The first, second, third, fourth, and seventh, of these testimonies are inexcusable frauds, while the fifth and sixth have no decisive bearing upon the case.
1. Ignatius, the first of these witnesses, it is said, must have known Sunday to be the Lord’s day, for he calls it such, and he had conversed with the apostle John. But in the entire writings of this father the term Lord’s day does not once occur, nor is there in them all a single mention of the first day of the week! The reader will find a critical examination of the epistles of Ignatius in chapter fourteen of this history.
2. It is a pure fabrication that the martyrs in Pliny’s time, about A. D. 104, and thence onward, were tested by the question whether they had kept the Sunday-Lord’s day. No question at all resembling this is to be found in the words of the martyrs till we come to the fourth century, and then the reference is not at all to the first day of the week. This is fully shown in chapter fifteen.
3. The Bible Dictionary of the American Tract Society, page 379, brings forward the third of these Sunday-Lord’s day witnesses in the person of Justin Martyr, A. D. 140. It makes him call Sunday the Lord’s day by quoting him as follows:—
“Justin Martyr observes that ‘on the Lord’s day all Christians in the city or country meet together, because that is the day of our Lord’s resurrection.’”
But Justin never gave to Sunday the title of Lord’s day, nor indeed any other sacred title. Here are his words correctly quoted:—
“And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles, or the writings of the prophets, are read, as long as time permits,” etc.[442]
Justin speaks of the day called Sunday. But that he may be made to help establish its title to the name of Lord’s day, his words are deliberately changed. Thus the third witness to Sunday as the Lord’s day, like the first and the second, is made such by fraud. But the fourth fraud is even worse than the three which precede.
4. The fourth testimony to the Sunday-Lord’s day is furnished in Dr. Justin Edwards’ Sabbath Manual, p. 114:—
“Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, about A. D. 162, says: ‘Both custom and reason challenge from us that we should honor the Lord’s day, seeing on that day it was that our Lord Jesus completed his resurrection from the dead.’”