There is strong incidental evidence that Columba, the leading minister of his time among the Culdees, was an observer of the ancient Sabbath of the Bible. On this point I quote two standard authors of the Roman Catholics. They certainly have no motive to put such words as I here quote, fraudulently into the mouth of Columba, for they claim him as a saint, and they are no friends of the Bible Sabbath. Nor can we see how Columba could have used these words with satisfaction, as he evidently did, when dying, had he all his life long been a violator of the ancient rest-day of the Lord. Here are the words of Dr. Alvan Butler:—
“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 day of rest, and such will it truly be to me; for it will put an end to my labors.’”[874]
Another distinguished Catholic author gives us his dying words thus:—
“To-day is Saturday, the day which the Holy Scriptures call the Sabbath, or rest. And it will be truly my day of rest, for it shall be the last of my laborious life.”[875]
These words show, 1. That Columba believed that Saturday was the true Bible Sabbath. 2. That he did not believe the Sabbath had been changed to Sunday. 3. That this confession of faith respecting the Bible Sabbath was made with evident satisfaction, though in view of immediate death. Did any first-day man ever recur with pleasure on his death-bed to the fact that Saturday is the Bible Sabbath?
But Gilfillan quotes these words of Columba as spoken in behalf of Sunday! In giving a list of eminent men who have asserted the change of the Sabbath, or who have called Sunday the Sabbath, and have taught that it should be observed as a day of sacred rest, he brings in Columba thus:—
“The testimony of Columba is specially interesting, as it expresses the feelings of the heart at a moment which tests the sincerity of faith, and the value of a creed: ‘This day,’ he said to his servant, ‘in the sacred volume is called the Sabbath, that is, rest; and will indeed be a Sabbath to me, for it is to me the last day of this toilsome life, the day on which I am to rest (sabbatize), after all my labors and troubles, for on this coming sacred night of the Lord (Dominica nocte), at the midnight hour, I shall, as the Scriptures speak, go the way of my fathers.’”[876]
But this day which Columba said “will indeed be a Sabbath to me” was not Sunday but Saturday.
Among the dissenters from the Romish church in the period of the Dark Ages, the first place perhaps is due to the Waldenses, both for their antiquity and the wide extent of their influence and doctrine. Benedict quotes from their enemies respecting the antiquity of their origin:—
“We have already observed from Claudius Seyssel, the popish archbishop, that one Leo was charged with originating the Waldensian heresy in the valleys, in the days of Constantine the Great. When those severe measures emanated from the Emperor Honorious against rebaptizers, the Baptists left the seat of opulence and power, and sought retreats in the country, and in the valleys of Piedmont; which last place in particular became their retreat from imperial oppression.”[877]