"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet." Revelation 1:10.

A. The Bible explains the phrase "the Lord's day" as follows:

"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 2:3.

"And he (Moses) said unto them, This is that which the Lord has said: To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake to day." Exodus 16:23.

"But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God..." Exodus 20:10a; also Isaiah 58:13-14.

The Lord's day is the seventh day (Saturday) Sabbath. "Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath." Mark 2:28.

An additional less likely explanation could be that the second coming of Jesus Christ in the clouds is sometimes described as the "coming of the Lord", the "day of the Lord" or "Lord's day".

The Book Acts of the Apostles accounts under the watchful care of the apostles and their fellow workers for the purity of the gospel and doctrines. In doing so the Book of Acts connects the reports of the evangelists with Acts, unifying the period. After the passing of the apostles, the influence of teachers of error began without delay, marking their age as entirely different than that of the original apostles. (Acts 20:29-30; 2.Thess. 2:3-4,7-8; 2.Tim. 4:2-4);

Of this time Archibald Bauer said,

"To avoid being imposed upon, we ought to treat tradition as we do a notorious and known liar, to whom we give no credit, unless what he says is confirmed to us by some person of undoubted veracity. ... False and lying traditions are of an early date, and the greatest men have, out of a pious credulity, suffered themselves to be imposed upon by them." [A. Bauer, History of the Popes, Vol. 1, p. 1, Philadelphia, ed. 1847. See also the commentary of Adam Clarke on Prov. 8.]

B. Sunday keepers historical explanations are usually as follows:

1. The destruction of Jerusalem liberated the Jewish Christians from the law and from Jerusalem as a center of their faith. But see Here for more on that.

a. New Testament literature written before 70 AD and which later were canonized and became part of the Bible [except the book of Revelation written by the apostle John] make use of the word "Sabbath".
b. There are indications in the book of Acts that Sunday was used for worship and celebration of the Lord's Supper. Accordingly Acts 15; is said to reflect liberation from the Sabbath law. (For more click here).

2. The book of Revelation written about 96 AD does not use the word "Sabbath" but "the Lord's Day" [01]. This is said to indicate a Judasitic liberation from the law. Early Christian literature proves, they say, that the Lord's Day is Sunday.

3. Ignatius of Antioch (30? BC - 115 AD)

Ignatius was born either shortly before or after the ascension of Jesus Christ. His life spanned the writing of the New Testament. However, living in Antioch (central Turkey), he was not in close communication with the apostles themselves. At a later point he may have been part of the evangelization conducted by the Apostle Paul in the former's younger years. This appears to be the case considering his Christological statements. While Paul used such expressions as, "Jesus Christ our God (Lord)" (Ro. 1:3; 6:10; 1 Cor. 1:2) and "the Son of God, Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 1:19), Ignatius is quoted as having written, "For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived in the womb of Mary ... God appeared in the likeness of man" [J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, ed. J.R. Harmer (1891; Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1962), pp. 63-68, 75-79. See also Phil. 2:6,7.]
This shows that Ignatius was among those who considered Jesus Christ to be very God, in agreement with the Apostles testimony.[02]

"If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's [Day], on which also our life has sprung up."
This letter could also be read as:
"If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer sabbatizing, but living according to the Lord's [life], on which also our life has sprung up."
Where words enclosed in [] brackets are modern insertions due to a lacuna in the original text. Ignatius to the Magnesians, chapter 9. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 1, p.182. But see here!

4. Didache (cir. 125 BC - 50/90 AD)
"But every Lord's [day], do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord... [Matt. 5:23-24]." [2b], or this translation,

"On the Lord's [day] of the Lord come together, break bread and hold Eucharist." Loeb Classical Library - Apostolic Fathers, Vol. 1 pp. 330, 331.

Note: The word "day" is a later interpolation by the translator, in the original the word may have been "supper."

5. Bishop Dionysius of Corinth (cir. 170 AD) wrote to Bishop Sater of Rome:
"Today we have passed the Lord's holy day, in which we have read your epistle." Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, Vol. I, p. 204. Comment: There is nothing in this letter which forces us to regard `Lord's holy day' as Sunday. In fact using the adjective `holy', he most certainly does not follow the trend of the age, in which Sunday advocates know their day was always only referred to as `lord's day', and therefore he must mean the seventh day holy Sabbath, the day which was extensively kept in his country of Greece in obedience to the Ten Commandments.

6. Bishop Melito of Sardis (cir. 170 -185 AD) wrote a treatise "On the Lord's Day" but the word `day' is not in the Greek original which is, "o peri tes kuriakes logos ...", where the word "hmara(s)" (day) is missing and like in Ignatius treaties on the `Life of Christ' was more likely "kuriaken zoen", `lord's life.' [Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, Vol. 1, p. 204.][2c]

7. The apogryphical gospel according to Peter (cir. 190):
"Here we have the clear application of "the Lord's Day" to the first day of the week." Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, IX, pp. 27, 29.

8. Pliny's letter to Trajan (cir. 107 - 112)
In this letter he states that the Christians worship on a certain "fixed day". Loeb Classical Library, Pliny, Vol. II, pp. 402-405.

9. The epistle of Barnabas (cir. 135 AD)
"Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but that is which I have made (namely this) when, giving rest to all things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead. And when He had manifested Himself, He assembled unto heaven."
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, pp. 146, 147.

10. Justin Martyr (100? - 165)
He states that the "day of the sun" is observed by Christians, because of the resurrection.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, pp. 185, 186.

The correct quote of Justin Martyr reads as follows:

"And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles, or the writings of the prophets, are read, as long as time permits," etc. [Justin Martyr's First Apology, ch. 67.]

While this source speaks of the day called Sunday, its authority is of fraudulent origin since it was deliberately changed to that reading just like Dr. Justin Edwards' quotes sources as if they exist but do not and thus commits fraud. [Justin Edwards, Sabbath Manual, p. 114. Pretending to quote from Theophilus who never uses, `Lord's day, and never speaks of the `first day.']

11. Clement of Alexandria (ca. 174)
Clement, a teacher of Tatian and Origen [the compiler of the 6 column Hexapla Bible [2d]], is the first man who unequivocally used the expression
"Lord's day" for the first day of the week. The source for his authority is Plato, "And the Lord's day Plato prophetically speaks of in the tenth book of the Republic, in these words,

`And when seven days have passed to each of them in the meadow, on the eighth day they are to set out and arrive in four days.' Clement, `Miscellanies' books, chap. 14, A.N.F. Vol. II.

Clement also told his readers of his Paedagogus to have either a fish (used as a symbol before the crucifixion) or a dove, engraved on their seals.[Bar, Mar/Apr 2007, p. 45.]

"Clement expressly tells us that he would not hand down Christian teachings, pure and unmixed, but rather clothed with precepts of pagan philosophy. All the writings of the outstanding heretical teachers were possessed by Clement, and he freely quoted from their corrupted MSS. As if they were the pure words of Scripture." [Dean Burgon, The Revision Revised, p. 336 as cited by B.E. Wilkinson,`The Authorized Version', See here.]

12. Origen (185-255)
He, as the greatest of all the falsifiers and influencer of Jerome, classes the Sabbath with the Preparation day, Passover and Pentecost, as Jewish festivals.
Statements include: "It is one of the marks of a perfect Christian to keep the Lord's day."
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV, pp. 285, 366, 601;
Vol. IX, pp. 388, 389, 469, 470.
Comment: At his time apostasy had taken firm roots but biblically we know the Lord's day is Sabbath. Origen's corrupted MSS. of the Scriptures were well arranged and balanced with subtlety. Origen had so surrendered himself to the furore of turning all Bible events into allegories that he, himself, says, "The Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written."[McClintock and Strong, Art. "Origen."] In order to estimate Origen rightly, we must remember that as a pupil of Clement, he learned the teachings of the Gnostic heresy and like his master, lightly esteemed the historical basis of the Bible. As Schaff says, "His predilection for Plato (the pagan PBC philosopher) led him into many grand and fascinating errors."[Dr. Schaff, Church History, Vol. II, p. 791.] He made himself acquainted with the various heresies and studied under the heathen Ammonius Saccas, founder of Neo-Platonism. He turned the whole law and Gospel into an allegory. One of the greatest results of his life, was that his teachings became the foundation of that system of education called Scholasticism, which guided the colleges of Latin Europe for nearly one thousand years during the Dark Ages. Origenism flooded the Catholic Church through Jerome, the father of Latin Christianity. "I love... the name of Origen," says the most distinguished theologian of the Roman Catholic Church since 1850, "I will not listen to the notion that so great a soul was lost."[Dr. Newman, Apologia pro vita sus. Chapter VII, p. 282.] A final word from the learned Scrivener will indicate how early and how deep were the corruptions of the sacred manuscripts: "It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it was composed; that Irenaeus (A. D. 150), and the African Fathers, and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephens thirteen centuries later, when moulding the Textus Receptus." [Scrivener, Introduction to N. T. Criticism, 3rd Edition, p. 511.] When the apostles of the Roman Catholic Church entered these countries [the Greek Empire, the countries of Syrian Christianity, among the Waldensians in northern Italy, the Gallic church in southern France, and the Celtic church in Scotland and Ireland] in later centuries they found the people were using the Textus Receptus; and it was not without difficulty and a struggle that they were able to displace it and to substitute their Latin Vulgate. For the Vaudois/ Waldensians their ancient, trustworthy Bible was the `Itala' or `Italick' which was based on the received text the purity of which went back to the Apostolic age.

13. Tertullian at Carthage (ca. 160-240 AD)
"We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord's day to be unlawful." [Tertullian, The Chaplet, chap. 3.]

"Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the God of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray toward the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What then? Do you do less than this? Do not many among you, with an affection of sometimes worshipping the heavenly bodies likewise, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise? It is you, at all events, who have even admitted the sun into the calendar of the week; and you have selected its day [Sunday] in preference to the preceding day, as the most suitable in the week for either an entire abstinence from the bath, or for its postponement until the evening, or for taking rest, and for banqueting. By resorting to these customs, you deliberately deviate from your own religious rites to those of strangers." [Tertulian, Ad Nations, Book 1, chap. 13; Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III.]

14. Bardesanes (ca. 180)
He says in his book of the `Laws of the Countries',
"On the day, the first of the week, we assemble ourselves together."
Of course the reason for this assembling together, depending how trustworthy this source is, is not given. It could have been a city council meeting for example, or some other public or business function. If it was a religious gathering, then it was not based on any scriptural command.

15. Irrenaeus at Lyons (about 130-(185)-ca. 202 AD), disciple of Polycarb.
He wrote just before Gnosticism's influence spread widely. He is said to have written 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." But every one of these words is a fraud.[2d]

Against Gnostic claims he held that the Apostles did not preach before they had "perfect knowledge" of the Gospel, Rom. 15:14. That preaching they recorded in the Gospels - Matthew and John were written by the Apostles themselves; while Mark reproduced the message of Peter and Luke that of Paul. Nothing Gnostic, Irreanaeus declares, is found in any of them. He argued, had there been private teaching, the Apostles would have intrusted it to those, above all others, whom they selected as leaders in the churches they established. These `leaders' are not to be viewed as successors. There are no successors to the Apostles whose experience was entirely unique in that they had been with the Lord or, in the case of Paul, were directly called by the Lord to teach the Gospel. [Italics, statement ours.] From Gal. 2:2 we learn that the Apostles consulted with each other on the gospel they preached so they would see it eye to eye. [Ayer, J.C., A Source Book for Ancient Church History, from the Apostolic Age to the close of the Conciliar Period, N.Y., 1913.]

On the subject of the [ceremonial] sabbaths he argued that they were to be taken as signs and types and not to be kept when the substance of which they were the shadow was at hand, which is to say, Christ's sacrifice fulfilled these types and shadows and ceremonial sabbaths. He is thought to have written, "The mystery of the Lord's resurrection may not be celebrated on any other day than the Lord's Day and on this alone should we observe the breaking of the Paschal Feast."
Comment: This statement sounds like a forged statement of later times.

C. The Lord's day references examined;

1. In his last epistle the apostle Paul spoke about a falling away from the word of God. 2.Tim. 4:1-5.

2. The apostle John is in full harmony in all his teaching with the rest of the New Testament authors.

3. Many of Ignatius epistle's are forgeries.

a. The Greek does not have in it the word "day", but "life".
"No longer sabbatizing, but living according to the Lord's life."
Migne, Patrologia, Vol. 5, col. 669.

b. The Lord's day is interpolated from a larger writing of the same epistle dated around 300 AD.

c. The fact remains that a correct rendering of the text gives no support to Sunday observances.

4. An exact translation of the Greek reads:

"According to (or upon) the Lord's (?) of the Lord coming together break bread and keep Eucharist."
[The word might have been `entole'= command.]

5. The actual day of the week is not identified. Only a fragment of the letter is extant, being found in Eusebius.[3]
Allowing that "Lord's day" refers to Sunday, it only shows a slight growth of the idea and practice referred to by Justin in his `Apology' some 20 years earlier.

6. None of the books written by Melito are extant. Eusebius pretends to give a list of works written by him. The word "day" does not occur in the Greek text, but it is in the Latin of Jerome ( 340 - 420 AD). It reads: "concerning the Lord's". It cannot be determined now what actually was the subject of the monograph.

7. It is not very encouraging for Sunday keepers that the first or one of the first statements that Sunday is the Lord's day, is found in an apogryphical gospel. This indicates the kind of source for Sunday keeping.

8. Pliny's letter only states that the Christians had a "fixed" day for worship. When it is remembered that the Bythinian churches were probably organized by Peter at a time when the observance of the Sabbath was a common practice of the apostles, it is practically certain that the "stated day" was the seventh day.

9. The Barnabas mentioned is not the companion of Paul. His anti- Judaism has to be understood and read. He does not speak about Sunday as the Lord's day.

10. Justin does not call Sunday the Lord's day but in his anti-Judaism he opposed Sabbath observances. He emphasizes that we should keep a perpetual Sabbath.

11. The Gnostic and philosophic thinking of Alexandria together with the allegorical interpretation count for a Biblical apostasy in the theological school of Alexandria.

12. Origen shows a bitterness toward the Jews and their ritual similar to that of Barnabas and Justin before him. He objected to Sabbath observances and to the regulations which were in any way like those of the Jews, because he was opposed to interpreting the Scriptures literally. His method of interpretation was allegorical.
He believed in the Lord's day, but only in a spiritual way.

"I have to answer that the perfect Christian, who ever in his thoughts, words, and deeds serving his natural Lord, God the Word, all his days are the Lords and he is always keeping the Lord's day."
Origen, Against Celsus, Book 8, chap. 22; Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV.

13. Tertullian was a warm advocate of the no-Sabbath theory. His views reveal a further development of that no-lawism which appeared 50 years before the writings of Justin and is also seen in the anti-nomianism of Montanism.

Tertullian's statements lead us to say that consistency was not Tertullian's strong point. He often asserts in one treatise that which he denies in another. When writing to Marcion, the Gnostic, he emphasized the importance of the Sabbath, and when writing to the Jews he spiritualized it away.[4]
When the different statements of Tertullian are brought together we see that Christians are keeping both days. Tertullian emphasizes that there is kneeling in public worship on Sabbath, but most do not kneel or fast on the Lord's day.

The following testimonies will in part explain the unreliability of the early Fathers.

"The church of Rome, having been conscious of their errors and corruptions, both in faith and manners, have sundry times pretended reformations; yet their great pride and infinite profit, arising from purgatory, pardons, and such like, hath hindered all such reformations. Therefore, to maintain greatness, errors, new articles of faith, 1. They have corrupted many of the ancient Fathers, and, reprinting them, make them speak as they would have them ... 2. They have written many books in the names of these ancient writers, and forged many decrees, canons, and councils, to bear false witness to them." [Ephraim Pagitt, Christianography, Part 2, p. 59, London, 1636.]

Sabbath to Sunday Influences

D. What influences have made the change from the Lord's day meaning the Sabbath in Rev. 1:10 to mean Sunday at the time of Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian? [5]

1. Anti Judaism
a) Ignatius
b) Barnabas
c) Justin Martyr
d) School of Alexandria
e) Tertullian
f) Bar Cochba revolt during emperor Hadrian's reign, 135 AD.[10]

2. The Easter Controversy
a) Polycarb and Anicetus
b) Victor and Polycrates (bishop of Ephesus 130- ca. 200) (Irenaeus intervened).[12]
3. Gnosticism
a) Marcian

4. Gentile influence

5. The Alexandrian School

6. Mithraism

7. Supported by superstitions

8. Statements are found in all general church history books emphasizing the difference between Apostolic Christianity and that form of Christianity we meet at the close of the second century.

Evidences

E. Historical evidences and lack of evidences show that Sunday as a day of rest was not prominent at all.

1. We have much more Christian literature from the second century, than already cited, but none of them deal with the Sunday question.

2. Hippolytus, a spiritual son of Irenaeus, mentions neither Sabbath nor Sunday.

3. Novatian (ca. 250), founder of the Cathari - most likely these were the later Waldensians, wrote:

"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 had 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 affiatus of the law, after the manner of a fire [nearly extinguished]." [Novatian on the Jewish Meats, ch. 3.]

It is held that the pre-Waldensian Christians of northern Italy could not have had doctrines purer than Rome unless their Bible was purer than Romes; that is, was not of Romes falsified manuscripts.[Comba, The Waldenses of Italy, p. 188.]

It is inspiring to bring to life again the outstanding history of an authority on this point. I mean Leger. This noble scholar of Waldensian blood was the apostle of his people in the terrible massacres of 1655, and labored intelligently to preserve their ancient records. His book, the "General History of the Evangelical Churches of the Piedmontese Valleys," published in French in 1669, and called "scarce" in 1825, is the prized object of scholarly searchers. It is my good fortune to have that very book before me. Leger, when he calls Olivetans French Bible of 1537 "entire and pure," says:

"I say pure because all the ancient exemplars, which formerly were found among the papists, were full of falsifications, which caused Beza (Dr. Edgar says that Beza "astonished and confounded the world" with the Greek manuscripts he unearthed.) to say in his book on `Illustrious Men,' in the chapter on the Vaudois, that one must confess it was by means of the Vaudois of the Valleys that France today has the Bible in her own language. This godly man, Olivetan, in the preface of his Bible, recognizes with thanks to God, that since the time of the apostles, or their immediate successors, the torch of the gospel has been lit among the Vaudois (or the dwellers in the Valleys of the Alps, two terms which mean the same), and has never since been extinguished." [Leger, General Hist. of the Vaudois Churches, p. 165.]

The Waldenses of northern Italy were foremost among the primitive Christians of Europe in their resistance to the Papacy. They not only sustained the weight of Romes oppression but they were successful in retaining the torch of truth until the Reformation took it from their hands and held it aloft to the world. Veritably they fulfilled the prophecy in Revelation concerning the church which fled into the wilderness where she hath a place prepared of God. (Revelation 12:6, 14.) They rejected the mysterious doctrines, the hierarchal priesthood and the worldly titles of Rome, while they clung to the simplicity of the Bible.

The agents of the Papacy have done their utmost to calumniate their character, to destroy the records of their noble past, and to leave no trace of the cruel persecution they underwent. They went even farther, they made use of words written against ancient heresies to strike out the name of the heretics and fill the blank space by inserting the name of the Waldenses. Just as if, in a book written to record the lawless deeds of some bandit, like Jesse James, his name should be stricken out and the name of Abraham Lincoln substituted. The Jesuit Gretser, in a book written against the heretics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, put the name Waldenses at the point where he struck out the name of these heretics.[W. S. Gilly, Waldensian Researches, p. 8, note.] Nevertheless, we greet with joy the history of their great scholars who were ever a match for Rome.

4. Cyprian (258), Bishop of Carthage and the successor of Tertullian, writes of a new law and new covenant, but does not mention the Sabbath or Sunday, but in a vague, unmeaning mysticism he speaks about the eighth day.

5. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, and a pupil of Origen, mentions the resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week, but gives no clue whatsoever as to the type of worship.

6. Victorianus (300)
He writes, "On the Lord's day we go forth to our bread with the giving of thanks. Lest we should appear to observe any Sabbath with the Jews, which Christ himself the Lord of the Sabbath in his body abolished."
On the Creation of the World, Section 4.
Comment: Anti Judaism is obvious in his writings. A lack of exegetical comprehension of what the Bible teaches on the Sabbath issue is also seen. Most of these men spoke not authoritative on this subject but just made an observation of some customs or voiced their unstudied opinion.

7. Peter, Bishop of Alexandria (324), said, "But the Lord's day we celebrate as the day of joy because on it He rose again."
Comment: No scripture is quoted to indicate that these men studied the Word of God to come up with such teachings. They are merely furtive decisions on the part of his contemporaries to distinguish themselves from Jews and even the Jewish Apostles and are based on false theology.

The Creeping Influences of the Cult of Isis in Roman Society

What follows is a description of a church service reminiscent of the mass from around 200 A.D. when many Christians died.

"The daily ritual of Isis, which seems to have been as regular and complicated as that of the Catholic Church, produced an immense effect on the Roman mind. Every day there were two solemn offices, at which white-robed, tonsured priests, with acolytes and assistants of every degree, officiated. The morning litany and sacrifice was an impressive service. The crowd of worshippers thronged the space before the chapel at the early dawn. The priest ascending by a hidden stairs, drew apart the veil of the sanctuary, and offered the holy image to their adoration. He then made the round of the altars, reciting the litany and sprinkling the holy water from the secret spring." [25]

The situation at the end of the third century.

1. The foregoing are all of the important witnesses in favour of the Sunday for the first three centuries. Collating their testimony, the following conclusions are unavoidable:
a) No traces of the observance of the Sunday are found until about the middle of the second century. Those appear first in Justin Martyr's First Apology. The leading reason assigned by him for its observance is founded on a mystical interpretation of certain passages supposed to refer to the millennium. The supposed resurrection of Christ on that day is mentioned incidentally as a secondary reason. About the close of the second century, the idea of commemorating the resurrection by the observance of the Sunday increases, and the term "Lord's Day" begins to be applied to it.
b) During the third century, no-lawism and the no-Sabbath theory gain the ascendency in the theories of the leaders. The representative writers of that century teach that there is no sacred time under the gospel dispensation. That no days are holy, and no observance of specific time is religiously binding. That the true idea of the Sabbath consists in rest from sin. The fancies of Cyprian concerning circumcision as a type of the eighth day appear toward the close of the third century.
c) The observance of the Sunday which then prevailed was not sabbatic. In the second century there is no trace of the sabbatic idea connected with it. It is a day, some part of which is used for the purpose of public religious instruction. In the third century the celebration of the Lord's Supper on Sunday seems to have become quite general [40]. This was also celebrated regularly on the Sabbath. The interpretation of business and kneeling on that day which appears during the last half of the third century, was made because business cares interrupted the festal enjoyment of the day, and not because any true idea as of a Sabbath was entertained. This is shown from the language of those passages in which such interdiction appears, and in the fact that these same writers plead strenuously for the Sabbath as a life-rest from sin, and not as a weekly rest from labour. Dr. Hessey, in speaking of the Sunday at this period says:

"It was never confounded with the Sabbath, but was carefully distinguished from it as an institution under the law of liberty, observed in a different way and with different feelings, and exempt from the severity of the provisions which were supposed to characterize the Sabbath."
(Lecture on Sunday, p. 49, London, 1866.)

Robert Cox, speaking of the close of the third century, gives the following:

"But although Christian theology had not at this time assumed the systematic form which it afterward attained, there is no ground for saying that the Fathers, or "The Church", represented by them, had formed no theory, Sabbatarian or dominical of the Lord's day. Often did the question occur to them, `Why do we honor the first day of the week and assemble for worship upon it?' And to this question not one of them who lived before the reign of Constantine (311-337 AD) had either answered, with Mr. Gilfillan, `because the Fourth Commandment binds the Christian Church as it did the Jews, and the Sabbath-day was changed by Christ or his apostles, who had a divine commission, appointed the Lord's -day to be observed as a Christian festival.' On the contrary, they give sundry other reasons of their own, fanciful in most cases, and ridiculous in some. The best of them is that on the first day the Saviour had risen from the dead; and the others chiefly are , that on the first day God changed darkness and matter, and made the world; that on a Sunday Jesus Christ appeared to and instructed his disciples; that the command to circumcise children on the eighth day was a type of the true circumcision, by which we were circumcised from error and wickedness through our Lord, who rose from the dead on the first day of the week; and that manna was given to the Israelites on a Sunday. From which the inevitable inference is, that they neither had found in Scripture any commandment delivered by Jesus or his apostles." (Sabbath Literature, Vol. 1 p. 353)
"A Critical History of the Sabbath and the Sunday in the Christian Church" by A.H.Lewis, D.D., L.D. Pub. by American Sabbath Tract Society.

2. The first Sunday law issued Tuesday, March 7th, 321 A.D., speaks about Sunday only as the "venerable day of the sun", a title purely heathen.
Codex Justinianus, lib.3, tit.12:3 quoted in "History of the Christian Church" by Philip Schaff, Vol.III, p.380, 7 vol.ed.

They emphasize the creation of light and the resurrection of the `Sun of Justice' nowhere commanded or even spoken of in the Bible.

What follows is the translated wording of the First Sunday law:

"Let all judges and townspeople, and the occupations of all trades rest on the Venerable Day of the Sun: nevertheless, let those who are situated in the rural districts, freely and with full liberty attend to the cultivation of the fields; because it frequently happens that no other day may be so fitting for sowing grains and planting vines; lest the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by heaven. Given on the Nones of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls, each of them, for the second time."
[50]

The very next day, Constantine enacted another law giving pagan soothsayers official acceptance in the Empire. In all Constantine issued five additional Sunday laws over a few years to strengthen the first one.

The meaning of these weekly Sunday rituals is explained as follows:

"Constantine sent to the legions, to be recited upon that day, a form of prayer which could have been employed by a worshiper of Mithra, of Serapis, or of Apollo [55], quite as well as by a Christian believer. This was the official sanction of the old custom of addressing a prayer to the rising sun." [60]

Constantine, in council with the local bishop of Rome, aimed at bringing about conditions which would bring peace and prosperity where there was distrust and persecution among the leading religions of the Empire. Thus ths foundations for a compromise were laid transforming the Christian Church away from its scriptural roots in the fourth century A.D.

"The Logos has transformed by the New Alliance the celebration of Sabbath to the rising of the light. He has given us a type of the true rest in the saving day of the Lord, the first day of light. ... In this day of light - first day and the true day of the sun - when we gather after the interval of six days, we celebrate the holy and spiritual Sabbaths. ... All things whatsoever that were prescribed for the Sabbath, We have transferred them to the Lord's day, as being more authoritative and more highly regarded and first in rank, and more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath. In fact it is on the day of the creation of the world that God said, `Let there be light and there was light.' It is also on this day that the Sun of Justice has risen for our souls." [65]

This way Constantine of Rome set it in motion to turn his city into `The City of the Sun,' and every following century additional laws and decrees were passed requiring the worship of Christ on the day before dedicated to Mithra - on pain of death.

All Christians, followers of Jesus Christ, are called to rectify these blatant trespasses of the Law of God, and keep the Seventh Day Sabbath holy again, the day all heaven worships the Creator, so the Lord God can train His people for heaven while still on earth, bless and save them as He has promised.

3. According to the Convert's Catechism, at the synod of Laodicea, held about 365 A.D., the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday: "Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday (Sabbath in the original), but shall work on that day; but the Lord's day they shall especially honour, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ."
Still this resolution did not mean that they were not to have any religious services on Sabbath, for at this same synod they passed several laws concerning Sabbath services. Canon 16 reads: "The Gospels are to be read aloud on the Sabbath with the other Scriptures."
Canon 49 reads: "During Lent the bread must be offered except on the Sabbath day and on the Lord's day only." Hefele, "Councils" Vol.2b, per.93.

4. Athanasius (ca. 295 - 373 ), bishop of Alexandria, left very little which bears upon the Sabbath question. In letter 54th, to Serapion Concerning the Death of Arius, the following passage occurs:

"As we have caused him to be invited by the Emperor in opposition to your wishes, so tomorrow though it be contrary to your desire, Arius shall have communion with us in this church. It was the Sabbath when they said this."
(Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Second series, Vol.4, p.565)
This use of the word Sabbath indicates that the Sabbath still held its place as a day of worship. In the same volume, p.523, in Letter Six for Easter, 334 A.D., Athanasius says that the fast of 40 days began on the 25th of February and continued until the 31st of March, but that it was suspended on the Sabbaths and Sundays during that period.

5. Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem, died 386, associates Sabbath keeping with various pagan errors into which those whom he was teaching were liable to be led. This indicates how rapid was the growth of no-Sabbathism and how intense the opposition to Sabbath-keeping was at that time, because of the prejudice against the Jews. See: Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 7, p.28.

Sunday regulated:

Council decisions:

a) At the Council of Elvira in 305 [100], it was decided that if anyone in the city neglects to come to church for three Sundays, let him be excommunicated for a short time so that he may be corrected. See Charles Joseph Hefele, "History of the Church Councils", Council of Elvira, Canon 21. Edinburgh, T. and T. Clarkem 1894.
b) Jerome's, editor/ translator of the Latin Vulgate (ca. 390) based on a plurality of falsified sources, description of a Sunday at his monastery. "On the Lord's day only they proceeded to the church beside which they lived, each company following its own mother superior. Returning home in the same order, they then devoted themselves to their alotted tasks, and made garments either for themselves or for others." Jerome: "Letters to Eustochius" letter 108. Quoted in "Origin of Sunday Observance in the Christian Church" by W.E.Straw, p.84.
c) Although during these times people were observing Sunday by worshipping on that day, still the idea that no work should be done had not arisen. Even the regulation of church attendance had to be forced by law.
d) The civil legislation in favour of Sunday down to the close of the fifth century differed but little, if at all, from the civil legislation relative to a large number of other festivals.
e) The ecclesiastical action both advisory and legislative sought to discourage "Judaism" and to introduce that false liberty which has ever been the legitimate attendant of no-Sabbathism. They speak of liberty but at the same time they enforce Sunday keeping by law. At best, the Sunday had little or no pre-eminence over days made sacred to saints, emperors, martyrs, and cities. (J.H. Merle D'Aubigne, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, bk. 9, ch. 8)

In the fourth century, Jovian, Helvidius, a great scholar of northern Italy, and Vigilantes accused Jerome, whom the Pope had empowered to form a Bible in Latin for Catholicism, of using corrupt Greek manuscripts. [Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VI. p. 338 (Christian Lit. Ed.)] How could Helvidius have accused Jerome of employing corrupt Greek MSS, if Helvidius had not had the pure Greek manuscripts?

F. Historical Evidences of Sabbath Recognition and Observance.

1. All churches except Alexandria and Rome keep the Sabbath.
a) Socrates, a church father, (cir.385-445) says:
"For although almost all of the churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, refuse to do so."
`Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers', 2nd series, Vol.II, p.132.
`Ecclesiastical History', Vol. V, p. 22.

b) Sozomen (cir.400-443)
"The people of Constantinople, and several other cities, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the next day; which custom is never observed at Rome, or at Alexandria."
Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, Vol.II, p.390.

2. The Sabbath was still honoured in Rome at the time of Pope Gregory I (A.D. 590-604). [200]
"Gregory, servant of the servant's of God, to his most beloved sons of the Roman citizens. It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the Sabbath-day. What else can I call these but preachers of Antichrist, who, when he comes, will cause the Sabbath-day as well as the Lord's day to be kept free from all work. For, because he pretends to die and rise again, he wishes the Lord's day to be kept free from all work. For, because he pretends to die and rise again, he wishes the Lord's day to be kept in reverence; and, because he compels the people to Judaise that he may bring back the outward rite of the law, and subject the perfidy of the Jews to himself, he wishes the Sabbath to be observed....

We therefore accept spiritually this which is written about the Sabbath...

On the Lord's day, however, there should be a cessation of earthly labour, and attention given in every way to prayers so that if anything is done negligently during the six days, it must be expiated by supplications on the day of the Lord's resurrection."
Epistles, Book 13, Epistle 1, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, Vol.13, p.92.

3. Even those who worshipped on Sunday still honoured the Sabbath.

a) Gregory of Nyssa wrote about 372 after disturbances had occurred in a certain church on the Sabbath:
"With what eyes can you behold Sunday, if you desecrate the Sabbath. Don't you know that these days are brethren? He who little esteems the one, disregards also the other."
Migne, Patrologia, Iom. XLVI, bols. 309, 310.

b) Asterius, bishop of Amasa, in the beginning of the fifth century calls Sabbath and Sunday "the mothers and nurses of the church - a beautiful span."
Asterii Arnas Homel, ed. Rubenius Antro, 1615, p.61.

c) Canon 49 at the Synod of Laodicea, 365:
"During Lent the bread must not be offered except on the Sabbath day and on the Lord's day only." [Charles Joseph Hefele, "History of the Councils of the Church" Vol.II, p.316.]
(Note: Human assignments of holy days are being made more important than those of God.)

d) John Cassius, the great missionary to Gaul, wrote:
"There are no public services among them in the day except on Saturday and Sunday, when they meet together at the third hour for the purpose of holy communion."
Nicene and Post-Nicene fathers, 2nd series, Vol.II, p.213.

e) Ambrose's biographer, Paulinus [300], says in his `Life of St. Ambrose', chap. 38:
"He was constant at prayer day and night; he slept little, and fasted every day, except on Sabbath and Sunday."
Quoted in "The Early Christian Sabbath" by Frank H. Yost.

f) The Apostolic Constitution, ca. 375 A.D., Book VII, XXIII says:
"Keep the Sabbath, and the Lord's day festival; because the former is the memorial of creation, and the latter of the resurrection."

Book VIII, XXXIII. "I Peter and Paul do make the following constitutions. Let the slaves work five days; but on the Sabbath day and the Lord's day let them have leisure to go to church for instruction in piety. We have said that the Sabbath is an account of the creation, and the Lord's day of the resurrection."
Ante-Nice fathers, VII, 495. (Probably represents tradition of the eastern church in the third and fourth centuries.[350])

Book II, LIX. "But not careless of yourselves, neither deprive your Saviour of His own members, neither divide His body nor disperse His members, neither prefer the occasions of this life to the word of God; but assemble yourselves together every day, morning and evening, singing psalms and praying in the Lord's house; in the morning saying the sixty-second Psalm, and in the evening the hundred-and-fortieth, but principally on the Sabbath day. And on the day of our Lord's resurrection, which is the Lord's day, meet more diligently sending praise to God that made the universe by Jesus, and sent Him to us, and condescended to let Him suffer and raised Him from the dead." Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, p. 422-423.
Note: The schism between the churches of the East and West came about in 1054 AD. One of the principal issues leading to it was the controversy of Rome still observing the Sabbath day by fasting. The eastern churches regarded the Sabbath too highly to do that, although Sunday keeping was then almost universal. Rome made the Sabbath day a day of fasting because they wanted to make it a day of burdens to get people to hate Sabbath and welcome Sunday keeping. [See additional comments.]

4. The problem of fasting and kneeling in prayer on the Sabbath.
a) The only outward difference between the observance of Sabbath and Sunday was that prayer was performed in a standing posture on Sunday, "As Christ, by His resurrection, had raised up fallen man again to heaven." But even this mere traditional honour was also accorded to the Sabbath, as appears from the following censure of Tertullian's:

"In the matter of kneeling also, prayer is subject of diversity of observances, through the act of some few who abstain from kneeling on the Sabbath; and since this dissension is particularly on its trial before the churches, the Lord will give his grace that the dissidents may either yield or else indulge their opinion without offense to others."
Ante-Nicene fathers, Vol. III, p. 689.

These "few" in North Africa who stood in prayer on the Sabbath, were Christian observers of the Sabbath. As Neander clearly states, it was through the influence of the Christian Sabbath-keepers, "that the custom became general in the Eastern Church of distinguishing this day, was well as Sunday, by the exclusion of fasts, and by the standing position in prayer." Church History, I, p.404.

b) Not only was Rome the very place where the Sabbath day first ceased to be honoured; it was the Roman Church, which, following in the wake of Gnosticism, first dishonoured the Sabbath of the Lord by fasting upon it. Statements of Socrates and Sozomen.

c) To introduce fasting on the Sabbath would prove hostile to the Sabbath observers.[360] The real motive actuating the introduction of Sabbath fasting by the Catholic Church is given vent in the following expression of Bishop Victorinus at the close of the third century:

"Let the fasting on Friday be extended; lest we should appear to observe any Sabbath with the Jews, which Christ, himself the Lord of the Sabbath, says by his prophets that `his soul hateth;' which Sabbath he in his body abolished." Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 18, p. 390. [But John did not know of this.] [370]

d) Neander, "While in the Western, and especially in the Romish Church, where the opposition against Judaism predominated, the custom, on the other hand, grew out of this opposition, of observing the Sabbath also as a fasting day. As early as the beginning of the third century the learned Hippolytus was led to write on this controversy between the Eastern and the Western Church."
Church History, I, 404, 405.

e) Hippolytus at Rome (died 235 AD) was a decided antagonist of the aspiring claims of the Roman bishops. According to Jerome, he wrote a treatise against fasting on the Sabbath as it was practised by the Roman Church. See Jerome, opist. 71, 6.

f) Bishop Ambrose of Milan (340-397) fasted every day except Sabbath and Sunday. He fasted on the Sabbath when at Rome, but not when he was at home in Milan. See Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, 1st series, Vol. I, pp. 300, 301. The council of Nicaea (325-331) was on doctrines. Constantine, by the `Edict of Milan', which took place soon after the `Battle of the Milvian Bridge', in October 312 AD, gained full legal rights for Christianity, equaling that of any other religion in the Roman Empire.

g) Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430 AD) to Jerome:
"If we say that it is wrong to fast on the seventh day we shall condemn not only the Church of Rome, but also many other churches, both neighbouring and more remote, in which the same custom continues to be observed. If, on the other hand, we pronounce it wrong not to fast on the seventh day, how great is our presumption in censuring so many churches in the East, and by far greater part of the Christian world."
Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, 1st series, Vol. I, pp. 353-354.
Augustine, bishop of Hippo, wrote: `Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms?' in The City of God', Book III, par. 38.
Augustine of North Africa developed the saying, `Compel them to come in' which led to unspeakable cruelties of forced conversions, torture and persecutions at the hands of secular authorities, on the request of the church, among so called Christian nations until the end of the 1260 years (1798), the birth of the American Republic.

h) Socrates Scholasticus (cir. 385-445)
"The Arians, as we have said, held their meetings without the city. As often therefore as the festival days occurred - I mean Saturday (Sabbath) and Lord's day - in each week, on which assemblies are usually held in the churches, they congregated within the city gates about the public squares, and say responsive verses adapted to the main heresy."
Nicene & Post Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, Vol. II, p. 144.

5. The Sabbath and the Greek Gospel Lectionary.

a) Only a very few scholars have worked on the lectionary texts.
b) The Saturday lessons prove Sabbath keeping.
c) Bruce M. Metzger writes:
"It is too early in the study of Greek lectionaries to write a detailed history of the development of the system of periscopes. But, if a truism may be indulged, it is obvious that the phenomena observed above must find their explanation in terms of the needs of the early church. What were these needs? A full discussion of the evidence in the Fathers for and against observing Saturday as a holy day is not called for here. It will be sufficient to observe that in the West, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian disapprove of the observance of the Sabbath in the manner of the Jews. Likewise Eusebius deprecates the Ebionites, who, he avers, were half Jewish in their observance of Saturday and half Christian in their observance of Sunday.
But very generally in the Eastern Church the Sabbath, with the exception of the Great Sabbath between Good Friday and Easter Day [372], was observed as a festival. Whenever the Apostolic Constitutions were drawn up in their present form (and they undoubtedly represent the tradition of the Eastern Church in the third and fourth centuries), they reveal that it was the custom of the Church to regard Saturday and Sunday as possessing almost similar sanctity. That solemn assembles for worship were held on both of these days is clear from several canons decreed by the Synod of Laodicea as well as from Socrates' Ecclesistical History. Indeed, in the former an explicit injunction is laid upon the Church to read (publically) the Gospels on the Sabbath, with the other Scriptures. Likewise the Eucharist could be celebrated during Lent only on the Sabbath and the Lord's day. How ancient the usual Constantinopolitan system of periscopes is, it is difficult to determine. G.R.Gregory hazarded the guess that the Sunday lessons were selected about A.D. 100-150 and the Saturday lessons about A.D. 165-175."
Bruce M. Metzger, "The Saturday and Sunday Lessons from Luke in the Greek Gospel Lectionary"

6. Synod of Laodicea, 365 A.D., advocates religious services on the Sabbath, Canon 16 reads: "The Gospels are to be read aloud on the Sabbath with the other Scriptures." Hefele, "Councils" Vol. II, p. 310.

7. Augustine preached on the Sabbath, and in one of his sermons made this remark: "On this day, which is the Sabbath, mostly those are accustomed to meet who are desirous of the Word of God."
In one of his epistles Augustine wrote: "In some places the communion takes place daily, in some only on the Sabbath, and in some only on Sunday." Sermon 128, tom 7, 629; Epistle to Janarius, chapt. 2.; See also Augustine, `Epistle' 36. 14 to Casulanus; `Epistle' 54. 2 to Januarius; and `Epistle' 82 to Jerome.

8. The great church father Athanasius (active 326-373 AD), bishop of Alexandria, writes:
"We are assembled on the day of the Sabbath, not because we are infected with Judaism, for we have never appropriated to ourselves false Sabbaths; but we approach the Sabbath to adore Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath."
[Psendeathan, de semente, tom. 1, p. 885.]
Did Athanasius use a subterfuge, writing Sabbath when he means Sunday?
The Sabbath was before there were any Jews.

This Athanasius was also the first who translated "washed their robes" in Rev. 22:14, whereas Tertullian (ca. 200 AD), Cyprian (248-258 AD) and Tertonius (390 AD) still translated, "do His commandments" according to older Bible Versions with respect to Rev. 22:14. Thus, Athanasius supported or introduced a corrupted rendering of this passage which reveals the MSS. Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and some Alexandrian manuscripts as corrupted. He left indications that by his time the 27 books of the New Testament were recognized as belonging to the canon. That means that sometime before his days, they were already so recognized and that he only used that information in a list in an `Easter' letter.

9. The "Apostolic Constitutions" book 7, chapt. 36 says:
"O Lord Allmighty, Thou hast created the world by Christ, and hast appointed the Sabbath in memory thereof, because that day thou hast made us rest from our works, for the meditation upon thy law."
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, p. 474.

10. Eusebius Pamphili, bishop of Caesarea (ca. 260-335/341), is the first ecclesiastical writer known definitely to teach that the observance of the Sabbath was transferred by Christ to Sunday. Eusebius wrote ca. 330 AD.,

"All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's day, as more appropriately belonging to it, because it has a precedence and is first in rank, and more honourable than the Jewish Sabbath."
Commentary on Psalm 92 in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 23, col. 1171 & 1172.
See also Bernard de Montfaucon's `Collectio Nova Patrum Et Scriptorum Graecorum', (2 vols., folio, Paris, 1706).

In another statement he writes about the Ebonites: "They also observed the Sabbath and other discipline of the Jews just like them, but on the other hand, they also celebrate the Lord's day very much like us." Ecclesiastical History, pages 112, 114.

Comment: The evidences show that the Sabbath was generally observed by Christians during the first four centuries. Its decline was more rapid in the Alexandrian-Romanized branch of the church, where it was made a sorrowful fast day. The Eastern Church, less corrupted by Romish influence, retained the Sabbath for a longer period of time and more nearly after the New Testament conception. Yet, the evidences presented show that even in the West the Sabbath continued to hold its place as late as the seventh century, although condemned by the Catholic Church and legislated against. We think here of Pope Gregory I.

Sabbath and Sunday in the Second Century.

Anti-Judaism

Eusebius describing the outcome of the Bar Cochba revolt writes as follows:
"When the siege had lasted a long time, and the rebels had been driven to the last extremity by hunger and thirst, and the instigator of the rebellion had suffered his just punishment, the whole nation was prohibited from this time on, by a decree and by command of Hadrian, from ever going up to the country about Jerusalem. For the emperor gave orders that they should not even see from a distance the land of their fathers."
(Eusebius, "Ecclesiastical History", book 4, chap. 6; He also used the following Greek translations of the OT, those of Symmachus, Aquila, and Theodotion.; See BA, Mar 1988, p. 22.)

From this time on the Christians desired to differentiate as much as possible between themselves and the Jews. An anti-Jewish sentiment began to come in because the Christians did not wish to give any basis for being classified as Jews, and therefore tried to get as far as possible from Jewish ritual. We hear such remarks as:
"Whoever loveth the Jews, ... should not enter in amongst them (Christians) and ministers."
(Syrian document, "The Teaching of the Apostles", Article 15.)

This feeling increased as time went on, and finally we hear Constantine say:
"Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd."
(Eusebius, "Life of Constantine', book 3, chap. 18.)

He also passed a law to the effect that "no Christian should remain in servitude to a Jewish master."
(Eusebius, "Life of Constantine", bk. 4, ch. 27)

The third synod of Orleans passed a law that:

"Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday ("Sabbath", original). If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out (anathema) from Christ."
(Council of Laodicea, Canon 29. Josiah Strong, Our Country, ch. 5, pars. 2-4.)

Of course, it ought to be understood without saying, today, in this 21st century, we do not support such views on the Jewish community anymore. We can all be children of the divine Father in Heaven.

Constantine and the change from Sabbath to Sunday

"... Himself a worshiper of the sun in the form of Apollo, Emperor Constantine (280-337 AD) was willing to recognize Jesus Christ—"the Sun of Righteousness"—as another manifestation of the sun deity. In certain similarities between the church and paganism that had resulted from reciprocal borrowing, he at first thought he saw an opportunity for forging a unified imperial sun cult, uniting Christians and sun worshipers. His nominal conversion to Christianity did not take place until 323 or 325. ...
When Constantine legalized the church in 313 it was forced to review its opinion of the state, and it hailed a benevolent government as its friend. Constantine followed his decree of liberation with other decrees favoring the church in its various operations, with grants of funds, of privileges, and of powers, both judicial and executive.
Since many Christians had been using Sunday as a day of worship for more than a century and a half, and since many sun worshipers had come to regard the first day of the week as the special astrological "day of the sun," he issued the world's first Sunday law [321 AD], calling for rest from labor on that day.
Constantine did not make Christianity the state religion, but in some respects a bureau of the state. The church accepted these seeming benefits with gratification, not realizing the inherent danger in them until the question arose as to whether the state should dominate the church." [Source: Nichol, Francis D., The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association) 1978., Volume 7, page 19.]

"In the early part of the fourth century the emperor Constantine issued a decree making Sunday a public festival throughout the Roman Empire. The day of the sun was reverenced by his pagan subjects and was honored by Christians; it was the emperor's policy to unite the conflicting interests of heathenism and Christianity. He was urged to do this by the bishops of the church, who, inspired by ambition and thirst for power, perceived that if the same day was observed by both Christians and heathen, it would promote the nominal acceptance of Christianity by pagans and thus advance the power and glory of the church. But while many God-fearing Christians were gradually led to regard Sunday as possessing a degree of sacredness, they still held the true Sabbath as the holy of the Lord and observed it in obedience to the fourth commandment." [Source: Great Controversy, by Ellen White, 1911 edition, page 53.]

The First Sunday Law (March, 321) was Civil, Not Christian.

"So long as Christianity was not recognized and protected by the state, the observance of Sunday was purely religious, a strictly voluntary service, but exposed to continual interruption from the bustle of the world and a hostile community…"
"Constantine is the founder, in part at least, of the civil observance of Sunday, by which alone the religious observance of it in the church could be made universal and could be properly secured… [p. 380] But the Sunday law of Constantine must not be overrated… There is no reference whatever in his law either to the fourth commandment or to the resurrection of Christ. Besides he expressly exempted the country districts, where paganism still prevailed, from the prohibition of labor… Christians and pagans had been accustomed to festival rests; Constantine made these rests to synchronize, and gave the preference to Sunday." [Source: Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3 (5th ed.; New York: Scribner, 1902), pp. 379, 380, quoted in the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Volume 9, Bible Student's Source Book, page 999.]

If Constantine did not cause the final change, who did?

"But notwithstanding all the efforts to establish Sunday sacredness, papists themselves publicly confessed the divine authority of the Sabbath, and the human origin of the institution by which it had been supplanted. In the sixteenth century a papal council plainly declared: "Let all Christians remember that the seventh day was consecrated by God, and hath been received and observed, not only by the Jews, but by all others who pretend to worship God; though we Christians have changed their Sabbath into the Lord's day." [Thomas Morer (1651-1715), Kyriake hemera = `Discourse in Six Dialogues on the Name, Notion, and Observation of the Lord's Day: with an account of several canons, decrees and laws, foreign and English, for the keeping it holy: the way of worship in the Church of England vindicated': and an office or collection of devotions proper for the day, London: printed for Tho. Newborough, 1701, pages 281, 282]
Those who were tampering with the divine law were not ignorant of the character of their work. They were deliberately setting themselves above God. [Source: Great Controversy, by Ellen White, published in 1888, page 577.]

Pope Sylvester I (Jan. 314- Dec. 335 A.D.) Decrees the Transfer of Sabbath Rest to Sunday:

Hrabanus Maurus (776-856), abbot of Fulda and later archbishop of Mainz, Germany, lived after the demise of the Merovingians and the Carolingian house of royals when Pope Leo III (795-816) officiated in Rome in the days of Karl der Große, Charlemagne. Hrabanus, pupil of Alcuin, attained a deserved reputation as a teacher, commentator on the Scriptures, furtherer of clerical education, exceptionally learned in patristics and author of encyclopedia like volumes. Besides, he was a zealous defender of the papacy and its teachings. In one of his works, he says,

"Pope Sylvester instructed the clergy to keep the feriae. And, indeed, from an old custom he called the first day [of the week] the "Lord's [day]," on which the light was made in the beginning and also the resurrection of Christ is celebrated."[380]

Hrabanus Maurus does not mean to say that Sylvester was the first man who referred to the days of the week as feriae or who first started the observance of Sunday among Christians. He means that, according to the testimony of Roman Catholic writers, Sylvester confirmed those practices and made them official insofar as his church was concerned. Hence Hrabanus says elsewhere in his writings:

"Pope Sylvester first among the Romans ordered that the names of the days [of the week], which they previously called after the name of their gods, that is, [the day] of the Sun, [the day] of the Moon, [the day] of Mars, [the day] of Mercury, [the day] of Jupiter, [the day] of Venus, [the day] of Saturn, they should call feriae thereafter, that is the first feria, the second feria, the third feria, the fourth feria, the fifth feria, the sixth feria, because that in the beginning of Genesis it is written that God said concerning each day: on the first, "Let there be light:; on the second, "Let there be a firmament"; on the third, "Let the earth bring forth verdure"; etc. But he [Sylvester I.] ordered [them] to call the Sabbath by the ancient term of the law, [to call] the first feria the "Lord's day," because on it the Lord rose [from the dead], Moreover, the same pope decreed that the rest of the Sabbath should be transferred rather to the Lord's day [Sunday], in order that on that day we should rest from worldly works for the praise of God."[382]

Note particularly, he says that "the same pope [Sylvester I] decreed that the rest of the Sabbath should be transferred rather to the Lord's day [Sunday]."[384] According to this statement, he was the first bishop to introduce the idea that the divinely appointed rest of the Sabbath day should be transferred to the first day of the week. This is significant, especially in view of the fact that it was during Sylvester's pontificate that the emperor of Rome [Constantine] issued the first civil laws compelling men to rest from secular labor on Sunday, and that Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, was the first theologian on record to present arguments, allegedly from the Scriptures, that Christ did transfer the rest of the Sabbath day to Sunday. [Source: Sabbath and Sunday in Early Christianity, by Robert L. Odom, © 1977 by the Review and Herald Publishing Association (An Adventist publishing house), pages 247-248.]

A check of history will reveal the successor to the Roman emperors. With the move of the Roman capitol to Constantinople, there was a political power vacuum that was quickly and willingly filled by the Bishop of Rome:

"Whatever Roman elements the barbarians and Arians left … [came] under the protection of the Bishop of Rome, who was the chief person there after the Emperor's disappearance…"
"The Roman Church in this way privily pushed itself into the place of the Roman World-Empire, of which it is the actual continuation; the empire has not perished, but has only undergone a transformation … That is no mere `clever remark,' but the recognition of the true state of the matter historically, and the most appropriate and fruitful way of describing the character of this Church. It still governs the nations … It is a political creation, and as imposing as a World-Empire, because [it is] the continuation of the Roman Empire. The Pope, who calls himself `King' and `Pontifex Maximus,' is Caesar's successor." [Adolf Harnack, What Is Christianity? trans. by Thomas Bailey Saunders (2d ed., rev.; New York: Putnam, 1901), pp. 269, 270. [Ernest Benn Ltd., London, has recently published a new edition of this book.]

"The archetype from which the pope descends is that of the imperial Caesar, ... while for the most part Italy wasn't even a unified state - unlike France, Spain, England, Russia - that unique supreme Christian authority, purely Italian, nevertheless continued to represent the universality descended from the emperors. It is not paradoxical to say that in Italy the monarchy has continued to exist despite the expulsion of the royal House of Savoy, because the monarchical authority of the pontiff has a charisma and a national power of attraction that no president of the republic has ever been able to claim." [Roberto Pazzi, Why the next pope needs to be Italian, The International Herald Tribune Online, Monday, January 12, 2004, translated by Ann McGarrell from Italian.]

One of the most famous forged documents ever was the Donation of Constantine, which it was claimed, proved that Emperor Constantine (311-337AD)[385] had given authority and property to the Pontiff of Rome. For many centuries the Donation of Constantine was used by the Catholic church to validate it's claim to authority. OK, you say, but that was a forgery - it was not an authentic transfer of power to the Papacy. True. There was such a document however, the authenticity of which is not challenged even to this day. In 533 A.D. Roman Emperor Justinian in the document declared the Bishop of Rome to have the first rank of all pontiffs, head of all Christian churches, and that he (Justinian) would exert every effort to increase the honor and authority of the Apostolic See of Rome! This was the formal transfer of power from the Emperor of Pagan Rome to the Papacy. It should be noted however, the implementation of this decree did not actually occur until 538 A.D. when a siege of Rome by the Ostrogoths was broken.

"We have been sedulous to subject and unite all the priests of the Orient throughout its whole extent to the see of Your Holiness. ... For we do not suffer that anything which is mooted, however clear and unquestionable, pertaining to the state of the churches, should fail to be made known to Your Holiness, as being the head of all the churches. For, as we have said before, we are zealous for the increase of the honor and authority of your see in all respects." [Codex Justinianus, lib. 1, title 1, Baronii Annales Ecclesiasici, Tom. VII, an. 533, sec. 12 (Translation as given in The Petrine Claims, by R.F. Littledale, p. 293.]

"It is, therefore, by a particular decree of Divine Providence that, at the fall of the Roman Empire and its partition into separate kingdoms, the Roman Pontiff, whom Christ made the head and center of his entire Church, acquired civil power." [Pius IX, Apostolic Letter , March 26, 1860.] [Papal Teachings: The Church, selected and arranged by the Benedictine Monks of Solesmes, translated by Mother E. O'Gorman, R.S.C.J., Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, St. Paul Editions, Boston, © 1980, 1962 by Daughters of St. Paul, Library of Congress catalog card number 62-12454, par. #225.]

The Latin translates to "Sacred Lateran Church, Universally for the City and the World, Supreme Mother of Churches", a close match to Revelation 17:5.

What do we mean by Gnosticism? The expression comes from the Greek word `gnosis', meaning `knowledge'. The great heathen religions were looking for some means of salvation.

The place where this striving developed into a great system was at Alexandria, Egypt. Here there was an intermingling of the different religions of the empire, out of which finally grew a great system known as Gnosticism. The greatest influence in this movement was the affiliation of the different schools and religions at Alexandria - one of the greatest university cities in the world at the beginning of the Christian era.

By way of review we may recall that the following characteristics among Gnostics were prevalent:

1. They allegorized the scriptures
2. They worshipped images
3. They clung to philosophical rather than biblical ideas
4. They worshipped the sun as their Christ
5. They observed Sunday
6. They were anti-Jewish in the second and third centuries

In regard to Sunday worship Neander writes:

"They celebrated the Sunday of every week, not on account of its reference to the resurrection of Christ, for that would have been inconsistent with their Docetism, but as the day consecrated to the sun, which was in fact their Christ."
(August Neander, "General History of the Christian Religion and Church", Vol. II, p. 194, London: Henry G. Bohn, 1852.)

Williston Walzer, professor of church history at Yale University said:

"This Old Catholic Church developed its distinguishing characteristics between 166 and 190 A.D."
"Thus out of the struggle with Gnosticism and Romanism came the Old Catholic Church."
"Here a union of what was best in ancient philosophy, chiefly Platonism and Stoicism, was affected to a degree nowhere else realized in orthodox circles, and the result was a Christian Gnosticism."
(Williston Walzer, "A History of the Christian Church", pp. 59, 62, 77. New York: Scribners, 1929.)

The Alexandrian School

Gnosticism evidently had a great influence upon the church members at Alexandria, for whenever we hear from any of them during the first two centuries, it is from men who strongly manifest the sentiments of the Gnostics. Professor Rainy says that in the second century "Gnosticism was, after all, only an extreme case of a general tendency, it was a very general thought that the divine excellency of Christianity must than be ours when we find it rising upon the soul as a deep, pure, comprehensive, wonderful knowledge, ... The author of the epistle ascribed to Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen, are all conspicuous instances."
(Robert Rainy, "The Ancient Catholic Church", p. 117, New York: Scribners, 1902.)

These four men, so conspicuous for the manifestation of Gnostic characteristics, are also the men most conspicuous for allegorizing the Scriptures, spiritualizing the Sabbath, and giving us our early information concerning Sunday observance.

Mithraism

A peculiar form of the cult of the sun was introduced from Persia by Roman soldiery who had, in the century before Christ, been campaigning in the east. This form of worship is called `Mithraism', and its deity was `Solus Invictus' or the unconquerable, invincible sun. According to archaeological evidence, the Mithraists used Sunday, the first day of the week, as their day for doing special honor to the sun. This new pagan religion counterfeited the religion of the true God more cleverly than any other up to that time. The Roman soldiers idolized this day especially, for its worship included athletic feats of skill and "warlike manliness". Franz Cumont, the great French authority on Mithraism, in his book "The Mysteries of Mithra", p. 151, says that the Mithraists "held Sunday sacred and celebrated the birth of the Sun on the twenty-fifth of December."

In his work "Praeparatio Evangelica (Preparation of the Gospel), book 5, chapt. 14, Eusebius states that Sunday was a day for worshipping the sun. He quotes a heathen admonition in this way:

"Remember to invoke in private prayer at the same time Mercury and the sun on the day sacred to the sun, and the moon then her well-known day will have come, and then Saturn, and the one born of Dione (Venus)."
Cologne ed. 1699, Vol. I, p. 202.

Tertullian in his essay `Ad Nationes (To the Gentiles)', book I, chap. 13, shows that Christians, because they kept Sunday, were considered to be sun worshipers, that is because at his time the nations were still in idolatry:

"Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the east, or because We make Sunday a day of festivity. What then? Do you do less than this? Do not many among you, with an affection of sometimes worshipping the heavenly bodies, likewise, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise? It is you, at all events, who have even admitted the sun into the calendar of the week; and you have selected its day, in preference to the preceding day, as the most suitable in the week for either an entire abstinence from the bath, or for its postponement until the evening, or for taking rest and banqueting."
("The Ante-Nicene Fathers", Vol. 3, p. 123.) And so, visitors to the Vatican find sun bursts and emblems having to do with the sun everywhere for it became the real god of Roman worship ever since.

Mosheim, noted church historian of the eighteenth century, says in his `Institutes of Ecclesiastical History':

"Nearly all the people of the East, before the Christian Era, were accustomed to worship with their faces directed towards the sun rising. For they all believed that God, whom they supposed to resemble light, or rather be light, and whom they included within certain bounds, had his residence in that part of the heavens where the sun rises. Those of them, indeed, who became Christians rejected this error, but the custom that originated from it, which was very ancient and universally prevalent, they retained."
(Book 1, cent. 2, pt. 2, ch. 4, par.7, in the Stubbs's edition of of 1863, vol. 1, p. 134.)

Arabian Sun Worship

Long before Islam the Arabians seem to have worshipped the sun and moon directly, without images or deities. We read in a speech of Job:

"If I beheld the sun when it shined or the moon walking in brightness. And my heart has been secretly enticed, or my mouth has kissed my hand. This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge; for I should have denied the God that is above." Job 31:26-27.

Job knew that such false worship was not right, that is why he says, "If I ..." but the people around him had no such reservations.

Another scholar writes:

"Our observance of Sunday as the Lord's day is apparently derived from Mithraism (sun worship). Apparently the observance of Sunday began with the Paulin's churches in Asia Minor, where the Mithraists, numerous and influential, had celebrated Sunday long before the Christian era."
(Gordon J. Laign in `Survivals of Roman Religion", p. 148, 149.)

A marble, 7.5 cm diameter and 1 cm thick medallion was found behind the altar in the Mithraeum at Caesarea which enabled archaeologists to identify the vault as a 3rd century AD sanctuary for the worship of Mithra, the ancient deity of light and truth popular among Roman soldiers. The carved and worn Medallion shows 2 registers. The larger top register shows Mithra slaying a `sacred' bull, below Sol, the sun god, kneels before Mithra; the banquet of Sol and Mithra; and Mithra riding a bull toward a reclining figure.[BAR, May 1982, p. 36. A second image, p. 37, shows the stone altar remains with a round depression which once may have held the medallion.]

A. Paiva, a Portugese writer on the subject of Mithraism, says:

"The first day of each week, Sunday, was consecrated to Mithra since times remote, as several authors affirm. Because the Sun was god, the Lord par excellence, Sunday came to be called the Lord's day, as later was done by Christianity."
(Agostino de Almeida Paiva, "O Mitraismo", p. 3)

Also he compares Mithraism and Sunday keeping Christianity this way:

"The one and the other hallowed Sunday, as the Lord's day, and the one and the other celebrated the birth of its god on the 25th December; and it is beyond doubt that Mithraism preceded Christianity in this and in other points."
(Agostino de Almeida Paiva, "O Mitraismo", p. 60.)

Arthur Weigall, a historian who is well known, wrote:

"As a solar festival [387], Sunday was the sacred day of Mithra; and it is interesting to notice that since Mithra was addressed as Dominus (`Lord'), Sunday must have been `the Lord's day' long before Christian times."
(A. Weigall, "The Paganism in our Christianity', p. 145.)

And not a few other authors take the same perspective as that held by Gilbert Murray, who writes:

"It (Mithraism) had so much acceptance that it was able to impose on the Christian world its own Sun-Day in place of the Sabbath, it's Sun's birthday, the 25th of December, as the birthday of Jesus."
(G. Murray, "Religion and Philosophy", in "Christianity in the Light of Eastern Knowledge", pp. 73, 74.)

A well-known Roman Catholic work, "The Catholic Encycloporfia", not only states that in Mithraism ...

"the seven days of the week were dedicated to the planets," but also

declares,

"Sunday was kept holy in honor of Mithra."
(The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, pp. 403, 404, art. "Mithraism".)

And the Encyclopedia Britannica mentions that "the manifestations of Sunday and of the 25th of December" was a special feature of Mithraism, and says:

"Each day of the week was marked by the adoration of a special planet, the Sun being the most sacred of all."
(Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th ed. Vol. 15, pp. 620, 621.)

Comparing Mithraism and Christianity, "The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge" affirms:

"Both regarded Sunday as sacred."

It also remarks:

"So, too the Sun, Moon, and planets were objects of regard, Babylonian influence wove into Mithraism its theories of the control by each of the planets of one day in the week."
("The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge", Vol. 7, pp. 419, 421, art. "Mithra", "Mithraism".)

And Chambera's Encyclopedia notes:

"Parallels to Christianity in Mithraic legend, in Mithraic ceremony, and in Mithraic belief will have been apparent, and other resemblances, as the sanctification of Sunday and of the 25th of December, the birthday of Mithra, might be cited."
(Chambera's Encyclopedia, 1926 ed. Vol. 7, p. 241, art. "Mithra".)

Babylon and Rome

Commenting on Babylonia and what Babylon may have to do with Rome we find the following relationship. There is only one church that history shows to have made the claim of authority over the kings of the earth. That church is the Roman Catholic Church, and Babylon is the code word for the city of Rome.

"The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son." 1.Peter 5:13.

"`Babylon,' from which Peter addresses his first Epistle, is understood by learned annotators, Protestant and Catholic, to refer to Rome - the word Babylon being symbolic of the corruption then prevailing in the city of the Caesars."

The Council of Trent on the Sabbath

History shows that Sunday worship replacing the Sabbath is a tradition of man, specifically introduced in the early Roman church. This was a key subject at the Council of Trent, held in northeast Italy (1545 to 1563). The papal tactician was the skilled Jesuit Lainez who became the general of the order by 1558.[388] The papal representative, the Archbishop of Reggio, silenced the "scripture only" arguments of Martin Luther and the Protestant "reformers" when he correctly stated:

"The Protestants claim to stand upon the written word only; they profess to hold the Scriptures alone as the standard of faith. They justify their revolt by the plea that the Church has apostatized from the written word and follows tradition. Now the Protestant's claim that they stand upon the written word alone is not true. Their profession of holding the Scriptures alone as the standard of faith is false. Proof ... The written word explicitly enjoins the observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath. They do not observe the seventh day, but reject it. If they truly hold the Scriptures alone as the standard, they would be observing the seventh day as it is enjoined in the Scripture throughout. Yet they not only reject the observance of the Sabbath as enjoined in the written word, but they have adopted, and do practice, the observance of Sunday, for which they have only the tradition of the (Catholic) Church. Consequently, the claim of Scripture alone as the standard fails and the doctrine of 'Scripture and tradition as essential' is fully established, the Protestants themselves being Judges." [390]

There was no getting around this, for the Protestants' own statement of faith — the Augsburg Confession, 1530 — had clearly admitted that "the observation of the Lord's day" had been appointed by "the Church" only. [See the proceedings of the Council; Augsburg Confession; and Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Trent, Council of."]

It is obvious today that Protestants observe Sunday because for many centuries they had been part of the Roman Catholic Church and had observed the commandment of that church to keep Sunday holy.

Few know that the haggling over tradition in the Catholic faith dominated the `Council of Trent' but was quickly settled in one day when the archbishop of Reggio, Gaspar del Fosso made a speech in which he stated that tradition within the chuch stands above the Scriptures, because Rome successfully changed worship from Sabbath to Sunday and all the world follows in that.

"Finally, at the last opening session on the 18th of January, 1562, their last scruple was set aside; the Archbishop of Reggio made a speech in which he openly declared that tradition stood above Scripture. The authority of the church had changed the Sabbath into Sunday, not by the command of Christ but by its own authority. With this act the last illusion was destroyed, and it was declared that tradition does not signify antiquity, but continual inspiration." [Holtzman, J.H., Canon and Tradition, p. 263.]

We should not be surprised that many Protestant clergy have spoken in perplexity about the acceptance of a pagan holiday as the Sabbath day; yet most, like the concerned Dr Hiscox, seem to suppress their conscience in the interest of conformity and unity. We read:

"Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from the Christian Fathers [Roman Catholic clergy?] and other sources. But what a pity that it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, when adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism." [395]

It is encouraging to note that not all Baptists denied their conscience by taking the easy road to conformity. In the early nineteenth century, a small group pressed forward along the path of reformation and formed a Sabbath-keeping church known as Seventh-day Baptists.

How was the Sabbath changed
by Ralph Larson

Italy
As late as the year 791, Christians still kept the true Sabbath in Italy. Canon 13 of the council of Friaul, states: "Further, when speaking of that Sabbath which the Jews observe—the last day of the week—and which also our peasants observe, He said only Sabbath…" Mansi 13, 851. Quoted in History of the Sabbath, Andrews, 539.

Northern Italy
"First therefore they called them Waldenses and because they observed no other day of rest but the Sabbath days, they called them insabbathas, as much as to say, as they observed no Sabbath." John P. Perris, Luther's Forerunners, 7–8, London, 1624.

"Robinson gives an account of some of the Waldenses of the Alps, who were called…Insabbatati. 'One says they were so named from the Hebrew word Sabbath, because they kept the Saturday for the Lord's day. Another says they were so called because they rejected all the festivals.'" General History of the Baptist Denomination, vol. 2, 413.

France
Louis XII, King of France, ordered an investigation of the lives of those Waldenses living in his country. It was reported to him that 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." William Jones, History of the Christian Church, vol. 2, 71–72.

How and When was the Sabbath Changed?

Spain
From a decree of King Alphonso (published about 1194): "I command you that …heretics, to wit, Waldenses, Insabbathi (sabbathkeepers) and those who call themselves the poor of Lyons and all other heretics should be expelled away from the face of God…and ordered to depart from our kingdom." Marianae, Praefatio in Lucan Tudensem, vol. 25, 190.

England
In the 17th Century, several ministers were persecuted for defending the Bible Sabbath. John Trask was put in prison; his wife remained in prison 15 years. John James was hanged for defending the Sabbath, and his head placed on a pole near the meeting house as a warning to others. Dr. Thomas Banfield, a former speaker in one of Cromwell's parliaments, wrote two books advocating the Sabbath truth, and likewise went to prison. Edward Stennet, a minister, wrote a book entitled, "The Seventh Day is the Sabbath of the Lord." And from prison he wrote a long and pathetic letter to Sabbathkeepers in the Rhode Island colony (1688). See Christian Edwardson's Facts of Faith, 144.

Scotland
"They held that Saturday was properly the Sabbath on which they abstained from work." Skene, Celtic Scotland, vol. 2, 349.

"They worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a sabbatical manner…These things Margaret abolished." A History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation, vol. 1, 96.

Ireland
"The Celts used a Latin Bible unlike the Vulgate, and kept Saturday as a day of rest, with special religious services on Sunday." Flick, The Rise of the Medieval Church, 237.

"It seems to have been customary in the Celtic churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a day of rest from labor. They obeyed the fourth commandment literally upon the seventh day of the week." Moffat, The Church in Scotland, 140.

Moravia-Bohemia
"I find from a passage in Erasmus that at the early period of the Reformation of which he wrote, there were Sabbatarians in Bohemia, who not only kept the seventh day, but were said to be …scrupulous in resting on it." Cox Literature on the Sabbath Question, 201–202.

The great missionary leader, Count Zinzendorf, wrote in 1738: "I have employed the Sabbath for rest for many years already, and our Sunday for the proclamation of the gospel—that I have done without design and in simplicity of heart." Dugingsche Sammlung, 224.

And we might add the testimony of more historians but surely this is enough to show you that wherever the apostles went—east, west, north, or south—commandment keeping churches sprang up, churches who observed the true Bible Sabbath.

The Celtic Church

"They worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a Sabbatical manner."
("A History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation," Vol. 1, p. 96, New York: Dodd, Mead, and Co., 1900.)

"Having continued his labors in Scotland thirty-four years he clearly and openly foretold his death, and on Saturday, the ninth of June, said to his disciple Diermit: `This day is called the Sabbath, that is, the rest day, and such will it truly be to me; for it will put an end to my labors.'"
(Butler's "Lives of the Saints", Vol. 1, A.D. 597, art. "St. Columba", p. 762, New York: F.F. Collier.)

In a footnote to Blair's translation of the Catholic historian, Bellesheim, we read:

"We seem to see here an allusion to the custom, observed in the early monastic Church of Ireland, of keeping the day of rest on Saturday, or the Sabbath."
("History of the Catholic Church in Scotland", Vol. 1, p. 86.)

Professor James C. Moffatt, D.D., Professor of Church History at Princeton University says:

"It seems to have been customary in the Celtic churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a day of rest from labor. They obeyed the fourth commandment literally upon the seventh day of the week."
("The Church in Scotland", p. 140. Philadelphia, 1882.)[400]

The Celts

"The celts permitted their priests to marry, the Romans forbade it. The Celts held their own councils and enacted their own laws, independent of Rome. The Celts used a Latin Bible unlike the Vulgate, and kept Saturday as a day of rest, with special religious services on Sunday."
(Alexander G. Flick, "The Rise of the Medieval Church", p. 237.
New York: The Knickerbocker Press.)

An Appeal to the Celts

Today's Celts, or those who consider themselves such, seem to have forgotten, and like disobedient Israel of old, have forsaken the straight path of their ancestors and seem to follow a crooked path leading them under the influence of the enemy of the Lord Jesus. Dear Celtic People, This Website loves your history but please consider these things.

In this world it is only a small minority, a remnant, the little flock, which keeps the Sabbath day holy. They know that many Sunday keepers will yet join the true Sabbath keepers when the issues become clearer to them. It is only in this world that people refuse to worship God on His holy day. While they think themselves in majority, they are a vast minority compared to the rest of God's universe. As the RCC adopted Sunday sacredness in tandem with their pagan heritage, Protestant churches, having come out of her, failed to reform this unbiblical practice. Consequently they partake of her worship on the day of the sun. That they do it, perhaps not realizing, half heartedly may be evidenced by their lax worship standards for that first day of the week. Imagining themselves to not be under the law, they openly break all kinds of laws, trafficking and merchandising on their day, as much as the unconverted do. Considering themselves called of God, they fail to realize that they follow the god of this world and that all their other nice words and true to scripture sermonizing cannot erase that lie which they cling to, when they wake up Sunday mornings after having engaged in open rebellion on God's holy day the day before.

To proclaim that the Sabbath has been changed would be to consider it as grass that will wither and change with age, but according to God's Word we read:

"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever." Isaiah 40:8

Should the law of God need revising? Anything that needs revision is imperfect. But we read:

"The law of the Lord is perfect ..." Psalm 19:7

God's Word and logic tells us, if something is already perfect, any attempted change will only render it imperfect.

Keeping the day of the sun not only transgresses against the 4th commandment but also the first, for it says:

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image ..." Exodus 20:3-4

God abhorred sun worshipping so much, that He gave Moses specific instructions how to erect the tabernacle in the wilderness, He gave him specific instruction to erect it facing east. Then when the Israelites came to worship in the morning, facing the tabernacle, they had to turn their backs to the east and to the rising of the sun, in contrast, to what sun worshippers were doing.[430]

The Israelites were taught not to intermarry with idolaters, the sun worshippers; neither were they to practice or adopt the religion of the sun worshippers, or to worship on Sunday, the day of the sun. They were to abhor the practice of bowing down to the sun, a creation of God. Neither were they to worship on Sunday, for the seventh day had been set aside since the days of creation to be hallowed. [450]

Excerpts on `The Christian Sabbath'

Source: The `Catholic Mirror', Vol XI.IV. No. 34, Saturday, September 2, 1893, p. 8.

What Protestant pulpit does not ring almost every Sunday with loud and impassioned invectives against Sabbath violation? Who can forget the fanatical clamor of the Protestant ministers throughout the length and breadth of the land against opening the gates of the World's Fair on Sunday? the thousands of petitions, signed by millions, to save the Lord's Day from desecration? Surely, such general and widespread excitement and noisy remonstrance could not have existed without the strongest grounds for such animated protests.

And when quarters were assigned at the World's Fair to the various sects of Protestantism for the exhibition of articles, who can forget the emphatic expressions of virtuous and conscientious indignation exhibited by our Presbyterian brethren, as soon as they learned of the decision of the Supreme Court not to interfere in the Sunday opening? The newspapers informed us that they flatly refused to utilize the space accorded them, or open their boxes, demanding the right to withdraw the articles, in rigid adherence to their principles, and thus decline all contact with the sacrilegious and Sabbath-breaking Exhibition.

Doubtless, our Calvinistic brethren deserved and shared the sympathy of all the other sects, who, however, lost the opportunity of posing as martyrs in vindication of the Sabbath observance. They thus became a "spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men," although their Protestant brethren, who failed to share the monopoly, were uncharitably and enviously disposed to attribute their steadfast adherence to religious principle, to Pharisaical pride and dogged obstinacy. Our purpose in throwing off this article, is to shed such light on this all-important question (for were the Sabbath question to be removed from the Protestant pulpit, the sects would feel lost, and the preachers be deprived of their "Cheshire cheese") that our readers may be able to comprehend the question in all its bearings, and thus reach a clear conviction.

The Christian world is, morally speaking, united on the question and practice of worshiping God on the first day of the week.

The Israelites, scattered all over the earth, keep the last day of the week sacred to the worship of the Deity. In this particular, the Seventh-day Adventists (a sect of Christians numerically few) have also selected the same day.

Israelites and Adventists both appeal to the Bible for the divine command, persistently obliging the strict observance of Saturday.

The Israelite respects the authority of the Old Testament only, but the Adventist, who is a Christian, accepts the New Testament on the same ground as the Old: viz., an inspired record also. He finds that the Bible, his teacher, is consistent in both parts, that the Redeemer, during His mortal life, never kept any other day than Saturday. The Gospels plainly evince to him this fact; whilst, in the pages of the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse, not the vestige of an act canceling the Saturday arrangement can be found.

The Adventists, therefore, in common with Israelites, derive their belief from the Old Testament, which position is confirmed by the New Testament, endorsing fully by the life and practice of the Redeemer and His apostles the teaching of the Sacred Word for nearly a century of the Christian era.

Numerically considered, the Seventh-day Adventists form an insignificant portion of the Protestants population of the earth, but, as the question is not one of numbers, but of truth, and right, a strict sense of justice forbids the condemnation of this little sect without a calm and unbiased investigation; this is none of our funeral.

The Protestant world has been, from its infancy, in the sixteenth century, in thorough accord with the Catholic Church, in keeping "holy," not Saturday, but Sunday. The discussion of the grounds that led to this unanimity of sentiment and practice of over 300 years, must help toward placing Protestantism on a solid basis in this particular, should the arguments in favor of its position overcome those furnished by the Israelites and Adventists, the Bible, the sole recognized teacher of both litigants, being the umpire and witness. If however, on the other hand, the latter furnish arguments, incontrovertible by the great mass of Protestants, both cases of litigants, appealing to their common teacher, the Bible, the great body of Protestants, so far from clamoring, as they do with vigorous pertinacity for the strict keeping of Sunday, have no other resource [recourse] left than the admission that they have been teaching and practicing what is Scripturally false for over three centuries, by adopting the teaching and practice of what they have always pretended to believe an apostate church, contrary to every warrant and teaching of sacred Scripture. To add to the intensity of this Scriptural and unpardonable blunder, it involves one of the most positive and emphatic commands of God to His servant, man: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."

No Protestant living today has ever yet obeyed that command, preferring to follow the apostate church referred to than his teacher the Bible, which, from Genesis to Revelation, teaches no other doctrine, should the Israelites and Seventh-day Adventists be correct. Both sides appeal to the Bible as their "infallible" teacher. Let the Bible decide whether Saturday or Sunday be the day enjoined by God. One of the two bodies must be wrong, and, whereas a false position on this all-important question involves terrible penalties, threatened by God Himself, against the transgressor of this "perpetual covenant," we shall enter on the discussion of the merits of the arguments wielded by both sides. Neither is the discussion of this paramount subject above the capacity of ordinary minds, nor does it involve extraordinary study. It resolves itself into a few plain questions easy of solution:

1st. Which day of the week does the Bible enjoin to be kept holy?
2nd. Has the New Testament modified by precept or practice the original command?
3rd. Have Protestants, since the sixteenth century, obeyed the command of God by keeping "holy" the day enjoined by their infallible guide and teacher, the Bible? and if not, why not?

Today's Reasons

Law according to Pope John XXII.

"He (the Pope) alone promulgates the law; he alone is absolved from all law. He alone sits in the chair of St. Peter, not as mere man, but as man and God ... His will is law; what he pleases has the force of law." [Pope John XXII in one of his edicts according to Milman's `History of Latin Christianity', Vol. VII, book XII, Chap. VI.

A Statement of Father Enright.

"It was the holy Catholic Church that changed the day of rest from Saturday to Sunday the first day of the week. And it not only compelled all to keep Sunday but urged all persons to labor on the seventh day under pain of anathema. Protestants profess great reverence for the Bible, and yet by their solemn act of keeping Sunday they acknowledge the power of the Catholic Church."
"The Bible says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, but the Catholic Church says, No, keep the first day of the week, and, lo, the entire civilized world bows down in reverend obedience to the command of the Holy Catholic Church."
[Father Enright, long time president of Redemptor's College of America.]

The reasons given today for keeping Sunday as the weekly holy day have changed. In his `Dies Domini', Pope John Paul II in 1998 admonishes his followers to be more faithful to keep Sunday. He backs this up by even going back to creation week, Genesis 2:2, calling Sabbath as if it was Sunday to support Sunday keeping, calling Sunday the church's precept. [`Dies Domini', Paragraph 18.]

"Sunday was established through Christian reflection and pastoral practice and wise pastoral intuition." [Paragraph, 27.]

"Christians felt, they had the authority to transfer Sabbath to Sunday."{Par. 63]

"Spiritual and pastoral riches of Sunday as it has been handed down to us by tradition." [Par. 81]

Comment: So it is evident that, in order for the papacy to be able to claim that the Pope is a god on earth, they must demonstrate that claim with an action, daring and dramatic enough so people will believe him. It is a sad fact, when people ignore the Word of God or do not know it, they are easy prey by clever impostors. Such they did by setting up a counterfeit day to keep as if it was holy.

Teeth and Claw in Roman Law

Pope John Paul II. said, "In this matter, my predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical Rerum Novarum, spoke of Sunday rest as a worker's right, which the state must guarantee." (Pope Leo XIII, was the Pope, at the end of the nineteenth century, who stated that it was diabolical doctrine to preach religious liberty.) From these statements it is clear—religious liberty is certainly not what the Pope has in mind. {See the entire article here.}

Why an Apostolic Letter then?

What was the atmosphere in which the Pope sent out this letter full of Biblical falsehoods and scholarship of the poorest type? Many people have been studying this letter, without seeing it in the context of his prior letter that was sent out on May 28, 1998. That letter was sent out in order to inject into the Roman Catholic Canon law some additional penance. Every one of these new laws deals with punishment! And that is the context in which this letter follows (the one of).

Those of us who are well acquainted with Revelation 13:15–17, know that the time is nigh when persecution will come to those who are faithful to the law of God, who desire to worship God in holiness on His holy day.

One of these new Canons, number 1436 states: "Whoever denies a truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith or who calls into doubt or who totally repudiates the Christian faith and does not retract after having been legitimately warned is to be punished as a heretic or an apostate with a major excommunication. A cleric moreover can be punished with other penalties not excluding these positions. In addition to these paces, whoever obstinately rejects the teaching that the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops exercising the authentic magisterium have set forth to be held definitively or who affirms what they have condemned as erroneous and does not retract after having been legitimately warned, is to be punished with an appropriate penalty."

Why did the Roman Catholic Church have to create this new Canon law in May, 1998, just prior to the issuing of this apostolic letter on Sunday, which is calling for civil legislation in the matter of Sunday worship? It is time for us to WAKE UP! We are at the end of earth's history. Prophecy is being fulfilled and everything is in place. In the United States everything is in place for the enactment of Sunday laws and penalties of a severe na