Fabian--Origen--Hippolytus--Novatian.
TESTIMONY OF THE EPISTLES AND DECREES OF POPE FABIAN.
This man was bishop of Rome from A. D. 236 to A. D. 250. The letters
ascribed to Fabian were probably written at a considerably later date.
We quote them, however, at the very point of time wherein they claim
to have been written. Their testimony is of little importance, but
they breathe the self-important spirit of a Roman bishop. We quote as
follows:--
"You ought to know what is being done in things sacred in the
church of Rome, in order that, by following her example, ye may
be found to be true children of her who is called your mother.
Accordingly, as we have received the institution from our fathers,
we maintain seven deacons in the city of Rome, distributed over
seven districts of the state, who attend to the services enjoined
on them week by week, and on the Lord's days, and the solemn
festivals," etc.--_Epistle First._
This pope is said to have made the following decree, which contains the
only other reference to the so-called Lord's day to be found in the
writings attributed to him:--
"We decree that on each Lord's day the oblation of the altar should
be made by all men and women in bread and wine, in order that by
means of these sacrifices they may be released from the burden of
their sins."--_Decrees of Fabian_, b. v. chap. vii.
In these quotations we see that the Roman church is made the mother
of all churches, and also that the Roman bishop thinks himself the
rightful ruler over all Christian people. And it is in fit keeping with
these features of the great apostasy that the pope, instead of pointing
sinful men to the sacrifice made on Calvary, should "decree that on
each Lord's day" every person should offer an "oblation" of "bread and
wine" on the altar, "that by means of THESE SACRIFICES they may be
released from the burden of their sins"!
TESTIMONY OF ORIGEN.
Origen was born about A. D. 185, probably at Alexandria in Egypt.
He was a man of immense learning, but unfortunately adopted a
spiritualizing system in the interpretation of the Scriptures that was
the means of flooding the church with many errors. He wrote during the
first half of the third century. I have carefully examined all the
writings of every Christian writer preceding the council of Nice with
the single exception of Origen. Some of his works, as yet, I have not
been able to obtain. While, therefore, I give the entire testimony of
every other father on the subject of inquiry, in his case I am unable
to do this. But I can give it with sufficient fullness to present him
in a just light. His first reference to the Sabbath is a denial that it
should be literally understood. Thus he says:--
"There are countless multitudes of believers who, although unable
to unfold methodically and clearly the results of their spiritual
understanding, are nevertheless most firmly persuaded that neither
ought circumcision to be understood literally, nor the rest of the
Sabbath, nor the pouring out of the blood of an animal, nor that
answers were given by God to Moses on these points. And this method
of apprehension is undoubtedly suggested to the minds of all by the
power of the Holy Spirit."--_De Principiis_, b. ii. chap. vii.
Origen asserts that the spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures
whereby their literal meaning is set aside is something divinely
inspired! But when this is accepted as the truth who can tell what they
mean by what they say?
In the next chapter he quotes Isa. 1:13, 14, but with reference to
the subject of the soul and not to that of the Sabbath. In chapter
xi., alluding again to the hidden meaning of the things commanded in
the Scriptures, he asserts that when the Christian has "returned to
Christ" he will, amongst other things enumerated, "see also the reasons
for the festival days, and holy days, and for all the sacrifices and
purifications." So it seems that Origen thought the spiritual meaning
of the Sabbath, which he asserted in the place of the literal, was to
be known only in the future state!
In book iv. chapter i., he quotes Col. 2:16, but gives no exposition of
its meaning. But having asserted that the things commanded in the law
were not to be understood literally, and having intimated that their
hidden meaning cannot be known until the saints are with Christ, he
proceeds in section 17 of this chapter to prove that the literal sense
of the law is impossible. One of the arguments by which he proves the
point is, that men were commanded not to go out of their houses on the
Sabbath. He thus quotes and comments on Ex. 16:29:--
"'Ye shall sit, every one in your dwellings; no one shall move
from his place on the Sabbath day,' which precept it is impossible
to observe literally; for no man can sit a whole day so as not to
move from the place where he sat down." Origen quotes a certain
Samaritan who declares that one must not change his posture on the
Sabbath, and he adds, "Moreover the injunction which runs, 'Bear no
burden on the Sabbath day,' seems to me an impossibility."
This argument is framed for the purpose of proving that the Scriptures
cannot be taken in their literal sense. But had he quoted the text
correctly there would be no force at all to his argument. They must not
go out to gather manna, but were expressly commanded to use the Sabbath
for holy convocations, that is, for religious assemblies. Lev. 23:3.
And as to the burdens mentioned in Jer. 17:21-27, they are sufficiently
explained by Neh. 13:15-22. Such reasons as these for denying the
obvious, simple signification of what God has commanded, are worthy of
no confidence. In his letter to Africanus, Origen thus alludes to the
Sabbath, but without further remarking upon it:--
"You will find the law about not bearing a burden on the Sabbath
day in Jeremiah as well as in Moses."
Though these allusions of Origen to the Sabbath are not in themselves
of much importance, we give them all, that his testimony may be
presented as fully as possible. His next mention of the Sabbath seems
from the connection to relate to Paul:--
"Was it impious to abstain from corporeal circumcision, and from a
literal Sabbath, and literal festivals, and literal new moons, and
from clean and unclean meats, and to turn the mind to the good and
true and spiritual law of God," etc.--_Origen against Celsus_, b.
ii. chap. vii.
We shall soon get his idea of the true Sabbath as distinguished from
the "literal" one. He gives the following reason for the "literal
Sabbath" among the Hebrews:--
"In order that there might be leisure to listen to their sacred
laws, the days termed 'Sabbath,' and the other festivals which
existed among them, were instituted." Book iv. chap. xxxi.
What Origen mentions as the reason for the institution of the Sabbath
is in fact only one of its incidental benefits. The real reason for
its institution, viz., that the creation of the heavens and the earth
should be remembered, he seems to have overlooked because so literally
expressed in the commandment. Of God's rest-day he thus speaks:--
"With respect, however, to the creation of the world, and the 'rest
[_Sabbatismou_] which is reserved after it for the people of God,'
the subject is extensive, and mystical, and profound, and difficult
of explanation." Book v. chap. lix.
Origen's next mention of the Sabbath not only places the institution of
the Sabbath at the creation, but gives us some idea of his "mystical"
Sabbath as distinguished from "a literal" one. Speaking of the
Creator's rest from the six days' work he thus alludes to Celsus:--
"For he [Celsus] knows nothing of the day of the Sabbath and rest
of God, _which follows the completion of the world's creation_,
and _which lasts during the duration of the world_, and in which
all those will keep festival with God who have done all _their_
works in _their_ six days, and who, because they have omitted none
of their duties, will ascend to the contemplation [of celestial
things], and to the assembly of righteous and blessed beings." Book
vi. chap. lxi.
Here we get an insight into Origen's mystical Sabbath. It began at
creation, and will continue while the world endures. To those who
follow the letter it is indeed only a weekly rest, but to those who
know the truth it is a perpetual Sabbath, enjoyed by God during all
the days of time, and entered by believers either at conversion or at
death. And this last thought perhaps explains why he said before that
the reasons for days observed by the Hebrews would be understood after
this life.
But last of all we come to a mention of the so-called Lord's day by
Origen. As he has a mystical or perpetual Sabbath like some of the
earlier fathers, in which, under pretense of keeping every day as a
Sabbath, they actually labor on every one, so has he also, like what
we have found in some of them, a Lord's day which is not merely one
definite day of the week, but which embraces every day, and covers all
time. Here are his words:--
"For 'to keep a feast,' as one of the wise men of Greece has well
said, 'is nothing else than to do one's duty;' and that man truly
celebrates a feast who does his duty and prays always, offering up
continually bloodless sacrifices in prayer to God. That therefore
seems to me a most noble saying of Paul, 'Ye observe days, and
months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have
bestowed upon you labor in vain.'
"If it be objected to us on this subject that we ourselves are
accustomed to observe certain days, as, for example, the Lord's
day, the Preparation, the Passover, or Pentecost, I have to answer,
that to the perfect Christian, who is ever in his thoughts, words,
and deeds, serving his natural Lord, God the Word, _all his days
are the Lord's_, and _he is always keeping the Lord's day_." Book
viii., close of chapter xxi. and beginning of chapter xxii.
With respect to what he calls the Lord's day, Origen divides his
brethren into two classes, as he had before divided the people of
God into two classes with respect to the Sabbath. One class are the
imperfect Christians, who content themselves with the literal day; the
other are the perfect Christians, whose Lord's day embraces all the
days of their life. Undoubtedly Origen reckoned himself one of the
perfect Christians. His observance of the Lord's day did not consist
in the elevation of one day above another, for he counted them all
alike as constituting one perpetual Lord's day, the very doctrine
which we found in Clement of Alexandria, who was Origen's teacher in
his early life. The keeping of the Lord's day with Origen as with
Clement embraced all the days of his life, and consisted according to
Origen in serving God in thought, word, and deed, continually; or as
expressed by Clement, one "keeps the Lord's day when he abandons an
evil disposition, and assumes that of the Gnostic."
These things prove that Origen did not count Sunday as the Lord's
day to be honored above the other days as a divine memorial of the
resurrection, for he kept the Lord's day during every day in the
week. Nor did he hold Sunday as the Lord's day to be kept as a day of
abstinence from labor, while all the other days were days of business,
for whatever was necessary to keeping Lord's day he did on every day of
the week.
As to the imperfect Christians who honored a literal day as the Lord's
day, Origen shows what rank it stood in by associating it with the
Preparation, the Passover, and the Pentecost, all of which in this
dispensation are mere church institutions, and none of them days of
abstinence from labor. The change of the Sabbath from the seventh day
to the first, or the existence of the so-called Christian Sabbath was
in Origen's time absolutely unknown.
TESTIMONY OF HIPPOLYTUS, BISHOP OF PORTUS.
Hippolytus, who was bishop of Portus, near Rome, wrote about A. D.
230. It is evident from his testimony that he believed the Sabbath was
made by God's act of sanctifying the seventh day at the beginning. He
held that day to be the type of the seventh period of a thousand years.
Thus he says:--
"And 6000 years must needs be accomplished, in order that the
Sabbath may come, the rest, the holy day on which God rested from
all his works. For the Sabbath is the type and emblem of the future
kingdom of the saints, when they shall reign with Christ, when
he comes from Heaven, as John says in his Apocalypse: for a day
with the Lord is as a thousand years. Since, then, in six days
God made all things, it follows that six thousand years must be
fulfilled."--_Commentaries on Various Books of Scripture._ Sect. 4,
on Daniel.
The churches of Ethiopia have a series of Canons, or church rules,
which they attribute to this father. Number thirty-three reads thus:--
"That commemoration should be made of the faithful dead every day,
with the exception of the Lord's day."
The church of Alexandria have also a series which they ascribe to him.
The thirty-third is thus given:--
"Of the _Atalmsas_ (the oblation), which they shall present for
those who are dead, that it be not done on the Lord's day."
The thirty-eighth one has these words:--
"Of the night on which our Lord Jesus Christ rose. That no one
shall sleep on that night, and wash himself with water."
These are the only things in Hippolytus that can be referred to the
Sunday festival. Prayers and offerings for the dead, which we find
some fifty years earlier in Tertullian, are, according to Hippolytus,
lawful on every day but the so-called Lord's day. They grew up with
the Sunday festival, and are of equal authority with it. Tertullian, as
we have already observed, tells us frankly that there is no scriptural
authority for the one or the other, and that they rest on custom and
tradition alone.
TESTIMONY OF NOVATIAN, A ROMAN PRESBYTER.
Novatian, who wrote about A. D. 250, is accounted the founder of the
sect called _Cathari_, or _Puritans_. He tried to resist some of the
gross corruptions of the church of Rome. He wrote a treatise on the
Sabbath, which is not extant. There is no reference to Sunday in any of
his writings. In his treatise "On the Jewish Meats," he speaks of the
Sabbath thus:--
"But how perverse are the Jews, and remote from the understanding
of their law, I have fully shown, as I believe, in two former
letters, wherein it was absolutely proved that they are ignorant of
what is the true circumcision, and what the true Sabbath." Chapter
i.
If we contrast the doctrine of the Pharisees concerning the Sabbath
with the teaching of the Saviour, or with that of Isaiah in his
fifty-eighth chapter, we shall not think Novatian far from the truth
in his views of the Jewish people. In his treatise "Concerning the
Trinity" is the following allusion to the Sabbath:--
"For in the manner that as man he is of Abraham, so also as God he
is before Abraham himself. And in the same manner as he is as man
the 'Son of David,' so as God he is proclaimed David's Lord. And in
the same manner as he was made as man 'under the law,' so as God he
is declared to be 'Lord of the Sabbath.'" Chapter xi.
These are the only references to the Sabbath in what remains of
the writings of Novatian. He makes the following striking remarks
concerning the moral law:--
"The law was given to the children of Israel for this purpose, that
they might profit by it, and RETURN _to those virtuous manners_,
which, although _they have received them from their fathers_,
they had corrupted in Egypt by reason of their intercourse with a
barbarous people. Finally, also, those _ten commandments_ on the
tables _teach nothing new_, but _remind_ them of _what had been
obliterated_--that righteousness in them, which had been put to
sleep, might revive again as it were by the afflatus of the law,
after the manner of a fire [nearly extinguished]."--_On the Jewish
Meats_, chap. iii.
It is therefore certain that in the judgment of Novatian, the ten
commandments enjoined nothing that was not sacredly regarded by
the patriarchs before that Jacob went down into Egypt. It follows,
therefore, that in his opinion the Sabbath was made, not at the fall of
the manna, but when God sanctified the seventh day, and that holy men
from the earliest ages observed it. The Sunday festival with its varied
names and titles he never mentions.