Examination of a Famous Falsehood.
By J. N. Andrews
Domville's second point is that Dominicum, when used as a noun, as in the present case, signifies either a church or the Lord's Supper, but never signifies Lord's day. He establishes the fact by incontestable evidence. Gilfillan was acquainted with all this. He could not answer Domville, and yet he was not willing to abandon the falsehood which Domville had exposed. So he turns from the Acta Martyrum in which the compiler expressly defines the word to mean precisely what Domville asserts, and brings forward the great Romish annalist, Cardinal Baronius. Now, say our first-day friends, we are to have the truth from a high authority. Gilfillan has found in Baronius an express statement that the martyrs were tested by the question, "Have you kept the Lord's day?" No matter, then, as to the Acta Martyrum, from which Bishop Andrews first produced this story. That, indeed, has failed us, but we have in its stead the weighty testimony of the great Baronius. To be sure he fixes this test no earlier than the fourth century, which renders it of no avail as proof that Pliny's stated day was Sunday; but it is worth much to have Baronius bear witness that certain martyrs in the fourth century were put to death because they observed the Sunday-Lord's day. But these exultant thoughts are vain. I must state a grave fact in plain language: Gilfillan has deliberately falsified the testimony of Baronius! That historian records at length the martyrdom of Saturninus and his company in Northern Africa in A. D. 303. It is the very story which Domville has cited from the Acta Martyrum, and Baronius repeatedly indicates that he himself copied it from that work. He gives the various questions propounded by the proconsul, and the several answers which were returned by each of the martyrs. I copy from Baronius the most important of these. They were arrested while they were celebrating the Lord's sacrament according to custom. The following is the charge on which they were arrested: They had celebrated the Collectam Dominicum, against the command of the emperors. The proconsul asked the first whether he had celebrated the Collectam, and he replied that he was a Christian and had done this. Another says, "I have not only been in the Collecta, but I have celebrated the Dominicum with the brethren, because I am a Christian." Another says, "We have celebrated the Dominicum, because the Dominicum cannot be neglected." Another said that the Collecta was made (or observed) at his house. The proconsul, questioning again one of those already examined, received this answer: "The Dominicum cannot be disregarded, the law so commands." When one was asked whether the Collecta was made (or observed) at his house, he answered, "In my house we have celebrated the Dominicum." He added, "Without the Dominicum we cannot be," or live. To another, the proconsul said that he did not wish to know whether he was a Christian, but whether he participated in the Collecta. His reply was, "As if one could be a Christian without the Dominicum, or as if the Dominicum can be celebrated without the Christian." And he said further to the proconsul, "We have observed the Collecta most sacredly; we have always convened in the Dominicum for reading the Lord's word." Another said, "I have been in [literally, have made] the Collecta with my brethren; I have celebrated the Dominicum." After him another proclaimed the Dominicum to be the hope and safety of the Christian, and when tortured as the others, he exclaimed, "I have celebrated the Dominicum with a devoted heart, and with my brethren I have made the Collecta, because I am a Christian." When the proconsul again asked one of these whether he had conducted the Dominicum, he replied that he had, because Christ was his Saviour. I have thus given the substance of this famous examination, and have set before the reader the references therein made to the Dominicum. It is to be observed that Collecta is used as another name for Dominicum. Now does Baronius use either of these words to signify Lord's day? It so happens that he has defined these words with direct reference to this very case no less than seven times. Now let us read these seven definitions. When Baronius records the first question addressed to these martyrs, he there defines these words as follows: "By the words Collectam, Collectionem, and Dominicum, the author always understands the sacrifice of the Mass." After recording the words of that martyr who said that the law commanded the observance of the Dominicum, Baronius defines his statement thus: "Evidently the Christian law concerning the Dominicum, no doubt about celebrating the sacrifice." Baronius by the Romish words sacrifice and Mass refers to the celebration of the Lord's Supper by these martyrs. At the conclusion of the examination, he again defines the celebration of the Dominicum. He says: "It has been shown above in relating these things that the Christians were moved, even in the time of severe persecution, to celebrate the Dominicum. Evidently, as we have declared elsewhere in many places, it was a sacrifice without bloodshed, and of divine appointment." He presently defines Dominicum again, saying, "Though it is a fact that the same expression was employed at times with reference to the temple of God, yet since all the churches upon the earth have united in this matter, and from other things related above, it has been sufficiently shown concerning the celebration of the Dominicum, that only the sacrifice of the Mass can be understood." Observe this last statement. He says though the word has been employed to designate the temple of the Lord, yet in the things here related it can only signify the sacrifice of the Mass. These testimonies are exceedingly explicit. But Baronius has not yet finished. In the index to Tome 3, he explains these words again with direct reference to this very martyrdom. Thus under Collecta is this statement: "The Collecta, the Dominicum, the Mass, the same [A. D.] 303, xxxix." Under Missa: "The Mass is the same as the Collecta, or Dominicum [A. D.] 303, xxxix." Under Dominicum: "To celebrate the Dominicum is the same as to conduct the Mass [A. D.] 303, xxxix; xlix; li." It is not possible to mistake the meaning of Baronius. He says that Dominicum signifies the Mass! The celebration of the supper by these martyrs was doubtless very different from the pompous ceremony which the church of Rome now observes under the name of Mass. But it was the sacrament of the Lord's Supper concerning which they were tested, and for observing which they were put to a cruel death. The word Dominicum signifies "the sacred mysteries," as Ruinart defines it; and Baronius in seven times affirming this definition, though acknowledging that it has sometimes been used to signify temple of God, plainly declares that in this record, it can have no other meaning than that service which the Romanists call the sacrifice of the Mass. Gilfillan had read all this; yet he dares to quote Baronius as saying that these martyrs were tested by the question, "Have you kept Lord's day?" He could not but know that he was writing a direct falsehood; but he thought the honor of God, and the advancement of the cause of truth, demanded this act at his hands. Before Gilfillan wrote his work, Domville had called attention to the fact that the sentence, "Dominicum servasti?" does not occur in the Acta Martyrum, a different verb being used every time. But this is the popular form of this question, and must not be given up. So Gilfillan declares that Baronius uses it in his record of the martyrdoms in A. D. 303. But we have cited the different forms of question recorded by Baronius, and find them to be precisely the same with those of the Acta Martyrum. "Dominicum servasti?" does not occur in that historian, and Gilfillan, in stating that it does, is guilty of untruth. This, however, is comparatively unimportant. But for asserting that Baronius speaks of Lord's day under the name of Dominicum, Gilfillan stands convicted of inexcusable falsehood in matters of serious importance.—J. N. Andrews, in History of the Sabbath.