The Protestant, the Historian, and the Sabbath
By R. C. P.
What Protestants Admit and Affirm Concerning the Sabbath
This is the second of three articles by Elder Porter on the change of the Sabbath. Last week he made plain what Christ's attitude was to the Sabbath. He also quoted the prophecy that foretold the human attempt to change God's sacred rest day, and gave some of the history that shows the fulfillment of the prophetic forecast. Next week will be presented the claims made by Catholics that their church has designedly attempted to change the Sabbath of the Bible. Editor. The Baptist Watchman says: “The Scripture nowhere calls the first day of the week the Sabbath. . . . There is no Scriptural authority for so doing, nor of course any Scriptural obligation.” Congregational: “There is no command in the Bible requiring us to observe the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath.”—The Rev. Mr. Fowler. Church of England: “The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but the church, has enjoined it.”—“Plain Sermons on the Catechism,” by Isaac Williams, D. D. Methodist: “It is true, there is no positive command for infant baptism, . . . nor is there any for keeping holy the first day of the week.”—Methodist Episcopal “Theological Compendium,” page 103. Presbyterian: “The observation of the seventh-day Sabbath did not cease till it was abolished after the empire became Christian.”—American Presbyterian Board of Publication, tract No. 118. R. W. Dale: “It is quite clear that however rigidly or devoutly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath.” “The Sabbath was founded on a specific, divine command. We can plead no such command for the observance of Sunday.” “There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday.”—“The Ten Commandments,” Hodder and Stoughton. The Belfast Witness, Presbyterian: “The dropping of the seventh-day Sabbath, and the substitution of the Lord’s day, was an innovation accomplished by the church, with sufficient reason, but without any Scriptural command.” Canon Knox-Little, speaking of those who quote the example of Christ against ritualism, says: “It is certain that our Lord when on earth did observe Saturday, and did not observe Sunday.” “If they are consistent, as I have said, they must keep Saturday, and not Sunday, as the day of rest.”—“Sacerdotalism,” Longmans & Co. When Was the Sabbath Changed?
History is clear in its verdict. Before its certain testimony all must bow. Webster defines “Sunday,” “So called because it was anciently dedicated to the sun or its worship.” Sir William Domville says: “Centuries of the Christian era passed away before Sunday was observed as the Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the Sabbatical edict of Constantine in A. D. 321.”—“Examination of Six Texts,” page 291. Constantine’s Sunday law was made 321 A. D., while he was a worshiper of heathen divinities. It reads: “Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun: but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture; because it often so happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn or planting vines; lest, the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted them of heaven.” Commenting upon this law, the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” article “Sunday,” says: “It was Constantine the Great who first made a law for the proper observance of Sunday and who, according to Eusebius, appointed it should be regularly celebrated throughout the Roman Empire.” The “Encyclopædia Americana,” article “Sabbath,” says: “Constantine the Great made a law for the whole empire (A. D. 321), that Sunday should be kept as a day of rest in all cities and towns, but he allowed the country people to follow their work.” Alexander Campbell, in a lecture in Bethany College, 1848, said: “Was the first day set apart by public authority in the apostolic age?—No. By whom was it set apart, and when?—By Constantine, who lived about the fourth century.” How and by Whom Was the Sabbath Changed?
The revision of the Sabbath statute began under paganism. The change first took the form of positive law in the days of Constantine, A. D. 321, as we have seen. Constantine’s edict required the observance of the day as a heathen institution in honor of the sun. “Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun.” Mosheim says: “Two years later Constantine professed conversion to Christianity. He then became bishop of the Catholic Church.” The words of the historian follow: “After well considering the subject, I have come to the conclusion that subsequent to the death of Licinius, in the year 323, when Constantine found himself sole emperor, he became an absolute Christian, or one who believes no religion but the Christian religion to be acceptable to God.”—Mosheim, “Historical Commentaries,” century 4, section 7. From a work by Groombridge and sons, the following is taken: “At a later period, carried away by the current of opinion, he [Constantine] declared himself a convert to the church. Christianity, then, or what he was pleased to call by that name, became the law of the land, and the edict of 321, being unrevoked, was enforced as a Christian ordinance.”—“Sunday and the Mosaic Sabbath,” page 4. Introduced by a Sun Worshiper
Having found that the change was introduced in the form of law by Constantine, a sun worshiper, in A. D. 321, the inquiry will be raised. How long did it take to accomplish the change, and how and by whom was the work of accomplishing it brought about? Coleman says: “The observance of the Lord’s day was ordered while yet the Sabbath of the Jews was continued; nor was the latter superseded until the former had acquired the same solemnity and importance which belonged, at first, to that great day which God originally ordained and blessed. . . . But in time, after the Lord’s day had been fully established, the observance of the Sabbath of the Jews was gradually discontinued, and was finally denounced as heretical.”—“Ancient Christianity Exemplified,” chapter 26, section 2. Sabbath as Well as Sunday Observed
John Ley says: “From the apostles’ time until the council of Laodicea, which was about the year 364, the holy observation of the Jews’ Sabbath continued, as may be proved out of many authors; yea, notwithstanding the decree of that council against it.”—“Sunday and Sabbath,” pages 163, 164. Prynne says: “The seventh-day Sabbath was solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean council did in a manner quite abolish the observation of it. . . . The council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, first settled the observation of the Lord’s day, and prohibited the keeping of the Jewish283Sabbath under an anathema.”—“Dissertation on the Lord’s Day Sabbath,” 1623, pages 33, 34, 44. Papal Edicts Concerning Sunday
The emperor Leo, A. D. 469, issued the following decree: “The Lord’s day we decree to be a venerable day, and therefore free of all citations, executions, pleadings, and the like avocations. Let not the circus or theater be opened, nor combating with wild beasts be seen on it. . . . If any will presume to offend in the premises, if he be a military man, let him lose his commission; or if other, let his estate or goods be confiscated.”—“Dialogues on the Lord’s Day,” pages 259, 260. Hengstenberg, in his notice of the council of Orleans, gives us an insight into the then existing state of the Sunday festival: “The third council of Orleans, A. D. 538, says in its twenty-ninth canon: ‘The opinion is spreading amongst the people, that it is wrong to ride, or drive, or cook food, or do anything to the house, or to the person, on the Sunday. But since such opinions are more Jewish than Christian, that shall be lawful in future, which has been so to the present time. On the other hand, agricultural labor ought to be laid aside, in order that the people may not be prevented from attending church.’” Further legislation being necessary, we are told: “About a year forward, there was a council at Narbon, which forbid all persons of what country or quality soever to do any servile work on the Lord’s day. But if any man presumed to disobey this canon, he was to be fined if a freeman, and if a servant, severely lashed. Or, as Surius represents the penalty in the edict of King Ricaredus, which he put out, near the same time, to strengthen the decrees of the council, ‘rich men were to be punished with the loss of a moiety of their estates, and the poorer sort with perpetual banishment.’”—“Dialogues on the Lord’s Day,” page 265. “At Chalons in Burgundy, about the year A. D. 654, there was a provincial synod which decreed that ‘none shall plow or reap on the Lord’s day, or do any other thing belonging to husbandry, on pain of the censures of the church’; which was the more needed, because backed with the secular power, and by an edict menacing such as offended herein; who if bondmen, were to be soundly beaten, but if free had three admonitions, and then if faulty, lost the third part of their patrimony, and if still obstinate, were made slaves for the future. . . . The twelfth council of Toledo in Spain, A. D. 681, forbid the Jews to keep their own festivals.”—Ibid., page 267. The Eastern Church and Sunday
Of Sunday labor in the Eastern Church, Heylyn says: “It was near nine hundred years from our Saviour’s birth before restraint of husbandry on this day had been first thought of in the east; and probably being thus restrained did find no more obedience then than it had done before in the western parts.”—“History of the Sabbath,” part 2, section 2, chapter 12. From these statements by the most reliable historians, there can be no question that the change of the Sabbath observance from the seventh to the first day of the week was no easy task in the face of the divine law to the contrary. It took centuries to accomplish it. Although Constantine’s edict was issued A. D. 321, that was but the first apostate legal step toward changing the custom of observing the Sabbath according to the command of God. A number of centuries, and numerous edicts of the Church of Rome, were necessary to complete the work.