THE SABBATH IN THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES.
By I. E. Kimball
A CAREFUL and unprejudiced study of evidences concerning the Sabbath in the first centuries of the Christian era, according to all ancient history, will lead to the following conclusions:— 1. That as the gospel was given "to the Jew first," and for a definite period "to the Jews only," the Sabbath must have been universally kept at the beginning according to the example of the disciples who "kept the Sabbath according to the commandment" on the day before the first day of the week, at the time of Christ's crucifixion (Luke 23: 56); for it is on all sides acknowledged that the Jewish, or Nazarene, church ever maintained the observance of the Sabbath. 2. That the gospel as held by the Jewish converts was preached to the Gentiles, but in all the early churches the nucleus was at the first Jewish, and the Gentiles received the precepts and practiced at first in harmony with the Jewish Christians. 1 Thess. 2: 14. 3. So manifestly was the larger part of the early church drawn from Judaism, and belief and practice allied them to that people, that in the early persecutions of the Christians under the emperors of Rome, they were held to be Jews, or as one sect of the Jews, no distinction being made between them. 4. The silence of history fully attests that the Sabbath question was not then discussed. No Jew ever accused the Christian of this period for not keeping the Sabbath for the evident reason given by Paul: "Neither against the law of the Jews, . . . nor yet against Cæsar, have I offended anything at all." Acts 25: 8. They were in perfect harmony with the "law and the prophets," which Christ taught in their fullness. Sunday was not then known as a day of rest, or holy day. 5. At the conclusion of the first century a manifest change came about. There was such a relaxation in the discipline of the church that it now became thronged with "heathen Christians," and, according to the677unimpeachable word of Uhlhorn, the church stood out distinctively Gentile, while still another class, fewer in number, the Nazarene church, embodied those, of Jewish extraction. It is fully acknowledged that the Nazarene church continued still to keep the Sabbath. 6. The Sabbath was retained also in the Gentile church and became a subject of much contention. Eusebius mentions Melito, bishop of Sardis, as a writer in the Easter controversy, stating in the preface that the volume was "written at a time when there was great stir at Laodicea concerning the Sabbath, which by reason of the times was broken up." Such a glimpse from such a source reveals very much to us. I shall show how the Sabbath was retained in the Catholic Church both East and West yet for several centuries; but at the early period when Melito wrote, it began to be broken up through heathen influx, innovation, and lawlessness. We may well suppose this "great stir" over the Sabbath question to have agitated the other churches as well as the one at Laodicea. 7. After this "breaking up," when perhaps the majority came to disregard it as the Sabbath, beyond all controversy it was still retained as sacred and eternal, and by no small modicum of the church. As a proof, take the writings of Archelaus in "Disputation with Manes," which was written about A.D. 280, who says, "Again, as to the assertion that the Sabbath has been abolished, we deny that he has abolished it, plainly," etc.—Sec. 42. Again, in the "Apostolic Constitutions," some nine times over we have the Sabbath question mentioned and enjoined as the rest of creation:— Keep the Sabbath and the Lord's day festival, for the former is the memorial of creation and the latter of the resurrection.—Book 7, sec. 2, par. 2, 3.
Thou shalt observe the Sabbath on account of him who ceased from his work of creation.—Book 2, sec. 4, par. 36.
The Sabbath and Sunday, called now the "Lord's day," are ranged side by side in all these writings. The former, the Sabbath of the Scriptures, sacredly to be kept according to the law, the latter a festival of the church, having no scriptural authority. Again the longer form of the Ignatian epistle to the Magnesians, a forgery of the third century, says:— Let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a scriptural manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, . . . and after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's day as a festival, the resurrection day, the queen and chief of all the days.—Chap. 9.
Says Chrysostom: "There are many of us who fast on the same day as the Jews and keep the Sabbath in the same manner."—Hom. on Gal. and Eph. Lib. of Fathers, pp. 15, 42. Let the grandest of all church historians conclude: "It was the custom of many provinces of the ancient church to observe Saturday as the feast of creation." This is all sufficient to establish in every ingenuous reader's mind the fact that the Sabbath continued to be kept in the Catholic Church as indeed the Sabbath, not a festival. 8. But the Sabbath in the second and third centuries came to be loosely held as a feast day coördinate with Sunday. For this we have the undisputable authority of Tertullian, Origen, Cassian, Athanasius, and Ambrose, which for lack of space I will not quote, but will cite the historians of the period. Socrates, the first and best, says:— Such as dwell at Rome fast three weeks before Easter, except the Sabbath and Sunday. . . . Again, touching the communion, there are sundry customs: for, although all the churches throughout the whole world do celebrate and receive the holy mysteries each returning week upon the Sabbath, yet the people inhabiting Alexandria and Rome refused to do this. The Egyptians, who are neighbors to the Alexandrians, together with the Thebians, celebrated the communion on the Sabbath.—Eccl. Hist., book 5. Again he says: "Therefore when the festivals of each week occur, namely, the Sabbath and dominical day [Lord's day]," etc.—Id., book 6. Sozomen, A.D. 460, thus writes: "The Sabbath from the evening forward, for a suitable time is used in vigils and prayers, and the day following there is a public meeting of all in common, when each partakes of the mysteries." All understand, or should, that the evening of the Sabbath is the sixth day, or Friday evening, for at the setting of the sun on Saturday the Sabbath closed. So the "Sabbath from the evening forward" begins at the setting of the sun on Friday. Hear him once again: "Likewise some meet upon the Sabbath and upon the day after the Sabbath as at Constantinople and among almost all others. At Rome and Alexandria they do not. Among the Egyptians likewise, in many cities and villages there is also a sacred custom among all of meeting on the evening after the Sabbath, when the sacred mysteries are partaken of."—Liber 7, chaps. 18, 19. It should be borne in mind that Wednesday and Friday were also assembly days, called "Stationes." They were to commemorate the betrayal and crucifixion of Christ. Basil speaks of receiving the sacrament on these days also. Epiphanius ranked the Wednesday and Friday festivals in the same antiquity, and grounded them upon the same authority, as he did the Sunday.—Acybyn. The time came in the decline of the Sabbath when it ranked just about equal with the "queen of days," Sunday, as a festival. For this we have unquestionable authority. The Wednesdays and Fridays were fast days, but the Sabbath was not so held at the first. I will quote from "Ancient Christianity," Stanford Rivers, England, 1842: "The custom of paying regard as well to the Sabbath as to the Lord's day continued long in the church. Both days were festivals and fasting therefore inappropriate." Joseph Bingham, one of the most perspicuous writers, quotes Socrates as "speaking of the churches of Constantinople in the time of Chrysostom. He reckons Saturday and the Lord's day as the two great weekly festivals on which they always held weekly assemblies. And Cassian takes notice of the Egyptian churches, that among them the service of the Lord's day and the Sabbath was always the same, for they had the lessons then read out of the New Testament only, one out of the gospels, and the other out of the epistles of the Acts of the Apostles, whereas on other days they had them partly out of the Old Testament." A quotation from Gregory of Nyssa—recognized church authority, as well as Cassian—will suffice: "With what eyes can you behold the Lord's day when you despise the Sabbath? Do you not perceive that they are sisters, and that in slighting one you offend the other?" The days then stood on a par, as festivals. With growing apostasy, regard for the Sabbath began to wane. 9. By little and little the Sabbath was lowered from the pedestal which it held as a feast day. Let me note right here that all the honor that it ever received from the Catholic Church was in consequence of the place which it holds in the Bible, not commemorative of any event in Christ's life. It was soon transformed into a fast. In the times of Augustine, near the beginning of the fifth century, as Augustine himself testified, there was, in one and the selfsame church, some that dined and some that fasted; so in all the provinces. Thus it stood for a time. It was now wending its way out of the church altogether. The Council of Laodicea about this time decreed: "Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday, but shall work on that day, but the Lord's day they shall especially honor, and as being Christians shall, if possible, do no work on that day; if, however, they be found Judaizing they shall be shut out from Christ."—Hefele, vol. 2, p. 316. Commanded to work soon they were required also to fast on that day. Thus by continued stages was the Sabbath shut out. Lord King states the reasons why the Sabbath came to be recognized by the Roman Church as a fast day in direct opposition to those who regarded it as a Sabbath: "Some of the Western churches, that they might not seem to Judaize, fasted on Saturday, as Victorinus Petavionensis writes: 'We used to fast on the seventh day, and it is our custom then to fast that we may not seem with the Jews to observe the Sabbath.'" Thus it sank to a half holiday and was dismissed. An indescribable detestation arose on the part of Jew and Catholic against each other. Anything in common with the Jew was execrable. We have seen the Sabbath fully in the church, continuing in the Jewish and partly in the Gentile church, but turned to a festival day by the majority, then to a fast, and finally dismissed.