SUNDAY IN THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES.
By I. E. Kimball
1. Of the "Apostolic Fathers" whose writings bear some semblance to genuineness, neither Clement, Hermes, Polycarp, nor Papias mention Sunday in any way, observing the same silence noticeable in the New Testament, for, although in the New Testament the first day of the week is mentioned, yet, without enlargement or emendations, one would never think of it as the Sabbath day. 2. Near the middle of the second century, when, as I have before shown, the church was overwhelmed by Gentiles from all the religions and philosophies of polytheism, Justin mentions the Sunday as a day of assembly at Rome. For, although born in Samaria, he traveled extensively, and was at Rome when he addressed the apology to Antoninus Pius (138-140 A.D.), according to Du Pin. It should be remembered that Rome, the mistress of the world, was the seat of Satan, the centralization of heathenism. Sunday at this time, according to Justin, was but a voluntary festival, not a sabbath; nothing is more certain in history than this; for Justin expresses his opinion, and, presumably, the opinion of the Roman Church at that time, that no sabbath was given to the Christians, or that, indeed, every day is a sabbath. He distinctively abrogates the Decalogue and the Sabbath law over and over again, asserting that the "new law requires you to keep a perpetual Sabbath;" that to be idle a day is nothing, and "the Lord our God does not take pleasure in such observances;" and accordingly we find the whole school, from Justin down,—Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, Jerome, Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Augustine, expressing this identical doctrine. They would scorn to keep a Sabbath day as such. But Justin did not even call the first day "the Lord's day," neither does anyone before the time of Clement and Tertullian. It is with him "the day after that of Saturn," or "the day of the sun," or "the day called Sunday." We may conclude that the Roman Church, and many of the Western churches leavened in a like manner, were in possession of the Sunday festival in Justin's day. So, coming on a little later to the times of Clement and Tertullian, who both died about the year A.D. 220, we find the festival is commonly held, and now beginning to be called "the Lord's day." Twice over Tertullian was driven to defend and exonerate his brethren from the charge of sun worship, "because it is a well-known fact that we pray toward the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity." Here he makes, on the part of some, the Sunday festivities a sufficient reason for thinking them to be sun worshipers, evidently showing to us that sun worshipers observed the day in the same manner.