The persons here mentioned so contemptuously could not be heathens, for they do not call any day “their Sabbath.” Nor could they be Jews, as is plain from the form of expression used. If we accept Mr. Reeve’s Translation, these persons were Christians who observe the seventh day. Tertullian does not say that the Sunday festival was observed by divine authority, but that they might distinguish themselves from those who call the seventh day the Sabbath.
Tertullian again declares that his brethren did not observe the days held sacred by the Jews.
“We neither accord with the Jews in their peculiarities in regard to food, nor in their sacred days.”—Apology, sect. 21.
But those Christians who would not keep the Sabbath because the festival of Sunday was in their estimation more worthy of honor, or more convenient to observe, were greatly given to the observance of other days, in common with the heathen, besides Sunday. Thus Tertullian charges home upon them this sin:—
“The Holy Spirit upbraids the Jews with their holy days. ‘Your sabbaths, and new moons, and ceremonies,’ says he, ‘my soul hateth.’ By us (to whom Sabbaths are strange, and the new moons, and festivals formerly beloved by God) the Saturnalia and New Year’s and mid-winter’s festivals and Matronalia are frequented—presents come and go—New Year’s gifts—games join their noise—banquets join their din! Oh! better fidelity of the nations to their own sect, which claims no solemnity of the Christians for itself! Not the Lord’s day, not Pentecost, even if they had known them, would they have shared with us; for they would fear lest they should seem to be Christians. We are not apprehensive lest we seem to be heathens! If any indulgence is to be granted to the flesh, you have it. I will not say your own days, but more too; for to the heathens each festive day occurs but once annually; you have a festive day every eighth day.”—On Idolatry, chap. xiv.
These Sunday-festival Christians, “to whom Sabbaths” were “strange,” could not have kept Sunday as a Sabbath. They had never heard that by divine authority the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, and that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. Let any candid man read the above words from Tertullian, and then deny, if he can, that these strangers to the Sabbath, and observers of heathen festivals, were not a body of apostatizing Christians!
Hereafter Tertullian will give an excellent commentary on his quotation from Isaiah. It seems from him that the so-called Lord’s day came once in eight days. Were these words to be taken in their most obvious sense, then it would come one day later each week than it did the preceding week, and thus it would come successively on all the days of the week in order, at intervals of eight days. He might in such case well say:—
“However, every day is the Lord’s; every hour, every time, is apt for baptism; if there is a difference in the solemnity, in the grace, distinction there is none.”—On Baptism, chap. xix.
But it seems that Tertullian by the eighth day intended Sunday. And here is something from him relative to the manner of keeping it. Thus he says:—
“In the matter of kneeling also, prayer is subject to diversity of observance, through the act of some few who abstain from kneeling on the Sabbath; and since this dissension is particularly on its trial before the churches, the Lord will give his grace that the dissentients may either yield, or else indulge their opinion without offense to others. We, however (just as we have received), only on the day of the Lord’s resurrection ought to guard not only against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude; deferring even our businesses, lest we give any place to the devil. Similarly, too, in the period of Pentecost; which period we distinguish by the same solemnity of exultation. But who would hesitate every day to prostrate himself before God, at least in the first prayer with which we enter on the daylight.”—On Prayer, chap. xxiii.