Did the Pope Change the Sabbath? by Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 12, 1871

Did the Pope Change the Sabbath?

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

It is sometimes said that the pope changed the seventh-day Sabbath to the first day; and therefore those who keep the first day thus take upon them the mark of the beast. We have never been able to find any history showing that the pope changed the time of rest from the seventh day to the first. If such a history is in existence, we would like to see it; or have some one give us the name of the book and page where the event is recorded. But we do find that when the Emperor Constantine professed to embrace Christianity, he confirmed the practice of Christians, who kept the first day; and in A. D. 321 ordained as follows:—

“Let all judges and people of the town rest, and all the various trades be suspended on the venerable day of the sun (venerabili die solis). Those who live in the country, however, may freely and without fault attend to the cultivation of their fields (since it often happens that no other day may be so suitable for sowing grain and planting the vine), lest, with the loss of favorable opportunity, the commodities offered by divine Providence should be destroyed.”

This is the first commandment of any kind that we have been able to find which enjoined the keeping of the first day. But this was not done by the pope, but an emperor, who professed conversion to Christianity. This affords very certain evidence that the Christians at that time were keeping the first day of the week, and consequently, Constantine gave his sanction to this practice.

REMARKS. In the above article the Crisis confesses that it has never been able to find any kind of a commandment for keeping first-day before that of Constantine. Then Constantine is the first authority for first-day observance. So we claim. The editor of the Crisis urges that this proves that the Christians of that time were keeping the first day, and “Constantine gave his sanction to the practice.” It certainly does not prove any such thing, unless it is first taken for granted that an emperor could not or did not command anything to be done but what the people were already doing. But that is too unreasonable and absurd to claim. But if it does prove even that, it proves that the Christians in the country pursued their avocations on that day. And it also proves that they kept it only as the “venerable day of the sun,” which marks it as strictly a heathen festival. There is not a particle of evidence concerning the change of the Sabbath in this article of the Crisis, nor any reference to the Sabbath in Constantine’s decree. The taking of this heathen festival and substituting it for the Sabbath of the Lord, was an after-work, and was accomplished by the papacy. So that, while the limited observance of “the venerable day of the sun” is from the heathens, the first-day-Sabbath institution is of papal origin. Will the Crisis notice this point? We have pressed it on the no-law Adventists, or “Crisis party,” before, but could never get them to notice it. Will they? J. H. W.