A handbook of Freethought

by Unknown

One Day in Seven?

The observance of a seventh part of the week is no more a revelation than the multiplication table is. It was natural for man to measure the spaces of time. The revolution of the earth, or from sun to sun was a day, and from new moon to new moon was a month of twenty-eight days. It was a most natural thing to have feasts at the full of the moon and at new moon; between these times were the “horned moon,” and this marked another division of time. It was easy to divide the full moon into four periods, each of seven days. Hence originated the observance of one day in seven. After the moon time had been divided into four parts each of seven days and the days specifically named, then the old phraseology of “new moon days” was dropped as it was no longer needed.

There are two different reasons given for observing the Sabbath:

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. ([Exodus 20 : 11].)

And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day. ([Deuteronomy 5 : 15].)

Here are two distinct and contradictory accounts given of the origin of the Sabbath. According to the first, God instituted the Sabbath on the seventh day of time, immediately after his six days of creation. But if we are to believe the writer of Deuteronomy the Sabbath was set up as a memorial day of the Jews’ escape from Egyptian bondage; an occurrence that took place something like two thousand five hundred years after the year one, of creation. Both of these statements cannot be correct, as one excludes the other. And in view of the fact that man naturally learned to divide time into days, moons, and quarter moons we are strongly inclined to think that both of these ancient accounts are mythical.

“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”

The word holy has lost its original signification. The Hebrew word kadosh means “to set apart.” Parkhurst renders it, “to separate, to set apart from its common and ordinary to some higher use or purpose.” It is used in this sense in [Genesis 4] : “And God divided [i.e. separated] the light from the darkness.”

The vessels of the sanctuary were to be “Holy unto the Lord;” that is, they were to be kept strictly separate from other vessels, for the sanctuary.

The saba or Sabbath was a day of rest, and the command to keep it holy did not mean that it should be observed with solemnity, or kept by offering sacrifices or in the performance of other religious ceremonies. Other days were working days, but the Sabbath was to be a day of rest.

“The word holy,” says a modern writer on the Sabbath, “has now become so associated in our minds with Puritanical ideas of self-mortification and with modern religious forms of worship, that we are naturally misled by it from the meaning of the original. Many pious persons suppose that the command to keep the Sabbath day holy was equivalent to an injunction to attend a parish church, hear two or more sermons in the course of the Sunday and during the rest of the day to keep in-doors and read the Bible. The Jews, however, did not do this, for the Bible was not written, and sermons in its exposition (which would have wanted texts) could not well be preached. Nor does it appear from any passage in the books of Moses, that religious admonitions or discourses of any kind formed a part of the tabernacle service.”

The Jewish Sabbath was emphatically a day of rest. Work, therefore, was strictly prohibited; for “Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.” ([Exodus 31 : 15].)

This law was not so literal as subsequent interpreters have made it. We have an account of only one person being put to death for this crime. It is recorded in [Numbers, 15 : 32–36] that “while the children of Israel were in the wilderness they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day.”

And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation.

And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.

And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.

And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses.

This was the only case in all the Hebrew writings, of stoning a man for gathering sticks on the Sabbath. But this single instance has engendered an infinite amount of bitter persecution in the hearts of the over-righteous, who keep the Sabbath holy and try also to make their neighbors observe it in a like manner.

Sir Humphrey Davy relates in his “Salmonia,” page 1,345, that he “was walking on Arthur’s Seat with some of the most distinguished professors of Edinburgh attached to the geological opinions of the late Dr. Hutton, a discussion took place upon the phenomena presented by the rocks under our feet, and to exemplify a principle, Professor Playfair broke some stones, in which I assisted the venerable and amiable philosopher.

“We had hardly examined the fragments, when a man from the crowd, who had been assisting at field-preaching, came up and warned us off, saying, ‘Ye think ye are only stane-breakers; but I ken ye are Sabbath breakers, and ye deserve to be staned with your ain stanes.’”

Accidents which take place on Sunday are looked upon by some people as “Judgments of God.”

In Scotland on January 16th, 1603 the citizens were dreadfully alarmed by an earthquake, on account of which a day of fasting and humiliation was appointed by the magistrates and clergy. The particular sin for which this scourge was thought to be sent, was the custom of salmon-fishing on Sunday.

But this rigid feature of the Jewish Sabbath was of a negative character, as the day was observed as a day of feasting and joy—a day something like our Thanksgiving.

A variety of minor regulations referring to bodily indulgences on that day, abundantly prove, if further proof were needed, its recognized character as a “feast-day” in the natural and general sense of the term, in Judaism. It was to be honored by the wearing of finer garments, by three special meals of the best cheer the house could afford; and it was considered a particularly meritorious thing on the part of the master of the house to busy himself personally as much as possible with the furnishing of the viands, nay, the fetching of the very wood for the cooking, so as to do as much honor to the “bride-sabbath” as in him lay.

Fasting, mourning, mortification of all and every kind, even special supplicatory prayers are strictly prohibited. (Chamber’s Encyclopedia.)

If Sunday takes the place of the Sabbath, then the New Testament would clearly reveal the fact; but it does nothing of the kind. If the new religion was designed to take the place of the old, then we should expect to find Jesus plainly teaching that after his death Sunday should be observed in place of and as the Sabbath. But far from this, we find him repudiating the Jewish Sabbath, and saying nothing at all about a new day of ceremonies and worship.

We give a number of instances where Jesus intentionally repudiates and violates the common usages respecting the Sabbath:

The impotent man answered him, [Sir, I] have no man, when the water is troubled to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.

Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.

And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked: and on the same day was the Sabbath.

The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the Sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.

And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath day. ([John 5 : 7, 8, 9, 10] and [16].)

The Jewish law regarding the Sabbath was strict. It was not lawful to carry burdens on that day.

Thus saith the Lord, Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. ([Jeremiah 17 : 21].)

And it came to pass that he went through the corn fields on the Sabbath day; and his disciples began as they went to pluck the ears of corn.

And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the Sabbath day that which is not lawful? And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was a hungered, he and they that were with him?

How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shew-bread, which is not lawful to eat, but for the priests, and gave also to them that were with him?

And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. ([Mark 2 : 23–27].)

Jesus had repeated conflicts with the Jews on this question. He would not honor the Jewish Sabbath, and consequently the Jews made war upon him, threatening to take his life.

And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the Sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him. But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth.

Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the Sabbath days to do good or to do evil? to save life or to destroy it?

And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so; and his hand was restored whole as the other. ([Luke 6 : 7–11].)

And they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus. ([Luke 6 : 11].)

We read in [Luke 13 : 11–14], that “there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.”

And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.

And he laid his hands upon her; and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.

And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which man ought to work; in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.

With the commandment before his eyes, saying: “Take heed to yourselves and bear no burdens on the Sabbath day as I commanded your fathers,” ([Jeremiah 18 : 21]), Jesus deliberately bade the cripple take up his bed and walk, on the Sabbath day.

It is remarkable that those people who love to sabbatize so much, and to make others do so too, do not see that while Jesus violated intentionally the Jewish Sabbath, that he never gave his disciples the slightest hint that they should observe Sunday in any manner whatever.

Paul, the founder of the Christian church, rejects the Sabbath.

Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of any holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days. ([Colossians 2 : 16].)

One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. ([Romans 14 : 5, 6].)

But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days and months and times and years. ([Galatians 4 : 9, 10].)

Bear in mind, reader, that there is not so much as a dot in the New Testament in favor of substituting Saturday for the Jewish Sabbath, or for observing it as a Sabbath day. Jesus and Paul both repudiate it. The history of the church is against the use of Sunday as the Sabbath.

St. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, in the year 345, says: “Turn thou not out of the way into Samaritanism or Judaism, for Jesus Christ hath redeemed thee; henceforth reject all observance of Sabbaths, and call not meats, which are really matters of indifference, common or unclean.”

St. Jerome, in the year 392, says: “On the Lord’s day they went to church, and returning from church they would apply themselves to their allotted works and make garments for themselves and others. The day is not a day of fasting, but a day of joy; the church has always considered it a day of joy, and none but heretics have thought otherwise.”

Sir William Danville, in his “Six Texts,” p. 241, says: “Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the sabbatical edict of Constantine in A. D. 321.