HISTORY OF THE SABBATH by John Nevins Andrews

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 22, 1862

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH.

By John Nevins Andrews

(Continued.)

THE FESTIVAL OF SUNDAY FROM THE SIXTH CENTURY TO THE REFORMATION.

THE opening of the sixth century witnessed the development of the great apostasy to such an extent that the man of sin might be plainly seen sitting in the temple of God. 2 Thess. ii. The western Roman empire had been broken up into ten kingdoms, and the way was now prepared for the work of the little horn. Dan. vii. In the early part of this century, the bishop of Rome was made head over the entire church by the emperor of the east, Justinian Shimeall's Bible Chronology, part ii, chap. ix, sec, v, pp. 175, 176. The dragon gave unto the beast his power, and his seat, and great authority. From this accession to supremacy by the Roman pontiff, date the "time, times and dividing of time," or twelve hundred and sixty years of the prophecies of Daniel and John. Dan. vii, 7, 25; Rev. xiii, 2, 5.

The true people of God now retired for safety into places of obscurity and seclusion, as represented by the prophecy: "The woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score days." Rev. xii. Leaving their history for the present, let us follow that of the Catholic church, and trace in its record the history of the Sunday festival through the period of the dark ages. Of the fifth and sixth centuries Heylyn bears the following testimony:

"The faithful being united better than before, became more uniform in matters of devotion and in that uniformity did agree together to give the Lord's day all the honors of a holy festival. Yet was not this done all at once, but by degrees: the fifth and sixth centuries being fully spent before it came unto that height which hath since continued. The emperors and the prelates in these times had the same affections; both [being] earnest to advance this day above all others; and to the edicts of the one and to the ecclesiastical constitutions of the other, it stands indebted for many of those privileges and exemptions which it still enjoyeth."—Hist. Sab., part ii, chap. iv, sec. 1.

But Sunday had not yet acquired the title of Sabbath. Thus Brewwood bears testimony:

"The name of the Sabbath remained appropriated to the old Sabbath; and was never attributed to the Lord's day, not of many hundred years after our Saviour's time."—Learned Treatise of the Sabbath, ed. 1631.

And Heylyn says of the term Sabbath in the ancient church:

"The Saturday is called amongst them by no other name than that which formerly it had, the Sabbath. So 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."—Hist. Sab., part ii, chap. ii, sec. 12.

Dr. Francis White, bishop of Ely, also testifies:

"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."—Treatise of the Sabbath-Day, p. 202.

It should be observed, however, that the earliest mention of Sunday as Dominicum diem, is in the writings of Tertullian; Justin Martyr some sixty years before, styling it "the day called Sunday;" while the authoritative application of that term to Sunday was by Sylvester, bishop of Rome, more than one hundred years after the time of Tertullian. The earliest mention of Sunday as Christian Sabbath, is thus noted by Heylyn:

"The first who ever used it to denote the Lord's day—the first that I have met with in all this search—is one Petrus Alfonsus—he lived about the time that Rupertus did—[which was the beginning of the twelfth century] who calls the Lord's day by the name of Christian Sabbath."—Hist. Sab., part ii, chap. 5, sec. 13.

Of Sunday labor in the eastern church, Heylyn says:

"It was near nine hundred years from our Saviour's birth before restraint of husbandry on this day had been first thought of in the east; and probably being thus restrained did find no more obedience then, than it had before in the western parts."—Id., part ii, chap. v, sec. 6.

Of Sunday labor in the western church, Dr. Francis White thus testifies:

"The Catholic church for more than six hundred years after Christ, permitted labor, and gave licences to many Christian people to work upon the Lord's day, at such hours as they were not commanded to be present at the public worship by the precept of the church."—Treatise of the Sabbath-Day, pp. 217, 218.

But let us trace the several steps by which the festival of Sunday increased in strength until it attained its complete development. These will be found at present mostly in the edicts of emperors, and the decrees of councils. Morer tells us that,

"Under Clodoveus king of France, met the bishops in the first council of Orleans [A. D. 507], where they obliged themselves and their successors to be always at church on the Lord's day, except in case of sickness or some great infirmity. And because they, with some other of the clergy in those days, took cognizance of judicial matters, therefore by a council at Arragon about the year 518, in the reign of Theodorick, king of the Goths, it was decreed that 'No bishop or other person in holy orders should examine or pass judgment in any civil controversy on the Lord's day.'"—Dialogues on the Lord's Day, pp. 263, 264.

This shows that civil courts were sometimes held on Sunday by the bishops in those days; otherwise such a prohibition would not have been put forth. Hengstenberg, in his notice of the third council of Orleans gives us an insight into the then existing state of the Sunday festival:

"The third council of Orleans, A. D. 538, says in its twenty-ninth 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, in order that the people may not be prevented from attending church.'—The Lord's Day, p. 58.

In A. D. 588, another council was holden, the occasion of which is thus stated:

"And because, notwithstanding all this care, the day was not duly observed, the bishops were again summoned to Mascon, in Burgundy, by king Gunthrum, and there they framed this canon: 'Notice is taken that Christian people very much neglect the Lord's day, giving themselves, as on other days, to common work, to redress which irreverence, we warn every Christian, who bears not that name in vain, to give ear to our advice, knowing we have a concern on us for your good, and power to hinder you to do evil. Keep then the Lord's day, the day of our new birth.'"—Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p. 265.

Further legislation being necessary, we are told:

"About a year forward there was a council at Narbon, which forbid all persons of what country or quality soever, to do any servile work on the Lord's day. But if any man presumed to disobey this canon, he was to be fined, if a free man, and if a servant, severely lashed. Or, as Surius represents the penalty in the edict of king Recaredus, which he put out near the same time, to strengthen the decrees of the council, 'Rich men were to be punished with the loss of a moiety of their estates, and the poorer sort with perpetual banishment.' In the year 590 another synod was held at Auxerre, a city in Champain, in the reign of Clotair, king of France, where it was decreed . . . 'that no man should be allowed to plow, nor cart, or do any such thing on the Lord's day.'—Id., pp. 265, 266; Hist. Sab., part ii, chap. iv, sec. 7.

Such were some of the efforts made in the sixth century to advance the sacredness of the Sunday festival. And Morer tells us that,

"For fear the doctrine should not take without miracles to support it, Gregory of Tours [about A. D. 590] furnishes us with several to that purpose."—Id., p. 68.

Mr. Francis West, an old English first-day writer,

gravely adduces one of these miracles, in support of first-day sacredness:

"Gregory of Tours reporteth 'that a husbandman who upon the Lord's day went to plow in his field, as he cleaned his plow with an iron, the iron stuck so fast in his hand that for two years he could not be delivered from it, but carried it about continually, to his exceeding great pain and shame.'"—Historical and Practical Discourse on the Lord's Day.

In the conclusion of the sixth century, pope Gregory exhorted the people of Rome to "expiate on the day of our Lord's resurrection what was remissly done for the six days before." In the same epistle this pope condemned a class of men at Rome who advocated the strict observance of both the Sabbath and the Sunday, styling them the preachers of antichrist. This shows the intolerant feeling of the papacy toward the Sabbath, even when joined with the strict observance of Sunday. It also shows that there were Sabbath-keepers even in Rome itself as late as the seventh century; although so far bewildered by the prevailing darkness that they joined with its observance a strict abstinence from labor on Sunday. In the early part of the seventh century arose another foe to the Bible Sabbath in the person of Mahomet. To distinguish his followers alike from those who observed the Sabbath and those who observed the festival of Sunday, he selected Friday, the sixth day of the week, as their religious festival. And thus "the Mahometans and the Romanists crucified the Sabbath, as the Jews and the Romans did the Lord of the Sabbath, between two thieves, the sixth and first days of the week." For Mahometanism and Romanism each suppressed the Sabbath over a wide extent of territory. About the middle of the seventh century we have further canons of the church in behalf of Sunday:

"At Chalons in Burgundy, about the year 654, there was a provincial synod which decreed that 'none shall plow or reap on the Lord's day, or do any other thing belonging to husbandry, on pain of the censures of the church; which was the more minded, because backed with the secular power, and by an edict menacing such as offended herein; who, if bondmen, were to be soundly beaten; but if free, had three admonitions, and then if faulty, lost the third part of their patrimony, and if still obstinate, were made slaves for the future. . . . The twelfth council of Toledo in Spain, A. D. 681, forbid the Jews to keep their own festivals, but so far at least observe the Lord's day as to do no manner of work on it, whereby they might express their contempt of Christ or his worship.'"—Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p. 267.

These were weighty reasons indeed for Sunday observance. Nor can it be thought strange that in the dark ages a constant succession of such things should eventuate in the universal observance of that day. Even the Jews were to be compelled to desist from Sabbath observance, and to honor Sunday by resting on that day from their labor. The earliest mention of Sunday in English statutes appears to be the following:

A. D. 692. "Ina, king of the west Saxons, by the advice of Cenred his father, and Heddes and Erkenwald his bishops, with all his aldermen and sages, in a great assembly of the servants of God, for the health of their souls, and common preservation of the kingdom, made several constitutions, of which this was the third: 'If a servant do any work on Sunday by his master's order, he shall be free, and the master pay thirty shillings; but if he went to work on his own head, he shall either be beaten with stripes, or ransom himself with a price. A freeman, if he works on this day, shall lose his freedom, or pay sixty shillings; if he be a priest, double.'"—Id., p. 288.

The same year that this law was enacted in England, the sixth general council convened at Constantinople, which decreed that,

"If any bishop or other clergyman, or any of the laity, absented himself from the church three Sundays together, if a clergyman, he was to be deposed; if a layman, debarred the holy communion."—Id., p. 268.

In the year 747, a council of the English clergy was called under Cuthbert, archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of Egbert, king of Kent, and this constitution made:

"It is ordered that the Lord's day be celebrated with due veneration, and wholly devoted to the worship of God. And that all abbots and priests, on this most holy day, remain in their respective monasteries and churches, and there do their duty according to their places."—Id., pp. 283, 284.

Another ecclesiastical statute of the eighth century, is thus given:

"At Dingusolinum [in Bavaria] a synod met about 772, which decreed that if any man shall work his team on this day, or do any such common business, his team shall be presently forfeited to the public use, and if the party persists in his folly, let him be sold for a bondman."—Id., p. 268.

The English were not behind their neighbors in the good work of establishing the sacredness of Sunday. Thus we read:

A. D. 784. "Egbert, archbishop of York, to show positively what was to be done on Sundays, and what the laws designed by prohibiting ordinary work to be done on such days, made this canon: 'Let nothing else, saith he, be done on the Lord's day, but to attend on God in hymns and psalms and spiritual songs. Whoever marries on Sunday, let him do penance for seven days.'"—Id., p. 284.

In the conclusion of the eighth century, further efforts were made in behalf of this favored day:

"Charlemagne summoned the bishops to Friuli, in Italy, where they decreed, A. D. 791, that all people should with due reverence and devotion honor the Lord's day. . . . Under the same prince another council was called three years later at Frankfort in Germany, and there the limits of the Lord's day were determined from Saturday evening to Sunday evening."—Hist. Sab., part ii, chap. v, secs. 2, 5; Morer, p. 269.

The five councils of Mentz, Rheims, Tours, Chalons, and Arles, were all called in the year 818 by Charlemagne. It would be too irksome to the reader to dwell upon the several acts of these councils in behalf of Sunday. They are of the same character as those already quoted. The council of Chalons, however, is worthy of being noticed in that, according to Morer,

"They entreated the help of the secular power, and desired the emperor [Charlemagne] to provide for the stricter observation of it. Which he accordingly did, and left no stone unturned, to secure the honor of the day. His care succeeded; and during his reign the Lord's day bore a considerable figure. But after his day it put on another face."—Dialogues, &c., p. 270.

The pope lent a helping hand in checking the profanation of Sunday:

"And thereupon pope Eugenius, in a synod held at Rome, about 826, gave directions that the parish priest should admonish such offenders, and wish them to go to church and say their prayers, lest otherwise they might bring some great calamity on themselves and neighbors."—Id., p. 271.

All this, however, was not sufficient, and so another council was summoned. At this council was brought forward—perhaps for the first time—the famous first-day argument now so familiar to all, that Sunday is proved to be the true Sabbath, by the fact that men are struck by lightning who labor on that day. Thus we read:

"But those paternal admonitions turning to little account, a provincial council was held at Paris three years after, in 829, wherein the prelates complain that 'the Lord's day was not kept with reverence as became religion, which was the reason that God had sent several judgments on them, and in a remarkable manner punished some people for slighting and abusing it. For, say they, many of us by our own knowledge, and some by hearsay, know, that several countrymen following their husbandry on this day, have been killed with lightning, others being seized with convulsions in their joints, have miserably perished. Whereby it is apparent how high the displeasure of God was upon their neglect of this day.' And they conclude that 'in the first place the priests and ministers, then kings and princes, and all faithful people, be beseeched to use their utmost endeavors and care that the day be restored to its honor, and for the credit of Christianity more devoutly observed for the time to come.'"—Id., p. 271.

Further legislation being necessary,

"It was decreed about seven years after, in a council under Lewis the godly, that neither pleadings nor marriages should be allowed on the Lord's day."—Hist. Sab., part ii, chap. v, sec. 7.

(To be Continued.)