Tertullian in a passage already quoted, which by omitting the sentence we are about to quote, has been used as the strongest testimony to the first-day Sabbath in the fathers, expressly equals in sacredness the period of Pentecost—a space of fifty days—with the festival which he calls Lord’s day. Thus he says:—
“Similarly, too, in the period of Pentecost; which period we distinguish by the same solemnity of exultation.”[620]
He states the same fact in another work:—
“We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord’s day to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Whitsunday.”[621]
Origen classes the so-called Lord’s day with three other church festivals:—
“If it be objected to us on this subject that we ourselves are accustomed to observe certain days, as for example the Lord’s day, the Preparation, the Passover, or Pentecost, I have to answer, that to the perfect Christian, who is ever in his thoughts, words, and deeds, serving his natural Lord, God the Word, all his days are the Lord’s, and he is always keeping the Lord’s day.”[622]
Irenæus and Tertullian make the Sunday Lord’s day equal in sacredness with the period from the Passover to the Pentecost; but Origen, after classing the day with several church festivals, virtually confesses that it has no pre-eminence above other days.
Commodianus, who once uses the term Lord’s day, speaks of the Catholic festival of the Passover as “Easter, that day of ours most blessed.”[623] This certainly indicates that in his estimation no other sacred day was superior in sanctity to Easter.
The “Apostolical Constitutions” treat the Sunday festival in the same manner that it is treated by Irenæus and Tertullian. They make it equal to the sacredness of the period from Easter to the Pentecost. Thus they say:—
“He will be guilty of sin who fasts on the Lord’s day, being the day of the resurrection, or during the time of Pentecost, or in general, who is sad on a festival day to the Lord.”[624]