During the Dark Ages

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 8, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 40.

During the Dark Ages

THE SABBATH AND THE SUNDAY. NO. 5.

IN our last compilation of historical facts we traced the Sabbath and Sunday question down to the middle of the fifth century, the writings of the historians, Socrates and Sozomen, who flourished about the year 450. It is their testimony that, except in Rome and Alexandria, the two chief seats of apostasy, the Sabbath was generally observed throughout the Christian world. In this time of apostasy, Sunday was, however, gradually crushing it out. It had already appropriated to itself so much of the livery of heaven as to call itself the Lord's day, but it was not yet known as the Sabbath. The two days were called "sister days" in the church, as witness Gregory of Nyssa, two weeks ago. But one, the Sabbath, was made a fast day, and Sunday, a festival. Both of these customs were pagan in origin. Sunday was "the wild solar holiday of all pagan times," a day of feasting and pleasure, and "Harper's Standard Latin Lexicon" says of Sabbatum: "In general, the day of rest among the Jews, the Sabbath; considered by the Romans to have been ordained as a fast day," and cites in proof of it, Pliny, Justin, and others. Both this feasting and fasting came from the pagans.

During the Dark Ages.

55. Thus the third council of Orleans (29th canon): "The opinion is spreading amongst the people that it is wrong to ride or drive, or cook food, or do anything to the house or the person on the Sunday. But since such opinions are more Jewish than Christian, that shall be lawful in future which has been so to the present time. On the other hand, agricultural labor ought to be laid aside [note the reason], in order that the people may not be prevented from attending church."

56. A council was held by King Gunthrum in Mascon, Burgundy, and this council warned Christians to "keep, then, the Lord's day."—Morer's Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p. 265.

57. Another council was held at Narbon, which threatened confiscation and banishment to those who would not keep the Lord's day.—Id., pp. 265, 266.

58. Like many other frauds, bogus miracles were brought forward to support it, (Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p. 68, and Francis West's Historical and Practical Discourse on the Lord's Day, p. 174), as for instance, a man went into his field to plow, and as he scraped the earth from his plow, the iron he used stuck to his hand, and for two years he was forced to carry it about.

59. At this time another foe arose to the Sabbath of the Lord, the Mohammedan sixth day. The Sabbath, like its Lord, was crucified between two thieves, the Mohammedan sixth day, and the Roman Sunday.

60. A provincial synod of Burgundy at Chalons, according to Morer (Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p. 267), pronounced as penalties to those who would not keep Sunday, beating, confiscation, and slavery.

61. The twelfth council of Toledo, Spain, says the same author, forbade the Jews to keep their own festivals and to do work on Sunday.

62. The same writer (p. 283) tells us that Ina, the king of the West Saxons, by the advice of his father and bishops, fined a master thirty shillings if his slave worked; if a freeman worked, sixty shillings; but if a priest, one hundred and twenty shillings.

63. The same work tells us that laws were made from time to time in England, Bavaria, and Italy to suppress Sunday labor.

64. From the last date forward was a succession of decrees, penalties, councils, fines, "miracles," "divine judgments," and efforts of all sorts to induce the people to observe Sunday better. Popes, kings, bishops, and rulers (civil and ecclesiastic) were appealed to, and thundered their decrees and anathemas, with little effect, down to the year 1000.

65. Dr. Francis White (Treatise of the Sabbath Day, London, 1635, p. 202) says: "When the ancient "fathers" distinguish and give proper names to the particular days of the week, they always style the Saturday Sabbatum, the Sabbath; and the Sunday, or first day of the week, Dominicum, the Lord's day." And Dr. Peter Heylyn testifies (Hist. of the Sab., part 2, chap. 2, sec. 12): "That whenever for a thousand years and upwards, we meet with Sabbatum in any writer of what name soever, it must be understood of no day but Saturday."

66. "The first who ever used it [the name "Christian Sabbath"] to denote the Lord's day," says Heylyn (Hist. of the Sab., part 2, chap. 5, sec. 13), . . . is one Petrus Alfonsus, . . . who calls the Lord's day by the name Christian sabbath." This is the precedent for that term as applied to Sunday. Alfonsus wrote about 1100.

67. Henry II. of England had a vision of St. Peter at Cardiff, Wales, and the apparition "charged him," Morer (Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p. 288) tells us, "that upon Sundays, throughout his dominions, there should be no buying or selling, and no servile work done."

68. In the year 1200 Eustace, the abbot of Flaye, Normandy, went into England to preach. He found open markets and all sorts of sports on Sunday, and he began to preach against them, with but little effect. Returning to Normandy, he went back to England the next year, and took with him "The Holy Commandment as to the Lord's Day," said to have come down "from heaven to Jerusalem, and was found upon the altar of St. Simeon, in Golgotha." In this wretched falsehood the Lord is represented as commanding Sunday to be kept from 9 o'clock Saturday until sunrise Monday. If his people will not do it, he swears by his seat and throne and cherubim that he will reign from heaven upon them "stones, and wood, and hot water in the night," so the people could not dodge them, and that he would send beasts with the heads of lions, hair of women and tails of camels, which would devour them. This was in 1201.

So says Hoveden's Annals (Bohn's ed., vol. 2, pp. 526-528). See also Matthew Paris (Historia Major, pp. 200, 201, ed. 1640). The command was worthy of the day it sought to promote.

The fact of there being such a commandment, which doubtless came from the pope himself, is unquestioned. The pontificate of Innocent III., then pope, was said to have been "the period of the highest power of the Roman See." This was marked by a bogus commandment "from heaven" in behalf of Sunday. This command was supported by all sorts of miracles. Blood came from bread baked on Sunday. Blood flowed instead of flower from mills which ground on Sunday, some hot ovens would not bake on that day, while dough set one side on that day was baked without fire!

All these things show the reader that down to the year 1200 the Sunday was not known or kept as a sacred day by the church generally. It is no more sacred now than it was then.

(To be continued.)