rather be in favor of the last day of the week, since, in devoting it to
the worship of Christ, they would not only bring upon themselves the
wrath of the heathen, because of their acknowledgment of our Lord’s
divinity; but, also, in the sum of their fault would be found the fact,
that they ignored the sacredness of the day of the sun, and celebrated
another, as holy, by divine command.
Thus much for the uninspired witnesses, brought forward from the first,
and the early part of the second, century of the Christian era. Had they
flatly contradicted what we have seen the teachings of the Bible to be,
they would not have moved us one hair; for we remember that the great
apostle has said, that, though “an angel from Heaven preach any other
gospel unto you, let him be accursed.” But, strangely enough, their
testimony is utterly worthless for the purpose for which it has been
introduced. Not one of them has styled the Sunday the Lord’s day; not
one of them has called it the Sabbath; not one of them has stated that
it was regarded as holy, or that its hours might not, without sin, be
devoted to secular pursuits. Here, then, we leave them, and wait for a
fresh inundation of such as will answer the purpose for which they are
called in a more satisfactory manner than the foregoing.
Footnote 10:
Did it not appear to be indispensable to the enlightening of the
reader, as to the consummate folly of the author of the epistle of
Barnabas, we should not append, as we do, his language in the
following note, since it is hardly worthy of a place in a chaste and
dignified discussion. For its citation we hold those, responsible who
have made this action necessary, and who value the testimony of a man
so utterly devoid of common-sense: “Neither shalt 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.”
Chap. 9:8.
Footnote 11:
Since, writing the above, the following interesting item in the
_Christian Union_, for Feb. 19, has been brought to my notice, and
will serve to show that continued investigation on the part of
scholars is rendering the authenticity of the writings of Justin
Martyr more and more doubtful:—“Dr. Franz Overbeck has lately
examined, with great care, the ‘epistle to Diognetus,’ which has been
regarded as one of the most precious relics of the age succeeding that
of the apostles. He urges several reasons for coming to the conclusion
that the work was written later than the era of Constantine, and was
intended by its author to pass as a work Justin Martyr’s. Critics had
already proved it no genuine work of Justin, and if Dr. Overbeck is
right, it can no longer be assigned to the age of Justin.”
STATESMAN’S REPLY.
ARTICLE EIGHT.
PATRISTIC TESTIMONY TO THE FIRST-DAY SABBATH.
The testimony already adduced from the early fathers in our last issue
will be regarded by most of our readers as sufficient in itself. But for
the sake of giving a complete view of the patristic testimony to the
first-day Sabbath up to the close of the third century, we shall occupy
some additional space with extracts, on the accuracy of which our
readers may confidently rely.
First among the witnesses now cited is Irenæus, bishop or presbyter of
Lyons, A. D. 178. Let it be remembered that in the case of this witness
we have the testimony of one who was brought up at the feet of Polycarp,
the disciple and companion of the Apostle John. The first point to be
noted in the testimony of Irenæus is the abrogation of the seventh-day
Sabbath. As the rite of circumcision was no longer required, so the
observance of the seventh-day Sabbath had ceased. Each was a sign or
shadow of the substance to come. This thought is dwelt upon at great
length. (See _Contra Hæreses_, book iv. ch. 30, Grabe’s Edition, Oxford,
1702, pp. 318, 319; also Benedictine Edit., Paris, 1710, p. 246.)
Lest his statements might be understood to be opposed to the authority
of the ten commandments, Irenæus adds the following sentences: “The Lord
spoke the words of the decalogue in like manner to all. They remain,
therefore, permanently with us, receiving, through the Lord’s advent in
the flesh, extension and increase, not abrogation.” (Book iv. ch. 31, p.
320.) Thus the law of the Sabbath remains, though not binding to the
observance of the seventh day.
We now come to this writer’s clear and distinct testimony, in its more
positive aspect, to the Lord’s day. Irenæus took a prominent part in
what has been called the Quarta-Deciman controversy. The question at
issue was—Should the anniversary of the Lord’s resurrection be in
connection with the Jewish passover, on whatever day of the week that
might occur, or on the Lord’s day invariably? This question first arose
on a visit of Polycarp, bishop or presbyter of Smyrna, to Aniest, bishop
of Rome, about 160, and was discussed for many years. Irenæus, acting as
the representative of the Christians in Gaul, wrote to Victor, then
bishop of Rome, in these terms: “The mystery of the Lord’s resurrection
should be celebrated only on the Lord’s day.” (_Euseb. Hist. Eccles._
book v. chap. 23, 24; Paris ed., 1678, pp. 155, 156.) It will be
remarked here that while there was diversity of view in regard to the
_yearly_ celebration of the Lord’s resurrection—a celebration of which
we have no account whatever until the year 160, there was no question
concerning the sacred observance of the first day as the _weekly_
commemoration of the Lord’s rising from the dead.
“We simply add a reference to one of the best known of the fragments of
Irenæus in which there is further explicit testimony to the Lord’s
day—testimony all the more important, because it occurs incidentally in
a treatise concerning the passover, and in connection with a statement
in regard to Pentecost.” (_Fragmentum lib. de Pascha_, Bened. ed.,
Paris, 1742, p. 490.[12])
For the sake of presenting a complete view of the testimony of the
fathers for the first three centuries, we had thought of quoting from
Clement of Alexandria, A. D. 194; Minucius Felix, 210; Commodian, about
270; Victorinus, 290; and Peter, bishop of Alexandria, 300. But as the
testimony will be perfectly conclusive without these witnessess, and as
space is valuable, we shall cite only three more authorities—three
well-known fathers, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian.
At the close of the second century, Carthage, the metropolis of Northern
Africa, was the center of numerous flourishing Christian congregations.
Living in Carthage for many years, Tertullian knew well the practice of
the African churches. And although he became, about 202, one of the
errorists known as Montanists, his testimony, however unreliable as to
doctrines, is still indisputable as to facts. From the frequent
references to the Lord’s day in this author we select the following: “By
us, to whom the [Jewish] Sabbaths are strange, and the new moons and
festivals once pleasing to God, the Saturnalia, January, and mid-winter
feasts, and Matronalia [of the heathen] are frequented. O better
fidelity of the heathen to their own religion! They would not share with
us the Lord’s day, nor Pentecost, even if they knew them, for they would
fear lest they should seem to be Christians.” (_De Idolatria_, cap. xiv,
Semler’s edit., Halæ Magdeburg, vol. iv., pp., 167, 168.) The testimony
of this passage is decisive in three points: (1.) The Jewish, or
seventh-day, Sabbath was not observed by Christians. (2.) They were
enjoined not to observe heathen festivals. (3.) To the Lord’s day, as
the proper day for Christian service, belonged the honor to which Jewish
and heathen days had no claim.
The exercises of the Lord’s day, when Christians assembled for public
service, are described by Tertullian in a manner very similar to that of
Justin Martyr, whose account has already been quoted. Prayer, reading
the Scriptures, exhortation, and collections for benevolent purposes are
all mentioned. (_Apol._, cap. xxxix, vol. v., pp. 92-94.) It is to be
noted that Tertullian, like Justin Martyr, in addressing the heathen,
calls the first day of the week “the day of the Sun,” as he also
designates the Jewish Sabbath by its heathen name. (See _Apol._, cap.
xvi.)
We close these citations from Tertullian, with one which is of the
greatest importance in proving that the early Christians observed the
first day of the week, not as a mere holiday, but as a day of rest and
worship—a holy Sabbath to the Lord. “On the Lord’s day, the day of the
Resurrection, we should not only abstain from that,[13] [bending the
knee,] but also from all anxiety of feeling, and from employments,
setting aside all business, lest we should give place to the devil.”
(_De Oratione_, cap. xxiii., vol. iv., p. 22.)
Contemporary with Tertullian at the beginning of the third century was
Origen of Alexandria, one of the most scholarly and learned of all the
early fathers. This writer contrasts the Lord’s day with the Jewish
Sabbath, and shows the superiority of the former. We may not agree with
him when he maintains that the superiority was indicated by the giving
of manna to the Israelites on the first day of the week, while it was
withheld on the seventh. His testimony to the fact of the sacred
observance of the Lord’s day instead of the seventh-day Sabbath is
valid, though his reasons for the admitted superiority may not all be
satisfactory. In the same connection he remarks: “On our Lord’s day the
Lord always rains manna from heaven.” (_Comment on Exodus_, Delarue’s
ed. of Works of Origen, Paris, 1733, vol. ii., p. 154.) In another of
his works he contends that it is one of the evidences of a true
Christian “always to keep the Lord’s day.” (_Contra Celsum_ lib. viii,
vol. i., pp. 758, 759.)
The most important passage in the writings of Origen is found in his
Homilies on the Book of Numbers. Here we first meet with the name
“Christian Sabbath” for the first day of the week, or the Lord’s day:
“Leaving, then, the Jewish observance of the Sabbath, let us see what
the observance of the Sabbath by the Christian ought to be. On the
Sabbath should be performed no worldly acts. If, therefore, you desist
from all secular works, and do nothing of a worldly nature, but occupy
yourselves with spiritual duties, assembling at the church, listening to
the sacred readings mad instructions, thinking of celestial things,
concerned for the hopes of another life, keeping before your eyes the
Judgment to come, and looking not at the things which are present and
visible, but at those which are invisible and future—this is the
observance of the Christian Sabbath.” (_Hom. xxiii in Numeros_, vol.
ii., p. 358.)
Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, about the third century, gives this
explicit testimony to the Lord’s day: “Since in the Jewish circumcision
of the flesh the eighth day was celebrated, the ordinance was
foreshadowed in the future, but completed in truth at the coming of
Christ. For inasmuch as the eighth day, that is, the first day after the
Sabbath, was the day on which the Lord rose and gave us life and
spiritual circumcision, this eighth day, that is the first after the
Sabbath and the Lord’s day, preceded in an image, which image ceased
when the truth afterwards came, and spiritual circumcision was given to
us.” (_Epistle_ lxiv., Works of Cyprian, Bremæ, 1690, vol. ii., p. 161)
The weight of this testimony is not a little augmented by the fact that
the epistle, in which it is found is a synodical epistle, which was sent
forth in the name and with the authority of the Third Council of
Carthage, A. D. 253. The epistle bears this inscription at its head:
“Cyprianus et ceteri Collegæ qui in concilio affuerant numero LXIV. Fido
patri Salutem.”
With this authoritative statement of Cyprian and his sixty-six
colleagues, or co-presbyters, we close our citations from the fathers.
The testimony of succeeding writers is equally clear, but it simply
confirms what has already been fully proved. And now, with the facts of
history in view, as we have learned them from inspired writers and their
immediate successors, it remains for us to examine opposing theories of
the institution of the Sabbath. We shall endeavor to dispose of this
concluding, and perhaps most interesting part of our subject, in two or
three articles.
Footnote 12:
The culpable carelessness of Dwight, Wilson, and other authors, in
citing from the early fathers, is nowhere more noticeable than in the
case of Irenæus. These writers quote him as saying: “On the Lord’s
day, every one of us Christians, keeps the Sabbath, meditating on the
law, and rejoicing in the works of God.” There is no reference given
to the writings of Irenæus. And for good reason. After a most careful
examination, we are persuaded no such passage is to be found in his
writings. The mistake was probably first made by President Dwight,
whose weakness of sight compelled him to depend upon an amanuensis.
“For twenty years of his presidency,” we are informed by his
biographer, “he was rarely able to read as much as a single chapter in
the Bible in the twenty-four hours.” (_Dwight’s Theology_, London,
1821, vol. i. pp. 91, 95.) Others followed this high authority.
In order to guard our readers against injuring the cause they would
advance, we must mention another important instance of considerable
negligence. In a number of works on the Sabbath, Dr. Justin Edwards’
“Sabbath Manual,” for example, we find not only the blunders already
noticed, but another quite as bad. The language—“Both custom and
reason challenge from us that we should honor the Lord’s day, seeing
on that day it was that our Lord Jesus completed his resurrection from
the dead,” is ascribed to Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, about A. D.
162. The words quoted are in reality those of another Theophilus, who
was bishop of Alexandria, at the close of the fourth century. We hand
over these criticisms upon advocates of the first-day Sabbath to our
seventh-day Sabbatarian friends, trusting to their honor and fairness
not to separate them from the rest of this discussion. For our own
part, whether it may be pleasant to the advocates of the seventh-day
Sabbath, we desire to have for ourselves, and to aid others to have,
the whole truth. It was in this spirit that we gave room in our
columns for a full presentation of the arguments on the other side of
this question.
Footnote 13:
As a matter of independent interest and importance, we would ask all
who are interested in the question of the posture in prayer of
worshipers in the early church, to compare with Tertullian’s
statement, that of Peter, bishop of Alexandria, A. D. 300, who says:
“We keep the Lord’s day as a day of joy, because of Him who rose on
that day, on which we have learned not to bow the knee.” (_Bibl.
Patrum, apud Gallard_, vol. iv., p. 107.) To the same effect is the
decision of the Council of Nice, A. D. 325, requiring, as there were
certain ones who bent the knee on the Lord’s day, that it should be
the uniform practice to give thanks to God, standing. (_Canon_, xx.)
A REJOINDER.
“PATRISTIC EVIDENCE TO THE FIRST-DAY SABBATH.”
In the rejoinder to the previous article on patristic testimony, the
attention of the reader was called to the fact that our opponent had
utterly failed to find a single instance in which the first day of the
week was called the Lord’s day, by the authorities which he cited, or in
which it was stated by them that it was observed by divine command. Had
we possessed the space necessary for the purpose, the significance of
this failure would have been enlarged upon; for it must be borne in mind
that in the one hundred and thirty-nine years which intervened between
the death of Christ and the writing of the latest citation produced in
his seventh article, lies the most important, and the most promising,
field for such testimonials as would be of the highest value to the
opposition. This is so, not only from the fact that the period in
question was the one in which it is alleged that the transition from the
old to the new Sabbath occurred; but, also, because it was one, which,
from their premises, was the most likely to yield reliable evidence in
regard to apostolic faith, since it lay the nearest to apostolic times.
It is true that even then apostasy had begun its career; for Paul states
that, in his time, “the mystery of iniquity had begun to work.”
But all will agree that the farther we come this side of the
fountain-head, the more natural it would be to find that the pure waters
of the original stream should become steadily darker and more turbid,
until they lost themselves in the sloughs of those corrupt teachings,
which were so far to excel all others, that they were thought to be of a
nature to demand especial attention in the prophecies. But here we are,
as already remarked, seventy-five to eighty years this side of the
cross, and the case of our reviewer in no-wise helped by his effort. In
fact, not only has he failed to place his Sabbath upon the foundation of
the successors of the apostles, but he has also greatly weakened his
probabilities for the future, since in the territory over which we have
passed, we have seen not only the utter unreliability of the fathers
themselves, as teachers, but, also, that their sayings have been
tampered with by the “man of sin,” who, reaching backward as well as
forward, is reckless in his efforts to make everything contribute to the
power and authority of the hierarchy.
But we must proceed in the examination of those individuals who are now
introduced as additional witnesses for the Christian Sabbath. The first
in order is Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, A. D. 178. It will not be
necessary to consider the language of the gentleman, in which he states
that Irenæus taught the abrogation of the seventh-day Sabbath, since we
have not quoted that father in the defense of an institution which _God
has commanded_. Nor shall we enlarge upon the fact that Irenæus
inculcates the binding obligation of the ten commandments, since it is
enough for us to know that this doctrine is plainly set forth in the
Bible.
The witness is the gentleman’s. He has brought him forward to prove
that, in his time, the year of our Lord 178, the term, Lord’s day, was
applied to the Sunday. Has he succeeded, at last, in the achievement of
his purpose? If so, it is the first instance in which he has
accomplished the desired object. Apparently, he has triumphed here. But
let us proceed with caution. Has he produced the writings of Irenæus
himself? No, he has not. The words quoted are these: “The mystery of the
Lord’s resurrection should be celebrated only on the Lord’s day.” By
turning to the Hist. of Eusebius, book v., chap. 23, the reader will
find that the language employed does not purport to be that of Irenæus,
as penned by himself, but that of Eusebius, who is giving an account of
a decree passed by certain bishops, which decree was in harmony with a
letter from Irenæus. We quote enough in the 23d chapter to verify our
statement:—
“Hence there were synods and convocations of the bishops, on this
question; and all unanimously drew up an ecclesiastical decree, which
they communicated to all the churches, in all places, that the mystery
of our Lord’s resurrection should be celebrated on no other day than the
Lord’s day; and that on this day alone we should observe the close of
the paschal fasts. There is an epistle extant, even now, of those who
were assembled at the time.... There is an epistle extant, on the same
question, bearing the name of Victor. An epistle, also, of the bishops
of Pontus, among whom Palmas, as the most ancient, presided; also of the
churches of Gaul, over whom Irenæus presided, ... and epistles from many
others, who, advancing one and the same doctrine, also passed the same
vote, and this their unanimous determination was the one already
mentioned.”
It will be observed here that the historian does not quote the language
of the decree as being the exact language of the bishops; also that he
does not pretend to give the precise words of Irenæus, but that he
simply recounts the fact that the epistle of Irenæus was in harmony with
the decree which he had previously given. This it was legitimate for a
historian to do. Eusebius died one hundred and fifty years after
Irenæus, and in his time, we frankly admit that the term, Lord’s day,
was frequently applied to the first day of the week. The historian,
therefore, using the nomenclature of his own period, represents the
bishop of Lyons as favoring the celebration of the Passover on the
Lord’s day, simply because he had said it ought to be observed on the
first day of the week. If we are right in this, then, of course, our
opponents will throw up the whole passage as irrelevant to their present
purpose—since they have not assumed to employ Eusebius, who lived in the
fourth century, as a witness—but have cited his statement because it was
supposed to contain the declaration of Irenæus, who lived at a much
earlier period.
For the purpose of clinching the argument, and showing that the historic
fact is in harmony with what we have said, we quote the following on the
point from Eld. J. N. Andrews, in which it will be seen that in the
original, the term, first day of the week, and not the Lord’s day, as
supposed, might have been employed:—
“Observe ... Eusebius does not quote the words of any of these bishops,
but simply gives their decisions in his own language. There is,
therefore, no proof that they used the term, Lord’s day, instead of
first day of the week; for the introduction to the fiftieth fragment of
his lost writings, already quoted, gives an ancient statement of his
words in this decision, as plain first day of the week. It is Eusebius
who gives us the term, Lord’s day, in recording what was said by these
bishops concerning the first day of the week.”
That which has been said above in reference to the testimony found in
book v., chap. 23, of Eusebius, will largely apply, in principle, to the
citation found in chap. 24, of the same book. In the latter, as in the
former, case, the historian is not giving the exact utterance of
Irenæus, but simply declares, in substance, his decision in regard to
the proper time for the celebration of the passover festival.
Before passing from Irenæus to the consideration of another case of the
fathers, it would be proper to commend the candor of our opponent, as
manifested in his hearty condemnation of the looseness of Dwight and
others in their statements of historic facts. In making the concession
which the gentleman has, he will doubtless bring upon himself the
condemnation of those who exalt success above truth. He has taken from
such one of their most potent weapons. The language of Irenæus, which is
here admitted to be of spurious origin, has figured largely in the
discussion of this question, in the past. It was pointed and decisive,
and seemed to furnish just the material necessary to the satisfactory
making out of a case, otherwise sadly deficient in the proofs which it
needed. It will, therefore, be yielded up with reluctance. Nevertheless,
we hope that the acknowledgment, made by our opponent in this article,
will lead clergymen, for the future, to desist from the use of it, until
they are able to refute what the writer in the _Statesman_ here asserts.