But he says that those who lived before Moses were justified “without observance of Sabbaths,” and offers as proof that the covenant at Horeb was not made with the fathers. Of course if this proves that the patriarchs were free from obligation toward the fourth commandment, it is equally good as proof that they might violate any other. These things indicate that Irenæus was opposed to Sabbatic observance, though he did not in express language assert its abrogation, and did in most decisive terms assert the continued obligation of the ten commandments.
Tertullian offers numerous reasons for not observing the Sabbath, but there is scarcely one of these that he does not in some other place expressly contradict. Thus he asserts that the patriarchs before Moses did not observe the Sabbath.[646] But he offers no proof, and he elsewhere dates the origin of the Sabbath at the creation,[647] as we shall show hereafter. In several places he teaches the abrogation of the law, and seems to set aside moral law as well as ceremonial. But elsewhere, as we shall show, he bears express testimony that the ten commandments are still binding as the rule of the Christian’s life.[648] He quotes the words of Isaiah in which God is represented as hating the feasts, new-moons, and sabbaths observed by the Jews,[649] as proof that the seventh-day Sabbath was a temporary institution which Christ abrogated. But in another place he says: “Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath: he kept the law thereof.”[650] And he also explains this very text by stating that God’s aversion toward the Sabbaths observed by the Jews was “because they were celebrated without the fear of God by a people full of iniquities,” and adds that the prophet, in a later passage speaking of Sabbaths celebrated according to God’s commandment, “declares them to be true, delightful, and inviolable.”[651] Another statement is that Joshua violated the Sabbath in the siege of Jericho.[652] Yet he elsewhere explains this very case, showing that the commandment forbids our own work, not God’s. Those who acted at Jericho did “not do their own work, but God’s, which they executed, and that, too, from his express commandment.”[653] He also both asserts and denies that Christ violated the Sabbath.[654] Tertullian was a double-minded man. He wrote much against the law and the Sabbath, but he also contradicted and exposed his own errors.
Origen attempts to prove that the ancient Sabbath is to be understood mystically or spiritually, and not literally. Here is his argument:—
“‘Ye shall sit, every one in your dwellings: no one shall move from his place on the Sabbath day.’ Which precept it is impossible to observe literally; for no man can sit a whole day so as not to move from the place where he sat down.”[655]
Great men are not always wise. There is no such precept in the Bible. Origen referred to that which forbade the people to go out for manna on the Sabbath, but which did not conflict with another that commanded holy convocations or assemblies for worship on the Sabbath.[656]
Victorinus is the latest of the fathers before Constantine who offers reasons against the observance of the Sabbath. His first reason is that Christ said by Isaiah that his soul hated the Sabbath; which Sabbath he in his body abolished; and these assertions we have seen answered by Tertullian.[657] His second reason is that “Jesus [Joshua] the son of Nave [Nun], the successor of Moses, himself broke the Sabbath day,”[658] which is false. His third reason is that “Matthias [659] which is doubtless false, but is of no consequence as authority. His fourth argument is original, and may fitly close the list of reasons assigned in the early fathers for not observing the Sabbath. It is given in full without an answer:—
“And in Matthew we read, that it is written Isaiah also and the rest of his colleagues broke the Sabbath.”[660]
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SABBATH IN THE RECORD OF THE EARLY FATHERS.
The first reasons for neglecting the Sabbath are now mostly obsolete—A portion of the early fathers taught the perpetuity of the decalogue, and made it the standard of moral character—What they say concerning the origin of the Sabbath at Creation—Their testimony concerning the perpetuity of the ancient Sabbath, and concerning its observance—Enumeration of the things which caused the suppression of the Sabbath and the elevation of Sunday.
The reasons offered by the early fathers for neglecting the observance of the Sabbath show conclusively that they had no special light on the subject by reason of living in the first centuries, which we in this later age do not possess. The fact is, so many of the reasons offered by them are manifestly false and absurd that those who in these days discard the Sabbath, do also discard the most of the reasons offered by these fathers for this same course. We have also learned from such of the early fathers as mention first-day observance, the exact nature of the Sunday festival, and all the reasons which in the first centuries were offered in its support. Very few indeed of these reasons are now offered by modern first-day writers.