Objection:
History proves that the Sabbath was done away with by the Apostles and the Christian church. The Lord’s Day—Sunday—now takes the place of the Old Testament sabbath.
Answer:
(The following, by Frank H. Yost, appeared as a series of articles in the Review and Herald in 1952 and is reprinted here.)
How Sunday Was First Observed
Because Sunday has been observed by people in many places, as a day of rest from labor and a day for worship, people are prone to think that Sunday has always been observed that way. But this is not in keeping with the facts of history.
There is no record in the New Testament of the time of day when Christians held their meetings for worship, or of the program they followed in the meetings. There are several suggestions in the epistles as to what Christians should do and not do in meeting, but that is all.
The only meeting of Christians for which the Bible has any detailed description is the farewell meeting of Paul with the church of Troas, recorded in the twentieth chapter of Acts. The meeting is said to have been on the “first day of the week,” but it was a night meeting, held because Paul was leaving the next morning after having met with the church for seven days. It was obviously a special service, held at night. Since the dark part of the first day of the week, Jewish reckoning, precedes the light part of the day, this meeting must have been on what we now call Saturday night. This was certainly not a customary time for meetings of worship among Christians.
The first reference we have as to the time of day when Christians held their meetings is from a pagan source. Pliny the Younger was governor of a province in Asia Minor. In a letter he wrote about AD 110 he tells of interviewing some who had been Christians twenty five years before. These people told him that Christians met early in the morning of a “stated day,” to “sing hymns to Christ as to a god,” to eat together food of a “harmless” kind, and to listen to admonitions to right living. Since there is no contemporary information of stated Christian meetings on any other day than Sabbath, we must conclude that what Pliny called a “stated day” was the seventh day Sabbath.
Why Early Morning Meetings?
The question arises, Why a meeting early in the morning? Some suppose that because Christ’s resurrection took place early in the morning, the Christians were meeting at this early hour in order to celebrate that great event; therefore, this must have been a Sunday meeting of which Pliny writes. To contend this is to forget the circumstances of that time. In those early years Christians were an illegal sect. They had no standing in Roman law, and were subject to death merely for being Christians. In fact, the letter of Pliny informs the emperor Trajan that when he finds Christians he puts them to death. We have Trajan’s reply approving this.
Here is the most rational explanation why Christians should meet early in the morning. They had no church buildings. They met in one another’s homes or in hired halls. Meetings had to be carefully planned, with everything very secret. The Christians would attract the least attention going quietly to the place of meeting, doubtless dressed as though they were going to work, at the hour when others were going to their daily labor.
We have later statements as to how Christians were to keep the Sabbath. They were to be at meetings, and sing hymns, listen to the reading of the Scriptures, hear the instruction of their leaders, meditate on God’s creative power and His work for men. The Lord’s supper was administered on Sabbath, as later it came to be on Sunday and other days of the week. Sabbath is spoken of several times as a day of rest.
A Description of Sunday Observance
But what of the observance of Sunday? As previously noted, Justin Martyr about AD 155 gives us the first description of Sunday observance by Christians. He tells of Christians gathering on the day of the sun in honor of the resurrection, listening to the Scriptures and the instruction of their leaders, partaking of communion, giving their offerings, and then adjourning. He says nothing about any abstention from labor by Christians on Sunday at that early date. They went to their daily work, apparently, at the close of the service. Justin says the worship continued “so long as there is time.”
Tertullian gives us the first intimation that we have of any postponement of business from Sunday. He states that “only on the day of the Lord’s Resurrection ought [Christians] to guard not only against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude; deferring even our business lest we give any place to the devil.”
This thought of freedom from solicitude on the day of the sun is repeated by early Christian writers, with emphasis upon the fact that there should be no kneeling or fasting on the day of the resurrection. In fact, in the West, Sunday keeping Christians insisted that there must be fasting on the Sabbath, as well as kneeling. How much is included in Tertullian’s reference to deferring of business out of respect to Sunday is not clear, but even in his day there was a tendency on the part of Christians to begin to abstain from common business interests on Sunday.
A document called the Interpolated Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, the author of which we do not know, but which can be dated probably early in the fourth century, urges Christians no longer to “Sabbatize in the Jewish manner, rejoicing in holidays.” “But let each of you sabbatize spiritually, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in rest of body; admiring the artisanship of God, not eating stale things and drinking lukewarm things and walking measured distances and enjoying dancing and plaudits which do not have sense. And after the sabbatizing, let every friend of Christ keep as a festival the Lord’s day, the resurrection day, the queen, the chief of all the days.” Chapter 9.
This writer is advocating an observance of Sabbath that will involve a spiritual exercise, but not the strict legalistic use of Sabbath, which was the way of the Jews.
Constantine’s Sunday Law
In AD 321 came Constantine’s Sunday law. This decree was not a religious law, that is, it was not passed by the church. It was a civil decree. Without mentioning God, except as the sun be reckoned a god, the decree commanded that everyone abstain from common work on the “venerable day of the sun.” Exception was made of farmers who, if necessary, might work on that day to save their crops.
Next the church ruled against labor on Sunday. The Council of Laodicea was a local council which met in the city of Laodicea in Asia Minor some time in the latter years of the fourth century. The exact date is not known. We have the decisions of this council. Canon 29 forbade work on Sunday and idleness on the Sabbath. This is the first official record of church legislation forbidding labor on Sunday.
But canon 16 of the same council makes provision for the reading of the Gospels on the Sabbath. This of course does not mean Bible reading in private homes, because most Christians at that time did not have the Bible in their homes. Books, then all handwritten, were too expensive. When canon 16 calls for the reading of the Gospels by Christians on the Sabbath, it must mean in meeting. Therefore, the Council of Laodicea is not legislating to do away entirely with Sabbath observance. It is legislating to transfer the abstention from labor from the Sabbath to the Sunday, while still allowing for public worship on the Sabbath.
What does all this mean? It means that at the beginning all Christians were keeping the seventh day Sabbath, and refraining from common business on that day, and using it for worship and spiritual exercises.
Growth of Sunday Observance
In the second century the weekly observance of Sunday was introduced. First it was a matter of meeting in the morning, with an evident resumption of daily occupations the rest of the day. In the third century, however, begins the tendency to refrain from common business on the Sunday, while at the same time Sabbath is still being observed. Emphasis upon Sunday keeping, which began in Rome, becomes increasingly strong, particularly in the West, and presently both Sabbath and Sunday are being kept together on very much the same basis, except that in the West there was to be no kneeling or fasting on Sunday. In Eastern Christendom there was no kneeling in prayer or fasting on either Sabbath or Sunday.
In the beginning of the fourth century, however, Constantine forbade Sunday labor. The Council of Laodicea admonished Christians not to work on Sunday, and forbade them to be idle on the Sabbath. This is in keeping with what Eusebius writes in his Commentary on the Psalms, when he says, “All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord’s day, as more appropriately belonging to it, because it has a precedence and is first in rank, and more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath.”
Character of Early Sunday Observance
But this was ineffective. Jerome, the famous translator of the Bible, writes at the end of the fourth century in commendation of women in a certain convent who returned from church on Sunday and took up their spinning and weaving. A little later Chrysostom, bishop of the great church in Constantinople, after preaching to his people on a Sunday, dismissed them to go home to resume their daily duties.
This is actually the kind of Sunday observance that has generally prevailed. Repeated Sunday laws by Christian emperors and Christian kings of the West failed to make Sunday a day of reverent idleness. When people were prevented from performing their daily tasks on the Sunday, they used the day for amusement and pleasure. It could not be otherwise when there is no Scriptural basis for the Sunday.
Sabbath Keeping in Early Centuries
Sabbath keeping has always been of a different nature. In the early days the Sabbath was kept by Christians either legalistically, as the Jews were keeping it, or reverently and spiritually. As the Sabbath began to go into eclipse, it must have become increasingly difficult to keep it; therefore, anyone, who would go to the trouble to assert his convictions by keeping the seventh day Sabbath, would seek to keep it in a reverent, spiritual manner.
The Sabbath is Biblical. It is Christian. It did not disappear at the death of Christ. His followers kept “the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” Luke 23:56. Paul observed the Sabbath: in Antioch of Pisidia, preaching to the Jews on one Sabbath and on the next Sabbath to the Gentiles (Acts 13:14-16,43-45); in Thessalonica, for three separate Sabbaths and it is recorded that this was according to “his manner,” even as it was the “custom” of his Lord [Luke 4:16]; in Corinth, where he was for eighteen months observing the Sabbath, laboring the preceding days of each week to support himself. In Philippi he found no place open to him for worship on the Sabbath, and made his way to the riverside, where worshipers of the true God met to pray.
John was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” And since Christ is “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28), and calls the Sabbath His holy day (Ex. 20:10; Lev. 23:37, 38; Isa. 58:13), the Lord’s day must have been the seventh day Sabbath. (See Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 128, and Acts of the Apostles, pp. 581, 582.)
Sabbath Keeping After the Apostles
After the apostles’ day, Christians still kept the Sabbath. This is attested to by many Christian writers, all of them Sunday keepers. Tertullian, who died about AD 235, held that Sunday should be kept as a day of joy in commemoration of Christ’s resurrection. It was his wish that there be no fasting or kneeling in prayer on Sunday. He was displeased to find Sabbath keeping Christians insisting that they should not have to kneel in prayer on the Sabbath day. Here is what he wrote in his essay On Prayer, chapter 23.
“In the matter of kneeling also prayer is subject to diversity of observance, through the act of some few who abstain from kneeling on the Sabbath; and since this dissension is particularly on its trial before the churches, the Lord will give His grace that the dissentients may either yield, or else indulge their opinion without offence to others.”
Tertullian made it plain that Sunday keeping Christians were not kneeling on Sunday, but it is equally plain that they were going to the churches and kneeling in worship on the Sabbath. Virtually all Christians, it is evident, were worshiping, kneeling or not, on the Sabbath day.
A contemporary of Tertullian, the teacher Origen of Alexandria, though himself a Sunday keeper, is in no doubt as to the virtue of Sabbath observance, and tells just how Christians should observe it. He meant to place this observance of the seventh day by Christians in contrast to Jewish practices when he said:
“After the festival of the unceasing sacrifice [the crucifixion] is put the second festival of the Sabbath, and it is fitting for whoever is righteous among the saints to keep also the festival of the Sabbath. Which is, indeed, the festival of the Sabbath, except that concerning which the Apostle said, ‘There remains therefore a sabbatismus, that is, a keeping of the Sabbath, to the people of God [Hebrews 4:9]? Forsaking therefore the Judaic observance of the Sabbath, let us see what sort of observance of the Sabbath is expected of the Christian? On the day of the Sabbath nothing of worldly acts ought to be performed. If therefore you cease from all worldly works, do nothing mundane, but are free for spiritual works, you come to the church, offer the ear for divine readings and discussions, and thoughts of heavenly things, give attention to the future life, keep before your eyes the coming judgment, do not regard present and visible things, but the invisible and the future: this is the observance of the Christian Sabbath.” Homily on Numbers 23, par. 4.
“Constitutions of the Holy Apostles”
There is an early document describing Christian Sabbath keeping which is called the Constitutions of the Holy Apostles. This document was not written by the apostles, but is evidently a product, of writers, now unknown, in the Eastern Church of the third and fourth centuries. It shows that in the early centuries both the seventh day Sabbath and Sunday were observed by Christians: “Thou shall observe the Sabbath, on account of Him who, ceased from His work of creation, but ceased not from His work of providence: it is a rest for meditation of the law, not for idleness of the hands.” Book 2, sec. 5, chap. 36.
The Constitutions makes provision for Christians to worship God in His house every day, but emphasizes the need of worshipping Him, not only on Sunday, “but principally on the Sabbathday.”
“Assemble yourselves together every day, morning and evening, singing psalms and praying in the Lord’s house: in the morning saying the sixty-second Psalm, and in the evening the hundred and fortieth, but principally on the Sabbath-day. And on the day of our Lord’s resurrection, which is the Lord’s day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that made the universe by Jesus, and sent Him to us and condescended to let Him stiffer, and raised Him from the dead.” Ibid., book 2, sec. 7, chap. 59.
In this ancient document is a prayer dedicated to God, which emphasizes both Sabbath and Sunday observance:
“O Lord Almighty, Thou has created the world by Christ, and has appointed the Sabbath in memory thereof, because that on that day Thou has made us rest from our works, for the meditation upon Thy laws… He suffered for us by Thy permission, and died, and rose again by Thy power: on which account we solemnly assemble to celebrate the feast of the resurrection on the Lord’s day, and rejoice on account of Hint who has conquered death, and has brought life and immortality to light… Thou did give them the law or Decalogue, which was pronounced by Thy voice and written with Thy hand. Thou did enjoin the observation of the [seventh day] Sabbath, not affording them an occasion of idleness, but an opportunity of piety, for their knowledge of Thy power, and the prohibition of evils; having limited them as within an holy circuit for the sake of doctrine, for the rejoicing upon the seventh period.” Ibid., book 7, sec. 3.
At least one of the contributors to this document, who pretended falsely to write in the name of Peter and Paul, would have felt much at home with a modern five-day week:
“Peter and Paul do make the following constitutions. Let the slaves work five days: but on the Sabbath-day and the Lord’s day let them have leisure to go to church for instruction in piety. We have said that the Sabbath is on account of the creation, and the Lord’s day of the resurrection.” Ibid., book 8, sec. 4, chap. 33.
Evidently the writers of the Constitutions of the Holy Apostles believed in Sabbath keeping. They kept the Sunday, but they did believe in keeping the Sabbath, and advocated it.
Sabbath keeping is further illustrated by an act of the Council of Laodicea, a regional (not general) Eastern council, which met sometime between the years AD 343 and 381. It provided very definitely, in canon 16, for regular Sabbath worship:
“‘On Saturday [Greek, “Sabbath”], the Gospels and other portions of the Scriptures shall be read aloud.'” Joseph Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, vol. 2, p. 310.
Sabbath Observance About AD 400
Around AD 400 Sabbath observance was also common among the monks of the church, especially in the East. Cassian tells how they observed the Sabbath. He says:
“Wherefore, except Vespers and Nocturnes, there are no public services among them in the day except on Saturday [Sabbath] and Sunday, when they meet together at the third hour [nine o’clock] for the purpose of Holy Communion.” Institutes, book 3, chap 2.
Cassian also tells of a hermit whose religious customs show how Sabbath was still being kept: “He constantly put off taking food until on Saturday [Sabbath] or Sunday he went to church for service and found some stranger whom he brought home at once to his cell.” Ibid., book 5, chap. 26.
In a letter which Augustine, the great bishop of North Africa, who died in the year AD 430, wrote to Jerome, there is evidence of widespread Sabbath observance:
“I would esteem it a favor to be informed by your Sincerity, whether any saint, coming from the East to Rome, would be guilty of dissimulation if he fasted on the seventh day of each week, excepting the Saturday [Sabbath] before Easter. For if we say that it is wrong to fast on the seventh day, we shall condemn not only the Church of Rome, but also many other churches, both neighboring and more remote, in which the same custom continues to be observed. If, on the other hand, we pronounce it wrong not to fast on the seventh day, how great is our presumption in censuring so many churches in the East, and by far the greater part of the Christian world!” Letter 82, par. 14.
Augustine shows here that the Sabbath was observed in his day in “the greater part of the Christian world.” His testimony is all the more valuable since he himself was a consistent Sunday keeper.
Sabbath Keeping Widespread in Christendom
A more remarkable testimony, however, concerning the observance of the Sabbath in the fifth century is that borne by two church historians, Socrates and Sozomen, who died sometime before the year AD 450. In his Ecclesiastical History, book 5, chapter 22, Socrates 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.”
His contemporary Sozomen bears in his Ecclesiastical History, book 7, chapter 19, a similar witness:
“The people of Constantinople, and of several other cities, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the next day; which custom is never observed at Rome, or at Alexandria. There are several cities and villages in Egypt where, contrary to the usage established elsewhere, the people meet together on Sabbath evenings; and although they have dined previously, partake of the mysteries.”
These are revealing statements. Practically all over Christendom Christian people were still assembling, as late as AD 450, in the churches on the seventh day of the week.
No Sabbath Observance in Rome
There were two marked exceptions to this. Two churches had once observed the Sabbath, but, under pressure of tradition, had ceased to do so. Alexandria was one. Here the philosophizing teachers had once presided, and through allegorizing interpretation of Scripture these men had emphasized the keeping of Sunday, as their writings clearly indicate. We see in the defeat of Sabbath keeping a result of their influence, which led the people of Alexandria away from the simplicity of Bible truth.
Rome also, say Socrates and Sozomen, set aside the observance of the seventh day Sabbath. This was exactly in line with the attitude of Rome toward the commandments of God and particularly toward the Sabbath. This church has always been consistent in substituting for the commandments of God the precepts of men. It has done the very thing for which Christ condemned so severely the Pharisees of His day. (Matt. 15:9, 13.) In these two churches the people were led away from Sabbath keeping. In almost all other churches the Sabbath was still observed.
How displeasing it must have been, then, to Pope Gregory of Rome, AD 600, to find in his own territory those who were keeping the Sabbath! In book 13 of his Epistles, Letter 1, he says, in great bitterness of soul:
“It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the Sabbath day. What else can I call these but preachers of Antichrist?”
We answer, these were not preachers of Antichrist. They were preachers who would obey the commandments of God and serve Christ, who is the Lord of the Sabbath. In emphasizing the Sabbath they were not preaching a depraved faith but the very truth of Scripture.
