"A WEIGHTY AND TIMELY UTTERANCE."
THE FATHERS AND THE EARLY CHURCH.
JUSTIN MARTYR is next quoted as follows:—
"On Sunday we all assemble in common, since that is the first day on which God, having changed darkness and chaos, made the world, and on the same day our Saviour Jesus Christ rose from the dead." This is an incorrect quotation, inasmuch as it makes Justin speak of the resurrection of Christ as a reason for worshiping on Sunday, when he made no mention of that event. What he really says is this:— "And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits."—First Apology of Justin, chap. 67. This is a minor difference, but it serves to show how even the trashy stuff which the so-called Fathers wrote is garbled in order to bolster up the Sunday. But it may be said that we have here evidence in favor of Sunday observance, since Justin really says that they met on the day called Sunday. To that we reply that we shall not attempt to deny that Sunday was observed to some extent at quite an early period. But the fact that a thing was done, is no evidence it ought to have been done. Within three hundred years after the crucifixion of Christ we can find every abomination of the Papacy to the Christian church. In the preface to the "Ancient Church" Dr. Killen says:— "In the interval between the days of the apostles and the conversion of Constantine, the Christian commonwealth changed its aspect. The bishop of Rome—a personage unknown to the writers of the New Testament—meanwhile rose into prominence, and at length took precedence of all other churchmen. Rites and ceremonies, of which neither Paul nor Peter ever heard, crept silently into use, and then claimed the rank of divine institutions. Officers for whom the primitive disciples could have found no place, and titles, which to them would have been altogether unintelligible, began to challenge attention, and to be named apostolic." Justin was a Greek who lived in the second century; and concerning the condition of the church in that century Mosheim has the following:— "Among the Greeks and the people of the East nothing was held more sacred than what were called the Mysteries. This circumstance led the Christians, in order to impart dignity to their religion, to say that they also had similar mysteries, or certain holy rites concealed from the vulgar; and they not only applied the terms used in the pagan mysteries to the Christian institutions, particularly baptism and the Lord's Supper; but they gradually introduced also the rites which were designated by those terms. This practice originated in the Eastern provinces; and thence, after the times of Adrian (who first introduced the Grecian mysteries among the Latins), it spread among the Christians of the West. A large part, therefore, of the Christian observances and institutions, even in this century, had the aspect of the pagan mysteries."—Ecclesiastical History, Book 1, cent. 2, part 2, chap. 4, sections 1-5. If antiquity were to be allowed as evidence of the correctness of any practice, nearly all error would be classed as truth. The question with us is not what people have done, but what ought they to have done, and the Bible alone can answer the question satisfactorily. The next "evidence" that is brought to the support of Sunday is the following:— "Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, about the year 162 says: 'Both custom and reason challenge from us that we should honor the Lord's day, seeing on that day it was that our Lord Jesus completed his resurrection from the dead.' (Edwards's Manual, p. 114.)" It may strike the reader as strange that these testimonies are quoted from Dr. Edwards's "Sabbath Manual," and not directly from the Fathers themselves. By this means the responsibility for any wrong quotation is all thrown upon Dr. Edwards. On this quotation from Theophilus, all that we have to say is that it is entirely manufactured. Not a line of it appears in his writings. He does not use the term "Lord's day," and nowhere even mentions the first day of the week. It is evident that Dr. Edwards, who is primarily responsible for this forged testimony, was no novice in the use of the Fathers, and did not stand in need of any instruction from the Rev. Philetus Dobbs. We will say this, however, for the forged testimony from Theophilus, that it is just as good evidence for Sunday-keeping as any that can be found in any of the Fathers; and it is entitled to just as much weight as though Theophilus had actually written it. But the advocates of Sunday have no lack of testimony in its support, and the next quotation given is "equally conclusive" with that from Theophilus. Dr. Bailey says:— "Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in France, the disciple of Polycarp, in the year 167, says that the Lord's day was the Christian Sabbath. 'On the Lord's day every one of us Christians keep the Sabbath, meditating on the law and rejoicing in the works of God.' (Edwards's Manual, p. 114.)" Of this we have simply to say that the term "Lord's day" nowhere occurs in the writings of Irenaeus. Our readers, though, have doubtless found out by this time that even if one of the Fathers did not happen to speak about a certain thing, it does not in the least invalidate the testimony quoted from him in favor of it. If he had only realized what straits the advocates of Sunday would be in for argument in the nineteenth century, he might possibly have said what they want him to say, and so it is just the same as though he had said it. This seems to be the plan adopted by those who quote the Fathers. There is one little thing about the writings of Irenaeus which we never remember to have seen quoted, and while we are on this subject we will mention it here, that our readers may see the straightforwardness of the Fathers in general, and of Irenaeus in particular. In the introductory notice of the writings of Irenaeus, we find the following statement by the translators:— "The great work of Irenaeus, now for the first time translated into English, is unfortunately no longer extant in the original. It has come down to us only in an ancient Latin version, with the exception of the greater part of the first book, which has been preserved in the original Greek, through means of copious quotations made by Hippolytus and Epiphanius. The text, both Latin and Greek, is often most uncertain. Only three MSS. of the work 'Against Heresies' are at present known to exist. Others, however, were used in the earliest printed editions put forth by Erasmus. And as these codices were more ancient than any now available, it is greatly to be regretted that they have disappeared or perished. One of our difficulties throughout, has been to fix the readings we should adopt, especially in the first book. Varieties of reading, actual or conjectural, have been noted only when some point of special importance seemed to be involved." "After the text has been settled, according to the best judgment which can be formed, the work of translation remains; and that is, in this case, a matter of no small difficulty. Irenaeus, even in the original Greek, is often a very obscure writer. At times he expresses himself with remarkable clearness and terseness; but, upon the whole, his style is very involved and prolix. And the Latin version adds to these difficulties of the original, by being itself of the most barbarous character. In fact, it is often necessary to make a conjectural re-translation of it into Greek, in order to obtain some inkling of what the author wrote. Dodwell supposes this Latin version to have been made about the end of the fourth century; but as Tertullian seems to have used it, we must rather place it in the beginning of the third. Its author is unknown, but he was certainly little qualified for his task. We have endeavored to give as close and accurate a translation of the work as possible, but there are not a few passages in which a guess can only be made as to the probable meaning." This assurance must be a great comfort to those who dote on Irenaeus. It must be a great satisfaction to his admirers to know that they have his exact language just as nearly as can be guessed at by people living 1,600 years after he died. The plan adopted by the translators is very much like trying to arrive at an exact amount of a certain sum of money by guessing at half of it and multiplying that by two. And this is a specimen of the value of all the writings of the so-called Fathers. Many of them are wholly forged, and the others have been altered and interpolated and garbled so that the ones who wrote them would not recognize them, if they were alive. As Dr. Mosheim says, it is of no importance that much of the writings of the Fathers has been lost, since they are utterly unreliable. We do not know that they are ever quoted except in support of a cause which cannot be sustained by the Bible. They are simply blind leaders of the blind. To go to them for light on the Bible is like taking the shades of midnight to illuminate the face of the sun. We have followed Dr. Bailey thus far in his proofs from the Fathers, not because we thought it necessary to try to refute the so-called argument, but that our readers might see clearly the broken reed upon which the Sunday institution rests for support. We think enough has been said to demonstrate this point, and we will not follow it any further. Dr. Bailey says: "How silly and shallow is the falsehood that Constantine changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week." So we say; and we have never heard of a Sabbath-keeper who was foolish enough to make such a claim. There was no man who could change the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. As Dr. Scott says, the truth is that the change was made gradually. All deviations from the right are made in the same way. But it is true that the change from the seventh to the first day was made by "the man of sin," "that Wicked," the mystery of whose iniquity was working even in the days of the apostle; and it was just such perversions of truth as this that made the Papacy the "mystery of iniquity," "the abomination of desolation." But while Constantine did not change the Sabbath, he did have a hand in perpetuating the wicked change that had already been made, and in establishing the Papacy on a firm basis. "Chambers's Encyclopædia," speaking of the custom of the early church, says:— "Whatever may have been the opinion or practice of these early Christians in regard to cessation from labor on the Sunday, unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the Sabbatical observance of that day is known to have been ordained, is the edict of Constantine, 321 A. D." We have seen this statement denied by those who asserted that Christ and the apostles changed the Sabbath, but we have never known anyone to quote a commandment for Sunday-keeping earlier than that of Constantine. It is very easy to say that Christ changed the Sabbath, but it is impossible to find a commandment to that effect. W.
(Concluded next week.)