“If those who lived under the old dispensation have come to the newness of hope, no longer keeping sabbaths, but living according to our Lord’s life (in which, as it were, our life has risen again through him, &c.)....
“On this view the passage does not refer at all to the Lord’s day; but even on the opposite supposition it cannot be regarded as affording any positive evidence to the early use of the term ‘Lord’s day’ (for which it is often cited), since the material word ἡμέρα [day] is purely conjectural.”[495]
The learned Morer, a clergyman of the church of England, confirms this statement of Kitto. He renders Ignatius thus:—
“If therefore they who were well versed in the works of ancient days came to newness of hope, not sabbatizing, but living according to the dominical life, &c.... The Medicean copy, the best and most like that of Eusebius, leaves no scruple, because ζωὴν is expressed and determines the word dominical to the person of Christ, and not to the day of his resurrection.”[496]
Sir Wm. Domville speaks on this point as follows:—
“Judging therefore by the tenor of the epistle itself, the literal translation of the passage in discussion, ‘no longer observing sabbaths, but living according to the Lord’s life,’ appears to give its true and proper meaning; and if this be so, Ignatius, whom Mr. Gurney[497] puts forward as a material witness to prove the observance of the Lord’s day in the beginning of the second century, fails to prove any such fact, it appearing on a thorough examination of his testimony that he does not even mention the Lord’s day, nor in any way allude to the religious observance of it, whether by that name or by any other.”[498]
It is manifest, therefore, that this famous quotation has no reference whatever to the first day of the week, and that it furnishes no evidence that that day was known in the time of Ignatius by the title of Lord’s day.[499] The evidence is now before the reader which must determine whether Mosheim or Neander spoke in accordance with the facts in the case. And thus it appears that in the New Testament, and in the uninspired writers of the period referred to, there is absolutely nothing to sustain the strong Sunday statement of Mosheim. When we come to the fourth century, we shall find a statement by him which essentially modifies what he has here said. Of the epistles ascribed to Barnabas, Pliny, and Ignatius, we have found that the first is a forgery; that the second speaks of a stated day without defining what one; and that the third, which is probably a spurious document, would say nothing relative to Sunday, if the advocates of first-day sacredness had not interpolated the word day into the document! We can hardly avoid the conclusion that Mosheim spoke on this subject as a doctor of divinity, and not as a historian; and with the firmest conviction that we speak the truth, we say with Neander, “The festival of Sunday was always only a human ordinance.”
CHAPTER XV.
EXAMINATION OF A FAMOUS FALSEHOOD.
Were the martyrs in Pliny’s time and afterward tested by the question whether they had kept Sunday or not?—Argument in the affirmative quoted from Edwards—Its origin—No facts to sustain such an argument prior to the fourth century—A single instance at the opening of that century all that can be claimed in support of the assertion—Sunday not even alluded to in that instance—Testimony of Mosheim relative to the work in which this is found.
Certain doctors of divinity have made a special effort to show that the “stated day” of Pliny’s epistle is the first day of the week. For this purpose they adduce a fabulous narrative which the more reliable historians of the church have not deemed worthy of record. The argument is this: That in Pliny’s time and afterward, that is, from the close of the first century and onward, whenever the Christians were brought before their persecutors for examination, they were asked whether they had kept the Lord’s day, this term being used to designate the first day of the week. And hence two facts are asserted to be established: 1. That when Pliny says that the Christians who were examined by him were accustomed to meet on a stated day, that day was undoubtedly the first day of the week. 2. That the observance of the first day of the week was the grand test by which Christians were known to their heathen persecutors. 3. That Lord’s day was the name by which the first day of the week was known in the time of Pliny, a few years after the death of John. To prove these points, Dr. Edwards makes the following statement:—