Irenæus--Dionysius--Melito--Bardesanes.
TESTIMONY OF IRENÆUS.
This father was born "somewhere between A. D. 120 and A. D. 140." He
was "bishop of Lyons in France during the latter quarter of the second
century," being ordained to that office "probably about A. D. 177." His
work _Against Heresies_ was written "between A. D. 182 and A. D. 188."
First-day writers assert that Irenæus "says that the Lord's day was the
Christian Sabbath." They profess to quote from him these words: "On the
Lord's day every one of us Christians keeps the Sabbath, meditating on
the law and rejoicing in the works of God."
No such language is found in any of the writings of this father. We
will quote his entire testimony respecting the Sabbath and first-day,
and the reader can judge. He speaks of Christ's observance of the
Sabbath, and shows that he did not violate the day. Thus he says:--
"It is clear, therefore, that he loosed and vivified those who
believe in him as Abraham did, doing nothing contrary to the law
when he healed upon the Sabbath day. For the law did not prohibit
men from being healed upon the Sabbaths; [on the contrary] it
even circumcised them upon that day, and gave command that the
offices should be performed by the priests for the people; yea,
it did not disallow the healing even of dumb animals. Both at
Siloam and on frequent subsequent occasions, did he perform cures
upon the Sabbath; and for this reason many used to resort to
him on the Sabbath days. For the law commanded them to abstain
from every servile work, that is, from all grasping after wealth
which is procured by trading and by other worldly business; but
it exhorted them to attend to the exercises of the soul, which
consist in reflection, and to addresses of a beneficial kind for
their neighbor's benefit. And therefore the Lord reproved those who
unjustly blamed him for having healed upon the Sabbath days. For he
did not make void, but fulfilled the law, by performing the offices
of the high priest, propitiating God for men, and cleansing the
lepers, healing the sick, and himself suffering death, that exiled
man might go forth from condemnation, and might return without fear
to his own inheritance. And again, the law did not forbid those
who were hungry on the Sabbath days to take food lying ready at
hand: it did, however, forbid them to reap and to gather into the
barn."--_Against Heresies_, b. iv. chap. viii. sects. 2, 3.
The case of the priests on the Sabbath he thus presents:--
"And the priests in the temple profaned the Sabbath, and were
blameless. Wherefore, then, were they blameless? Because when in
the temple they were not engaged in secular affairs, but in the
service of the Lord, fulfilling the law, but not going beyond it,
as that man did, who of his own accord carried dry wood into the
camp of God, and was justly stoned to death." Book iv. chap. viii.
sect. 3.
Of the necessity of keeping the ten commandments, he speaks thus:--
"Now, that the law did beforehand teach mankind the necessity of
following Christ, he does himself make manifest, when he replied
as follows to him who asked him what he should do that he might
inherit eternal life: 'If thou wilt enter into life, keep the
commandments.' But upon the other asking, 'which?' again the Lord
replied: 'Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do
not bear false witness, honor father and mother, and thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself,'--setting as an ascending series
before those who wished to follow him, the precepts of the law, as
the entrance into life; and what he then said to one, he said to
all. But when the former said, 'All these have I done' (and most
likely he had not kept them, for in that case the Lord would not
have said to him, 'Keep the commandments'), the Lord, exposing his
covetousness, said to him, 'If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all
that thou hast, and distribute to the poor; and come follow me,'
promising to those who would act thus, the portion belonging to the
apostles.... But he taught that they should obey the commandments
which God enjoined from the beginning, and do away with their
former covetousness by good works, and follow after Christ." Book
iv. chap. xii. sect. 5.
Irenæus certainly teaches a very different doctrine from that of Justin
Martyr concerning the commandments. He believed that men must keep the
commandments, in order to enter eternal life. He says further:--
"And [we must] not only abstain from evil deeds, but even from the
desires after them. Now he did not teach us these things as being
opposed to the law, but as fulfilling the law, and implanting in us
the varied righteousness of the law. That would have been contrary
to the law, if he had commanded his disciples to do anything which
the law had prohibited." Book iv. chap. xiii. sect. 1.
He also makes the observance of the decalogue the test of true piety.
Thus he says:--
"They (the Jews) had therefore a law, a course of discipline, and
a prophecy of future things. For God at the first, indeed, warning
them by means of natural precepts, which from the beginning he had
implanted in mankind, that is, by means of the decalogue (which,
if any one does not observe, he has no salvation), did then demand
nothing more of them." Book iv. chap. xv. sect. 1.
The precepts of the decalogue he rightly terms "natural precepts," that
is, precepts which constitute "the work of the law" written by nature
in the hearts of all men, but marred by the presence of the carnal mind
or law of sin in the members. That this law of God pertains alike to
Jews and to Gentiles, he thus affirms:--
"Inasmuch, then, as all natural precepts are common to us and
to them (the Jews), they had in them, indeed, the beginning and
origin; but in us they have received growth and completion." Book
iv. chap. xiii. sect. 4.
It is certain that Irenæus held the decalogue to be now binding on all
men; for he says of it in the quotation above, "Which if any one does
not observe, he has no salvation." But, though not consistent with his
statement respecting the decalogue as the law of nature, he classes
the Sabbath with circumcision, when speaking of it as a sign between
God and Israel, and says, "The Sabbaths taught that we should continue
day by day in God's service." "Moreover the Sabbath of God, that is,
the kingdom, was, as it were, indicated by created things; in which
[kingdom], the man who shall have persevered in serving God shall, in a
state of rest, partake of God's table." He says also of Abraham that he
was "without observance of Sabbaths." Book iv. chap. xvi. sects. 1, 2.
But in the same chapter he again asserts the perpetuity and authority
of the decalogue in these words:--
"Preparing man for this life, the Lord himself did speak in his
own person to all alike the words of the decalogue; and therefore,
in like manner, do they remain permanently with us, receiving, by
means of his advent in the flesh, extension and increase, but not
abrogation." Section 4.
This statement establishes the authority of each of the ten
commandments in the gospel dispensation. Yet Irenæus seems to have
regarded the fourth commandment as only a typical precept, and not of
perpetual obligation like the others.
Irenæus regarded the Sabbath as something which pointed forward to the
kingdom of God. Yet in stating this doctrine he actually indicates the
origin of the Sabbath at creation, though, as we have seen, elsewhere
asserting that it was not kept by Abraham. Thus, in speaking of the
reward to be given the righteous, he says:--
"These are [to take place] in the times of the kingdom, that is,
upon the seventh day, which has been sanctified, in which God
rested from all the works which he created, which is the true
Sabbath of the righteous, in which they shall not be engaged in
any earthly occupation; but shall have a table at hand prepared
for them by God, supplying them with all sorts of dishes." Book
v. chap. xxxiii. sect. 2. And he elsewhere says: "In as many
days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it
be concluded.... For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years:
and in six days created things were completed: it is evident,
therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand
year." Book v. chap. xxviii. sect. 3.
Though Irenæus is made by first-day writers to bear a very explicit
testimony that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, the following, which
constitutes the seventh fragment of what is called the "Lost Writings
of Irenæus," is the only instance which I have found in a careful
search through all his works in which he even mentions the first day.
Here is the entire first-day testimony of this father:--
"This [custom], of not bending the knee upon Sunday, is a symbol of
the resurrection, through which we have been set free, by the grace
of Christ, from sins, and from death, which has been put to death
under him. Now this custom took its rise from apostolic times, as
the blessed Irenæus, the martyr and bishop of Lyons, declares in
his treatise _On Easter_, in which he makes mention of Pentecost
also; upon which [feast] we do not bend the knee, because it is
of equal significance with the Lord's day, for the reason already
alleged concerning it."
This is something very remarkable. It is not what Irenæus said, after
all, but is what an unknown writer, in a work entitled _Quæs. et Resp.
ad Othod._, says of him. And all that this writer says of Irenæus is
that he declares the custom of not kneeling upon Sunday "took its rise
from apostolic times"! It does not even appear that Irenæus even used
the term Lord's day as a title for the first day of the week. Its
use in the present quotation is by the unknown writer to whom we are
indebted for the statement here given respecting Irenæus. And this
writer, whoever he be, is of the opinion that the Pentecost is of equal
consequence with the so-called Lord's day! And well he may so judge,
inasmuch as both of these Catholic festivals are only established by
the authority of the church. The testimony of Irenæus in behalf of
Sunday does therefore amount simply to this: That the resurrection is
to be commemorated by "not bending the knee upon Sunday"!
The fiftieth fragment of the "Lost Writings of Irenæus" is derived from
the Nitrian Collection of Syriac MSS. It relates to the resurrection of
the dead. In a note appended to it the Syriac editor says of Irenæus
that he "wrote to an Alexandrian to the effect that it is right, with
respect to the feast of the resurrection, that we should celebrate it
upon the first day of the week." No extant writing of Irenæus contains
this statement, but it is likely that the Syriac editor possessed some
portion of his works now lost. And here again it is worthy of notice
that we have from Irenæus only the plain name of "first day of the
week." As to the manner of celebrating it, the only thing which he sets
forth is "not bending the knee upon Sunday."
In the thirty-eighth fragment of his "Lost Writings" he quotes Col.
2:16, but whether with reference to the seventh day, or merely
respecting the ceremonial sabbaths, his comments do not determine.
We have now given every statement of Irenæus which bears upon the
Sabbath and the Sunday. It is manifest that the advocates of first-day
sacredness have made Irenæus testify in its behalf to suit themselves.
He alludes to the first day of the week once or twice, but never uses
for it the title of Lord's day or Christian Sabbath, and the _only_
thing which he mentions as entering into the celebration of the
festival was that Christians should not kneel in prayer on that day!
By first-day writers, Irenæus is made to bear an explicit testimony
that Sunday is the Lord's day and the Christian Sabbath! And to give
great weight to this alleged fact, they say that he was the disciple
of Polycarp, who was the disciple of John: and whereas John speaks of
the Lord's day, Irenæus, who must have known what he meant by the term,
says that the Lord's day is the first day of the week! But Polycarp,
in his epistle, does not even mention the first day of the week, and
Irenæus, in his extended writings, mentions it only twice, and that in
"lost fragments," preserved at secondhand, and in neither instance does
he call it any thing but plain "first day of the week"! And the only
honor which he mentions as due this day is that the knee should not be
bent upon it! And even this was not spoken of every Sunday in the year,
but only of "Easter Sunday," the anniversary of Christ's resurrection!
Here we might dismiss the case of Irenæus. But our first-day friends
are determined at least to connect him with the use of Lord's day as
a name for Sunday. They therefore bring forward Eusebius, who wrote
150 years later, to prove that Irenæus did call Sunday by that name.
Eusebius alludes to the controversy in the time of Irenæus, respecting
the _annual_ celebration of Christ's resurrection in what was called
the festival of the passover. He says (Eccl. Hist., b. v. chap. xxiii.)
that the bishops of different countries, and Irenæus was of the
number, decreed "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," and not on
the fourteenth of the first month as practiced by the other party. And
in the next chapter, Eusebius represents Irenæus as writing a letter
to this effect to the Bishop of Rome. But 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. But we have
evidence that in the decision of this case which Irenæus sent forth,
he used the term "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.
In his time, A. D. 324, Lord's day had become a common designation of
Sunday. But it was not such in the time of Irenæus, A. D. 178. We have
found no writer who flourished before him who applies it to Sunday; it
is not so applied by Irenæus; and we shall find no decisive instance of
such use till the close of the second century.
TESTIMONY OF DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF CORINTH.
This father, about A. D. 170, wrote a letter to the Roman church, in
which are found these words:--
"We passed this holy Lord's day, in which we read your letter, from
the constant reading of which we shall be able to draw admonition,
even as from the reading of the former one you sent us written
through Clement."
This is the earliest use of the term Lord's day to be found in the
fathers. But it cannot be called a decisive testimony that Sunday
was thus known at this date, inasmuch as every writer who precedes
Dionysius calls it "first day of the week," "eighth day," or "Sunday,"
but never once by this title; and Dionysius says nothing to indicate
that Sunday was intended, or to show that he did not refer to that day
which alone has the right to be called the Lord's "holy day." Isa.
58:13. We have found several express testimonies to the sacredness of
the Sabbath in the writers already examined.
TESTIMONY OF MELITO, BISHOP OF SARDIS.
This father wrote about A. D. 177. We know little of this writer except
the titles of his books, which Eusebius has preserved to us. One of
these titles is this: "On the Lord's Day." But it should be remembered
that down to this date no writer has called Sunday the Lord's day;
and that every one who certainly spoke of that day called it by some
other name than Lord's day. To say, therefore, as do first-day writers,
that Melito wrote of Sunday, is to speak without just warrant. He uses
#Greek: tês kyriakês#, "the Lord's," but
does not join with it #hêmera#, a "day," as
does John. He wrote of something pertaining to the Lord, but it is not
certain that it was the Lord's day. Moreover, Clement, who next uses
this term, uses it in a mystical sense.
TESTIMONY OF THE HERETIC BARDESANES.
Bardesanes, the Syrian, flourished about A. D. 180. He belonged to the
Gnostic sect of Valentinians, and abandoning them, "devised errors of
his own." In his "Book of the Laws of Countries," he replies to the
views of astrologers who assert that the stars govern men's actions. He
shows the folly of this by enumerating the peculiarities of different
races and sects. In doing this, he speaks of the strictness with which
the Jews kept the Sabbath. Of the new sect called Christians, which
"Christ at his advent planted in every country," he says:--
"On one day, the first of the week, we assemble ourselves
together, and on the days of the readings we abstain from [taking]
sustenance."
This shows that the Gnostics used Sunday as the day for religious
assemblies. Whether he recognized others besides Gnostics, as
Christians, we cannot say. We find no allusion, however, to Sunday as
a day of abstinence from labor, except so far as necessary for their
meetings. What their days of fasting, which are here alluded to, were,
cannot now be determined. It is also worthy of notice that this writer,
who certainly speaks of Sunday, and this as late as A. D. 180, does not
call it Lord's day, nor give it any sacred title whatever, but speaks
of it as "first day of the week." No writer down to A. D. 180, who is
known to speak of Sunday, calls it the Lord's day.