Sunday Laws

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 16, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 32.

In reply to a correspondent the San Francisco Examiner not long since said:

"For hundreds of years it never occurred to the early church that Sunday had any particular sanctity, or that it was wrong to do what one pleased on that day, after the religious service was over. The very first law on the Sunday question ever passed was the edict of Constantine, issued A. D. 321. But that only made the day what we would now call a holiday, releasing people from the obligation of labor. Nothing was said about its being wrong to work on Sunday. It was not until the year 528 that all work was prohibited. The idea among the early Christians seemed to be that the Sunday was purely a matter of church custom and convenience, and no part of any religious or moral law."