HISTORY OF THE SABBATH by John Nevins Andrews

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 15, 1862

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH.

By John Nevins Andrews

(Continued.)

THE SABBATH AND FIRST-DAY DURING THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES.

On the seventh day of March, Constantine published his edict commanding the observance of that ancient festival of the heathen, the venerable day of the sun. On the following day he issued a second decree in every respect worthy of its heathen predecessor. The purport of it was this: That if any royal edifice should be struck by lightning, the ancient ceremonies of propitiating the deity should be practiced, and the haruspices were to be consulted to learn the meaning of the awful portent. The haruspices were soothsayers who foretold future events by examining the entrails of beasts slaughtered in sacrifice to the gods! The statute of the seventh of March, enjoining the observance of the venerable day of the sun, and that of the eighth of the same month, commanding the consultation of the haruspices, constitute a noble pair of well-matched heathen edicts.

That Constantine himself was a heathen at the time these edicts were issued, is shown not only by the nature of the edicts themselves, but by the fact that his nominal conversion to Christianity is placed by Mosheim two years after his Sunday law. Thus he says:

"After well considering the subject, I have come to the conclusion that, subsequently to the death of Licinius, in the year 325, when Constantine found himself sole emperor, he became an absolute Christian, or one who believes no religion but the Christian to be acceptable to God. He had previously considered the religion of one God as more excellent than the other religions, and believed that Christ ought especially to be worshiped; yet he supposed there were also inferior deities, and that to those some worship might be paid, in the manner of the fathers, without fault or sin. And who does not know, that in those times, many others also combined the worship of Christ with that of the ancient gods, whom they regarded as the ministers of the supreme God in the government of human and earthly affairs."—Historical Commentaries, cent. iv, sec. 7.

As a heathen, Constantine was the worshiper of Apollo, or the sun, a fact that sheds much light upon his edict enjoining men to observe the venerable day of the sun. Thus Gibbon testifies:

"The devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the sun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be represented with the symbols of the god of light and poetry. . . . The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude were taught to believe that the emperor was permitted to behold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity. . . . The sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine."—Dec. and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xx.

His character as a professor of Christianity is thus described:

"The religious sincerity of the man, who in a short period effected such amazing changes in the religious world, is best known to Him who searches the heart. Certain it is that his subsequent life furnished no evidence of conversion to God. He waded without remorse through seas of blood, and was a most tyrannical prince."—Marsh's Eccl. Hist., period iii, chap. 5.

A few words relative to his character as a man will complete our view of his fitness to legislate for the church. This man, when elevated to the highest place of earthly power, caused his eldest son, Crispus, to be privately murdered, lest the fame of the son should eclipse that of the father. In the same ruin was involved his nephew Licinius, "whose rank was his only crime, and this was followed by the execution perhaps of a guilty wife."—Dec. and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xviii.

Such was the man who elevated Sunday to the throne of the Roman empire; and such the nature of the institution which he thus elevated. A recent English writer says of Constantine's Sunday law, that it "would seem to have been rather to promote heathen than Christian worship." And he shows how this heathen emperor became a Christian, and how this heathen statute became a Christian law. Thus he says:

"At a later period, carried away by the current of opinion, he declared himself a convert to the church. Christianity, then, or what he was pleased to call by that name, became a law of the land, and the edict of A. D. 321, being unrevoked, was enforced as a Christian ordinance."—Sunday and the Mosaic Sabbath, p. 4.

Thus it is seen that a law enacted in support of a heathen institution, after a few years came to be considered a Christian ordinance; and Constantine himself, four years after this Sunday edict, was able to control the church, as represented in the general council of Nice, so as to cause the members of that council to establish their annual festival of the passover upon Sunday. Paganism had prepared the institution from ancient days, and had now elevated it to supreme power; its work was accomplished. It was now the part of popery to effect its transformation into a Christian institution; a work which it was not slow to perform. Sylvester was the bishop of Rome while Constantine was emperor. How faithfully he acted his part in transforming the festival of the sun into a Christian institution is seen in that he changed the name of the day, giving it the imposing title of Lord's day. To Constantine and to Sylvester, therefore, the advocates of first-day observance are greatly indebted. The one elevated it as a heathen festival to the throne of the empire, making it a day of rest from most kinds of business; the other changed it into a Christian institution, giving it the dignified appellation of Lord's day. It is true that traces of resting from labor on that day, and individual instances of designating Sunday as the Lord's day are found as early as Tertullian's time, at the opening of the third century; but it was the work of Constantine and of Sylvester in the early part of the fourth century to establish the festival of the sun, by the authority of the empire, and to render it a Christian institution by the authority of St. Peter.

The following from Dr. Heylyn, a distinguished member of the church of England, is worthy of particular attention. In most forcible language he traces the steps by which the Sunday festival arose to power, contrasting it in this respect with the ancient Sabbath of the Lord; and then with equal truth and candor he acknowledges that as the festival of Sunday was set up by the emperor and the church, the same power can take it down whenever it sees fit. Thus he says:

"Thus do we see upon what grounds the Lord's day stands: on custom first, and voluntary consecration of it to religious meetings; that custom countenanced by the authority of the church of God, which tacitly approved the same; and finally confirmed and ratified by Christian princes throughout their empires. And as the day for rest from labors and restraint from business upon that day, [it] received its greatest strength from the supreme magistrate as long as he retained that power which to him belongs: as after, from the canons and decrees of councils, the decretals of popes and orders of particular prelates, when the sole managing of ecclesiastical affairs was committed to them. I hope it was not so with the former Sabbath, which neither took original from custom, that people being so forward to give God a day; nor required any command from the kings of Israel to confirm and ratify it. The Lord had spoke the word that he would have the seventh day from the world's creation to be a day of rest unto all his people; which said, there was no more to do but gladly to submit and obey his pleasure. But this was not done in our present business. The Lord's day had no such command that it should be sanctified, but was left plainly for God's people to pitch on this day beingtaken up amongst them, and made a day of meeting in the congregation for religious exercises, yet for three hundred years there was neither law to bind them to it, nor any rest from labor or from worldly business required upon it. And when it seemed good unto Christian princes, the nursing fathers of God's church, to lay restraint upon their people, yet at the first they were not general, but only thus that certain men, in certain places, should lay aside their ordinary and daily works, to attend God's service in the church; those whose employments were most toilous and most repugnant to the true nature of a Sabbath being allowed to follow and pursue their labors because most necessary to the commonwealth. And in the following times when as the prince and prelate in their several places endeavored to restrain them from that also which formerly they had permitted, and interdicted almost all kinds of bodily labor upon that day: it was not brought about without much struggling and opposition of the people; more than a thousand years being past after Christ's ascension, before the Lord's day had attained his state in which now it standeth. And being brought into that state, wherein now it stands, it doth not stand so firmly, and on such sure grounds as that those powers which raised it up may take it lower if they please, yea, take it quite away as to the time, and settle it on any other day as to them seems best."—Hist. Sab., part ii, chap. iii, sec. 12.

Constantine's edict marks a signal change in the history of the Sunday festival. Dr. Heylyn thus testifies:

"Hitherto have we spoken of the Lord's day as taken up by the common consent of the church; not instituted or established by any text of scripture, or edict of emperor, or decree of council. In that which followeth we shall find both emperors and councils very frequent in ordaining things about this day and the service of it."—Id., sec. 1.

After his professed conversion to Christianity, Constantine still further exerted his power in behalf of the venerable day of the sun, now happily transformed into the Lord's day, by the apostolic authority of the Roman bishop. Heylyn thus testifies:

"So natural a power it is in a Christian prince to order things about religion, that he not only took upon him to command the day, but also to prescribe the service."—Id.

The influence of Constantine powerfully contributed to the aid of those church leaders who were intent upon bringing the forms of pagan worship into the Christian church. Gibbon thus places upon record the motives of these men, and the result of their action:

"The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstition of paganism, if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire: but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals."—Dec. and Fall, chap. xxviii.

The body of nominal Christians which resulted from this strange union of pagan rites with Christian worship, arrogated to itself the title of Catholic church, while the true people of God who resisted these dangerous innovations were branded as heretics, and cast out of the church. It is not strange that the Sabbath should lose ground in such a body, in its struggle with its rival, the festival of the sun. Indeed after a brief period the history of the Sabbath will be found only in the almost obliterated records of those whom the Catholic church cast out and stigmatized as heretics. Of the Sabbath in Constantine's time, Heylyn says:

"As for the Saturday, that retained its wonted credit in the eastern churches, little inferior to the Lord's day, if not plainly equal: not as a Sabbath, think not so; but as a day designed unto sacred meetings."—Hist. Sab., part ii, chap. iii, sec. 5.

And Eusebius, who was contemporary with Constantine, and devoted exclusively to his party and his interests, says:

"They [the patriarchs] did not, therefore, regard circumcision, nor observe the Sabbath, neither do we; neither do we abstain from certain foods, nor regard other injunctions, which Moses subsequently delivered to be observed in types and symbols, because such things as these do not belong to Christians."—Eccl. Hist., book i, chap. iv.

This testimony shows precisely the view of Constantine and the imperial party relative to the Sabbath. He exerted a controlling influence in the church, and was determined "to have nothing in common with that most hostile rabble of the Jews." Happy would it have been had his aversion been directed against the festivals of the heathen, rather than against the Sabbath of the Lord. But after Constantine, the Sabbath began to recover strength, at least in the eastern churches. Prof. Stuart, in speaking of the period from Constantine to the council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, says:

"The practice of it [the keeping of the Sabbath] was continued by Christians who were jealous for the honor of the Mosaic law, and finally became, as we have seen, predominant throughout Christendom. It was supposed, at length, that the fourth commandment did require the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath [not merely a seventh part of time], and reasoning as Christians of the present day are wont to do, viz., that what belongs to the ten commandments was immutable and perpetual, the churches in general came gradually to regard the seventh-day Sabbath as altogether sacred."—Appendix to Gurney's Hist., &c., of the Sab., pp. 115, 116.

But the council of Laodicea struck a heavy blow at this Sabbath-keeping in the eastern church. Thus James, in addressing the university of Oxford, bears witness:

"When the practice of keeping Saturday Sabbaths . . . . was evidently gaining ground in the eastern church, a decree was passed in the council held at Laodicea, A. D. 364, 'that members of the church should not rest from work on the Sabbath, like the Jews, but should labor on that day, and preferring in honor the Lord's day, then if it be in their power should rest from work as Christians.'"—Sermons on the Sacraments and Sabbath, p. 123.

This shows conclusively that at that period the observance of the Sabbath according to the commandment was extensive in the eastern churches. But the Laodicean council not only forbade the observance of the Sabbath, they even pronounced a curse on those who should obey the fourth commandment! Prynne thus testifies:

"It is certain that Christ himself, his apostles, and the primitive Christians, for some good space of time, did constantly observe the seventh-day Sabbath; the evangelists and St. Luke in the Acts ever styling it the Sabbath-day, and making mention of its solemnization by the apostles and other Christians: it being still solemnized by many Christians after the apostles' times, even till the council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, as ecclesiastical writers and the twenty-ninth canon of that council testify, which runs thus: 'Because Christians ought not to judaize, and to rest in the Sabbath, but to work in that day [which many did at that time refuse to do], but preferring in honor the Lord's day [there being then a great controversy among Christians which of these two days should have precedence,] if they desired to rest they should do this as Christians. Because if they shall be found to judaize, let them be accursed by Christ.'—The seventh-day Sabbath was solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean council did in a manner quite abolish the observation of it. . . . The council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, first settled the observation of the Lord's day, and prohibited the keeping of the Jewish Sabbath under an anathema."—Dissertation on the Lord's-day Sabbath, pp. 33, 34, 44, 1633.

The action of this council did not extirpate the Sabbath from the eastern churches, though it did effectually weaken its influence, and cause its observance to become with many only a nominal thing, while it did most effectually enhance the sacredness and the authority of the Sunday festival. That it did not wholly extinguish Sabbath-keeping is thus certified by an old English writer, John Ley:

"From the apostles' time until the council of Laodicea, which was about the year 364, the holy observation of the Jews' Sabbath continued, as may be proved out of many authors; yea, notwithstanding the decree of that council against it."—Sunday a Sabbath, p. 163, 1640.

The following testimonies exhibit the authority of church councils in its true light. Jortin is quoted by Cox as saying:

"In such assemblies the best and most moderate men seldom have the ascendant, and they are often led or driven by others who are far inferior to them in good qualities."—Sabbath Laws, &c., p. 138.

The same writer gives us Baxter's opinion of the famous Westminster Assembly. Baxter says:

"I have lived to see an assembly of ministers, where three or four leading men were so prevalent as to form a confession in the name of the whole party, which had that in it which particular members did disown. And when about a controverted article, one man hath charged me deeply with questioning the words of the church, others, who were at the forming of that article, have laid it all on that man, the rest being loth to strive much against him; and so it was he himself was the church whose authority he so much urged."—Id., p. 138.

Such has been the nature of councils in all ages; yet they have ever claimed infallibility, and have largely used that infallibility in the suppression of the Sabbath, and the establishment of the festival of Sunday. Of first-day sacredness prior to, and as late as, the time of Chrysostom, Kitto thus testifies:

"Though in later times we find considerable reference to a sort of consecration of the day, it does not seem at any period of the ancient church to have assumed the form of such an observance as some modern religious communities have contended for. Nor do these writers in any instance pretend to allege any divine command, or apostolic practice, in support of it. Chrysostom (A. D. 360) concludes one of his Homilies by dismissing his audience to their respective ordinary occupations."—Cyc. Bib. Lit., art., Lord's day; Heylyn's Hist. Sab., part ii, chap. iii, sec. 7.

It was reserved for modern theologians to discover the divine or apostolic authority for Sunday observance. The ancient doctors of the church were unaware that any such authority existed; and hence they deemed it lawful and proper to engage in usual worldly business on that day when their religious worship was concluded. Thus Heylyn bears witness:

"St. Chrysostom confessed it to be lawful for a man to look to his worldly business on the Lord's day, after the congregation was dismissed."—Hist. Sab., part ii, chap. iii, sec. 9.

St. Jerome, a few years after this, at the opening of the fifth century, in his commendation of the lady Paula, shows his own opinion of Sunday labor. Thus he says:

"Paula, with the women, as soon as they returned home on the Lord's day, sat down severally to their work, and made clothes severally for themselves and others."—Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p. 234; Hist. Sab., part ii, chap. iii, sec. 7.

Morer justifies this Sunday labor in the following terms:

"If we read that they did any work on the Lord's day, it is to be remembered that this application to their daily tasks was not till their worship was quite over, when they might with innocence enough resume them, because the length of time or number of hours assigned for piety was not then so well explained as in after ages. . . . Christianity had got into the throne, as well as into the empire. Yet for all this, the entire sanctification of the Lord's day proceeded slowly; and that it was the work of time to bring it to perfection, appears from the several steps the church made in her constitutions, and from the decrees of emperors and other princes, wherein the prohibitions from servile and civil business, advanced by degrees from one species to another, till the day got a considerable figure in the world."—Dialogues on the Lord's Day, pp. 236, 237.

The bishop of Ely thus testifies:

"In St. Jerome's days, and in the very place where he was residing, the devoted Christians did ordinarily work upon the Lord's day, when the service of the church was ended."—Treatise of the Sabbath, p. 219.

St. Augustine, the contemporary of Jerome, gives a synopsis of the argument in that age, for Sunday observance in the following words:

"It appears from the sacred Scriptures, that this day was a solemn one; it was the first day of the age, that is, of the existence of our world; in it the elements of the world were formed; on it the angels were created; on it Christ rose also from the dead; on it the Holy Spirit descended from heaven upon the apostles as manna had done in the wilderness. For these and other such circumstances the Lord's day is distinguished; and therefore the holy doctors of the church have decreed that all the glory of the Jewish Sabbath is transferred to it. Let us therefore keep the Lord's day as the ancients were commanded to do the Sabbath."—Sabbath Laws, &c., p. 284.

It is to be observed that Augustine does not assign among his reasons for first-day observance, the change of the Sabbath by Christ or his apostles, or that the apostles observed that day, or that John had given it the name of Lord's day. These modern first-day arguments were unknown to Augustine. He gave the credit of the work, not to Christ or his inspired apostles,

but to the holy doctors of the church, who, of their own accord, had transferred the glory of the ancient Sabbath to the venerable day of the sun. The first day of the week was considered in the fifth century the most proper day for giving holy orders, that is, for ordinations, and about the middle of this century, says Heylyn,

"A law [was] made by Leo, then pope of Rome, and generally since taken up in the western church, that they should be conferred upon no day else."—Hist. Sab., part ii, chap. iv, sec. viii.

Soon after this edict of the pope, the emperor Leo, A. D. 469, put forth the following decree:

"The Lord's day we decree to be a venerable day, and therefore free it of all citations, executions, pleadings, and the like avocations. Let not the circus or theatre be opened, nor combatting with wild beasts be seen on it, . . . . If any will presume to offend in the premises, if he be a military man, let him lose his commission; or if other, let his estate or goods be confiscated."

And this emperor determined to mend the breach in Constantine's law, and thus prohibit agriculture on Sunday. So he adds:

"We command, therefore, all, as well husbandmen as others, to forbear work on this day of our restoration."—Dialogues on the Lord's Day, pp. 259, 260.

The holy doctors of the church had by this time very effectually despoiled the Sabbath of its glory, transferring it to the Lord's day of pope Sylvester, as Augustine testifies; yet was not Sabbatical observance wholly extinguished even in the Catholic church. The historian Socrates, who wrote about the middle of the fifth century thus testifies:

"For although almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria, and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, refuse to do this. The Egyptians in the neighborhood of Alexandria, and the inhabitants of Thebais, hold their religious meetings on the Sabbath, but do not participate of the mysteries in the manner usual among Christians in general."—Eccl. Hist., book v, chap. 22.

As the church of Rome had turned the Sabbath into a fast some two hundred years before this, in order to oppose its observance, it is probable that this was the ancient tradition referred to by Socrates. Lardner quotes this testimony of Socrates, and then gives that of another historian a few years later than Socrates, to the same purport:

"Sozomen, about the same time, says likewise, that at Constantinople, and almost everywhere, except Rome and Alexandria, Christians assembled on the Sabbath, as well as on the first day of the week."—Credibility of the Gospel History, Vol. x, chap. 85.

On the statement of these historians Cox remarks:

"It was their practice to Sabbatize on Saturday, and to celebrate Sunday as a day of rejoicing and festivity, while, however, in some places a respect was thus generally paid to both of these days, the judaizing practice of observing Saturday was by the leading churches expressly condemned, and all the doctrines connected with it steadfastly resisted."—Sab. Laws, &c., p. 280.

The time had now come when, as stated by Coleman, the observance of the Sabbath was deemed heretical; and the close of the fifth century witnessed its effectual suppression in the great body of the Catholic church.