THE SABBATH IN THE DARK AGES.
By John Nevins Andrews
The history of the Dark Ages is full of the edicts of emperors and princes, and of the decrees of popes, bishops, and councils, all directed to the one object of establishing the sacredness of Sunday. Miracles, prodigies, and judgments, were not wanting with which to confirm these edicts and decrees. Banishment, confiscation of goods, stripes, slavery, the loss of one hand, and then of the other, and the like, were the penalties by which Sunday observance was, by these edicts, forced upon the people. One of these miracles is thus given in Francis West's "Historical and Practical Discourse on the Lord's day." He says;— "Gregory of Tours [about 590] reporteth that a husbandman, who, upon the Lord's day, went to plough his field, as he cleaned his plough with an iron, the iron stuck so fast in his hand that for two years he could not be delivered from it, but carried it about continually to his exceeding great pain and shame." According to Morer's "Lord's Day," p. 271, the council of Paris, A. D. 829, brought forward that Sunday argument, which in these days is often and largely used to supply the place of Scripture testimony. They announced God's judgment upon those who labor on that day:— "For, say they, many of us by our own knowledge, and some by hearsay, know that several countrymen following their husbandry on this day, have been killed with lightning, others, being seized with convulsions in their joints, have miserably perished. Whereby it is apparent how high the displeasure of God was upon their neglect of this day." To strengthen the sacredness of this "venerable day," the doctors of the church were not wanting. Heylyn makes the following statement:— "It was delivered of the souls in purgatory by Petrus Damiani, who lived A. D. 1056, that every Lord's day they were manumitted from their pains, and fluttered up and down the lake Avernus, in the shape of birds."
—History of the Sabbath, part ii, chap. v, sec. 2. And even hell itself could be benefited if those yet living upon earth would keep Sunday well. Morer, in his "Lord's Day," p. 68, speaks thus:— "Yet still the others went on their way; and, to induce their proselytes to spend the day with greater exactness and care, they brought in the old argument of compassion and charity to the damned in hell, who, during the day, have some respite from their torments, and the ease and liberty they have is more or less, according to the zeal and degrees of keeping it well." In A. D. 1095, Pope Urban II. consecrated the Sabbath to the weekly service of the Virgin Mary. This was a great indignity to the Creator of the heavens and the earth. In the following century an apparition from St. Peter charged the king of England to allow "no buying or selling, and no servile work," on Sunday. Morer's "Lord's Day," p. 288. But in the very midnight of the Dark Ages, when the papal power had reached its highest elevation, Pope Innocent III., in A. D. 1202, sent into England by one Eustachius a roll which fell from Heaven, containing the long-needed divine authority for Sunday. Here is this remarkable document:— "A HOLY MANDATE, touching the Lord's day, which came down from Heaven unto Jerusalem, found on St. Simeon's altar in Golgotha, where Christ was crucified for the sins of all the world, which, lying there three days and three nights, struck with such terror all that saw it, that, falling on the ground, they besought God's mercy. At last the patriarch and Akarias, the archbishop [of I know not whence], ventured to take into their hands that dreadful letter, which was written thus. Now wipe your eyes and look awhile on the contents:— "'I am the Lord who commanded you to keep the Lord's day, and you have not kept it, neither repented of your sins; I caused repentance to be preached unto you, and you believed not; then I sent the pagans among you, who spilt your blood on the earth, and yet you believed not; and because you did not observe the Lord's holy day, I punished you awhile with famine; but in a short time I gave you fullness of bread, and then you behaved yourselves worse than before. I again charge you that from the ninth hour [i. e., three o'clock, P. M.] on Saturday, until sunrising on the Monday, no man presume to do any work, but what is good, or if he do, let him repent for the same. Verily I say unto you, and swear by my seat and throne, and by the cherubim which surround it, that if you do not hearken to this my mandate, I will send no other letter unto you, but will open the heavens, and rain upon you stones, wood, and scalding water, by night, so that none shall be able to provide against them. I say ye shall die the death for the Lord's day, and other festivals of my saints which ye have not kept; and I will send among you beasts with the heads of lions, and the hair of women, and the tails of camels, which, being very hungry, shall devour your flesh. And you shall desire to flee to the sepulchers of the dead, and hide you for fear of those beasts. And I will take the light of the sun from your eyes, and send such darkness that, not being able to see, you shall destroy each other. And I will turn my face away and not in the least pity you. I will burn your bodies and hearts of all them who do not keep the Lord's day. Hear then my words, and do not perish for neglecting this day. I swear to you by my right hand, that if you do not observe the Lord's day and festivals of my saints, I will send pagan nations to destroy you.'"—History of the Sabbath, part ii, chap. vii, sec. 6; Morer, pp. 288–290; Wilkins' "Concilia Magna Britaniæ et Hiberniæ," vol. 1, p. 510; Matthew Paris, p. 141, and many other writers. 511We have two very remarkable facts in the history of Sunday, and of the Romish apostasy: 1. The first act of papal aggression was in behalf of Sunday. 2. When the papal power had reached its utmost height of usurpation, it furnished the world with a roll from Heaven, commanding the observance of Sunday under awful penalties. The two arose together from very small beginnings to vast power and greatness. But God was not in either. The mission of Eustachius was attested by miracles and prodigies. Thus we read in Heylyn's "History of the Sabbath," part ii, chap. vii, sec. 6, as follows:— "A carpenter making a wooden pin, and a woman making up her web, both after three on Saturday in the afternoon [for the pope in this letter had fixed 'the Lord's day' from three o'clock on Saturday afternoon until sunrise on Monday], are suddenly smitten with the palsy. A certain man of Nasserton, baking a cake on Saturday night and keeping part until the morrow, no sooner brake it for his breakfast but it gushed out blood. A miller, of Wakefield, grinding corn on Saturday after three of the clock, instead of meal found his bin full of blood; his mill-wheel standing still of its own accord." But God did not leave himself without witnesses to his truth, even in the Dark Ages. A portion of the Waldenses bore the title of Sabbatati. Mr. Benedict, in his "General History of the Baptist Denomination," vol. ii, pp. 412, 413, edition of 1813, says of this term:— "Mr. Milner supposes this name was given to them because they observed not the Romish festivals, and rested from their ordinary occupations only on Sundays. A Sabbatarian would suppose that it was because they met for worship on the seventh day, and did regard not the first-day Sabbath." Mr. Robinson, in his "Ecclesiastical Researches," chap. x, pp. 303, 304, speaks thus of this designation of the Waldenses:— "One says they were so named from the Hebrew word Sabbath, because they kept the Saturday for the Lord's day." Other writers allude to this term in the same manner.
The Cathari, or Puritans, were a body of witnesses, who, during the Dark Ages, protested against Rome. The papal writers, to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of this people, say of them, that they kept the Sabbath, and held also to circumcision. The same statement is made concerning the Passaginians, a branch of the Waldenses. Mr. Benedict speaks of them as follows;— "The account of their practicing circumcision is undoubtedly a slanderous story forged by their enemies, and probably arose in this way. Because they observed the seventh day, they were called, by way of derision, Jews, as the Sabbatarians are frequently at this day; and if they were Jews, it followed, of course, that they either did, or ought to, circumcise their followers. This was probably the reasoning of their enemies; but that they actually practiced the bloody rite, is altogether improbable."—General History of the Baptist Denomination, vol. ii, pp. 412–418. Dr. Francis White, bishop of Ely, says that the Petrobrusians, and a portion of the people known as Anabaptists, were observers of the seventh day. "Treatise of the Sabbath day," pp. 8, 132. Thus, within the limits of the Roman Empire, God preserved faithful men, who kept his commandments during the Dark Ages. And it is a remarkable fact that the Abyssinians of Africa have held fast to the Sabbath to the present time, as have also the Armenians of the East Indies. See Geddes' "Church History of Ethiopia," pp. 87, 88; "Buchanan's Christian Researches in Asia," pp. 159, 160. When the Reformation of the sixteenth century had lifted the veil of darkness that covered the nations of Europe, Sabbath-keepers were found in Transylvania, Germany, Holland, France, and England, and in other countries of Europe. It was not the Reformation that gave existence to these Sabbatarians, for the leaders of the Reformation, as a body, were not friendly to the Sabbath of the Lord. On the contrary, these observers of the Sabbath appear to be remnants of the ancient Sabbath-keeping churches that had witnessed for the truth during the Dark Ages. And now we come to a remarkable event in the history of Sunday. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, a controversy arose between the Episcopalians and Presbyterians of England, that compelled the latter either to give up the first day of the week, or defend it by the Bible. They chose the latter course. Hengstenberg's "Lord's Day," p. 66. It was at this juncture that Dr. Nicholas Bound, of Norton, England, discovered what he called the "True doctrine of the Christian Sabbath." This was nothing else than that the law of God does not require the seventh day, but only one day in seven, or a seventh part of time. With the aid of this theory, Sunday has, since that time, wrapped itself in the authority of the fourth commandment, and challenged the obedience of the world as the veritable Sabbath of the Lord. Sabbath-keepers still remain in England, and for more than two centuries have they been found in the United States. The Seventh-day Baptists during this period have stood as witnesses to this great memorial of the Bible, the Sabbath of the Lord. During the past thirty-five years have arisen also the people known as Seventh-day Adventists, who are interested in the proclamation of God's commandments and the faith of Jesus, as presented in the third angel's message. They hope to induce many to turn away their feet from trampling down the Sabbath of the Lord. And when the Sabbath shall be observed in the new earth by the whole host of the redeemed, they hope to be of that number who shall assemble on that day, every week, to worship in the heavenly Jerusalem before the Lord of hosts. Rev. 14:12; Isa. 58:13; 66:22, 23.