History of the Sabbath and first day of the week

by John Nevins Andrews

“Hence the fact that their persecutors, when they wished to know whether men were Christians, were accustomed to put to them this question, viz., ‘Dominicum servasti?’—‘Hast thou kept the Lord’s day?’ If they had they were Christians. This was the badge of their Christianity, in distinction from Jews and pagans. And if they said they had, and would not recant, they must be put to death. And what, when they continued steadfast, was their answer? ‘Christianus sum; intermittere non possum;’—‘I am a Christian; I cannot omit it.’ It is a badge of my religion, and the man who assumes it must of course keep the Lord’s day, because it is the will of his Lord; and should he abandon it, he would be an apostate from his religion.”[500]

Mr. Gurney, an English first-day writer of some note, uses the same argument and for the same purpose.[501] The importance attached to this statement, and the prominence given to it by the advocates of first-day sacredness, render it proper that its merits should be examined. Dr. Edwards gives no authority for his statement; but Mr. Gurney traces the story to Dr. Andrews, bishop of Winchester, who claimed to have taken it from the Acta Martyrum, an ancient collection of the acts of the martyrs. It was in the early part of the seventeenth century that Bishop Andrews first brought this forward in his speech in the court of Star Chamber, against Thraske, who was accused before that arbitrary tribunal of maintaining the heretical opinion that Christians are bound to keep the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord. The story was first produced, therefore, for the purpose of confounding an observer of the Sabbath when on trial by his enemies for keeping that day. Sir Wm. Domville, an able anti-Sabbatarian writer, thus traces out the matter:—

“The bishop, as we have seen, refers to the Acta of the martyrs as justifying his assertion respecting the question, Dominicum servasti? but he does not cite a single instance from them in which that question was put. We are left therefore to hunt out the instances for ourselves, wherever, if anywhere, they are to be found. The most complete collection of the memoirs and legends still extant, relative to the lives and sufferings of the Christian martyrs, is that by Ruinart, entitled, ‘Acta primorum Martyrum sincera et selecta.’ I have carefully consulted that work, and I take upon myself to affirm that among the questions there stated to have been put to the martyrs in and before the time of Pliny, and for nearly two hundred years afterwards, the question, Dominicum servasti? does not once occur; nor any equivalent question.”[502]

This shows at once that no proof can be obtained from this quarter, either that the “stated day” of Pliny was the first day of the week, or that the martyrs of the early church were tested by the question whether they had observed it or not. It also shows the statement to be false that the martyrs of Pliny’s time called Sunday the Lord’s day and kept it as such. After quoting all the questions put to martyrs in and before Pliny’s time, and thus proving that no such question as is alleged, was put to them, Domville says:—

“This much may suffice to show that Dominicum servasti? was no question in Pliny’s time, as Mr. Gurney intends us to believe it was. I have, however, still other proof of Mr. Gurney’s unfair dealing with the subject, but I defer stating it for the present, that I may proceed in the inquiry, What may have been the authority on which Bishop Andrews relied when stating that Dominicum servasti? was ever a usual question put by the heathen persecutors? I shall with this view pass over the martyrdoms which intervened between Pliny’s time and the fourth century, as they contain nothing to the purpose, and shall come at once to that martyrdom the narrative of which was, I have no doubt, the source from which Bishop Andrews derived his question, Dominicum servasti? ‘Hold you the Lord’s day?’ This martyrdom happened A. D. 304.[503] The sufferers were Saturninus and his four sons, and several other persons. They were taken to Carthage, and brought before the proconsul Amulinus. In the account given of their examinations by him, the phrases, ‘Celebrare Dominicum,’ and ‘Agere Dominicum,’ frequently occur, but in no instance is the verb ‘servare’ used in reference to Dominicum. I mention this chiefly to show that when Bishop Andrews, alluding, as no doubt he does, to the narrative of this martyrdom, says the question was, Dominicum servasti? it is very clear he had not his author at hand, and that in trusting to his memory, he coined a phrase of his own.”[504]

Domville quotes at length the conversation between the proconsul and the martyrs, which is quite similar in most respects to Gurney’s and Edward’s quotation from Andrews. He then adds:—

“The narrative of the martyrdom of Saturninus being the only one which has the appearance of supporting the assertion of Bishop Andrews that, ‘Hold you the Lord’s day?’ was the usual question to the martyrs, what if I should prove that even this narrative affords no support to that assertion? yet nothing is more easy than this proof; for Bishop Andrews has quite mistaken the meaning of the word Dominicum in translating it ‘the Lord’s day.’ It had no such meaning. It was a barbarous word in use among some of the ecclesiastical writers in, and subsequent to, the fourth century, to express sometimes a church, and at other times the Lord’s supper, but never the Lord’s day.[505] My authorities on this point are—

“1. Ruinart, who, upon the word Dominicum, in the narrative of the martyrdom of Saturninus, has a note, in which he says it is a word signifying the Lord’s supper[506] (‘Dominicum vero desinat sacra mysteria’), and he quotes Tertullian and Cyprian in support of this interpretation.

“2. The editors of the Benedictine edition of St. Augustine’s works. They state that the word Dominicum has the two meanings of a church and the Lord’s supper. For the former they quote among other authorities, a canon of the council of Neo Cesarea. For the latter meaning they quote Cyprian, and refer also to St. Augustine’s account of his conference with the Donatists, in which allusion is made to the narrative of the martyrdom of Saturninus.[507]