“Was it impious to abstain from corporeal circumcision, and from a literal Sabbath, and literal festivals, and literal new moons, and from clean and unclean meats, and to turn the mind to the good and true and spiritual law of God,” etc.—Origen against Celsus, b. ii. chap. vii.
We shall soon get his idea of the true Sabbath as distinguished from the “literal” one. He gives the following reason for the “literal Sabbath” among the Hebrews:—
“In order that there might be leisure to listen to their sacred laws, the days termed ‘Sabbath,’ and the other festivals which existed among them, were instituted.” Book iv. chap. xxxi.
What Origen mentions as the reason for the institution of the Sabbath is in fact only one of its incidental benefits. The real reason for its institution, viz., that the creation of the heavens and the earth should be remembered, he seems to have overlooked because so literally expressed in the commandment. Of God’s rest-day he thus speaks:—
“With respect, however, to the creation of the world, and the ‘rest [Sabbatismou] which is reserved after it for the people of God,’ the subject is extensive, and mystical, and profound, and difficult of explanation.” Book v. chap. lix.
Origen’s next mention of the Sabbath not only places the institution of the Sabbath at the creation, but gives us some idea of his “mystical” Sabbath as distinguished from “a literal” one. Speaking of the Creator’s rest from the six days’ work he thus alludes to Celsus:—
“For he [Celsus] knows nothing of the day of the Sabbath and rest of God, which follows the completion of the world’s creation, and which lasts during the duration of the world, and in which all those will keep festival with God who have done all their works in their six days, and who, because they have omitted none of their duties, will ascend to the contemplation [of celestial things], and to the assembly of righteous and blessed beings.” Book vi. chap. lxi.
Here we get an insight into Origen’s mystical Sabbath. It began at creation, and will continue while the world endures. To those who follow the letter it is indeed only a weekly rest, but to those who know the truth it is a perpetual Sabbath, enjoyed by God during all the days of time, and entered by believers either at conversion or at death. And this last thought perhaps explains why he said before that the reasons for days observed by the Hebrews would be understood after this life.
But last of all we come to a mention of the so-called Lord’s day by Origen. As he has a mystical or perpetual Sabbath like some of the earlier fathers, in which, under pretense of keeping every day as a Sabbath, they actually labor on every one, so has he also, like what we have found in some of them, a Lord’s day which is not merely one definite day of the week, but which embraces every day, and covers all time. Here are his words:—
“For ‘to keep a feast,’ as one of the wise men of Greece has well said, ‘is nothing else than to do one’s duty;’ and that man truly celebrates a feast who does his duty and prays always, offering up continually bloodless sacrifices in prayer to God. That therefore seems to me a most noble saying of Paul, ‘Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.’
“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.” Book viii., close of chapter xxi. and beginning of chapter xxii.