IN THE WRONG PEW | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 25, 1856

"IN THE WRONG PEW."

As appeal is often made to the Greek of Matt. xxviii, 1, in behalf of Sunday-keeping, a brief notice of that text may be appropriate at this time. We are not surprised at the various reasons urged against the observance of the true Sabbath, and in favor of a false one; we expect the great Enemy of all truth will improve well his ground, and leave no stone unturned. However, we thank our opponents for all their inventions, since the explosion of every new objection, is a fresh accession to our own strength.

But it is not of late only, that the attempt has been made to throw Greek dust in the eyes of the honest. Eld. J. Litch endeavored to play at the same game in a letter to the Advent Herald, dated July 16th, 1851; and as the view which the original Greek of Matt. xxviii, 1, &c., is by some supposed to teach, is perhaps as well embodied in his language as any, we present his remarks as follows:

"BRO. HIMES:—I was forcibly struck while reading several tracts with which I met while on my passage from New York to Hartford, with the apparent disingenuousness of the writer. One argument on which he seemed to lay great stress in support of the Seventh-day Sabbath, was this—that Sabbath means rest—that the seventh day is called a Sabbath in the New Testament—the first day is not so called, but is also designated the first day of the week."

The truth is—and Sabbatarians either do or ought to know it—the evangelists never in the language in which the gospels are found, (the Greek,) called the first day of the week anything else but Sabbath. For the information of those who are shaken in their minds on this subject, I will transcribe the Greek text in Italics, containing the words rendered by our translators first day of the week, and also the word rendered by them Sabbath meaning the seventh day.

Matt. xxviii, 1.—English translation: 'In the end of the Sabbath, as it begins to dawn toward the first day of the week' Greek—Opse de sabbaton, te epiphoskouse eis mian sabbaton There the identical word in the same case, genitive plural, rendered Sabbath when referring to the seventh day, is rendered first day of the week in the very next clause of the verse. A literal rendering would be, if we adopt the principle of our translators of Anglicizing instead of translating the word, 'And in the end of Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward one of Sabbath.'

Does not this indicate that one series of Sabbaths there ended, so far as obligation to observe it was concerned, and a new series was introduced? At any rate, the first is as positively called Sabbath as the seventh day. And all four of the evangelists designate it by the same word. Mark xvi, 2. Kai lian proi tes mias sabbaton. 'And very early the one of Sabbath,' &c. Luke xxiv, 1. Te de mia ton sabbaton. 'And the one of the Sabbath,' &c. John xx, 1. Te de mia ton sabbaton. 'And in the one of the Sabbath,' &c. Thus the four evangelists do agree in calling the first by the same name they do the seventh day of the week, and that word as certainly signifies rest in the one case as in the other. Let no one therefore hereafter contend that the writers of the New Testament never call the first day, Sabbath, or rest, for no New Testament writer has called it any thing else, except John, [Rev. i, 10,] where it is called the 'Lord's day.' J. LITCH. Philadelphia, July 16th, 1851.

This breast-work which Eld. Litch had thus endeavored to throw up to shield easy consciences from the force of truth, was however entirely demolished by the Editor of the Herald, by some remarks which he appended to this letter, as follows:

"REMARKS.—Lest any should gather from the above that the word Sabbath is represented by the phrase 'first day of the week,' we add that Sabbath is simply translated week in these texts—other words indicating the day of the week. The word Sabbath is originally a Hebrew word, and signifies rest; but occurring at regular intervals, by a metonymy it became significant of the periods separated by these rests. So that we have the seventh day of the rest, and the first day of the rest, week, or Sabbath.—Ed. Advent Herald."

Robinson in his Greek Lexicon of the New Testament gives the following as a second definition of sabbaton: "2. Meton. a sabbath, put for the interval from sabbath to sabbath; hence a se'nnight, a week." One of the definitions which Greenfield also gives to this word, is "a period of seven days a week," whether in the singular or plural.

An instance of its use in this sense is found in Luke xviii, 12, where the proud Pharisee, in his self-righteousness, exclaimed, "I fast twice in the week," (neusteuso dis tou sabbatou.) Will our new translators say that sabbaton here includes one day only, and that the old Pharisee fasted twice on the Sabbath?

The word in this sense, according to Robinson, occurs elsewhere "only after numerals marking the days of the week;" and in proof of this, he cites us to those very texts which some have of late been using in trying to make people believe that the term, Sabbath, is applied by Scripture to the first day of the week; namely, Matt. xxviii, 1; Mark xvi, 2, 9; Luke xxiv, 1; John xx, 1, 19; Acts xx, 7; 1 Cor. xvi, 2.

In view of these facts let us look more particularly at Matt. xxviii, 1. Opse de sabbaton, but in the end of the Sabbath, (or week, the seventh day, or Sabbath, being the last day of the week,) tee epiphoskouse, as it began to dawn, eis, toward, mian, the first, (the numeral, marking the day of the week, according to Robinson,) sabbaton, of the week.

Concerning the numeral mian, we would remark that it cannot agree with sabbaton understood, as would necessarily be the case if it meant one (Sabbath) of a new series of Sabbaths then introduced as the writer above quoted contends; for mian is of the feminine gender, and sabbaton is neuter. There is no word with which, in this case, it can agree, except hemeran, day, understood, as is given in the margin of the Greek Testament. With mian, therefore, agreeing with day understood, and sabbaton denoting the week, the case clearly stands thus: "As it began to dawn towards the first (day) of the week." Hence any one can see that it is not possible, without doing violence to the sacred text, to give to such passages as Matt. xxviii, 1, a rendering essentially different from that of the common version.

In what light then shall we look upon those who boldly assert that the first day of the week is called the Sabbath, and base the assertion upon their translation of the above named texts, while at the same time they are either ignorant of, or intentionally conceal, the fact, that the word sabbaton is sometimes used in a secondary sense, meaning the whole week, and especially so when preceded by a numeral adjective denoting the day of the week? Shall we look upon these efforts to defend Sunday-keeping as the result of ignorance only? or as a betrayal of the enmity that rankles in their hearts against the holy and good law of a righteous God? We are sorry to regard any one in such an unenviable light; but they thus place themselves before us, as often as they engage in such attempts to sustain a groundless position. We would advise them no more to hazard their reputation, either for honesty or scholarship, by such a course.

And we would further recommend those Sunday-keepers who have suddenly become enamored of the Greek, thinking to find therein something to support their cherished theory, to meditate carefully upon the word anomia, as it occurs in the following instances, beginning with the words of Christ, "Depart from me ye that work (teen anomian) lawlessness;" or, ye law-breakers: Matt. vii, 23; xiii, 41; xxiii, 28; xxiv, 12; Rom. iv, 7; vi, 19; 2 Cor. vi, 14; 2 Thess. ii, 7; Titus ii, 14; Heb. i, 9; viii, 12; x, 17; 1 John iii, 4.

The truth is, those who endeavor to ride away from the requirements of the moral law, upon the Greek language, "do, or ought to know" that they have mounted the wrong hobby.