“Many also observed the fourth day of the week, on which Christ was betrayed; and the sixth, which was the day of his crucifixion.”[547]
Dr. Peter Heylyn says of those who chose Sunday:—
“Because our Saviour rose that day from amongst the dead, so chose they Friday for another, by reason of our Saviour’s passion; and Wednesday on the which he had been betrayed: the Saturday, or ancient Sabbath, being meanwhile retained in the eastern churches.”[548]
Of the comparative sacredness of these three voluntary festivals, the same writer testifies:—
“If we consider either the preaching of the word, the ministration of the sacraments, or the public prayers: the Sunday in the eastern churches had no great prerogative above other days, especially above the Wednesday and the Friday, save that the meetings were more solemn, and the concourse of people greater than at other times, as is most likely.”[549]
And besides these three weekly festivals, there were also two annual festivals of great sacredness. These were the Passover and the Pentecost. And it is worthy of special notice that although the Sunday festival can be traced no higher in the church than Justin Martyr, A. D. 140, the Passover can be traced to a man who claimed to have received it from the apostles. [See chapter thirteen.] Among these festivals, considered simply as voluntary memorials of the Redeemer, Sunday had very little pre-eminence. For it is well stated by Heylyn:—
“Take which you will, either the fathers or the moderns, and we shall find no Lord’s day instituted by any apostolical mandate; no Sabbath set on foot by them upon the first day of the week.”[550]
Domville bears the following testimony, which is worthy of lasting remembrance:—
“Not any ecclesiastical writer of the first three centuries attributed the origin of Sunday observance either to Christ or to his apostles.”[551]
“Patriotism” and “expediency,” however, erelong elevated immeasurably above its fellows that one of these voluntary festivals which corresponded to “the wild solar holiday” of the heathen world, making that day at last “the Lord’s day” of the Christian church. The earliest testimony in behalf of first-day observance that has any claim to be regarded as genuine is that of Justin Martyr, written about A. D. 140. Before his conversion, he was a heathen philosopher. The time, place, and occasion of his first Apology or Defense of the Christians, addressed to the Roman Emperor, is thus stated by an eminent Roman Catholic historian. He says that Justin Martyr