Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 21, 1859
Sabbath and First-Day History
By J. N. 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.
We leave the solid ground of the New Testament, and enter the field of tradition, and of forgery. The three documents which have come down to us, as written in the period next following the apostles, we are now to examine. These are all that remain to us of a period more extended than that embraced in the statement of Moshiem. He speaks of the first century; we summon all the writers of that century and of the following one to the time of Justin Martyr, A. D. 140, who mention the first day of the week. Thus the reader is furnished with all the data in the case. We quote from the so-called epistle of Barnabas what that says on the point:
"Lastly, he saith unto them: 'Your new moons and your sabbaths I cannot bear them. Consider what he means by it; the sabbaths, says he, which ye now keep, are not acceptable unto me, but those which I have made; when resting from all things, I shall begin the eighth day, that is, the beginning of the other world; for which cause we observe the eighth day with gladness, in which Jesus arose from the dead, and having manifested himself to his disciples, ascended into heaven.'"
It might be supposed that Moshiem would place great reliance upon this quotation, as purporting to come from an apostle, and as speaking such acceptable words. Yet he frankly acknowledges that this epistle is spurious. Thus he says: "The epistle of Barnabas was the production of some Jew, who, most probably lived in this century, and whose mean abilities and superstitious attachment to Jewish fables, show, notwithstanding the uprightness of his intentions, that he must have been a very different person from the true Barnabas, who was St. Paul's companion."
In another work Moshiem says of this epistle: "As to what is suggested by some, of its having been written by that Barnabas who was the friend and companion of St. Paul, the futility of such a notion is easily to be made apparent from the letter itself; several of the opinions and interpretations of Scripture which it contains, having in them so little of either truth, dignity or force, as to render it impossible that they could ever have proceeded from the pen of a man divinely instructed."
Neander speaks thus of this document: "It is impossible that we should acknowledge this epistle to belong to that Barnabas who was worthy to be the companion of the apostolic labors of St. Paul."
Of the epistle ascribed to Barnabas, Milner says: "It is a great injury to him to apprehend the epistle, which goes by his name, to be his."
Kitto speaks of this production as "the so-called epistle of Barnabas, probably a forgery of the second century."
The earliest of church historians places this epistle in the catalogue of spurious books. Thus he says: "Among the spurious must be numbered both the books called, 'The Acts of Paul,' and that called 'Pastor,' and 'The Revelation of Peter.' Besides these the books called 'The Epistle of Barnabas,' and what are called 'The Institutions of the Apostles.'"
As a specimen of the unreasonable and absurd things contained in this epistle, we quote a single verse: "Neither shall thou eat of the hyena: that is, again, be not an adulterer; nor a corrupter of others; neither be like to such. And wherefore so? Because that creature every year changes its kind, and is sometimes male, and sometimes female."
Thus first-day historians being allowed to decide the case, we are authorized to treat this epistle as a forgery. And whoever will read its ninth chapter—for it will not bear quoting—will acknowledge the justice of this conclusion. This epistle is the only writing purporting to come from the first century, except the New Testament, in which the first day is even referred to. That this furnishes no support for Sunday observance, even Moshiem acknowledges.
The next document that claims our attention is the letter of Pliny, the Roman governor of Bithynia, to the emperor Trajan. He says of the Christians of his province: "They were accustomed on a stated day to assemble before sunrise, and to join together in singing hymns to Christ, as to a deity; binding themselves as with a solemn oath not to commit any kind of wickedness; to be guilty neither of theft, robbery nor adultery; never to break a promise, or to keep back a deposit when called upon."
This epistle of Pliny certainly furnishes no support for Sunday observance. The case is presented in a candid manner by Coleman. He says of this extract: "This statement is evidence that these Christians kept a day as holy time, but whether it was the last or the first day of the week, does not appear."
Although Moshiem relies on this expression of Pliny as a chief support for Sunday, yet he speaks thus of the opinion of another learned man: "R. Just. Hen. Boehmer would indeed have us to understand this day to have been the same with the Jewish Sabbath."
This testimony of Pliny's was written only a few years subsequent to the time of the apostles. It relates to a church which had probably been founded by the apostle Peter.1 Pet. i, 1. It is certainly far more probable that this church, only forty years after the death of Peter, were keeping the fourth commandment than that they were observing a day never enjoined by divine authority. It must be conceded that this testimony from Pliny proves nothing in support of Sunday observance.
It remains that we examine the epistle of Ignatius so often adduced for Sunday as a divine festival. He is represented as saying,
"Wherefore if they who were brought up in these ancient laws came nevertheless to the newness of hope; no longer observing sabbaths, but keeping the Lord's day, in which also our life is sprung up by him, and through his death, whom yet some deny: (by which mystery we have been brought to believe, and therefore wait that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only master;) how shall we be able to live different from him; whose disciples the very prophets themselves being, did by the Spirit expect him as their master."
Such is the language of Ignatius as often quoted for Sunday-keeping. But when we refer to the epistle of Ignatius as written by himself in Greek, we discover the fraud that has been palmed off upon the world. That there may be no chance to say that fraud is committed in this work, the whole matter shall be laid before the reader in the language of Kitto, a learned first-day writer. Thus he presents the original of Ignatius with comments and a translation as follows:
"We must notice one other passage as bearing on the subject of the Lord's day, though it certainly contains no mention of it. It occurs in the epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, (about A. D. 100.) The whole passage is confessedly obscure, and the text may be corrupt. The passage is as follows:
Εἰ οὖν οἱ ἐν πάλαισις πράγμασιν ἀναστραφέντες, εἰς καινότητα ἐλπίδος ἦλθον — μηκέτι σαββατίζοντες, ἀλλὰ κατὰ κυριακὴν ζωὴν ζῶντες — (ἐν ᾗ καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἡμῶν ἀνέτειλεν δι' αὐτοῦ &c.) Ignatius ad Magnesios § ix.
"Now many commentators assume, (on what ground does not appear), that after κυριακὴν [Lord's] the word ἡμέραν [day] is to be understood. . . . Let us now look at the passage simply as it stands. The defect of the sentence is the want of a substantive to which αὐτοῦ can refer. This defect, so far from being remedied, is rendered still more glaring by the introduction of ἡμέρα. Now if we take κυριακὴ ζωὴ as simply 'the life of the Lord,' having a more personal meaning, it certainly goes nearer to supplying the substantive to αὐτοῦ . . . Thus upon the whole the meaning might be given thus:
"If those who lived under the old dispensation have come to the newness of hope, no longer keeping Sabbaths, but living according to our Lord's life, (in which, as it were, our life has risen again through him, &c.) . . .66"On this view the passage does not refer at all to the Lord's day; but even on the opposite supposition it cannot be regarded as affording any positive evidence to the early use of the term 'Lord's day,' (for which it is often cited), since the material word ἡμέρα [day] is purely conjectural."
The learned Morer, a clergyman of the church of England, confirms this statement of Kitto's. He renders Ignatius thus:
"If therefore they who were well versed in the works of ancient days came to newness of hope, not sabbatizing, but living according to the dominical life, &c. . . . The Medicean copy, the best and most like that of Eusebius, leaves no scruple, because ζωὴν is expressed and determines the word dominical to the person of Christ, and not to the day of his resurrection."
Thus it appears that in the New Testament and in the uninspired writers of the period which we have referred to, there is absolutely nothing to support the strong Sunday statement of Moshiem. Of the three epistles, we have found the first a forgery, the second speaks of a stated day without defining what one, and the third would say nothing of any day if the advocates of Sunday had not interpolated the word day into the document. We can hardly avoid the conclusion that Moshiem spoke on this subject as a doctor of divinity, and not as a historian; and with the firmest conviction that we speak the truth, we say with Neander, "The festival of Sunday was always only a human ordinance."
CHAPTER V.
THE SABBATH AND FIRST DAY IN THE FIRST CENTURIES AFTER CHRIST.
It must be borne in mind by the reader that the writers we are now about to quote are all first-day observers, with the exception of the infidel Gibbon, and evidently no friends to the Sabbath. Hence it is that they call the Sabbath of the Lord, the Jewish Sabbath, and represent its observers as heretics; while they exalt the heathen festival of Sunday, and give it the title of Lord's day. Of the observance of the Sabbath in the early church, Morer speaks thus:
"The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and sermons. And it is not to be doubted but they derived this practice from the apostles themselves."
But notwithstanding this confession that the Sabbath was transmitted to the primitive church by the apostles themselves, Morer speaks of the ancient Sabbath-keepers as heretics, and he denounces them as holding strange notions, very much as Sabbath-keepers of the present day are set forth by religious journalists. It must ever be remembered that the Sabbath-keepers are not speaking for themselves, but their adversaries are speaking for them, a forlorn prospect that they will escape contumely. He says:
"Of the same stamp were the Nazaræi who retained the Sabbath; and though they pretended to believe as Christians, yet they practiced as Jews, and so were in reality neither one nor the other.
About the same time were the Hypsistarii who closed with these as to what concerned the Sabbath, yet would by no means accept of circumcision as too plain a testimony of ancient bondage. All these were heretics, and so adjudged to be by the Catholic church. Yet their hypocrisy and industry was such as gained them a considerable footing in the Christian world. So that though the Lord's day had got a very great figure and was well supported by those who presided in religious matters, yet for a long while the Sabbath-day kept its ground, and both together were respected as two sisters."
Yet Gibbon speaks of these Nazarenes as in reality the apostolic church of Jerusalem. Thus he testifies:
"The Jewish converts, or, as they were afterwards called, the Nazarenes, who had laid the foundations of the church, soon found themselves overwhelmed by the increasing multitudes, that from all the various religions of polytheism enlisted under the banner of Christ. . . . The Nazarenes retired from the ruins of Jerusalem to the little town of Pella beyond the Jordan, where that ancient church languished above sixty years in solitude and obscurity." This testimony shows that the Nazarenes are not to be spoken of contemptuously, even though they were observers of the ancient Sabbath.
Of the Sabbath and first day in the early ages Coleman speaks as follows:
"The last day of the week was strictly kept in connection with that of the first day, for a long time after the overthrow of the temple and its worship. Even down to the fifth century the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Christian church, but with a rigor and solemnity gradually diminishing until it was wholly discontinued."
This is a most explicit acknowledgement that the Bible Sabbath was for ages strictly kept. It is true that he speaks of the first day of the week also, yet his subsequent language shows that it was a long while before it became a sacred day.
Thus he speaks of Sunday: "During the early ages of the church, it was never entitled the Sabbath; this word being confined to the seventh day of the week, the Jewish Sabbath, which, as we have already said, continued to be observed for several centuries by the converts to Christianity."
That "Sunday was always only a human ordinance," is most explicitly confessed by Coleman in the following language respecting the change of the Sabbath: "No law or precept appears to have been given by Christ or the apostles, either for the abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath, or the institution of the Lord's day, or the substitution of the first for the seventh day of the week."
Coleman next relates the manner in which this Sunday festival which had been nourished in the bosom of the church, usurped the place of the Lord's Sabbath; a warning to all Christians of the tendency of human institutions, if cherished by the people of God, to destroy those which are divine. Let this important language be carefully pondered. He speaks thus: "The observance of the Lord's day was ordered while yet the Sabbath of the Jews was continued; nor was the latter superseded until the former had acquired the same solemnity and importance, which belonged, at first, to that great day which God originally ordained and blessed. . . . But in time, after the Lord's day was fully established, the observance of the Sabbath of the Jews was gradually discontinued, and finally was denounced as heretical."
Thus is seen the result of the apparently harmless Sunday festival in the church. A viper was nourished into life by the great adversary, which, when it was of sufficient strength, destroyed the Sabbath of the Lord.
But were not these Sabbath-keepers confined to the converts from the Jewish nation? The learned Giesler bears a very explicit testimony on this point. He says: "While the Jewish Christians of Palestine retained the entire Mosaic law, and consequently the Jewish festivals, the Gentile Christians observed also the Sabbath and the passover, (1 Cor. v, 6–8), with reference to the last scenes of Jesus' life, but without Jewish superstition. In addition to these, Sunday, as the day of Christ's resurrection, was devoted to religious services."
This eminent historian of the church testifies that the Bible Sabbath was observed by the Gentile Christians, who also paid some respect to the passover in memory of our Lord's suffering at that festival, and to Sunday as the day of Christ's resurrection. The supplanting of the Sabbath by Sunday as a consequence after ages had elapsed, we have already noted.
But does not Moshiem contradict this statement of Giesler, and affirm that the Sabbath was confined to the Jewish converts? We quote his language, and also the authority on which he rests his denial that the Gentiles observed the Sabbath.
Moshiem says: "The seventh day of the week was also observed as a festival, not by the Christians in general, but by such churches only as were principally composed of Jewish converts, nor did the other Christians censure this custom as criminal and unlawful." To support this denial of the Sabbath in the Gentile churches, Moshiem cites in the margin, as his authority, the letter of Pliny to Trajan. He says: "The churches of Bithynia, of which Pliny speaks in his letter to Trajan, had only one stated day for the celebration of public worship; and that was, undoubtedly, the first day of the week, or what we call the Lord's day."
A weighty reason indeed to prove that the Sabbath was not regarded by the Gentile Christians. The churches of Bithynia observed a stated day for divine worship; therefore the Gentile Christians neglected the Sabbath. Such reasoning is unworthy of a historian, and belongs rather to one determined to sustain himself right or wrong. Who shall affirm that this was "undoubtedly" Sunday? Rather, who shall deny that this was the day of which the Most High has said, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; 'the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God?'" For this was the stated day of religious worship with Christ and his apostles. Luke iv, 16; Acts xiii, 14, 42, 44; xvi, 13; xvii, 2; xviii, 4.
CHAPTER VI.
CAUSES WHICH ORIGINATED AND PROMOTED THE SUNDAY FESTIVAL—JUSTIN MARTYR—TERTULLIAN—FIRST INSTANCE OF LORD'S DAY AS A NAME FOR SUNDAY—FIRST TRACES OF RESTING ON THAT DAY—"DOMINICUM SERVANTI?" "HAST THOU KEPT THE LORD'S DAY?"
The consequences which result from adding to or taking from the word of God cannot be estimated by the magnitude of the first acts. Every corruption of doctrine and practice in the church begins with apparently unimportant departures from the divine standard. Thus in the early churches men began with sincere hearts to venerate things which God had never ordained; and from such a beginning these human ordinances increased in strength until, not satisfied with an equality with the commandments of God, they supplanted them altogether. It was thus with the festival of Sunday, and the Sabbath of the Lord.
That Sunday had some regard paid to it at an early age, not from divine command, but from veneration of the day of the resurrection, appears from the historians already quoted. And Moshiem speaks of Friday as receiving the like regard. Thus he says: "It is also probable that Friday, the day of Christ's crucifixion, was early distinguished by particular honors from the other days of the week."
And the same writer adds: "Many also observed the fourth day of the week, on which Christ was betrayed; and the sixth, which was the day of his crucifixion."
From what causes, then, was the day of the resurrection able to distance the day of the betrayal and the day of the crucifixion, since they stand on the same foundation, namely, voluntary observance, and once were nearly equals in rank? It is reasonable to suppose that some powerful cause has contributed to elevate Sunday, since that day has now obtained the place of the Bible Sabbath in a weekly celebration, while good Friday is observed67but once a year, and the fourth day of the week has lost its honors entirely.
At the time when the early church began to apostatize from God and to foster in its bosom human ordinances, the heathen world—as they had long done—very generally observed the first day of the week in honor of the sun. Many of the early fathers of the church had been heathen philosophers. Unfortunately they brought with them many of their old notions and principles. Particularly did it occur to them that by uniting with the heathen in the day of weekly celebration they should greatly facilitate their conversion. But we must permit a first-day historian to relate these facts. Thus Morer says:
"It is not to be denied but we borrow the name of this day from the ancient Greeks and Romans, and we allow that the old Egyptians worshiped the sun, and as a standing memorial of their veneration, dedicated this day to him. And we find, by the influence of their examples, other nations, and among them the Jews themselves, doing him homage; [2 Kings xxiii, 5; Jer. xliii, 13;] yet these abuses did not hinder the fathers of the Christian church simply to repeal or altogether lay by the day or its name, but only to sanctify and improve both, as they did also the pagan temples polluted before with idolatrous services, and other instances wherein those good men were always tender to work any other change than what was necessary, and in such things as were plainly inconsistent with the Christian religion; so that Sunday being the day on which the Gentiles solemnly adored that planet, and called it Sunday, partly from its influence on that day especially, and partly in respect to its divine body (as they conceived it) the Christians thought fit to keep the same day and the same name of it, that they might not appear causelessly peevish, and by that means hinder the conversion of the Gentiles, and bring a greater prejudice than might otherwise be taken against the Gospel."
In a word, then, the engrafting of the first-day festival upon the stock of a paganism gave to it the wonderful vitality which it has ever possessed. It thus made common cause with heathenism, and when at a later period as we shall shortly notice, the emperor Constantine made a law in behalf of the heathens' venerable day of the sun, the Christian festival of first-day engrossed to itself all the authority of the empire, and overtopped even the divine institution of the Sabbath. But this shall be noticed in its place.
JUSTIN MARTYR is so often mentioned by first-day Sabbath advocates, that we must not omit to quote his testimony. Before his conversion he was a pagan philosopher. He wrote about A. D. 140. Of his writings, Milner says:
"Like many of the ancient fathers he appears to us under the greatest disadvantage. Works really his have been lost; and others have been ascribed to him; part of which are not his; and the rest, at least, of ambiguous authority."
If the writings which pass as his are to be credited, there is little propriety in the use made of his name by first-day Sabbath advocates. He taught that the Sabbath institution itself was wholly abrogated, and there is no intimation in his words that the Sunday festival which he mentions was other than a voluntary observance. Thus he says:
"Upon Sunday we all assemble, that being the first day in which God set himself to work upon the dark void, in order to make the world, and in which Jesus Christ our Saviour arose from the dead."
It is to be carefully noticed that Justin assigns no divine authority for this observance, and that he does not designate the first day of the week, as Christian Sabbath, or Lord's day, or by any word expressing faith in it as a divine institution. On the contrary he calls it by its heathen name, and excuses the observance of this pagan festival by mentioning from the Scriptures such events as he could call to mind that had happened on that day. In his "Dialogues with Trypho the Jew" he treats the Sabbath with the utmost contempt, altering among other falsehoods the following:
"It was because of your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers, that God enjoined you to observe the Sabbath." After classing the Sabbath with the Mosaic rites he affirms of it and them, "there is no need of them, since Jesus Christ, the Son of God was by the determinate counsel of God born of a virgin of the seed of Abraham without sin." So that Justin sets aside the fourth commandment as well as the Mosaic sacrifices, and well he might if it were true that God instituted the Sabbath on account of the wickedness of the Hebrews. Yet the Sabbath Manual which teaches the perpetuity of the Sabbath's institution, and that it is to be observed by keeping the first day of the week, gravely adduces Justin—a man whose reputed writings never mention the Sabbath but with a sneer—as teaching the same doctrine with itself. It is however but charitable to remind the reader of the testimony of Milner respecting the spurious character of the works ascribed to Justin. If however they are genuine they are a strong proof that Sunday was not known in his time by the name of Lord's day; for he twice mentions the day in his first apology as "the day called Sunday."
TERTULLIAN, the oldest of the Latin fathers wrote about A. D. 200. He excuses the Christians of his time for their Sunday observance, affirming that they were not worshipers of the sun, however their observance of Sunday might indicate it. His language clearly shows that there were in his time Sabbath-keepers, of whom, however, he speaks most contemptuously. He says:
"Others with a greater show of reason, take us for worshipers of the sun. These send us to the religion of Persia, though we are far from adoring a painted sun, like them who carry about his image everywhere upon their bucklers. This suspicion took its rise from hence, because it was observed that Christians prayed with their faces towards the east. But some of you likewise out of an affectation of adoring some of the celestial bodies wag your lips towards the rising sun; but if we, like them, celebrate Sunday as a festival and day of rejoicing, it is for a reason vastly distant from that of worshiping the sun; for we solemnize the day after Saturday in contradistinction to those who call this day their Sabbath, and devote it to ease and eating, deviating from the old Jewish customs, which they are now very ignorant of."
Kitto with his usual candor testifies that it is in Tertullian that we meet with the first authentic instance of the term Lord's day as applied to Sunday. Thus he says: "The earliest authentic instance in which the name of the Lord's day is applied . . . is not till A. D. 200, when Tertullian speaks of it as 'die Dominico resurrectionis;' (De Orat. § 23;) again, 'Dominicum Diem;' (De Idol. 14;) and Dionysius of Corinth (probably somewhat later) as ἡμέραν κυριακήν [Lord's day]."
Kitto speaks further of Tertullian and Dionysius as presenting the first traces of resting from labor on Sunday. Thus he says:
"But in these last cited writers we trace the commencement of a more formal observance. Thus the whole passage in Tertullian is:—'Solo die Dominico resurrectionis non ab isto tantum (genuflexione) sed enim anxietatis habitu et officio exuere debumus, differentes etiam negotio ne quem diabolo locum demus;' [i. e.] on the day of the Lord's resurrection alone we ought to abstain not only from kneeling, but from all devotion, to care and anxiety, putting off even business, lest we should give place to the devil."
It is this language of Tertullian that Neander quotes to sustain his modest statement, already quoted in connection with the language of Mosheim that "perhaps at the end of the second century a false application of this kind [that is of the Sabbath law to Sunday] had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin." In the margin, Neander cites these very words of Tertullian as his authority.
Here let us note a few important facts which we have learned from the historians already quoted. First. That the first faint trace of resting from work on Sunday is found at the end of the second century in the above cited words of Tertullian. Such is the testimony of Kitto and Neander. We shall find hereafter in Mosheim a curious confirmation of the fact that the observers of Sunday for a long period did not cease their labor on that day. Second. That the first instance in which Sunday is dignified with the title of Lord's day is A. D. 200, more than 100 years after John uses the term. And it is curious to note that in the writings of the intervening period, i. e., from John to Tertullian those testimonies that are adduced in support of Sunday, are silent respecting any sacred title. Thus in the so-called epistle of Barnabas it is called 'the eighth day.' Pliny's epistle which is so much relied on to support Sunday, and which it is highly probable refers to the Sabbath, speaks of 'a stated day.' The epistle of Ignatius is indeed quoted as calling Sunday the Lord's day. But as has been already shown it is by one of the grossest frauds that this is done. The material word 'day' is wanting, and without this the language of Ignatius has not the least appearance of sustaining Sunday. The apology of Justin Martyr twice mentions the day, and each time calls it the day of the sun. More than a hundred years therefore elapsed from the death of the last apostle before the 'venerable day of the sun' began to acquire either a sacred name or character.
We must not omit a brief notice in this place of the statement that the early martyrs when upon trial for their lives were tested by the question whether they had kept the so-called Lord's day. This is gravely stated in Justin Edwards' Sabbath Manual, though he carefully refrains from citing his authority for the statement. I have at length ascertained this and will now present the statement, and also what Mosheim says of the work upon which it rests for authority. Thus the [Sunday] Sabbath Manual says:
"Hence the fact that their persecutors, when they wished to know whether men were Christians, were accustomed to put to them this question, viz., 'Dominicum servasti?'—'Hast thou kept the Lord's day?' If they had they were Christians. This was the badge of their Christianity, in distinction from Jews and pagans. And if they said they had, and would not recant, they must be put to death. And what, when they continued steadfast, was their answer? 'Christianus sum; intermittere non possum;'—'I am a Christian; I cannot omit it.' It is a badge of my religion, and the man who assumes it must of course keep the Lord's day, because it is the will of his Lord; and should he abandon it, he would be an apostate from his religion."
This statement, so interesting to first day observers, is not to be found in any of the standard first day historians or martyrologists. This omission can only be accounted for from the fact that they knew the statement to be fabulous. It is to be found however in an old Latin work of Ruinart entitled, Acta Martyrum. Of the character of this work for veracity Mosheim says:
"As to those accounts which have come down to us under the title of Acta Martyrum, or 'the Acts of the Martyrs,' their authority is certainly for the most part of a very questionable nature; indeed, speaking generally, it might be coming nearer to the truth, perhaps, were we to say that they are entitled to no sort of credit whatever."
HISTORY OF THE SABBATH.
By Editor
We presume it is not necessary for us to call the attention of the reader to that interesting feature of the REVIEW, the History of the Sabbath and First-day, from the pen of Bro. Andrews, now in process of publication, to insure for it a careful and thorough perusal. We need to be well posted up on this subject. Opinions grievously erroneous concerning the origin of First-day observance have been imbibed and are perhaps honestly entertained by multitudes who have no means of testing their accuracy. These need to be corrected. A vast cloud of superstition on this subject, like smoke from the bottomless pit, has arisen and darkened the whole land. This cloud must be dispersed. The light of truth will disperse it. A correct history of the steps by which this bantling of heathenism and papery, a Sunday sabbath, has grown into existence, and an unperverted statement of the testimony of those who lived in the times when this took place, will dispel the erroneous impressions from all minds save such as choose to be willfully ignorant, and are willing to be deceived.
Our opponents are very bold and assuming on this subject. Whether this arises from any conviction that people are not generally prepared to expose the fallacy of their statements, we will not say; but it can be accounted for on that principle of logic which says that "it is of the nature of sophistry boldly to assume, and to supply by a show of confidence the want of a true and adequate basis." It is time that the ignorance or deception of such be fully exposed.
As an illustration of what we are liable to meet on this subject, we give the following extracts from a writer in the "Wesleyan," about a year ago, over the signature of "Awleph." On the change of the Sabbath he has the assurance to speak as follows:
"What say ecclesiastical historians on the subject? What the apostolic and primitive fathers? Do they bear witness to the observance of the first day Sabbath? Do they ascribe to the command of Christ, and to the inspired founders of apostolic churches the transfer of this holy rest from the seventh to the first day of the week? To this inquiry, I answer: There is no one subject of historical record on which all the early christian writers more completely harmonize than on this. It was the general custom of all the primitive churches to observe the Lord's day as their weekly Sabbath, and in support of this custom, they never refer to their own wishes or authority, but to divine authority, to apostolic order and sanction. I believe it is not in the power of any man to name even one person of regular standing in the church of Christ during the first sixteen hundred years of the Christian era, who has spoken one word against the sacredness of the first day Sabbath, but scores can be found who have spoken of it as the day which God has blessed and sanctified as the weekly Sabbath under the gospel."
Again he says:
"Some who wish to retain the Jewish and reject the Christian Sabbath, tell us that there is no evidence that the latter was observed as the Sabbath for several hundred years after the apostles. There are several pamphlets circulating in this region and at the East and West containing the above statement, which is a gross misrepresentation of fact and the most unjustifiable perversion of history. But, for the honor of Christianity, it is to be hoped that this declaration is made more from a want of information and consideration than from a thorough knowledge and recollection of what the fathers have written on this subject."
Perhaps the writer of the above has deluded himself into a belief of the declarations he has made; but upon how good ground the reader can judge, as Bro. A.'s History proceeds. We may occasionally hold up some others of Awleph's declarations by the side of pure truth; but the above extracts place him in a position sufficiently unenviable for once.
We close these remarks by calling the attention of the reader to one fact. It will be observed that those pretending to give history in favor of the first day of the week, seem to find it inconvenient (we might say impossible) to verify their quotations by a reference to the volume and page of the author quoted. Equally conspicuous will be the fact that the history now going through this paper does refer the reader to the volume, page, section or paragraph of every author quoted, so that those who are so disposed and have opportunity may look up the matter for themselves and learn that whatever is said may be depended on as correct.