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.)
Eight Sunday Observance “Proofs”
Sunday keeping began in Rome as an annual observance of the resurrection day. By AD 150 weekly observance of Sunday had begun in Rome, as attested by Justin’s First Apology, written in Rome to the emperor. Justin calls the day “the day of the Sun.” He has no other name for it.
But what of the period between the time of the apostles and the time of Justin Martyr? We shall examine all the references that can be found in the writings of the church Fathers referring to the first day of the week, or for which any claim is made of reference to the first day of the week. We shall arrange these references in proper chronological order, beginning with the earliest and continuing our examination to about AD 200, when Sunday observance is fully established, and the first day of the week is referred to as the “Lord’s day.”
First Proof
The first extra-Biblical reference put forth by Sunday keepers to support the institution of Sunday is a statement by Clement, overseer of the church in Rome about AD 98. He wrote at that time his Epistle to the Corinthians, in which he urged them to “do all things in [their proper] order, which the Lord has commanded us to perform at stated times.” Chapter 40. It is argued that the expression “stated times” indicates Sunday as the proper meeting time. For this there is absolutely no basis.
Second Proof
Very much like it is a statement by the Latin writer, Pliny the Younger, a pagan Roman governor, in a letter to his emperor, Trajan, to he dated about AD 110-112. The ninety-sixth letter in Pliny’s tenth book of Letters states that the Christians he was persecuting met for the worship of Christ early in the morning of a “stated” or “fixed” day. Pliny gives no hint as to which day of the week he understands this to be, probably because there was as yet in his day no official system of weeks among the Romans.
The identification of these “stated” days can therefore be made only from reliable Christian documents of this same time. They cannot be identified from later practices. The only inspired documents we have to use for this purpose at this date are the books of the New Testament. It is clear that the only day of worship known to New Testament Christians was the seventh day Sabbath, observed by Christ, by the disciples, and by the apostle Paul. The “stated” days of Clement and Pliny must therefore be the seventh day Sabbath.
Third Proof
The next earliest reference used to bolster Sunday observance is one that is quoted so frequently that every student of the question is under ethical compulsion to examine it thoroughly and without bias. The statement referred to is in a letter by a man named Ignatius, called the overseer of the church of Antioch in Syria. According to late tradition Ignatius was taken prisoner by the Roman police during a persecution inflicted by the emperor Trajan, and transported to Rome, where the story has him put to death some time prior to the demise of that emperor, which occurred in the year AD 117. The same late tradition has this martyr writing a series of letters while a prisoner on his way to Rome. The total number of letters attributed to his authorship is fifteen, but all scholars now agree in branding eight of these as gross forgeries. The remaining seven are looked upon with serious suspicion by all scholars who do not need to rely on the writings of Ignatius to support some institution of the church. Even these more complacent students accept only a short form of these seven letters. Of these epistles of Ignatius, Dr. Philip Schaff, of the highest repute among church historians, says:
“These oldest documents of the hierarchy soon became so interpolated, curtailed, and mutilated by pious fraud, that it is today almost impossible to discover with certainty the genuine Ignatius of history under the hyper-and pseudo-Ignatius of tradition.” History of the Christian Church, 2d period, sec. 164, vol. 2, p. 660.
It is a statement in the so-called Ignatian Epistle to the Magnesians, chapter 9, that is pressed most hopefully by those who wish to find an early beginning for Sunday observance. So reputable a scholar as the late Dr. Kirsopp Lake makes Ignatius say in this epistle, “No longer living for the Sabbath, but for the Lord’s Day.” Loeb Classical Library, The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, p. 205. But the best original Greek manuscripts contain no word “day.” Actually the Greek original, in every reliable manuscript, reads, “No longer sabbatizing, but living according to the Lord’s life, in the which also our life has risen through Him and His death.” Migne, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 5, col. 669.
To prove their point, Sunday keeping scholars have actually gone to the length of omitting the word “life” from the original, to make possible the insertion of the word “day.” But the word “life” is there, and it makes good sense when properly translated, without bias, from the original Greek. The corrupting and misinterpreting of this sentence from the supposed Ignatian epistle is now being followed by many Sunday keeping scholars.
This interesting sentence is now before us. What does it mean? The context shows that this passage, whether truly Ignatian or not, is dealing, not with the day of the resurrection, but with a divine life which, through the risen Lord, enables the Christian to live a life of faith, free from legalism, of which traditional Jewish Sabbath keeping was all too illustrative.
There exists a lengthy interpolation of the Magnesian letter, made perhaps between the years AD 300 and 400, which distorts this passage to make it apply to days of worship, and to advocate the observance of both the seventh day Sabbath and the Sunday. It is doubtless reading back through the murkiness of this late interpolation that has forced the idea of “day” into the interpretation of this clause. It jeopardizes sound exegesis to work back to an expression from later distortions of it.
There is, as a matter of fact, no reference to a day of worship in the Magnesian letter or in any other of the early letters acknowledged as Ignatian.
Fourth Proof
The next supposed “Lord’s day” reference is from chapter 14 of an ancient document, to be dated about the middle of the second century, called the Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. This writing is not a product of apostolic hands; its author is not known. The sentence put forward as a support for Sunday keeping has been translated to read, “On the Lord’s Day of the Lord come together, break bread and hold Eucharist.” Loeb Classical Library, The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, p. 331.
The Greek text is obviously garbled and incomplete, but it contains no word “day.” It reads literally, “according to the Lord’s (?) of the Lord, coming together, break bread and hold Eucharist.” There is no particular reason why the thought of “day” should be forced into this passage. A number of words, appropriate both in grammar and in meaning, could be supplied at the point of our question mark, and make as good sense as “day,” or better. The form of the Greek requires a feminine word, and the Greek word entole, “commandment,” for instance, would exactly fit both sense and grammar. In any case the word “day” (does not occur in the original, and this reference in the Didache is certainly no true support for the institution of Sunday.
Fifth Proof
For the next reference we turn to the church historian Eusebius, who wrote about the year AD 324. He was thoroughly committed to the priestly authority of the bishops of the fourth century, was a defender of the union of church and state effected by the emperor Constantine, and was a eulogizer of this emperor. He was an earnest advocate of Sunday as a substitute for the Sabbath of the Bible. He makes two references that are often quoted as supporting early Sunday keeping. One is in a letter he quotes as proceeding from Dionysius, the overseer of the church of Corinth about the year AD 170, to Soter, of Rome.
The significant sentence is, ” ‘To-day we have passed the Lord’s holy day, in which we have read your epistle.’ Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 4, chap. 23, par. 11. There is no reference in the Bible or in any other writing up to this time showing that any other day than the Sabbath was established as the holy day of the Lord; therefore, there is no reason to apply this reference to Sunday observance, as some do. The day is not, as a matter of fact, identified in the letter.
Sixth Proof
The other reference from Eusebius tells us that Melito, overseer of the church of Sardis, wrote about the year AD 175 a treatise whose title is usually translated A Book Concerning the Lord’s Day. (Ibid., book 4, chap. 26.) As a matter of fact, the Greek title as given by Eusebius reads simply A Discourse Concerning the Lord’s [?]. The word “day” does not appear in the title, and there is no information given as to what the treatise actually dealt with.
Seventh Proof
There is also a forged second-century epistle, the so-called Epistle of Barnabas, which in chapter 15 quotes Old Testament condemnations of hypocritical Sabbath keeping and pretends to make them an excuse for Sunday keeping. It seeks further to establish Sunday by setting it forth as the eighth day of the week, and forcing it into line as a continuance of the Jewish principle of the eight-day circumcision. The inconsistency and futility of this argument, often used thereafter, must be patent to all. It used a Jewish ceremonial requirement, occurring once in the lifetime of the male Jew, as a basis for a supposed Christian festival, expected to occur weekly in the worship experience of all believers. For all this no divine or Scriptural authorization is claimed. The date of the writing of this strange document is not known, but it cannot be earlier than mid-second century.
These are the “authorities” used to establish the observance of Sunday as the “Lord’s day” in the second century. There is in none of these references the least foundation for the observance of Sunday. When the original languages are examined they give no basis for the observance of any day of the week as dedicated to God, except the seventh day Sabbath. There is in them no claim of any authorization by the Lord of any day to take the place of the seventh day Sabbath.
Eighth Proof
When, then, is Sunday called the “Lord’s day”? It is not until the latter part of the second century that there is a datable reference in which Sunday is indisputably called “the Lord’s day.” In the latter part of the second century there came into circulation a false Gospel According to Peter. No one today believes this document to be from the apostle Peter’s hand or dictation, and even when it first appeared it received little credence. But in this false epistle the day of Christ’s resurrection is for the first time clearly called “the Lord’s day.”
From this time on, in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and others, the term “Lord’s day” is consistently applied to Sunday. “Sabbath” continues to be the term for the seventh day of the week until Reformation times. After that Sunday is frequently called both “Lord’s day” and “Sabbath” interchangeably.
To be continued…
