SABBATH IN THE EARLY RECORDS.
By John Nevins Andrews
WE have learned from such of the early fathers as mention first-day observance, the exact nature of the Sunday festival, and all the reasons which in the first centuries were offered in its support. Very few indeed of these reasons are now offered by modern first-day writers. But some of the fathers bear emphatic testimony to the perpetuity of the ten commandments, and make their observance the condition of eternal life. Some of them also distinctly assert the origin of the Sabbath at creation. Several of them moreover either bear witness to the existence of Sabbath-keepers, or bear decisive testimony to the perpetuity and obligation of the Sabbath, or define the nature of proper Sabbatic observance, or connect the observance of the Sabbath and first-day together. Let us now hear the testimony of those who assert the authority of the ten commandments. Irenæus asserts their perpetuity, and makes them a test of Christian character. Thus he says:499"For God at the first, indeed, warning them [the Jews] by means of natural precepts, which from the beginning he had implanted in mankind, that is, by means of the DECALOGUE (which, if any one does not observe, he has no salvation), did then demand nothing more of them." This is a very strong statement. He makes the ten commandments the law of nature implanted in man's being at the beginning; and so inherited by all mankind. This is no doubt true. It is the presence of the carnal mind or law of sin and death, implanted in man by the fall, that has partially obliterated this law, and made the work of the new covenant a necessity. He again asserts the perpetuity and authority of the ten commandments:— "Preparing man for this life, the Lord himself did speak in his own person to all alike the words of the Decalogue; and therefore, in like manner, do they remain permanently with us, receiving, by means of his advent in the flesh, extension and increase, but not abrogation." By the "extension" of the decalogue, Irenæus doubtless means the exposition which the Saviour gave of the meaning of the commandments in his sermon on the mount. Theophilus speaks in like manner concerning the decalogue:— "For God has given us a law and holy commandments; and every one who keeps these can be saved, and, obtaining the resurrection, can inherit incorruption."
"We have learned a holy law; but we have as Lawgiver him who is really God, who teaches us to act righteously, and to be pious, and to do good."
"Of this great and wonderful law which tends to all righteousness, the TEN HEADS are such as we have already rehearsed." Tertullian calls the ten commandments "the rules of our regenerate life," that is to say, the rules which govern the life of a converted man:— "They who theorize respecting numbers, honor the number ten as the parent of all the others, and imparting perfection to the human nativity. For my own part, I prefer viewing this measure of time in reference to God, as if implying that the ten months rather initiated man into the ten commandments; so that the numerical estimate of the time needed to consummate our natural birth should correspond to the numerical classification of the rules of our regenerate life." In showing the deep guilt involved in the violation of the seventh commandment, Tertullian speaks of the sacredness of the commandments which precede it, naming several of them in particular, and among them the fourth, and then says of the precept against adultery that it stands "in the very forefront of the most holy law, among the primary counts of the celestial edict." Clement of Rome, or rather the author whose works have been ascribed to this father, speaks thus of the decalogue as a test:— "On account of those, therefore, who, by neglect of their own salvation, please the evil one, and those who, by study of their own profit, seek to please the good One, ten things have been prescribed as a test to this present age, according to the number of the ten plagues which were brought upon Egypt." Novatian, who wrote about A. D. 250, is accounted the founder of the sect called Cathari, or Puritans. He wrote a treatise on the Sabbath, which is not extant. There is no reference to Sunday in any of his writings. He makes the following striking remarks concerning the moral law:— "The law was given to the children of Israel for this purpose, that they might profit by it, and RETURN to those virtuous manners which, although they had received them from their fathers, they had corrupted in Egypt by reason of their intercourse with a barbarous people. Finally, also, those ten commandments on the tables teach nothing new, but remind them of what had been obliterated—that righteousness in them, which had been put to sleep, might revive again as it were by the afflatus of the law, after the manner of a fire [nearly extinguished]." It is evident that in the judgment of Novatian, the ten commandments enjoined nothing that was not sacredly regarded by the patriarchs before 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 Apostolical Constitutions, written about the third century, give us an understanding of what was widely regarded in the third century as apostolic doctrine. They speak thus of the ten commandments:— "Have before thine eyes the fear of God, and always remember the ten commandments of God,—to love the one and only Lord God with all thy strength; to give no heed to idols, or any other beings, as being lifeless gods, or irrational beings or dæmons."
"He gave a plain law to assist the law of nature, such a one as is pure, saving, and holy, in which his own name was inscribed, perfect, which is never to fail, being complete in ten commands, unspotted, converting souls." This writer, like Irenæus, believed in the identity of the decalogue with the law of nature. These testimonies show that in the writings of the early fathers are some of the strongest utterances in behalf of the perpetuity and authority of the ten commandments. Now let us hear what they say concerning the origin of the Sabbath at creation. The epistle ascribed to Barnabas, says:— "And he says in another place, 'If my sons keep the Sabbath, then will I cause my mercy to rest upon them.' The Sabbath is mentioned at the beginning of the creation [thus]: 'And God made in six days the works of his hands, and made an end on the seventh day, and rested on it, and sanctified it.'" Irenæus seems plainly to connect the origin of the Sabbath with the sanctification of the seventh day:— "These [things promised] are [to take place] in the times of the kingdom, that is, upon the seventh day, which has been sanctified, in which God rested from all his works which he created, which is the true Sabbath, in which they shall not be engaged in any earthly occupation." Origen, who, as we have seen, believed in a mystical Sabbath, did nevertheless fix its origin at the sanctification of the seventh day:— "For he [Celsus] knows nothing of the day of the Sabbath and rest of God, which follows the completion of the world's creation, and which lasts during the duration of the world, and in which all those will keep festival with God who have done all their works in their six days." The testimony of Novatian which has been given relative to the sacredness and authority of the decalogue, plainly implies the existence of the Sabbath in the patriarchal ages, and its observance by those holy men of old. It was given to Israel that they might "RETURN to those virtuous manners which, although they had received them from their fathers, they had corrupted in Egypt." And he adds, "Those ten commandments on the tables teach nothing new, but remind them of what had been obliterated." He did not, therefore, believe the Sabbath to have originated at the fall of the manna, but counted it one of those things which were practiced by their fathers before Jacob went down to Egypt. Lactantius places the origin of the Sabbath at creation:— "God completed the world and this admirable work of nature in the space of six days (as is contained in the secrets of holy Scripture) and CONSECRATED the seventh day on which he had rested from his works. But this is the Sabbath day, which, in the language of the Hebrews, received its name from the number, whence the seventh is the legitimate and complete number." In a poem on Genesis written about the time of Lactantius, but by an unknown author, 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:— "The seventh came, when God
At his work's end did rest, DECREEING IT
SACRED UNTO THE COMING AGE'S JOYS." The Apostolical Constitutions, while teaching the present obligation of the Sabbath, plainly indicate its origin to have been at creation:— "O Lord Almighty, thou hast created the world by Christ, and hast appointed the Sabbath in memory thereof, because that on that day thou hast made us rest from our works, for the meditation upon thy laws." Such are the testimonies of the early fathers to the primeval origin of the Sabbath, and to the sacredness and perpetual obligation of the ten commandments.
J. N. A.