Chapter
94
The Sabbath
in History
When and
by what acts was the Sabbath made?
"And on the seventh day God ended his work which
he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he
had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that
in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."
Genesis 2:2,3.
What
important division of time is marked off by the Sabbath?
The week.
Two
thousand five hundred years after creation, the Sabbath was proclaimed,
with the other moral commands, from Mount Sinai. Why did God say He had
put His blessing upon that day?
"For in six
days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and
rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day,
and hallowed it." Exodus 20:11.
What
befell the city of Jerusalem when it was captured by the king of Babylon?
"And all the vessels of the house of God, great
and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures
of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon. And they
burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and
burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly
vessels thereof." 2 Chronicles 36:18,19.
Of what
prophecy was this a fulfillment?
"But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the
sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of
Jerusalem on the sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates
thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not
be quenched." Jeremiah 17:27.
After the
restoration of Israel from the Babylonian captivity, what was said to have
been the reason of their punishment?
"Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and
said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the
sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this
evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by
profaning the sabbath." Nehemiah 13:17,18.
How did
Christ regard the Sabbath during His earthly ministry?
"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been
brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the
sabbath day, and stood up for to read." Luke 4:16.
How did He
wish to have it regarded by His disciples at the siege of Jerusalem,
nearly forty years after His death?
"But pray ye that your
flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:" Matthew
24:20.
What was
the first effort of the Roman Church in behalf of the recognition of
Sunday?
"In A.D. 196, Victor, Bishop of Rome, attempted to impose on all
the churches the Roman custom of having Easter fall every year on
Sunday." Bower's History of the Popes, vol.2, page 18.
What was
one of the principal reasons for convoking the Council of Nice?
"The question relating to the observance of Easter, which was
agitated in the time of Anicetus and Polycarp, and afterward in that of
Victor, was still undecided. It was one of the principal reasons for
convoking the Council of Nice, being the most important subject to be
considered after the Arian Controversy." Boyle's Historical View
of the Council of Nice, page 22, ed. of 1839.
How was
the matter finally decided?
"Easter day was fixed on the Sunday immediately following the new
moon which was nearest after the vernal equinox." Idem. page 23.
In urging
the observance of this decree on the churches, what reason did Constantine
assign for it?
"Let us then have nothing in common with the most hostile rabble
of the Jews." Idem, page 52.
What had
Constantine already done, in A.D. 321, to help forward Sunday to a place
of prominence?
He issued an edict forcing "the judges and town people and the
occupation of all trades" to rest on the "venerable day of the
sun." See Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Sunday.
Eusebius
was bishop of Caesarea, and one of Constantine's most trusty supporters.
Who did he say had changed the obligations of the Sabbath to Sunday?
"All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath,
these WE have transferred to the Lord's day." Eusebius's
Commentary on the Psalms, quoted in Cox's "Sabbath Literature,"
Vol. 1, page 361.
What did
the Council of Laodicea decree in A.D. 364?
"The Council of Laodicea... first settled the observation of the
Lord's day, and prohibited the keeping of the Jewish Sabbath under an
anathema." Dissertation on the Lord's Day Sabbath, pages 33, 34,
44.
But did
the Christians of the early church keep the Sabbath?
"Down even to the fifth century, the observances of the Jewish
Sabbath was continued in the Christian church." Coleman's Ancient
Christianity Exemplified, chap. 26, sec. 2.
What day
was observed in the Dark Ages by some of the Waldenses?
"They kept the Sabbath day, observed the ordinance of baptism
according to the primitive church, instructed their children in the
articles of the Christian faith and the commandments of God." Jones's
Church History, vol. 2, chap. 5, sec. 4.
We have
seen that paganism brought Sunday to the forefront as a
"venerable" day, and popery gave it the title of "Lord's
day ." What claim is now made by the Roman Church concerning the
change of the Sabbath to Sunday?
"Question. - Have you any other way of proving that the church
has power to institute festivals of precept?
"Answer. - Had she not such power, she could not have done
that in which all modern religionists agree with her, she could not have
substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the
observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no
scriptural authority." Doctrinal Catechism. This is also
taught in nearly all Catholic books of instruction.
Among the
early Reformers, were there any who observed the seventh day?
"Carlstadt held to the divine authority of the Sabbath from the
Old Testament." Life of Luther, page 402,
What did
Luther say of Carlstadt's Sabbath views?
"Indeed, if Carlstadt were to write further about the Sabbath,
Sunday would have to give way, and the Sabbath that
is to say, Saturday must be kept holy." Luther, against the
Celestial Prophets, quoted in the Life of Martin Luther in Pictures, page
147.
NOTE. - Through
the efforts of those who opposed the Sabbath during the Reformation,
Sunday was brought from Catholicism into the Protestant church, and is now
cherished as an institution of the Lord. It is clear, however, that it is
none of His planting, but rather that of His enemies. The Lord sowed
different seeds in the field; but "an enemy hath done this," to
lead God's people away from the truth. A proclamation is now going forth,
however, to revive the truth on this point. Some will heed the call, and
when the message closes, God will have a people who are willing to
recognize Him fully by keeping His down trodden Sabbath. To these He will
say, "Well done."
HOW
THE SABBATH WAS
CHANGED TO SUNDAY
"There
is scarcely anything which strikes the mind of the careful student of
ancient ecclesiastical history with greater surprise than the
comparatively early period at which many of the corruptions of
Christianity, which are embodied in the Roman system, took their rise; yet
it is not to be supposed that when the first originators of many of these
unscriptural notions and practices planted those germs of corruption, they
anticipated or even imagined they would ever grow into such a vast and
hideous system of superstition and error as is that of popery."
John Dowling, History of Romanism," 13th Edition, p. 65.
"It
would be an error to attribute ['the sanctification of Sunday'] to a
definite decision of the Apostles. There is no such decision mentioned in
the Apostolic documents [that is, the New Testament]." Antoine
Villien, "A History of the Commandments of the Church," 1915, p.
23.
"It must
be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the
first day." McClintock and Strong, "Cyclopedia of Biblical,
Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature," Vol. 9, p. 196.
"Until
well into the second century [a hundred years after Christ] we do not find
the slightest indication in our sources that Christians marked Sunday by
any kind of abstention from work." W. Rordort, "Sunday,"
p. 157.
"The
ancient Sabbath did remain and was observed... by the Christians of the
Eastern Church [in the area near Palestine] above three hundred years
after our Saviour's death." "A Learned Treatise of the
Sabbath," p. 77.
"Modern
Christians who talk of keeping Sunday as a 'holy' day, as in the still
extant 'Blue Laws,' of colonial America, should know that as a 'holy' day
of rest and cessation from labor and amusements Sunday was unknown to
Jesus... It formed no tenet [teaching] of the primitive Church and became
'sacred' only in the course of time. Outside the Church its observance was
legalized for the Roman Empire through a series of decrees starting with
the famous one of Constantine in 321, an edict due to his political and
social ideas." W. W. Hyde, "Paganism to Christianity in the
Roman Empire," 1946, p. 257.
"The
festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only
a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to
establish a Divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the
early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to
Sunday." Augustus Neander, "The History of the Christian
Religion and Church," 1843, p. 186.
"The
Church made a sacred day of Sunday... largely because it was the weekly
festival of the sun; for it was a definite Christian policy to take over
the pagan festivals endeared to the people by tradition, and to give them
a Christian significance." Arthur Weigall, "The Paganism in
Our Christianity," 1928, p. 145.
"Is it
not strange that
Sunday is almost universally observed when the Sacred Writings do not
endorse it? Satan, the great counterfeiter, worked through the 'mystery of
iniquity' to introduce a counterfeit Sabbath to take the place of the true
Sabbath of God. Sunday stands side by side with Ash Wednesday, Palm
Sunday, Holy (or Maundy) Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Corpus
Christi, Assumption Day, All Soul's Day, Christmas Day, and a host of
other ecclesiastical feast days too numerous to mention. This array of
Roman Catholic feasts and fast days are all man made. None of them bears
the divine credentials of the Author of the Inspired Word." M. E.
Walsh.
"Sun
worship was the earliest idolatry." A. R. Fausset, "Bible
Dictionary," p. 666.
Sun worship
was "one of the oldest components of the Roman religion." Gaston
H. Halsberghe, "The Cult of Sol Invictus," 1972, p.26.
"
'Babylon, the mother of harlots,' derived much of her teaching from pagan
Rome and thence from Babylon. Sun worship that led her to Sunday keeping,
was one of those choice bits of paganism that sprang originally from the
heathen lore of ancient Babylon: 'The solar theology of the
"Chaldeans" had a decisive effect upon the final development of
Semitic paganism... [It led to their seeing the sun the directing power of
the cosmic system. All the Baals were thence forward turned into suns; the
sun itself being the mover of the other stars, like it eternal and
'unconquerable.' ...Such was the final form reached by the religion of the
pagan Semites, and, following them, by that of the Romans... when they
raised 'Sol Invictus' [the Invincible Sun] to the rank of supreme divinity
in the Empire." Franz V. M. Cumont, "The Frontier Provinces
of the East," in 'The Cambridge Ancient History," Vol. 11, pp.
643, 646-647.
"The
power of the Caesars lived again in the universal dominion of the
popes." H. G. Gulness, "Romanism and the Reformation."
"From
simple beginnings, the church developed a distinct priesthood and an
elaborate service. In this way, Christianity and the higher forms of
paganism tended to come nearer and nearer to each other as time went on.
In one sense, it is true, they met like armies in mortal conflict, but at
the same time they tended to merge into one another like streams which had
been following converging courses." J. H. Robinson,
"Introduction to the History of Western Europe," p. 31.
"Unquestionably
the first law. either ecclesiastical or civil. by which the Sabbatical
observance of that day is known to have been ordained, is the edict of
Constantine, 321 A.D." Chamber's Encyclopedia," article,
"Sabbath."
"This
[Constantine's Sunday decree of March, 321] is the 'parent' Sunday law
making it a day of rest and release from labor. For from that time to the
present there have been decrees about the observance of Sunday which have
profoundly influenced European and American society. When the Church
became apart of State under the Christian emperors, Sunday observance was
enforced by civil statutes, and later when the Empire was past, the Church
in the hands of the papacy enforced it by ecclesiastical and also by civil
enactments." Walter W Hyde, "Paganism to Christianity in the
Roman Empire," 1946, p. 267.
"Constantine's
decree marked the beginning of a long, though intermittent series of
imperial decrees in support of Sunday rest." Vincent J. Kelly,
"Forbidden Sunday and Feast Day Occupations," 1943, p. 29.
"Constantine
labored at this time untiringly to unite the worshipers of the old and the
new into one religion. All his laws and contrivances are aimed at
promoting this amalgamation of religions. He would by all lawful and
peaceable means melt together a purified heathenism and a moderated
Christianity... Of all his blending and melting together of Christianity
and heathenism, none is more easy to see through than this making of his
Sunday law: The Christians worshiped their Christ, the heathen their
Sun-god... [so they should now be combined]." H. G. Heggtveit,
"Illustreret Kirkehistorie," 1895, p. 202.
"Down
even 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." Lyman
Coleman, "Ancient Christianity Exemplified,"
chap. 26, sec. 2, p. 527.
"Constantine's
[five Sunday law] decrees marked the beginning of a long though
intermittent series of imperial decrees in support of Sunday rest." "A
History of the Councils of the Church, " Vol. 2, p. 316.
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