EARLY FIRST-DAY OBSERVANCE.
By John Nevins Andrews
Justin Martyr's reasons for not observing the Sabbath are not at all like those of the so-called Barnabas which we examined last week, for Justin seems to have heartily despised the Sabbatical institution. He denies that it was obligatory before the time of Moses, and affirms that it was abolished by the advent of Christ. He teaches that it was given to the Jews because of their wickedness, and he expressly affirms the abolition of both the Sabbath and the law. So far is he from teaching the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, or from making the Sunday festival a continuation of the ancient Sabbatical institution, that he sneers at the very idea of abstinence from labor, or days of idleness, and though God gives as his reason for the observance of the Sab- bath, that that was the day on which he rested from all his work, Justin gives as his first reason for the Sunday festival that that was the day on which God began his work! Of abstinence from labor as an act of obedience to the Sabbath, Justin says:— "The Lord our God does not take pleasure in such observances." A second reason for not observing the Sabbath is thus stated by him:— "For we too would observe the fleshly circumcision, and the Sabbaths, and in short, all the feasts, if we did not know for what reason they were enjoined—namely, on account of your transgressions and the hardness of your hearts." As Justin never discriminates between the Sabbath of the Lord and the annual sabbaths, he doubtless here means to include it as well as them. But what a falsehood it is to assert that the Sabbath was given to the Jews because of their wickedness! The truth is, it was given to the Jews because of the universal apostasy of the Gentiles. But in the following paragraph Justin gives three more reasons for not keeping the Sabbath:— "Do you see that the elements are not idle, and keep no Sabbaths? Remain as you were born. For if there was no need of circumcision before Abraham, or of the observance of Sabbaths, of feasts and sacrifices, before Moses; no more need is there of them now, after that, according to the will of God, Jesus Christ the Son of God has been born without sin, of a virgin sprung from the stock of Abraham." Here are three reasons: 1. "That the elements are not idle, and keep no Sabbaths." Though this reason is simply worthless as an argument against the seventh day, it is a decisive confirmation of the fact already proven, that Justin did not make Sunday a day of abstinence from labor. 2. His second reason here given is that there was no observance of Sabbaths before Moses, and yet we know that God at the beginning did appoint the Sabbath to a holy use, a fact to testify, and we also know that in that age were men who kept all the precepts of God. 3. There is no need of Sabbatical observance since Christ. Though this is mere assertion, it is by no means easy for those to meet it fairly who represent Justin as maintaining the Christian Sabbath. Another argument by Justin against the obligation of the Sabbath is that God "directs the government of the universe on this day equally as on all others!" as though this were inconsistent with the present sacredness of the Sabbath, when it is also true that God thus governed the world in the period when Justin acknowledges the Sabbath to have been obligatory. Though this reason is trivial as an argument against the Sabbath, it does show that Justin could have attached no Sabbatical character to Sunday. But he has yet one more argument against the Sabbath. The ancient law has been done away by the new and final law, and the old covenant has been superseded by the new. But he forgets that the design of the new covenant was not to do away with the law of God, but to put that law into the heart of every Christian. And many of the fathers as we shall see, expressly repudiate this doctrine of the abrogation of the decalogue. Such were Justin's reasons for rejecting the ancient Sabbath. But though he was a decided asserter of the abrogation of the law, and of the Sabbatical institution itself, and kept Sunday only as a festival, modern first-day writers cite him as a witness in support of the doctrine that the first day of the week should be observed as the Christian Sabbath on the authority of the fourth commandment. Now let us learn what stood in the way of Irenæus' observance of the Sabbath. It was not that the commandments were abolished, for we shall presently learn that he taught their perpetuity. Nor was it that he believed in the change of the Sabbath, for he gives no hint of such an idea. The Sunday festival in his estimation appears to have been simply of "equal significance" with the Pentecost. Nor was it that Christ broke the Sabbath, for Irenæus says he did not. But because the Sabbath is called a sign he regarded it as significant of the future kingdom, and appears to have considered it no longer obligatory, though he does not expressly say this. Thus he sets forth the meaning of the Sabbath as held by him:— "Moreover the Sabbaths of God, that is, the kingdom, was, as it were, indicated by created things," etc. "These [promises to the righteous] are [to take place] in the times of the kingdom, that is, upon the seventh day which has been sanctified, in which God rested from all the works which he created, which is the true Sabbath of the righteous," etc.487 "For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years: and in six days created things were completed; it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year." But Irenæus did not notice that the Sabbath as a sign does not point forward to the restitution, but backward to the creation, that it may signify that the true God is the Creator. Nor did he observe the fact that when the kingdom of God shall be established under the whole heaven all flesh shall hallow the Sabbath. But he says that those who lived before Moses were justified "without observance of Sabbaths," and offers as proof that the covenant at Horeb was not made with the fathers. Of course if this proves that the patriarchs were free from obligation toward the fourth commandment, it is equally good as proof that they might violate any other. These things indicate that Irenæus was opposed to Sabbatical observance, though he did not in express language assert its abrogation, and did in most decisive terms assert the continued obligation of the ten commandments. Tertullian offers numerous reasons for not observing the Sabbath, but there is scarcely one of these that he does not in some other place expressly contradict. Thus he asserts that the patriarchs before Moses did not observe the Sabbath. But he offers no proof, and he elsewhere dates the origin of the Sabbath at the creation, as we shall show hereafter. In several places he teaches the abrogation of the law, and seems to set aside moral law as well as ceremonial. But elsewhere, as we shall show, he bears express testimony that the ten commandments are still binding as the rule of the Christian's life. He quotes the words of Isaiah in which God is represented as hating the feasts, new-moons, and sabbaths observed by the Jews, as proof that the seventh-day Sabbath was a temporary institution which Christ abrogated. But in another place he says: "Christ did not at all reseind the Sabbath: he kept the law thereof." And he also explains this very text by stating that God's aversion toward the Sabbaths observed by the Jews was "because they were celebrated without the fear of God by a people full of iniquities," and adds that the prophet, in a later passage speaking of Sabbaths celebrated according to God's commandment, "declares them to be true, delightful, and inviolable." Another statement is that Joshua violated the Sabbath in the siege of Jericho. Yet he elsewhere explains this very case, showing that the commandment forbids our own work, not God's. Those who acted at Jericho did "not do their own work, but God's, which they executed, and that, too, from express commandment. He also both asserts and denies that Christ violated the Sabbath. Tertullian was a double-minded man. He wrote much against the law and the Sabbath, but he also contradicted and exposed his own errors. Origen attempts to prove that the ancient Sabbath is to be understood mystically or spiritually, and not literally. Here is his argument:— "Ye shall sit, every one in your dwellings: no one shall move from his place on the Sabbath day.' Which precept it is impossible to live literally; for no man can sit a whole day so as not to move from the place where he sat down." Great men are not always wise. There is no such precept in the Bible. Origen referred to that which forbade the people to go out for manna on the Sabbath, but which did not conflict with another that commanded holy convocations or assemblies for worship on the Sabbath. Victorinus is the latest of the fathers before Constantine who offers reasons against the observance of the Sabbath. His first reason is that Christ said by Isaiah that his soul hated the Sabbath; which Sabbath he in his body abolished; and these assertions we have seen answered by Tertullian. His second reason is that "Jesus [Joshua] the son of Nave [Nun], the successor of Moses, himself broke the Sabbath day," which is false. His third reason is that "Matthias [a Maccabean] also prince of Judah, broke the Sabbath," which is doubtless false, but is of no consequence as authority. His fourth argument is original, and may fitly close the list of reasons assigned in the early fathers for not observing the Sabbath. It is given in full without an answer:— "And in Matthew we read, that it is written Isaiah also and the rest of his colleagues broke the Sabbath." Thus we see that the reasons offered by the early fathers for neglecting the observance of the Sabbath show conclusively that they had no special light on the subject by reason of living in the first centuries, which we in this later age do not possess. The fact is, so many of the reasons offered by them are manifestly false and absurd that those who in these days discard the Sabbath, do also discard the most of the reasons offered by these fathers for this same course.
J. N. A.