitrian Collection of Syriac MSS. It relates to the resurrection of the dead. In a note appended to it the Syriac editor says of Irenæus that he “wrote to an Alexandrian to the effect that it is right, with respect to the feast of the resurrection, that we should celebrate it upon the first day of the week.” No extant writing of Irenæus contains this statement, but it is likely that the Syriac editor possessed some portion of his works now lost. And here again it is worthy of notice that we have from Irenæus only the plain name of “first day of the week.” As to the manner of celebrating it, the only thing which he sets forth is “not bending the knee upon Sunday.”

In the thirty-eighth fragment of his “Lost Writings” he quotes Col. 2:16, but whether with reference to the seventh day, or merely respecting the ceremonial sabbaths, his comments do not determine. We have now given every statement of Irenæus which bears upon the Sabbath and the Sunday. It is manifest that the advocates of first-day sacredness have made Irenæus testify in its behalf to suit themselves. He alludes to the first day of the week once or twice, but never uses for it the title of Lord’s day or Christian Sabbath, and the only thing which he mentions as entering into the celebration of the festival was that Christians should not kneel in prayer on that day! By first-day writers, Irenæus is made to bear an explicit testimony that Sunday is the Lord’s day and the Christian Sabbath! And to give great weight to this alleged fact, they[Pg 51] say that he was the disciple of Polycarp, who was the disciple of John: and whereas John speaks of the Lord’s day, Irenæus, who must have known what he meant by the term, says that the Lord’s day is the first day of the week! But Polycarp, in his epistle, does not even mention the first day of the week, and Irenæus, in his extended writings, mentions it only twice, and that in “lost fragments,” preserved at secondhand, and in neither instance does he call it any thing but plain “first day of the week”! And the only honor which he mentions as due this day is that the knee should not be bent upon it! And even this was not spoken of every Sunday in the year, but only of “Easter Sunday,” the anniversary of Christ’s resurrection!

Here we might dismiss the case of Irenæus. But our first-day friends are determined at least to connect him with the use of Lord’s day as a name for Sunday. They therefore bring forward Eusebius, who wrote 150 years later, to prove that Irenæus did call Sunday by that name. Eusebius alludes to the controversy in the time of Irenæus, respecting the annual celebration of Christ’s resurrection in what was called the festival of the passover. He says (Eccl. Hist., b. v. chap. xxiii.) that the bishops of different countries, and Irenæus was of the number, decreed “that the mystery of our Lord’s resurrection should be celebrated on no other day than the Lord’s day; and that on this day alone we should observe the close of the paschal fasts,” and not on the fourteenth of the first month as practiced by the other party. And in the next chapter, Eusebius represents Irenæus as writing a letter to this effect to the Bishop of Rome. But observe,[Pg 52] Eusebius does not quote the words of any of these bishops, but simply gives their decisions in his own language. There is therefore no proof that they used the term Lord’s day instead of first day of the week. But we have evidence that in the decision of this case which Irenæus sent forth, he used the term “first day of the week.” For the introduction to the fiftieth fragment of his “Lost Writings,” already quoted, gives an ancient statement of his words in this decision, as plain “first day of the week.” It is Eusebius who gives us the term Lord’s day in recording what was said by these bishops concerning the first day of the week. In his time, a. d. 324, Lord’s day had become a common designation of Sunday. But it was not such in the time of Irenæus, a. d. 178. We have found no writer who flourished before him who applies it to Sunday; it is not so applied by Irenæus; and we shall find no decisive instance of such use till the close of the second century.

TESTIMONY OF DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF CORINTH.

This father, about a. d. 170, wrote a letter to the Roman church, in which are found these words:—

This is the earliest use of the term Lord’s day to be found in the fathers. But it cannot be called a decisive testimony that Sunday was thus known at this date, inasmuch as every writer who precedes Dionysius calls it “first day of the week,” “eighth day,” or “Sunday,” but never once by[Pg 53] this title; and Dionysius says nothing to indicate that Sunday was intended, or to show that he did not refer to that day which alone has the right to be called the Lord’s “holy day.” Isa. 58:13. We have found several express testimonies to the sacredness of the Sabbath in the writers already examined.

TESTIMONY OF MELITO, BISHOP OF SARDIS.

This father wrote about a. d. 177. We know little of this writer except the titles of his books, which Eusebius has preserved to us. One of these titles is this: “On the Lord’s Day.” But it should be remembered that down to this date no writer has called Sunday the Lord’s day; and that every one who certainly spoke of that day called it by some other name than Lord’s day. To say, therefore, as do first-day writers, that Melito wrote of Sunday, is to speak without just warrant. He uses τῆς κυριακῆς, “the Lord’s,” but does not join with it ἡμέρα, a “day,” as does John. He wrote of something pertaining to the Lord, but it is not certain that it was the Lord’s day. Moreover, Clement, who next uses this term, uses it in a mystical sense.

TESTIMONY OF THE HERETIC BARDESANES.

Bardesanes, the Syrian, flourished about a. d. 180. He belonged to the Gnostic sect of Valentinians, and abandoning them, “devised errors of his own.” In his “Book of the Laws of Countries,” he replies to the views of astrologers who assert that the stars govern men’s actions. He shows the folly of this by enumerating the peculiarities of different races and sects. In doing this, he speaks of the strictness with which the Jews[Pg 54] kept the Sabbath. Of the new sect called Christians, which “Christ at his advent planted in every country,” he says:—

This shows that the Gnostics used Sunday as the day for religious assemblies. Whether he recognized others besides Gnostics, as Christians, we cannot say. We find no allusion, however, to Sunday as a day of abstinence from labor, except so far as necessary for their meetings. What their days of fasting, which are here alluded to, were, cannot now be determined. It is also worthy of notice that this writer, who certainly speaks of Sunday, and this as late as a. d. 180, does not call it Lord’s day, nor give it any sacred title whatever, but speaks of it as “first day of the week.” No writer down to a. d. 180, who is known to speak of Sunday, calls it the Lord’s day.

TESTIMONY OF THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH.

This father became Bishop of Antioch in a. d. 168, and died a. d. 181. First-day writers represent him as saying, “Both custom and reason challenge from us that we should honor the Lord’s day, seeing on that day it was that our Lord Jesus completed his resurrection from the dead.” These writers, however, give no reference to the[Pg 55] particular place in the works of Theophilus where this is to be found. I have carefully examined every paragraph of all the extant writings of this father, and that several times over, without discovering any such statement. I am constrained, therefore, to state that nothing of the kind above quoted is to be found in Theophilus! And further than this, the term Lord’s day does not occur in this writer, nor does he even refer to the first day of the week except in quoting Genesis 1, in a single instance! But though he makes no mention of the Sunday festival, he makes the following reference to the Sabbath in his remarks concerning the creation of the world:—

Though Theophilus is in error in saying that the Hebrew word Sabbath is translated into Greek seventh, his statement indicates that he held the origin of the Sabbath to be when God sanctified the seventh day. These are the words of Scripture, as given by him, on which he wrote the above:—

In the fifteenth chapter of this book, he compares those who “keep the law and commandments of God” to the fixed stars, while the “wandering stars” are “a type of the men who have[Pg 56] wandered from God, abandoning his law and commandments.” Of the law itself, he speaks thus:—

He makes the keeping of the law and commandments the condition of a part in the resurrection to eternal life:—

And yet this man who bears such a noble testimony to the commandments and the law, and who says not one word concerning the festival of Sunday, is made to speak explicitly in behalf of this so-called Christian Sabbath!

TESTIMONY OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, a. d. 194.

This father was born about a. d. 160, and died about a. d. 220. He wrote about a. d. 194, and is the first of the fathers who uses the term Lord’s day in such a manner as possibly to signify by it the first day of the week. And yet he expressly speaks of the Sabbath as a day of rest, and of the first day of the week as a day for labor! The change of the Sabbath and the institution of the so-called Christian Sabbath were alike unknown to him. Of the ten commandments, he speaks thus:—

We come now to the first instance in the fathers in which the term Lord’s day is perhaps applied to Sunday. Clement is the father who does this, and he very properly substantiates it with evidence. He does not say that Saint John thus applied this name, but he finds authority for this in the writings of the heathen philosopher Plato, who, he thinks, spoke of it prophetically!

By the eighth day to which Clement here applies the name of Lord’s day the first day is possibly intended, though he appears to speak solely of mystical days. But having said thus much in behalf of the eighth day, he in the very next sentence commences to establish from the Greek writers the sacredness of that seventh day which the Hebrews hallowed. This shows that whatever regard he might have for the eighth day, he certainly cherished the seventh day as sacred. Thus he continues:—

Some of these quotations are not now found in the writings which Clement cites. And whether or not he rightly applies them to the seventh-day Sabbath, the fact that he does so apply them is incontestible proof that he honored that day as sacred, whatever might also be his regard for that day which he distinguishes as the eighth.

In book vi., chapter v., he alludes to the celebration of some of the annual sabbaths. And in chapter xvi., he thus speaks of the fourth commandment:—

This certainly teaches that the Sabbath was made for man, and that he now needs it as a day of rest. It also indicates that Clement recognized the authority of the fourth commandment, for he treats of the ten commandments in order, and comments on what each enjoins or forbids. In the next paragraph, however, he makes some remarkable suggestions. Thus he says:—

Clement thinks it possible that the eighth day (Sunday), may really be the seventh day, and that the seventh day (Saturday) may in fact be the true sixth day. But let not our Sunday friends exult at this, for Clement by no means helps their case. Having said that Sunday may be properly the seventh day, and Saturday manifestly the sixth day, he calls “the LATTER properly the Sabbath, and the seventh a day of work”! By “the latter,” of necessity must be understood the day last mentioned, which he says should be called not the seventh, but the sixth; and by “the seventh,” must certainly be intended that day which he says is not the eighth, but the seventh, that is to say, Sunday. It follows therefore in the estimation of Clement that Sunday was a day of ordinary labor, and Saturday, the day of rest. He had an excellent opportunity to say that the eighth day or Sunday was not only the seventh day, but also the true Sabbath, but instead of doing this he gives this honor to the day which he says is not the seventh but the sixth, and declares that the real seventh day or Sunday is “a day of work.” And he proceeds at length to[Pg 61] show the sacredness and importance of the number six. His opinion of the numbering of the days is unimportant; but the fact that this father who is the first writer that connects the term Lord’s day with the eighth day or Sunday, does expressly represent that day as one of ordinary labor, and does also give to the previous day the honors of the Sabbath is something that should shut the mouths of those who claim him as a believer in the so-called Christian Sabbath.

In the same chapter, this writer alludes to the Sabbath vaguely, apparently understanding it to prefigure the rest that remains to the people of God:—

The following quotation completes the testimony of Clement. He speaks of the precept concerning fasting, that it is fulfilled by abstinence from sinful pleasure. And thus he says:—

Clement asserts that one fasts according to the law when he abstains from evil deeds, and, according to the gospel, when he abstains from evil[Pg 62] thoughts. He shows how the precept respecting fasting is fulfilled when he speaks of one who “in fulfillment of the precept, according to the gospel, keeps the Lord’s day when he abandons an evil disposition.” This abandonment of an evil disposition, according to Clement, keeps the Lord’s day, and glorifies the Lord’s resurrection. But this duty pertains to no one day of the week, but to all alike, so that he seems evidently to inculcate a perpetual Lord’s day, even as Justin Martyr enjoins the observance of a “perpetual Sabbath,” to be acceptably sanctified by those who maintain true repentance. Though these writers are not always consistent with themselves, yet two facts go to show that Clement in this book means just what his words literally import, viz., that the keeping of the Lord’s day and the glorifying of the resurrection is not the observance of a certain day of the week, but the performance of a work which embraces every day of one’s whole life.

1. The first of these facts is his express statement of this doctrine in the first paragraph of the seventh chapter of this book. Thus he says:—

[Pg 63]2. The second of these facts is that in book vi., chapter xvi., as already quoted, he expressly represents Sunday as “a day of work.”

Certainly Clement of Alexandria should not be cited as teaching the change of the Sabbath, or advocating the so-called Christian Sabbath.

TESTIMONY OF TERTULLIAN, a. d. 200.

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[Pg 64] 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.

Tertullian’s first reference to Sunday is found in that part of his Apology in which he excuses his brethren from the charge of sun-worship. Thus he says:—

2. Those Christians who observed the festival of Sunday were claimed by the heathen as sun-worshipers.

3. The entrance of the Sunday festival into the church in an age of apostasy when men very generally honored it, was not merely not difficult to be effected, it was actually difficult to be prevented.

It would seem from the closing sentence that some of the heathen used the seventh day as a day of ease and luxury. But Mr. Reeve’s Translation gives a very different sense. He renders Tertullian thus:—

The persons here mentioned so contemptuously could not be heathens, for they do not call any day “their Sabbath.” Nor could they be Jews, as is plain from the form of expression used. If we accept Mr. Reeve’s Translation, these persons were Christians who observe the seventh day. Tertullian does not say that the Sunday festival was observed by divine authority, but that they might distinguish themselves from those who call the seventh day the Sabbath.

[Pg 66]Tertullian again declares that his brethren did not observe the days held sacred by the Jews.

But those Christians who would not keep the Sabbath because the festival of Sunday was in their estimation more worthy of honor, or more convenient to observe, were greatly given to the observance of other days, in common with the heathen, besides Sunday. Thus Tertullian charges home upon them this sin:—

These Sunday-festival Christians, “to whom Sabbaths” were “strange,” could not have kept Sunday as a Sabbath. They had never heard that by divine authority the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, and that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. Let any candid man read the above words from Tertullian, and then deny, if he can, that these strangers to[Pg 67] the Sabbath, and observers of heathen festivals, were not a body of apostatizing Christians!

Hereafter Tertullian will give an excellent commentary on his quotation from Isaiah. It seems from him that the so-called Lord’s day came once in eight days. Were these words to be taken in their most obvious sense, then it would come one day later each week than it did the preceding week, and thus it would come successively on all the days of the week in order, at intervals of eight days. He might in such case well say:—

But it seems that Tertullian by the eighth day intended Sunday. And here is something from him relative to the manner of keeping it. Thus he says:—

A more literal translation of this passage would expressly connect the term Lord’s day with the day of Christ’s resurrection, the original being[Pg 68] “die Dominico resurrexionis.” The special weekly honor which Tertullian would have men confer solely upon Sunday was to pray on that day in a standing posture. And somewhat to his annoyance, “some few” would thus act with reference to the Sabbath. There is, however, some reference to the deferral of business on Sunday. And this is worthy of notice, for it is the first sentence we have discovered that looks like abstinence from labor on Sunday, and we shall not find another before the time of Constantine’s famous Sunday law, a. d. 321.

But this passage is far from asserting that labor on Sunday was sinful. It speaks of “deferring even our businesses;” but this does not necessarily imply anything beyond its postponement during the hours devoted to religious services. And we shall find nothing in Tertullian, nor in his cotemporaries, that will go beyond this, while we shall find much to restrict us to the interpretation of his words here given. Tertullian could not say that Sabbaths were strange to him and his brethren if they religiously refrained from labor on each Sunday. But let us hear him again concerning the observance of Sunday and kindred practices:—

The things which he counted unlawful on Sunday he expressly names. These are fasting and kneeling on that day. But ordinary labor does not come into his list of things unlawful on that day. And now observe what progress apostasy and superstition had made in other things also. “Offerings for the dead” were regularly made, and the sign of the cross was repeated as often as God would have men rehearse his commandments. See Deut. 6:6-9. And now if you wish to know Tertullian’s authority for the Sunday festival, offerings for the dead, and the sign of the cross, he frankly tells you what it is. He had no authority from the Scriptures. Custom and tradition were all that he could offer. Modern divines can find plenty of authority, from the Scriptures, as they assert, for maintaining the so-called Lord’s day. Tertullian knew of none. He took the Sunday festival, offerings for the dead, and the sign of the cross, on the authority of custom and tradition; if you take the first on such authority, why do you not, also, the other two?

But Tertullian finds it necessary to write a second defense of his brethren from the charge of being sun-worshipers, a charge directly connected with their observance of the festival of Sunday. Here are his words:—

Tertullian in this discourse addresses himself to the nations still in idolatry. The heathen festival of Sunday, which was with some nations more ancient, had been established among the Romans at a comparatively recent date, though earlier than the time of Justin Martyr, the first Christian writer in whom an authentic mention of the day is found. The heathen reproached the early Sunday Christians with being sun-worshipers, “because,” says Tertullian, “we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity.” And how does Tertullian answer this grave charge? He could not say, We do it by command of God to honor the first day of the week, for he expressly states in a former quotation that no such precept exists. So he retorts thus: “What[Pg 71] then? Do you [heathen] do less than this?” And he adds: “You have selected its day [Sunday] in preference to the preceding day” (Saturday), etc. That is to say, Tertullian wishes to know why, if the heathen could choose Sunday in preference to Saturday, the Christians could not have the same privilege! Could there be a stronger incidental evidence that Sunday was cherished by the early apostatizing Christians, not because commanded of God, but because it was generally observed by their heathen neighbors, and therefore more convenient to them?

But Tertullian next avows his faith in the ten commandments as “the rules of our regenerate life,” that is to say, the rules which govern Christian men; and he gives the preference to the seventh day over the eighth:—

This kind of reasoning is of course destitute of any force. But in adducing such an argument[Pg 72] Tertullian avows his faith in the ten commandments as the rule of the Christian’s life, gives the preference to the seventh day as the Sabbath, and deduces the origin of the Sabbath from God’s act of hallowing the seventh day at creation.

Though Tertullian elsewhere, as we shall see, speaks lightly of the law of God, and represents it as abolished, his next testimony most sacredly honors that law, and while acknowledging the Sabbath as one of its precepts, he recognizes the authority of the whole code. Thus he says:—

And of this precept Tertullian presently tells us that it stands “in the very forefront of the most holy law, among the primary counts of the celestial edict.”

In his treatise “On Fasting,” chapter xiv., he terms “the Sabbath—a day never to be kept as a fast except at the passover season, according to a reason elsewhere given.” And in chapter xv., he excepts from the two weeks in which meat was not eaten “the Sabbaths” and “the Lord’s days.”

But in his “Answer to the Jews,” chapter ii., he represents the law as variously modified from Adam to Christ; he denies “that the Sabbath is[Pg 73] still to be observed;” classes it with circumcision; declares that Adam was “inobservant of the Sabbath,” affirms the same of Abel, Noah, Enoch, and Melchizedek, and asserts that Lot “was freed from the conflagration of the Sodomites” “for the merits of righteousness, without observance of the law.” And in the beginning of chapter iii., he again classes the Sabbath with circumcision, and asserts that Abraham did not “observe the Sabbath.”

In chapter iv., he declares that “the observance of the Sabbath” was “temporary.” And he continues thus:—

Now see how Tertullian and his brethren disposed of this commandment respecting the seventh day:—

That is to say in plain language, they would, under pretense of keeping every day as a Sabbath, not only work on the seventh day of the week, but on all the days of the week. But this plainly proves that Tertullian did not think the seventh day was superseded by the first. And thus he proceeds:—

Our first-day friends quote Tertullian in behalf of what they call the Christian Sabbath.[Pg 74] Had he believed in such an institution he would certainly have named it in answer to this question. But mark his answer:—

This temporal Sabbath is the seventh day; this eternal Sabbath is the keeping of all days alike, as Tertullian affirms that he and those with him did.

He next declares that Isaiah’s prediction respecting the Sabbath in the new earth (Isa. 66: 22, 23), was “fulfilled in the times of Christ, when all flesh—that is, every nation—came to adore in Jerusalem God the Father.” And he adds: “Thus, therefore, before this temporal Sabbath [the seventh day], there was withal an eternal Sabbath foreshown and foretold,” i. e., the keeping of all days alike. And this he fortifies by the assertion that the holy men before Moses did not observe the seventh day. And in proof that the Sabbath was one day to cease, he cites the compassing of Jericho for seven days, one of which must have been the Sabbath. And to this he adds the case of the Maccabees who fought certain battles on the Sabbath. In due time we shall see how admirably he answers such objections as these of his own raising.

In chapter vi., he repeats his theory of the “Sabbath temporal” [the seventh day], and the “Sabbath eternal” or the “Spiritual Sabbath,” which is “to observe a Sabbath from all ‘servile works’ always, and not only every seventh day,[Pg 75] but through all time.” He says that the ancient law has ceased, and that “the new law” and the “Spiritual Sabbath” have come.

In the twentieth chapter of his first book against Marcion, Tertullian cites Hosea 2:11, and Isa. 1:13, 14, to prove that the Sabbath is now abrogated. And in his fifth book against Marcion, chapter iv., he quotes Gal. 4:10; John 19:31; Isa. 1:13, 14; Amos 5:21, and Hosea 2:11, to prove that “the Creator abolished his own laws,” and that he “destroyed the institutions which he set up himself.” These quotations are apparently designed to prove that the Sabbath is abolished, but he does not enter into argument from them. But in the nineteenth chapter of this book he quotes Col. 2:16, 17, and simply says of the law: “The apostle here teaches clearly how it has been abolished, even by passing from shadow to substance—that is, from figurative types to the reality, which is Christ.” This remark is truthful and would justly exclude the moral law from this abolition.

But in chapter xxi. of his second book against Marcion, he answers the very objection against the Sabbath which himself has elsewhere urged, as we have noticed, drawn from the case of Jericho. He says to Marcion:—

In the following chapter he again cites Isa. 1:11-14, as proof that the Sabbath is abolished. He will, however, presently explain this text which he has so many times used against the Sabbath, and show that it actually has no such bearing. In the meantime he will again declare that Joshua did not break the Sabbath, and having done this he will find it in order again to assert that “the Sabbath was actually then broken by Joshua.” In his fourth book against Marcion, chapter xii., he discusses the question whether Christ as Lord of the Sabbath had the right to annul the Sabbath, and whether in his life he did actually violate it. To do this he again cites the case of Jericho, and actually affirms that the Sabbath was broken on that occasion, and at the same time denies it. Thus he says:—

[Pg 77]The Sabbath was not violated in the case of Jericho, and yet it certainly was there violated! Tertullian adds that if Christ hated the Sabbath he was in this like the Creator himself, who declares [Isa. 1:14] that he hates it. He forgets that the Creator has expressly declared his great regard for the Sabbath by this very prophet [chap. 58:13, 14], and overlooks the fact that what God hates is the hypocritical conduct of the people as set forth in Isaiah 1. In his fourth book against Marcion, chapter xvi., Christ is mentioned as the Lord of the Sabbath, but nothing is said bearing upon Sabbatic obligation. In chapter xxx., of this same book, he alludes to the cure wrought by Christ upon the Sabbath day, mentioned in Luke 13:11-16, and says, “When, therefore, he did a work according to the condition prescribed by the law, he affirmed, instead of breaking, the law,” etc.

In the twelfth chapter of this book, however, he asserts many things relative to Christ. He says that the disciples in rubbing out the ears of corn on the Sabbath “had violated the holy day. Christ excuses them and became their accomplice in breaking the Sabbath.” He argues that as the Sabbath from the beginning, which he here places at the fall of the manna though elsewhere dating it from the creation, had never been designed as a day of fasting, the Saviour did right in justifying the act of the disciples in the cornfield. And he terms the example of David a “colorable precedent” to justify the eating of the corn. But though he represents the Saviour as “annulling the Sabbath” at this time, he also asserts that in this very case “he maintains the honor of the Sabbath as a day[Pg 78] which is to be free from gloom rather than from work.” He justifies the Saviour in his acts of healing on the Sabbath, declaring that in this he was doing that which the Sabbath law did not forbid. Tertullian next affirms precisely the reverse of many things which he has advanced against the Sabbath, and even answers his own objections against it. Thus he says:—

In this paragraph Tertullian explains the law of God in the clearest manner. He shows beyond all dispute that neither Joshua nor Christ ever violated it. He also declares that Christ did not abolish the Sabbath. In the next sentence he goes on to answer most admirably his own repeated perversion of Isaiah 1:13, 14, and to contradict some of his own serious errors. Listen to him:—

Here Tertullian shows that God did not hate his own Sabbath, but only the hypocrisy of those who professed to keep it. He also expressly declares that the Saviour “did not at all rescind the Sabbath.” And now that he has his hand in, he will not cease till he has testified to a noble Sabbatarian confession of faith, placing its origin at creation, and perpetuating the institution with divine safeguards and additional sanctity. Moreover he asserts that Christ’s adversary [Satan] would have had him do this to some other days, a heavy blow as it happens upon those who in modern times so stoutly maintain that he consecrated the first day of the week to take the place of the Creator’s rest-day. Listen again to Tertullian, who continues as follows:—

Tertullian mistakes in his reference to the Shunammite woman. It was not the Sabbath day on which she went to the prophet. 2 Kings 4:23. But in the last three paragraphs quoted from him, which in his work form one continuous statement, he affirms many important truths which are worthy of careful enumeration. They are as follows:—

1. Christ, in determining what should, and what should not, be done on the Sabbath, “was called ‘Lord of the Sabbath,’ because he maintained the Sabbath as his own institution.”

2. “The Sabbath was not broken by the Creator, even at the time when the ark was carried around Jericho.”

3. The reason why God expressed his aversion to “your Sabbaths,” as though they were “men’s Sabbaths, not his own,” was “because they were celebrated without the fear of God, by a people full of iniquities.” See Isa. 1:13, 14.

4. “By the same prophet [Isa. 58:13; 56:2], he declares them [the Sabbaths] to be ‘true and delightful and inviolable.’”

[Pg 81]7. “The Sabbath day itself, which from the beginning had been consecrated by the benediction of the Father.” This language expressly assigns the origin of the Sabbath to the act of the Creator at the close of the first week of time.

8. Christ imparted to the Sabbath “an additional sanctity by his own beneficent action.”

9. “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.”

This last statement is indeed very remarkable. Christ furnished “the Creator’s Sabbath,” the seventh day, with “divine safeguards.” His adversary (THE adversary of Christ is the devil) would have had this course “pursued for some other days.” That is to say, the devil would have been pleased had Christ consecrated some other day, instead of adding to the sanctity of his Father’s Sabbath. What Tertullian says that the devil would have been pleased to have Christ do, that our first-day friends now assert that he did do in the establishment of what they call the Christian Sabbath! Such an institution, however, was never heard of in the days of the so-called Christian fathers. Notwithstanding Tertullian’s many erroneous statements concerning the Sabbath and the law, he has here borne a noble testimony to the truth, and this completes his words.

TESTIMONY OF THE EPISTLES AND DECREES OF POPE FABIAN.

This man was bishop of Rome from a. d. 236 to a. d. 250. The letters ascribed to Fabian were probably written at a considerably later date. We quote them, however, at the very point of time wherein they claim to have been written. Their testimony is of little importance, but they breathe the self-important spirit of a Roman bishop. We quote as follows:—

This pope is said to have made the following decree, which contains the only other reference to the so-called Lord’s day to be found in the writings attributed to him:—

In these quotations we see that the Roman church is made the mother of all churches, and also that the Roman bishop thinks himself the[Pg 83] rightful ruler over all Christian people. And it is in fit keeping with these features of the great apostasy that the pope, instead of pointing sinful men to the sacrifice made on Calvary, should “decree that on each Lord’s day” every person should offer an “oblation” of “bread and wine” on the altar, “that by means of THESE SACRIFICES they may be released from the burden of their sins”!

TESTIMONY OF ORIGEN.

Origen was born about a. d. 185, probably at Alexandria in Egypt. He was a man of immense learning, but unfortunately adopted a spiritualizing system in the interpretation of the Scriptures that was the means of flooding the church with many errors. He wrote during the first half of the third century. I have carefully examined all the writings of every Christian writer preceding the council of Nice with the single exception of Origen. Some of his works, as yet, I have not been able to obtain. While, therefore, I give the entire testimony of every other father on the subject of inquiry, in his case I am unable to do this. But I can give it with sufficient fullness to present him in a just light. His first reference to the Sabbath is a denial that it should be literally understood. Thus he says:—

[Pg 84]Origen asserts that the spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures whereby their literal meaning is set aside is something divinely inspired! But when this is accepted as the truth who can tell what they mean by what they say?

In the next chapter he quotes Isa. 1:13, 14, but with reference to the subject of the soul and not to that of the Sabbath. In chapter xi., alluding again to the hidden meaning of the things commanded in the Scriptures, he asserts that when the Christian has “returned to Christ” he will, amongst other things enumerated, “see also the reasons for the festival days, and holy days, and for all the sacrifices and purifications.” So it seems that Origen thought the spiritual meaning of the Sabbath, which he asserted in the place of the literal, was to be known only in the future state!

In book iv. chapter i., he quotes Col. 2:16, but gives no exposition of its meaning. But having asserted that the things commanded in the law were not to be understood literally, and having intimated that their hidden meaning cannot be known until the saints are with Christ, he proceeds in section 17 of this chapter to prove that the literal sense of the law is impossible. One of the arguments by which he proves the point is, that men were commanded not to go out of their houses on the Sabbath. He thus quotes and comments on Ex. 16:29:—

This argument is framed for the purpose of proving that the Scriptures cannot be taken in their literal sense. But had he quoted the text correctly there would be no force at all to his argument. They must not go out to gather manna, but were expressly commanded to use the Sabbath for holy convocations, that is, for religious assemblies. Lev. 23:3. And as to the burdens mentioned in Jer. 17:21-27, they are sufficiently explained by Neh. 13:15-22. Such reasons as these for denying the obvious, simple signification of what God has commanded, are worthy of no confidence. In his letter to Africanus, Origen thus alludes to the Sabbath, but without further remarking upon it:—

Though these allusions of Origen to the Sabbath are not in themselves of much importance, we give them all, that his testimony may be presented as fully as possible. His next mention of the Sabbath seems from the connection to relate to Paul:—

We shall soon get his idea of the true Sabbath as distinguished from the “literal” one. He gives the following reason for the “literal Sabbath” among the Hebrews:—

What Origen mentions as the reason for the institution of the Sabbath is in fact only one of its incidental benefits. The real reason for its institution, viz., that the creation of the heavens and the earth should be remembered, he seems to have overlooked because so literally expressed in the commandment. Of God’s rest-day he thus speaks:—

Origen’s next mention of the Sabbath not only places the institution of the Sabbath at the creation, but gives us some idea of his “mystical” Sabbath as distinguished from “a literal” one. Speaking of the Creator’s rest from the six days’ work he thus alludes to Celsus:—

Here we get an insight into Origen’s mystical Sabbath. It began at creation, and will continue while the world endures. To those who follow the letter it is indeed only a weekly rest, but to those who know the truth it is a perpetual Sabbath, enjoyed by God during all the days of time,[Pg 87] and entered by believers either at conversion or at death. And this last thought perhaps explains why he said before that the reasons for days observed by the Hebrews would be understood after this life.

But last of all we come to a mention of the so-called Lord’s day by Origen. As he has a mystical or perpetual Sabbath like some of the earlier fathers, in which, under pretense of keeping every day as a Sabbath, they actually labor on every one, so has he also, like what we have found in some of them, a Lord’s day which is not merely one definite day of the week, but which embraces every day, and covers all time. Here are his words:—

With respect to what he calls the Lord’s day, Origen divides his brethren into two classes, as he had before divided the people of God into two classes with respect to the Sabbath. One class are the imperfect Christians, who content themselves with the literal day; the other are the perfect Christians, whose Lord’s day embraces all the[Pg 88] days of their life. Undoubtedly Origen reckoned himself one of the perfect Christians. His observance of the Lord’s day did not consist in the elevation of one day above another, for he counted them all alike as constituting one perpetual Lord’s day, the very doctrine which we found in Clement of Alexandria, who was Origen’s teacher in his early life. The keeping of the Lord’s day with Origen as with Clement embraced all the days of his life, and consisted according to Origen in serving God in thought, word, and deed, continually; or as expressed by Clement, one “keeps the Lord’s day when he abandons an evil disposition, and assumes that of the Gnostic.”

These things prove that Origen did not count Sunday as the Lord’s day to be honored above the other days as a divine memorial of the resurrection, for he kept the Lord’s day during every day in the week. Nor did he hold Sunday as the Lord’s day to be kept as a day of abstinence from labor, while all the other days were days of business, for whatever was necessary to keeping Lord’s day he did on every day of the week.

As to the imperfect Christians who honored a literal day as the Lord’s day, Origen shows what rank it stood in by associating it with the Preparation, the Passover, and the Pentecost, all of which in this dispensation are mere church institutions, and none of them days of abstinence from labor. The change of the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first, or the existence of the so-called Christian Sabbath was in Origen’s time absolutely unknown.

TESTIMONY OF HIPPOLYTUS, BISHOP OF PORTUS.

Hippolytus, who was bishop of Portus, near[Pg 89] Rome, wrote about a. d. 230. It is evident from his testimony that he believed the Sabbath was made by God’s act of sanctifying the seventh day at the beginning. He held that day to be the type of the seventh period of a thousand years. Thus he says:—

The churches of Ethiopia have a series of Canons, or church rules, which they attribute to this father. Number thirty-three reads thus:—

The church of Alexandria have also a series which they ascribe to him. The thirty-third is thus given:—

These are the only things in Hippolytus that can be referred to the Sunday festival. Prayers and offerings for the dead, which we find some fifty years earlier in Tertullian, are, according to Hippolytus, lawful on every day but the so-called[Pg 90] Lord’s day. They grew up with the Sunday festival, and are of equal authority with it. Tertullian, as we have already observed, tells us frankly that there is no scriptural authority for the one or the other, and that they rest on custom and tradition alone.

TESTIMONY OF NOVATIAN, A ROMAN PRESBYTER.

Novatian, who wrote about a. d. 250, is accounted the founder of the sect called Cathari, or Puritans. He tried to resist some of the gross corruptions of the church of Rome. He wrote a treatise on the Sabbath, which is not extant. There is no reference to Sunday in any of his writings. In his treatise “On the Jewish Meats,” he speaks of the Sabbath thus:—

If we contrast the doctrine of the Pharisees concerning the Sabbath with the teaching of the Saviour, or with that of Isaiah in his fifty-eighth chapter, we shall not think Novatian far from the truth in his views of the Jewish people. In his treatise “Concerning the Trinity” is the following allusion to the Sabbath:—

These are the only references to the Sabbath in what remains of the writings of Novatian. He[Pg 91] makes the following striking remarks concerning the moral law:—

It is therefore certain that in the judgment of Novatian, the ten commandments enjoined nothing that was not sacredly regarded by the patriarchs before that Jacob went down into Egypt. It follows, therefore, that in his opinion the Sabbath was made, not at the fall of the manna, but when God sanctified the seventh day, and that holy men from the earliest ages observed it. The Sunday festival with its varied names and titles he never mentions.

TESTIMONY OF CYPRIAN, BISHOP OF CARTHAGE.

Cyprian wrote about a. d. 255. I find only two references to Sunday in his works. The first is in his thirty-second epistle (the thirty-eighth of the Oxford edition), in which he says of one Aurelius that “he reads on the Lord’s day” for him. But in the second instance he defines[Pg 92] the meaning of the term, and gives evidence in support of his application of it to the first day of the week. He is arguing in behalf of infant baptism, or rather in controverting the opinion that baptism should be deferred till the child is eight days old. Though the command to circumcise infants when eight days of age is one of the chief grounds of authority for infant baptism, yet the time in that precept according to Cyprian does not indicate the age of the child to be baptized, but prefigures the fact that the eighth day is the Lord’s day. Thus he says:—

Circumcision is made to prove twin errors of the great apostasy, infant baptism and that the eighth day is the Lord’s day. But the eighth day in the case of circumcision was not the day succeeding the seventh, that is, the first day of the week, but the eighth day of the life of each infant, and therefore it fell on one day of the week as often as upon another. Such is the only argument addressed by Cyprian for first-day sacredness, and this one seems to have been borrowed from Justin Martyr, who, as we have seen, used it about one hundred years before him. It is however quite as weighty as the argument of Clement of Alexandria, who adduced in its support[Pg 93] what he calls a prophecy of the eighth day out of the writings of the heathen philosopher Plato! And both are in the same rank with that of Tertullian, who confessed that they had not the authority of Scripture, but accepted in its stead that of custom and tradition!

In his “Exhortation to Martyrdom,” section 11, Cyprian quotes the larger part of Matt. 24, and in that quotation at verse 20, the Sabbath is mentioned, but he says nothing concerning that institution. In his “Testimonies against the Jews,” book i., sections 9 and 10, he says “that the former law which was given by Moses, was about to cease,” and that “a new law was to be given;” and in the conclusion of his “Treatise against the Jews,” section 119, he says “that the yoke of the law was heavy which is cast off by us,” but it is not certain that he meant to include in these statements the precepts of the moral law.

TESTIMONY OF DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA.

This father, who was one of Origen’s disciples, wrote about a. d. 260. In the first canon of his “Epistle to Bishop Basilides” he treats of “the proper hour for bringing the fast to a close on the day of Pentecost.” He has occasion to quote what the four evangelists say of the Sabbath and first-day in connection with the resurrection of Christ. But in doing this he adds not one word expressive of first-day sacredness, nor does he give it any other title than that of plain “first day of the week.” The seventh day is simply called “the Sabbath.” He also speaks of “the preparation and the Sabbath” as the “last two days” of a six days’ fast, at the anniversary of the week of Christ’s death.

TESTIMONY OF ANATOLIUS, BISHOP OF LAODICEA.

This father wrote about a. d. 270. He participated in the discussion of the question whether the festival of Easter, or passover, should be celebrated on the fourteenth day of the first month, the same day on which the Jews observed the passover, or whether it should be observed on the so-called Lord’s day next following. In this discussion he uses the term Lord’s day, in his first canon once, quoting it from Origen; in his seventh, twice; in his tenth, twice; in his eleventh, four times; in his twelfth, once; in his sixteenth, twice. These are all the instances in which he uses the term. We quote such of them as shed any light upon the meaning of it as used by him. In his seventh canon he says: “The obligation of the Lord’s resurrection binds to keep the paschal festival on the Lord’s day.” In his tenth canon he uses this language: “The solemn festival of the resurrection of the Lord can be celebrated only on the Lord’s day.” And also “that it should not be lawful to celebrate the Lord’s mystery of the passover at any other time but on the Lord’s day, on which the resurrection of the Lord from death took place, and on which rose also for us the cause of everlasting joy.” In his eleventh canon he says: “On the Lord’s day was it that light was shown to us in the beginning, and now also in the end, the comforts of all present and the tokens of all future blessings.” In his sixteenth canon he says: “Our regard for the Lord’s resurrection which took place on the Lord’s day will lead us to celebrate it on the same principle.”

The reader may be curious to know why a[Pg 95] controversy should have arisen respecting the proper day for the celebration of the passover in the Christian church when no such celebration had ever been commanded. The explanation is this: The festival was celebrated solely on the authority of tradition, and there were in this case two directly conflicting traditions, as is fully shown in the tenth canon of this father. One party had their tradition from John the apostle, and held that the paschal feast should be celebrated every year “whenever the fourteenth day of the moon had come, and the lamb was sacrificed by the Jews.” But the other party had their tradition from the apostles Peter and Paul that this festival should not be celebrated on that day, but upon the so-called Lord’s day next following. And so a fierce controversy arose which was decided in a. d. 325, by the council of Nice, in favor of Saint Peter, who had on his side his pretended successor, the powerful and crafty bishop of Rome.

The term Lord’s day is never applied to Sunday till the closing years of the second century. And Clement, who is the first to make such an application, represents the true Lord’s day as made up of every day of the Christian’s life. And this opinion is avowed by others after him.

But after we enter the third century the name Lord’s day is quite frequently applied to Sunday. Tertullian, who lived at the epoch where we first find this application, frankly declares that the festival of Sunday, to which he gives the name of Lord’s day, had no Scriptural authority, but that it was founded upon tradition. But should not the traditions of the third century be esteemed sufficient authority for calling Sunday[Pg 96] the Lord’s day? The very men of that century who speak thus of Sunday strenuously urge the observance of the feast of the passover. Shall we accept this festival which they offer to us on the authority of their apostolic tradition? As if to teach us the folly of adding tradition to the Bible as a part of our rule of faith, it happens that there are, even from the early part of the second century, two directly conflicting traditions as to what day should be kept for the passover. And one party had theirs from Saint John, the other had theirs from Saint Peter and Saint Paul! And it is very remarkable that although each of these parties claimed to know from one or the other of these apostles that they had the right day for the passover and the other had the wrong one, there is never a claim by one of these fathers that Sunday is the Lord’s day because John on the isle of Patmos called it such! If men in the second and third centuries were totally mistaken in their traditions respecting the passover, as they certainly were, shall we consider the traditions of the third century sufficient authority for asserting that the title of Lord’s day belongs to Sunday by apostolic authority?

TESTIMONY OF COMMODIANUS.

This person was a native of Africa, and does not appear to have ever held any office in the Christian church. He wrote about a. d. 270. The only allusions made by him to the Sabbath are in the following words addressed to the Jews:—

This statement is very obscure, and there is nothing in the connection that sheds any light upon it. His language may have reference to the ceremonial sabbaths, or it may include also the Sabbath of the Lord. If it includes the Sabbath made for man it may be intended, like the words of Isa. 1:13, 14, to rebuke the hypocrisy of those who profess to keep it rather than to condemn the institution itself.

He makes only one use of the term Lord’s day, and that is as obscure as is his reference to the subject of the Sabbath. Here it is:—

Whether Commodianus meant to charge his brethren to relieve the hungry on one day only of the week, or whether he held to such a Lord’s day as that of Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and others (namely, one that includes every day of the life of him who refrains from sin), and so would have his brethren imitate Tobias, who fed[Pg 98] the hungry every day, must be left undetermined. He could not have believed that Sunday was the Lord’s day by divine appointment, for he refers to the passover festival (which rests solely upon the traditions and commandments of men) as coming “once in the year” and he designates it as “Easter that day of ours most blessed.” Section 75. The day of the passover was therefore in his estimation the most sacred day in the Christian church.

TESTIMONY OF ARCHELAUS, BISHOP OF CASCAR.

This person wrote about a. d. 277, or according to other authorities he wrote not far from A. D. 300. He flourished in Mesopotamia. What remains of his writings is simply the record of his “Disputation with Manes,” the heretic. I do not find that he ever uses the term “Lord’s day.” He introduces the Sabbath and states his views of it thus:—

These words appear to teach that he held to a perpetual Sabbath, like Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and others. Yet this does not seem possible, inasmuch as, unlike Justin, who despises what he calls days of “idleness,” this writer says that we are “to engage in no worldly sort of work whatsoever and this is that our Sabbath.” It is hardly possible that he could hold it a wicked thing to labor on one or all of the six working days. Yet he either means to assert that it is sinful to work on a single one of the days, or else he asserts the perpetual obligation of that Sabbath which it is manifest he believed originated when God set apart the seventh day, and which he acknowledges on the authority of what “he also added in the law.” We shall shortly come to his final statement, which seems clearly to show that the second of these views was the one held by this writer.

After showing in this same section that the death penalty at the hand of the magistrate for the violation of the Sabbath is no longer in force because of forgiveness through the Saviour, and after answering the objection of Manes in sections 40, 41, 42, that Christ in healing on the Sabbath directly contradicted what Moses did to those who in his time violated the Sabbath, he states his views of the perpetuity of the ancient Sabbath in very clear language. Thus he says:—

Three things are plainly taught. 1. The law sacredly guarded the Sabbath till the coming of Christ. 2. When Christ came, he did not abolish the Sabbath, for he was its Lord. 3. And the whole tenor of this writer’s language shows that he had no knowledge of the change of the Sabbath in honor of Christ’s resurrection, nor does he even once allude to the first day of the week.

TESTIMONY OF VICTORINUS, BISHOP OF PETAU.

This person wrote about a. d. 300. His bishopric was in Germany. Of his work on the “Creation of the World,” only a fragment is now preserved. In the first section he speaks thus of the sanctification of the seventh day:—

[Pg 101]Victorinus, like some other of the fathers, held that the “true and just Sabbath should be observed in the seventh millenary.” He believed that the Sabbath was abolished by the Saviour. He was in sympathy with the act of the church of Rome in turning the Sabbath into a fast. He held to a two days’ weekly fast, as his words necessarily imply. He would have men fast on the sixth day to commemorate Christ’s death, and on the seventh, lest they should seem to keep the Sabbath with the Jews, but on the so-called Lord’s day they were to go forth to their bread with giving of thanks. Thus he reasons:—

These statements are in general of little consequence, but some of them deserve notice. First, we have one of the grand elements which contributed to the abandonment of the Sabbath of the Lord, viz., hatred toward the Jews for their[Pg 102] conduct toward Christ. Those who acted thus forgot that Christ himself was the Lord of the Sabbath, and that it was his institution and not that of the Jews to which they were doing despite. Secondly, it was the church of Rome that turned the Sabbath into a fast one hundred years before this, in order to suppress its observance, and Victorinus was acting under its instructions. Thirdly, we have a reference to the so-called Lord’s day, as a day of thanksgiving, but no connection between it and the Sabbath is indicated for in his time the change of the Sabbath had not been thought of. He has other reasons for neglecting the seventh day which here follow:—

This completes the testimony of Victorinus.[Pg 103] He evidently held that the Sabbath originated at the sanctification of the seventh day, but for the reasons here given, the most of which are trivial, and all of which are false, he held that it was abolished by Christ. His argument from the sixth psalm, and from Isaiah’s violation of the Sabbath, is something extraordinary. He had an excellent opportunity to say that though the seventh-day Sabbath was abolished, yet we have the Christian Sabbath, or the Lord’s day, to take its place. But he shows positively that he knew of no such institution; for he says, “That true and just Sabbath” will be “in the seventh millenary of years.”

TESTIMONY OF PETER, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA.

This father wrote about a. d. 306. In his “Canon 15” he thus sets forth the celebration of the fourth, the sixth, and the first days of the week:—

On this Balsamon, an ancient writer whose commentary is appended to this canon, remarks that this canon is in harmony with the 64th apostolical canon, which declares “that we are not to fast on the Sabbath, with one exception, the great Sabbath [the one connected with the passover], and to the 69th canon, which severely punishes those who do not fast in the Holy Lent,[Pg 104] and on every fourth day of the week and day of preparation.” So it appears that they were commanded by the canons to fast on the fourth and sixth days of the week, and forbidden to do this on the Sabbath and first-day.

Zonaras, another ancient commentator upon the canons of Peter, gives us the authority upon which these observances rest. No one of these three days is honored by God’s commandment. Zonaras mentions the fasts on the fourth and sixth days, and says no one will find fault with these. But he deems it proper to mark Peter’s reason for the Lord’s-day festival, and the nature of that festival. Thus he says:—

The honors which were conferred upon this so-called Lord’s day are specified. They are two in number. 1. It was “a day of joy,” and therefore not a day of fasting. 2. On it they “ought not even to bow the knee.” This last honor however applied to the entire period of fifty days between the passover and the Pentecost as well as to each Sunday in the year. So that the first honor was the only one which belonged to Sunday exclusively. That honor excluded fasting, but it is never said to exclude labor, or to render it sinful. And the authority for these two first-day honors is frankly given. It is not the words of holy[Pg 105] Scripture nor the commandment of God, but “it is enjoined upon us according to the tradition. For from hence it is evident that long-established custom was taken for law.” Such is the testimony of men who knew the facts. In our days men dare not thus acknowledge them, and therefore they assert that the fourth commandment has been changed by divine authority, and that it is sinful to labor upon the first day of the week.

TESTIMONY OF METHODIUS, BISHOP OF TYRE.

This father wrote about a. d. 308, and suffered martyrdom in a. d. 312. A considerable portion of his writings have come down to our time, but in them all I find not one mention of the first day of the week. He held to the perpetuity of the ten commandments, for he says of the beast with ten horns:—

Methodius understood the six days of creation,[Pg 106] and the seventh day sanctified by the Creator, to teach that at the end of 6000 years the great day of joy shall come to the saints of God:—

In the fifth chapter of this discourse he speaks of the day of Judgment as “the millennium of rest, which is called the seventh day, even the true Sabbath.” He believed that each day of the first seven represented one thousand years, and so the true Sabbath of the Lord sets forth the final triumph of the saints in the seventh period of a thousand years. And in his work “On Things Created,” section 9, he refers to this representation of one day as a thousand years, and quotes in proof of it Ps. 90:2, 4. Then he says:—

The only weekly Sabbath known to Methodius was the ancient seventh day sanctified by God in Eden. He does not intimate that this divine institution has been abolished; and what he says of the ten commandments implies the reverse of that, and he certainly makes no allusion to the[Pg 107] festival of Sunday, which on the authority of “custom” and “tradition” had been by so many elevated above the Sabbath of the Lord.

TESTIMONY OF LACTANTIUS.

Lactantius was born in the latter half of the third century, was converted about a. d. 315, and died at Treves about a. d. 325. He was very eminent as a teacher of rhetoric, and was intrusted with the education of Crispus, the son of Constantine. The writings of Lactantius are quite extensive; they contain, however, no reference to the first day of the week. Of the Sabbath he speaks twice. In the first instance he says that one reason alleged by the Jews for rejecting Christ was,

It is not clear whether Lactantius believed that Christ violated the Sabbath, nor whether he did away with the moral law while teaching the abrogation of the ceremonial code. But he bears a most decisive testimony to the origin of the Sabbath at creation:—

It is certain that Lactantius did not regard the Sabbath as the memorial of the flight out of Egypt, but as that of the creation of the heavens[Pg 108] and the earth. He also believed that the seven days prefigured the seven thousand years of our earth’s history:—

Thus much for Lactantius. He could not have believed in first-day sacredness, and there is no clear evidence that he held to the abrogation of the Sabbath. Finally we come to a poem on Genesis by an unknown author, but variously attributed to Cyprian, to Victorinus, to Tertullian, and to later writers.

TESTIMONY OF THE POEM ON GENESIS.

Here again we have an explicit testimony to the divine appointment of the seventh day to a holy use while man was yet in Eden, the garden of God. And this completes the testimony of the fathers to the time of Constantine and the Council of Nice.

[Pg 109]One thing is everywhere open to the reader’s eye as he passes through these testimonies from the fathers: they lived in what may with propriety be called the age of apostatizing. The apostasy was not complete, but it was steadily developing itself. Some of the fathers had the Sabbath in the dust, and honored as their weekly festival the day of the sun, though claiming for it no divine authority. Others recognize the Sabbath as a divine institution which should be honored by all mankind in memory of the creation, and yet at the same time they exalt above it the festival of Sunday, which they acknowledge had nothing but custom and tradition for its support. The end may be foreseen: in due time the Sunday festival obtained the whole ground for itself, and the Sabbath was driven out. Several things conspired to accomplish this result:—

1. The Jews, who retained the ancient Sabbath, had slain Christ. It was easy for men to forget that Christ as Lord of the Sabbath had claimed it as his institution, and to call the Sabbath a Jewish institution which Christians should not regard.

2. The church of Rome as the chief in the work of apostasy took the lead in the earliest effort to suppress the Sabbath by turning it into a fast.

3. In the Christian church almost from the beginning men voluntarily honored the fourth, the sixth, and the first days of the week to commemorate the betrayal, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, acts of respect in themselves innocent enough.

4. But the first day of the week corresponded[Pg 110] to the widely observed heathen festival of the sun, and it was therefore easy to unite the honor of Christ with the convenience and worldly advantage of his people, and to justify the neglect of the ancient Sabbath by stigmatizing it as a Jewish institution with which Christians should have no concern.

The progressive character of the work of apostasy with respect to the Sabbath is incidentally illustrated by what Giesler, the distinguished historian of the church, says of the Sabbath and first-day in his record of the first, the second, and the third century. Of the first century he says:—

Sunday having obtained a foothold, see how the case stands in the second century. Here are the words of Giesler again:—

This time, as Giesler presents the case, Sunday has begun to get the precedence. But when he gives the events of the third century he drops the Sabbath from his record and gives the whole ground to the Sunday and the yearly festivals of the church. Thus he says:—

These three statements of Giesler, relating as they do to the first, second, and third centuries, are peculiarly calculated to mark the progress of the work of apostasy. Coleman tersely states this work in these words:—

We have traced the work of apostasy in the church of Christ, and have noted the combination of circumstances which contributed to suppress the Sabbath, and to elevate the first day of the week. And now we conclude this series of testimonies out of the fathers by stating the well-known but remarkable fact, that at the very point to which we are brought by these testimonies, the emperor Constantine while yet, according to Mosheim, a heathen, put forth the following edict, a. d. 321, concerning the ancient Sunday festival:—

By the act of a wicked man the heathen festival of Sunday has now ascended the throne of the Roman Empire. We cannot here follow its history through the long ages of papal darkness and apostasy. But as we close, we cite the words of Mosheim respecting this law as a positive proof that up to this time, as shown from the fathers, Sunday had been a day of ordinary labor when men were not engaged in worship. He says of it:—

This law restrained merchants and mechanics, but did not hinder the farmer in his work. Yet it caused the day to be observed with greater solemnity than formerly it had been. These words are spoken with reference to Christians, and prove that in Mosheim’s judgment, as a historian, Sunday was a day on which ordinary labor was customary and lawful with them prior to a. d. 321, as the record of the fathers indicates, and as many historians testify.

But even after this the Sabbath once more rallied, and became strong even in the so-called Catholic church, until the Council of Laodicea a. d. 364 prohibited its observance under a grievous curse. Thenceforward its history is principally to be traced in the records of those bodies which the Catholic church has anathematized as heretics.

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