Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 28, 1859
Constantine’s Sunday Law
By John Nevins Andrews
HISTORY OF THE SABBATH AND FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK;
SHOWING THE MANNER IN WHICH THE SABBATH
HAS BEEN SUPPLANTED BY THE HEATHEN
FESTIVAL OF THE SUN.
BY J. N. ANDREWS.
CHAPTER VII.
CONSTANTINE'S SUNDAY LAW—IT WAS A PAGAN
EDICT—CONSTANTINE A HEATHEN AT THE
TIME—HIS FITNESS TO LEGISLATE FOR THE
CHURCH—HIS LAW RAISES SUNDAY TO HIGH
AUTHORITY THROUGHOUT THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
In the year 321 Constantine having ascended the throne of the Roman empire, put forth the following edict for Sunday observance:
"Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture; because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest, the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by heaven."
Another authority confirms this statement: "Constantine the Great made a law for the whole empire (A. D. 321), that Sunday should be kept as a day of rest in all cities and towns; but he allowed the country people to follow their work on that day."
Respecting this law Moshiem bears the following important testimony:
"The first day of the week, which was the ordinary and stated time for the public assemblies of the Christians, was in consequence of a peculiar law enacted by Constantine, observed with greater solemnity than it had formerly been."
This is a striking confirmation of the testimony already presented that the Sunday festival for a long period was not a day of abstinence from labor. The edict of Constantine gave full permission to all sorts of agricultural labor on that day; yet says Mosheim it caused the day to be "observed with greater solemnity than it had formerly been."
The learned Morer speaks very explicitly with respect to Sunday observance prior to Constantine's law. Thus he says: "The Lord's day had no command that it should be sanctified, but it was left to God's people to pitch on this or that day for the public worship. And being taken up and made a day of meeting for religious exercises, yet for 300 years there was no law to bind them to it, and for want of such a law, the day was not wholly kept in abstaining from common business; nor did they any longer rest from their ordinary affairs (such was the necessity of those times) than during the divine service."
Such was the manner of Sunday observance prior to the time of Constantine. As his law caused the day to be "observed with greater solemnity than it had formerly been" it is worth our while to examine the character of this law. We have the most direct testimony that this was a pagan edict, and that it did not express the slightest regard for the day as a Christian festival. In other words that it enjoined the pagan festival of the sun, and did not make any allusion to the day as a Christian festival. The law as already quoted is express on this point. It is the venerable day of the sun that he commanded men to observe. That there may be no mistake respecting this important point we quote the testimony of Milman, the learned editor of Gibbon. Thus he testifies:
"The rescript commanding the celebration of the Christian Sabbath, bears no allusion to its peculiar sanctity as a Christian institution. It is the day of the sun which is to be observed by the general veneration; the courts were to be closed, and the noise and tumult of public business and legal litigation were no longer to violate the repose of the sacred day. But the believer in the new paganism, of which the solar worship was the characteristic, might acquiesce without scruple in the sanctity of the first day of the week." And he adds: "In fact, as we have before observed, the day of the sun would be willingly hallowed by almost all the pagan world."
We have already spoken of the fact that the Sunday festival received its chief support from the fact that the pagan world very generally observed the day. Hence we see the venerable day of the sun enjoined for the observance of the whole Roman empire. First-day leaders had sufficient tact to use this decree for their own especial advantage. That the case may appear in its true light let us suppose that instead of the first day of the week, Constantine had enjoined the seventh. And that instead of calling it the Sabbath of the Lord, he had termed it by its heathen name, the day of Saturn; (for this day was dedicated to Saturn by the heathens, as first-day was to the sun.) If the seventh day had thus been forced on the world, would it have been anything else than a heathen festival to those who were thus compelled to observe it, and would not the law be justly called a heathen law? If by reason of such a law, the Sabbath-keepers in the church had gained the ascendancy, would it not be due to the power of a heathen law, rather than to respect for the seventh day as a divine institution? It was by virtue of just such a heathen law that Sunday obtained the pre-eminence both in church and state. Professed Christians had the same excuse for adopting it then, that they have for retaining it now, viz., it was commanded by law, and observed by the world. And they had the same reason for rejecting it then that we have now, viz., it is a heathen festival that has stolen the place of the Lord's Sabbath. Such being the case, even a ripe old age cannot mellow it into a divine institution, nor make its acceptable obedience to the fourth commandment.
In confirmation of what has been said of this edict as a heathen law, we shall show that Constantine himself was a heathen when this law was enacted, and that he remained such for several years. His pagan character is thus described by Gibbon: "His liberality restored and enriched the temples of the gods; the medals which issued from his imperial mint are impressed with the figures and attributes of Jupiter and Apollo, of Mars and Hercules; and his filial piety increased the council of Olympus by the solemn apotheosis of his father Constantinus. But 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." In a note on the same page Gibbon says: "The panegyric of Eumenus, which was pronounced a few months before the Italian war, abounds with the most unexceptionable evidence of the pagan superstition of Constantine, and of his particular veneration for Apollo, or the sun."
Moshiem bears an important testimony on this point. It will be noticed that he placed Constantine's conversion two years later than his Sunday laws. Thus he says:
"After well considering the subject, I have come to the conclusion, that subsequently to the death of Licinius in the year 323 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 these 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."74
Marsh, in his Ecclesiastical History speaks of Constantine's religious character as follows: "The religious sincerity of the man, who in a short period affected 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."
If any further confirmation of the pagan character of his Sunday law is asked for, we cite two or three items relating to it. Thus Gibbon says: "He artfully balanced the hopes and fears of his subjects, by publishing in the same year two edicts; the first of which enjoined the solemn observance of Sunday, and the second directed the regular consultation of the Aruspices." And in the margin of that page he says: "Constantine styles the Lord's day dies soles, [i. e., day of the sun,] a name which could not offend the ears of his pagan subjects." In other words, the same year that he enjoined the solemn observance of the venerable day of the sun, he directed the regular consultation of the Aruspices, i. e., divination by examining the entrails of beasts slaughtered in sacrifice to the gods? A noble set of well-matched edicts.
Of this latter edict Jortin says: "There is a law of Constantine, which shows that himself was not altogether free from pagan superstition, in which he orders the Aruspices to be consulted if any public edifice was struck with lightning."
And Milman says of it: "In case of the royal palace being struck by lightning, the ancient ceremonies of propitiating the deity were to be practiced, and the Aruspices were to declare the meaning of the awful portent."
That this Sunday legislator deserves the appellation of heathen rather than of Christian will hardly be disputed. A few words respecting him 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."
Such was the man who did more than any of his predecessors to elevate Sunday to that rank which it has since possessed. The dragon of the Apocalypse thus issued its edict, and the world has bowed before it. In subsequent chapters we shall trace the persistent efforts of kings, emperors, popes, and councils to compel the world to submit to this pagan institution. We shall find at a period a little subsequent to the Reformation, that grave doctors of divinity come forward to prove that Sunday-keeping is acceptable obedience to the fourth commandment. During all this period we shall find a remnant still retaining the ancient Sabbath of Jehovah.
CHAPTER VIII.
KIND OF SUNDAY OBSERVANCE WHICH OBTAINED AFTER CONSTANTINE—AN OBSOLETE SUNDAY ARGUMENT—SABBATH IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES—DECREES OF EMPERORS AND COUNCILS IN BEHALF OF SUNDAY.
It is very evident that Sunday became a day of rest from secular business after centuries of effort to bring about that result. Kitto speaks thus of Sunday observance in the period of the ancient church, and the ages following:
"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 even apostolic practice, in support of it. Chrysostom (A. D. 360) concludes one of his Homilies by dismissing his audience to their respective ordinary occupations. The council of Laodicea (A. D. 364), however, enjoined Christians to rest [σχολάζειν] on the Lord's day. To the same effect is an injunction in the forgery called the Apostolical Constitution, (vii, 24), and various later enactments from A. D. 600 to A. D. 1100, though by no means extending to the prohibition of all secular business."
In the fifth century Sunday labor was not deemed any violation of the day. St. Jerome speaks thus of the lady Paula, his especial disciple:
"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."
Morer justifies this Sunday work with the frank confession that the number of hours assigned for piety was not then well explained. That is, the church had not yet legislated sufficiently upon this subject. Thus he says:
"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 the number of hours assigned for piety was not then so well explained as in after ages."
Morer bears the following important testimony concerning Jerome's time: "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."
It seems that at this time there were two classes of Sunday teachers; the one strenuously laboring to make Sunday a day of entire abstinence from business; the other wishing it to be kept as a festival in which, when not assembled for worship, it should be proper to engage in usual business. The festival party in the third provincial council of Orleans obtained an enactment [canon 21] which "allowed many sorts of innocent work to be done upon the day. This was in the reign of Childebert."
But the stricter sort were not to be put down in this manner. Lacking scripture to sustain themselves, they presented the following weighty argument, which from some cause, modern first-day advocates have forgotten. For their benefit we present it in the words of Morer: "Yet still the others went on their way; and to induce their proselytes to spend the day with greater exactness and care, they brought in the old argument of compassion and charity to the damned in hell, who during the day, have some respite from their torments, and the ease and liberty they have is more or less, according to the zeal and degrees of keeping it well."
And not satisfied with this most powerful argument, they back it up with miracles, and as we shall presently see, with judgments and calamities also. Thus Morer testifies: "For fear the doctrine should not take without miracles to support it, Gregory of Tours furnishes us with several to that purpose."
That the Sabbath was very generally observed at the close of the fourth, and the commencement of the fifth, century, is evident from the following language of the historian Socrates, who lived at that time. He says: "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."
And Lardner adds: "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."
It will now be proper to trace the edicts of emperors and kings in support of Sunday; then we will notice those of the councils of the church.
Constantine's law, A. D. 321, which was the first of the kind, has been noticed already. "About the year 381," says Morer, "Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius being emperors, an edict came forth to prohibit all shows on the Lord's day."
A. D. 469. The emperor Leo published an edict in which he says: "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."
Morer says of Burgundy and France: "In the year 588, Gunthrum, king of Burgundy, and about two years after, Clotair, king of France, and two centuries forward, Pepin, another king of France, made laws to the same effect."
Ninth century. Various Sunday laws were enacted in this century. Thus Morer says that Charlemagne "published this edict: We do ordain, as it is required in the law of God, that no man do any servile work on the Lord's day. . . . This law was backed with the authority of the church; yet in a little time, by the remissness of Lewis his successor, it became very feeble. Thereupon an address was made to the emperors, Lewis and Lotharius, that they would send out some precept more severe than what was hitherto extant, to strike terror into their subjects, and force them to forbear their ploughing, pleading, and marketing, then grown again into use; which was done about the year 853; and to that end a synod was called at Rome under the popedom of Leo IV.
"In this century the emperor [of Constantinople] Leo, surnamed the philosopher, restrained the works of husbandry, which, according to Constantine's toleration, were permitted in the east. This same care was taken in the west, by Theodorus, king of the Bavarians, who made this order, that 'If any person on the Lord's day yoked his oxen, or drove his wain, his right side ox should be forthwith forfeited; or if he made hay and carried it in, he was to be twice admonished to desist, which if he did not he was to receive no less than fifty stripes.' About the year 1174, the emperor Emanuel Comnenus, [of Constantinople,] confirmed the decrees of his predecessors."
It is a first day historian who writes the above. He adds: "Thus the civil power proceeded. Nor was the church backward to assist in a point that so much concerned her well being. And therefore we find a great many canons [of councils] on the same subjects. . . ."
"About the year 364 sat the council of Laodicea, which required Christians not to Judaize in keeping the Sabbath, but prefer the Lord's day before it, and thereon rest from labor, if they could."75
This law of the church against Sabbath-keeping shows that there were observers of the Sabbath at this time, and also indicates a stricter observance of Sunday.
Morer proceeds: "About the year 401 was held the fourth council of Carthage, which punished those with excommunication, who, neglecting the solemn worship of God on this and other sacred times, spent the day in plays and the like diversions. And in another council in the same city not long after, it was the request of the bishops to the emperors, 'that all sights and shows should be laid aside on the Lord's day.'"
"Under Clodovius, king of France, met the bishops in the first council of Orleans, where they obliged themselves and their successors, to be always at church on the Lord's day except in sickness. . . . By a council at Arragon about the year 518, it was decreed that no bishop should pass judgment in any civil controversy on the Lord's day. . . . The third council of Orleans resolved that men should rest on that day, from husbandry, dressing vines, sowing, reaping, hedging and the like. . . . 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 a power to hinder you to do evil. Keep then the Lord's day, the day of our new birth.'"
"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 freeman, and if a servant, severely lashed. . . . In the year 590 a synod was held at Auxerre in Champain, where it was decreed that 'no man should be allowed to plow nor cart or do any such thing on the Lord's day.' . . . The third council of Toledo took notice in their canons of a great neglect of the Lord's day in Spain."
Gregory the great was pope from 590 to 604. He exhorted the people to "expiate on the day of our Lord's resurrection what was remissly done for six days before."
Morer may be allowed to continue this account. He says: "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 forbid the Jews to keep their own festivals, but so far at least observed the Lord's day as to do no manner of work on it whereby they might express their contempt of Christ or his worship."
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 that day.
According to Morer the sixth general council at Constantinople in the year 692 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." And he adds:
"At Dingosolinum, a synod met about 772 which decreed that if any man shall work his cart 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. . . . Charlemagne summoned the bishops to Friuli in Italy where they decreed 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 Frankford in Germany, and there the limits of the Lord's day were determined from Saturday evening to Sunday evening."
The five councils of Mentz, Rheims, Tours, Chalons and Arles were all called in the year 813 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."
The aid of the pope was very acceptable at this juncture. The same historian says in continuation of the story: "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."
All this however was not sufficient and so another council was summoned. At this council the famous lightning argument of Justin Edwards was made use of. Thus our author continues:
"But these 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 very 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.'"
"It was decreed about seven years after," says Morer, "in a council under Lewis the godly, that neither pleadings nor marriages should be allowed on the Lord's day."
Three years after this, in another synod at Rome under pope Leo IV it "was ordered more exactly that no man should from thenceforth keep or frequent markets on the Lord's day, no not for things to be presently eaten, nor to do any work belonging to husbandry."
A. D. 858. "The Bulgarians," says Morer, "sent some questions to pope Nicholas, to which they desired answers. And that [answer] which concerned the Lord's day was that they should desist from all secular work."
A. D. 895. The council of Friburgh in Germany, under pope Formasus decreed that the Lord's day men "were to spend in prayers and devote wholly to the service of God, who otherwise might be provoked to anger."
A. D. 1050. A council was held at Coy in Spain, under Ferdinand king of Castile, in the days of pope Leo IX, where it was decreed that the Lord's day "was to be entirely consecrated to hearing of mass."
"The council of Lyons sat about the year 1244, and it restrained the people from their ordinary work on the Lord's day, and other festivals on pain of ecclesiastical censures."
A. D. 1282. "The council of Angers in France forbid millers by water or otherwise to grind their corn from Saturday evening till Sunday evening."
A. D. 1322. This year a synod was called at Valladolid in Castile, and then was ratified what was formerly required, that none should follow husbandry, or exercise himself in any mechanical employment on the Lord's day, or other holy days, but where it was a work of necessity or charity, of which the minister of the parish was to be judge.
A. D. 1532. The council of Bourges uses this language: "The Lord's day and other festivals were instituted for this purpose, that faithful Christians abstaining from external work, might more freely, and with greater piety devote themselves to God's worship." They forget, however, that when the fear of God is taught by the precept of men such worship will not be accepted. Isa. xxix, 13; Matt. xv, 9.
The council of Rheims, which sat the next year, made this decree: "Let the people assemble at their parish churches, on the Lord's day, and other holidays, and be present at mass, sermons and vespers. Let no man on these days give himself to plays or dances, especially during service." And the historian adds: "In the same year another synod at Tours, ordered the Lord's day and other holidays to be reverently observed under pain of excommunication."
A. D. 1534. In a synod which assembled this year the truth was thus confessed: "Let all Christians remember that the seventh day was consecrated by God, and hath been received and observed, not only by the Jews, but by all others who pretend to worship God; though we Christians have changed their Sabbath into the Lord's day. A day therefore to be kept, by forbearing all worldly business, suits, contracts, carriages, &c., and by sanctifying the rest of mind and body, in the contemplation of God and things divine, we are to do nothing but works of charity, say prayers and sing psalms."
We have thus traced Sunday observance in the Catholic church down to a period subsequent to the reformation. That it is an ordinance of man which has usurped the place of the Bible Sabbath is most distinctly confessed by the council last quoted. Yet they endeavor to make amends for their violation of the Sabbath by spending Sunday in charity, prayers and psalms: a course too often adopted at the present time to excuse the violation of the fourth commandment. Who can read this long list of Sunday laws, not from the "one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy," but from emperors and councils, without adopting the sentiment of Neander: "The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance?" The efforts to establish Sunday observance in England will next engage our attention.
Pour forth the oil—pour boldly forth;
It will not fail, until
Thou failest vessels to provide
Which it may largely fill.
Make channels for the streams of love,
Where they may broadly run;
And love has overflowing streams,
To fill them every one.
But if at any time we cease
Such channels to provide,
The very founts of love for us
Will soon be parched and dried.
For we must share, if we would keep
That blessing from above;
Ceasing to give we cease to have:—
Such is the law of love.
God’s Orderly Providence
GOD always proceeds orderly; to every thing there is a season and a time; he never sends an unreasonable trouble, nor an unsuitable mercy; trials and comforts are always well timed. Do you believe this?
HISTORY vs. FORGERY.
By Editor
THE reader is prepared this week to hear from "Awleph" a few more contradictions of plain statements of history, on a subject where passion and prejudice are allowed to supply the place of argument. We bring up the statements of this writer, while Bro. Andrews' history is before the reader, to show that it is not a man of straw that is being demolished by a disproval of the authorities upon which first-day observers usually rest, touching the history of their institution, by presenting a recent and actual example of the use that is made of them, and the confidence with which they are urged. Had "Awleph" been anything more than a servile copyist of the errors of those who have preceded him in blind devotion to tradition, he would have been saved from making the declarations he has. The danger of such a course is shown in the falsity of the testimony which has thus become current for the genuine history. Great must be their credulity who can imagine that a stream rising where the "mystery of iniquity" was already at work, and continuing through the dark ages of papal usurpation and superstition, can be otherwise than impure. The waters of this stream, we can assure them, are brackish; and no Elisha can be found to cast in the all-healing salt to render them sweet and pure.
But to the question. In last week's REVIEW the epistles of Barnabas, Pliny, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, &c., were expressly noticed. We find all these sources unsuspectingly appealed to by A., in favor of Sunday. Of Ignatius he speaks thus:
"Ignatius, who was born in Syria, educated under St. John, ordained bishop of Antioch by St. Paul, A. D. 67, and suffered martyrdom at Rome, A. D. 107, has written decidedly in favor of this change. In his epistle to the Magnesians, he declares it to be absurd and erroneous for a Christian to Judaize, that is, to keep the Jewish Sabbath, and after showing the difference between Judaism and Christianity, he expostulates thus: 'Let us not sabbatize, but keep the Lord's day on which our Life arose.'"
Last week the original of this testimony of Ignatius was given, which showed that the word day never would have appeared there if fraud had not placed it there. There is nothing said about the first day whatever in his testimony. Nevertheless, says "Awleph," he "has written decidedly in favor of the change."
He continues: "Barnabas, St. Paul's companion, says, 'We observe the eighth day with gladness, on which Jesus rose from the dead.' The early Christian writers often called the first-day Sabbath the eighth day, because it is the next day after the seventh."
The so-called epistle of Barnabas not only from its own inherent character, but from the testimony of many witnesses, is shown to be a gross forgery. But we must hear his version of Justin Martyr:
"Justin, surnamed the Martyr, one of the earliest writers of the Christian church, who was born at Neapolis, in the province of Samaria, converted to Christianity about A. D. 132, and beheaded for the Christian religion under Marcus Aurelius, 167, is very explicit on this subject. In his dialogue with Trypho, he says that the Christians did not keep the Jewish Sabbath; but in two places, in nearly the same words, in his apologies for the Christians, he speaks of the first day as the Christian Sabbath. In his first apology he says: 'On Sunday we all assemble and meet together, as being the first day wherein God, parting the darkness from the rude chaos, created the world, and the same day wherein Jesus Christ our Saviour, rose from the dead; for he was crucified on the day before Saturday, and the day after, which is Sunday, he appeared to his apostles and disciples.' Justin says again, 'On the day called Sunday we all assemble in one place, both those who live in the city, and they who dwell in the country, where the memoirs of the apostles and writings of the prophets are read so long as time permits.' He then gives an account of the sermon delivered by the bishop at the same meeting, the concluding prayer the celebration of the Lord's supper, and the weekly collections for the support of widows and orphans, the sick, the poor, and all who were necessitous. This father often declares that it was the uniform practice of the Christians of his day, to observe the first day as their weekly Sabbath, but the seventh he says they did not observe."
The reader will recollect the extremely doubtful character of the works ascribed to Justin, and that he was a no-Sabbath man, heaping the most ridiculous abuse upon the Sabbath institution itself, and giving no divine reason for Sunday; yet, it is claimed that he is "very explicit on this subject."
"Awleph" also quotes from Irenaeus, Dionysius, Clement, Eusebius, Athanasius, &c., on the side of a Sunday Sabbath. But Sunday-keepers make a ludicrous mistake in this; for it must be confessed that the import of all their testimony is for no Sabbath. They speak of the Sabbath as abolished, and of the first day, not as taking the place of it, or engrossing the authority of the fourth commandment, but as directly opposed to, and contrasted with, it; which sufficiently attests the grievous wolfishness of their nature. Acts xx, 27. We have not space here to give any of their language; but whoever quotes them in support of Sunday as a divinely appointed Sabbath, knows not the work in which he is engaged.
Our quotations this week are from the "Wesleyan" of Aug. 4, 1858. In the number for Aug. 18, the writer introduces, as might be expected, fresh from Edward's Sabbath Manual, that famous quotation, "Dominicum servasti? &c. Hast thou kept the Lord's day? I am a Christian: I cannot omit it." This has long been bandied about like a poor orphan of whose pedigree people were either ignorant or ashamed. But the reader was last week made acquainted with its parentage. It was conceived and brought forth in fraud. Fraud was its father and mother; and being once fairly started in the world, ignorance has since been its nurse and supporter.
Thus we have spread before us the field usually entered by Sunday historians; and we know how to close it against them. Fraud or perversion may be stamped on nearly all their witnesses. But we will not anticipate the history. We are confident the reader will lose none of his interest in the subject as he continues to trace the steps by which Sunday, like an artful usurper, has made a shift, as occasion required to maintain its existence and supremacy.