p. 148 | ANOTHER GASP

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 8, 1879

ANOTHER GASP.

A FRIEND of Sunday, who clings to the institution with the grip of death, catches his breath again. Most of our readers have probably forgotten that in the REVIEW dated Feb. 28, 1878, we gave a letter from Eld. Geo. Thompson, of Leland, Mich., with a reply to the same. He claimed that Paul observed Sunday as the Sabbath, and referred as proof to Acts 20:7; and the reply showed that the Jews reckoned the day from sunset to sunset, and, consequently, that Paul’s meeting was held on Saturday night, and that he traveled all the next day, Sunday, which was a singular way to keep it as a Sabbath; and that Paul’s companions, “faithful ministers in the Lord,” were taking the ship around by sea, while Paul delayed, to hold his night meeting.

A few weeks since we received a reply to this long-ago-published article from Eld. Thompson, and as he has written a similar article which was published in the Christian Press of February, 1879, which some of our brethren have sent in requesting that it be reviewed, we refer to the subject again. Although crowded for space, we present Eld. Thompson’s letter entire, that there may be no ground to plead misrepresentation, and that the reader may see more fully the desperate strait to which the defense of Sunday is reduced.

“THAT ‘FIRST DAY’ AGAIN.

“DEAR BRETHREN: Your answer to my article in the REVIEW of Feb. 28, 1878, is not satisfactory. A press of labor and care has prevented a reply sooner.

“1. You misrepresent plain facts. You say, ‘While Paul remained behind [at Troas] to hold this evening meeting, his companions in travel were working the ship around the promontory to Assos.’ Therefore, during all that day they were sailing the ship, (i. e., during that first day). Now this statement in Acts 20:13, and this sailing, were after this midnight meeting, and not while it was in progress. Paul’s companions were with him in the meeting. And no unprejudiced person would ever think of any other meaning.

“2. You quote many and high authorities to prove that the day, anciently, was reckoned from sundown to sundown. As a general fact, this is not denied; but it all goes for nothing in this argument, since a different mode of reckoning was plainly in practice. It is referred to in the New Testament. A few passages will show this.

“(a) Matt. 28:1: ‘In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week.’ This shows clearly that Saturday or the seventh day, was, in fact, reckoned far beyond sundown, even to near morning of the first day; and that it was not called first day till about sunrise or daydawn, of that day. Therefore we conclude, that the first day at Troas did not begin at sundown on Saturday night, as you try to make out so learnedly. Let the fathers say what they will, there is a plain statement, showing a different usage.

“(b) John 20:19: ‘Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, came Jesus,’ etc. Now was the ‘evening’ of this first day spoken of, before sundown? No sensible man dare affirm this. Read the account, and see. It was near the close of the day, when Jesus and the two disciples reached Emmaus, seven and one-half miles from Jerusalem. And after this they prepared and ate supper; then they walked back this distance (not on the cars), and had talked some time with the ten, when Jesus entered the room. It could not have been earlier than eight or nine o’clock, at the least two hours after sundown, and yet the evangelist calls this time the ‘EVENING’ of the first day too! Now of what avail are the testimonies of the fathers, and commentators against this manifest usage in the Bible itself? Here is demonstration that it is called ‘the first day’ long after sundown.

“Now in Acts 20:7, it is said, ‘And upon the first day of the week, . . . Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow.’ And in the light of the foregoing passages, I affirm, without fear of disapproval, that it CANNOT be shown that Paul met the disciples at Troas after sundown on Saturday night, and traveled the next day. But it was during some part of the following ‘first day of the week,’ and he continued his meeting till Monday morning, and then he and his companions went on their journey. This is the plain, manifest meaning, and none but those who have a case to make out would ever have thought of any other construction.

“Paul DID NOT, as you affirm, hold his meeting on Saturday night, and travel all day on Sunday. The primitive Christians were in the habit of meeting for the worship of Christ and for ‘breaking of bread’ on the first day of the week. This is proven by 1 Cor. 16:2, and by the Letters of Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, and by the almost universal practice of the Christian church from those days to the present.

“If this disputed question is not now settled, you have the floor. Yours for truth,

“GEORGE THOMPSON. “Leland, Mich.”

The question is indeed settled; and the foregoing has done nothing whatever toward unsettling it.

In his former article Mr. Thompson said: “Other writers and speakers have asserted that Paul traveled all day of the first day, and therefore it is plain he did not regard it as the Sabbath. If Paul did, as they assert, we yield the argument.”

The only possible way to show that Paul did not travel on the first day of the week is to show that time was not reckoned from evening to evening, and that the meeting commenced on what would now be Sunday night, instead of Saturday night; and, consequently, that Paul’s journey was resumed on Monday, and not on Sunday. And to this task Mr. Thompson addresses himself with the desperation of a drowning man. We ask the reader’s attention particularly to his manner of doing it.

We showed by the testimony of such eminent critics and Biblical scholars, as Prof. Hackett, Kitto, Prynne, Conybeare and Howson, and Robinson the lexicographer, that no other reckoning of the full day is known to the New Testament or the entire Bible but that ordained by God himself in the beginning,—from evening to evening. This is established just as fully as criticism, research, and history can establish anything. But all this he proposes to set entirely aside. As we said in our former article, a man may deny that there is such a place as England, or that any such man ever lived as George Washington; but he would only damage his own reputation for common intelligence and honesty by so doing. Just so with the point before us.

Having set aside the testimony of these eminent men, what does he give as a substitute and a reason therefor? Simply an inference from two texts that the day, according to New Testament reckoning, began in the morning! This is most astonishing! No nation but the ancient Babylonians ever reckoned the day from that point; and no nation in the days of the apostles reckoned it so. Yet Mr. T. will have the disciples, contrary to the express arrangement of God, and contrary to any custom then existing, to reckon it so. Why? We can conceive of no reason, only to make a way for him out of his dilemma. He surely is not the man to charge others with perverting testimony to make out a case. What case, pray, had Mr. Hackett, and Kitto, and Prynne, and Conybeare and Howson, and Robinson, to make out, when they told us that the day, as reckoned uniformly in the Bible, begins at sunset? None, except to sustain their reputation as critics and honest men.

But all these authorities with Mr. T. go for nothing. Now let us look at the inference upon which he sets them aside. Because Matt. 28:1 reads: “As it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,” he infers that the day began with the dawn, or the rising of the sun. We suppose he is aware that the word day is sometimes applied to the light part of the day in contrast with the night. John 11:9: “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world; but if a man walk in the night he stumbleth.” Here the light is contrasted with the darkness and called day. And this little fact which lies so apparent on the very surface, takes Matt. 28:1 out of Mr. T.’s hands, as completely as though that verse had never been written. This must be so; for the dawning toward the first day does not take place until after the Sabbath is past. “In the end of the Sabbath,” Greek, ὀψὲ δὲ σαββάτων. This expression lexicographers, whose authority it would not be becoming for even Mr. T. to question, tell us means “after the Sabbath was past,” agreeing with Mark 16:1. But at the moment when the Sabbath ended, the first day as a civil day began. But it was not till after this that it began to dawn toward the first day, which means, of course, only the light part, the natural day. Smith, in his unabridged Dictionary of the Bible, article “Day,” after saying that the Hebrews reckoned the day from sunset to sunset, adds: “Some (as in Goodwin’s Moses and Aaron) argue foolishly from Matt. 28:1 that they began their civil day in the morning; but the expression ἐπιφωσκούσῃ shows that the natural day is there intended.”

On John 20:19, Mr. T. argues that it must have been late at night when the disciples again reached Jerusalem from Emmaus, and hence the first day of the week did not end at sunset.

Well, suppose it was late when the disciples returned, does this fix the time when the disciples first gathered together and shut the doors? And this is all that need be marked by the expression, “The same day at evening, being the first day of the week;” and then the meeting could extend over into the second day. S. J. Andrews, in his excellent work, “The Life of our Lord,” p. 597, says, “This was probably the first evening, which began at three P. M. and ended at six, or at sunsetting.” Would it not take them some time to prepare their evening meal, as well as the disciples at Emmaus? Doubtless they were at the same time engaged in it when “the day was far spent;” and what was more natural than for them, fearing for their lives, to remain in their room, talking over the exciting events and rumors of the day, still reclining on their supper couches, till the disciples hastened back from Emmaus, and Jesus stood in their midst? No proof here that the first day had not ended, and the second commenced at this time.

Still Mr. T. endeavors to cling to Acts 20:7. We have proved by evidence which no candid man can deny any more than he can deny that the sun shines; that the day begins with the evening; that Paul’s meeting was on our Saturday night; that the “morrow” means the next succeeding daylight; and that all that day, Sunday, Paul traveled. Now we will prove on Mr. T.’s own showing that if Paul did not travel on the first day, his companions, “faithful ministers of the Lord,” mark you, did travel on that day. Mr. T. would have it that Paul preached on our Sunday night, and resumed his journey Monday morning. Very well. He says the day began in the morning, and at daybreak, the record says, Paul departed. Verse 17. Then just as soon as the first day had ended and the second begun Paul departed. But his companions left before Paul did, and were sailing their ship during some portion, at least, of his meeting. They must do this; for it was twice as far around the promontory, where the ship must go, as across the base where Paul walked.

But we fall back upon the testimony. It says, “We went before to ship.” Verse 13. That word to go before means to precede, to go in advance of any one. This does not mean that they went to the ship before Paul went to the ship; for he did not go to the ship at all till he reached Assos. But it means that they went to the ship before Paul started on his journey. But he started the moment the first day ended, according to Mr. T.; therefore his companions, “faithful ministers,” before the first day ended, were rowing or sailing off in their ship in a very unsabbatical manner! Here is testimony so direct and positive, and evidence so clear, that we feel fully justified in saying that he who will not admit it is entitled to no further notice whatever.

As for the testimony of Pliny, it speaks only of a “stated day,” not telling which; and it proves only that the Christians had a stated day for worship, which we well know; for they all kept the Sabbath.

And in regard to any history to show that it has been kept as the Sabbath by Christians from the time of the apostles down, it has yet to be manufactured. Not a scrap of genuine evidence for such a practice can be found for the first two hundred years of the Christian era. Tertullian, A. D. 200, speaks of refraining from labor on Sunday only long enough to attend a sermon. And one hundred and twenty-one years later, the first law ever enacted in its behalf, was the heathen law of Constantine, for “the venerable day of the sun.”

Sunday is unfortunate in having neither precept, nor example, nor history in its favor. We can trace it back to that age of darkness and corruption in which the “mystery of iniquity” was mightily working to establish the papacy. There we lose it. The link to connect it with apostolic times and divine authority is missing.

Mr. T., in his article in the Press, says, “We do not need a command for such observance.” We feel differently. We do want a command. We want to know that our service is not mere will-worship, but what God requires.

But the Sunday institution is not merely a misfortune, it is a disgrace and a crime. It demoralizes its defenders, and will be not far hence the prolific source of an intolerant and persecuting spirit.

We would exhort our friends to leave it, and turn to the Sabbath of the Lord. Nothing but truth will avail us at last. Cease longer to make your worship vain by “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” This is a plant not planted by the Heavenly Father; and it will be rooted up, peacefully now in the hearts

of those who will receive the light, violently in all other cases by the judgments of the soon coming day of wrath. Let us be loyal to God, and prepare for a place in his kingdom.