As regards working on Sunday, the Church very carefully avoided the adoption of a pharisaical observance of the day; but, from the beginning, there was a consensus of Christian opinion against the continuance of all work which rendered the attendance of the faithful at divine worship impossible—as, for instance, the labours of slaves or the work of servants. In course of time this was extended so as to exclude all kinds of work out of keeping with the dignity of the day. As to details, different views prevailed to a great extent in different places and times.[21] The first Christian Emperor had already, according to Eusebius,[22] made a law prescribing throughout his Empire rest on Sundays, and even on Fridays as well. Ecclesiastical legislation on its part maintained that slaves must have sufficient free time to attend divine worship and receive religious instruction in church. Attendance at this was regarded as the duty of all grown up Christians.[23] For the rest, the prohibition of work on Sunday was not always regarded in antiquity as of general obligation. Thus, for example, the Council of Laodicea forbade Christians on the one hand to celebrate Saturday in the Jewish manner, and, on the other, enjoined rest from labour only “in so far as it was possible.”[24]
That the establishment of rest from labour had special reference to slaves is shown by the so-called Apostolic Constitutions. In them we have (8, 33) the days on which slaves were to be free from labour once more enumerated in detail, and the limits of the earlier legislation considerably extended.
Days of rest for slaves were to be: Saturday and Sunday, Holy Week and Easter Week, the Ascension, Whitsunday, Christmas, Epiphany, all festivals of Apostles, St Stephen’s Day, and the feasts of certain martyrs. Naturally the object of this ordinance was not to make all these days festivals in the strict sense of the word.
In his anxiety to do honour to the holy days of the Church, the first Christian Emperor went still further. He desired to make Friday, the day of Christ’s death, a day of rest and devotion as well.[25] We have no information as to how far this regulation took practical effect during his life. No trace of such a custom exists at a later date except among the Nestorians. How earnest he was in securing the execution of these decrees is shown by the fact that he commanded the prefects of the provinces not only to observe Sundays, but also to celebrate the commemorations of the martyrs, within their jurisdictions.[26]
It has been already observed that Saturday as well as Sunday had its liturgical observance. In certain Eastern countries it attained to a position almost equal to that of Sunday. For, in the Apostolic Constitutions, it is laid down that the faithful shall attend divine service on this day also, and abstain from servile work,[27] although the rank of Sunday was acknowledged to be higher.[28] The Council of Laodicea forbade indeed, as we have observed above, the abandonment of work on Saturday, but it enjoined the reading of the Gospel as on Sunday (Can. 16). Traces of this pre-eminence of Saturday among the week-days exists at the present time in the Churches of the East.[29]
In conclusion, it is to be noticed that, in the Middle Ages, the rest from labour commenced, contrary to our present custom, with the Vespers of Saturday. Pope Alexander III., however, decreed that local custom should retain its prescriptive right, and so it came to pass that the practice of reckoning the feast day from midnight to midnight became general.[30]
3. The Classification of Festivals
According to the points of view taken, festivals may be divided into different classes:—
1. According to the object of the festival, into festivals of our Lord and festivals of the saints.
The former fall into three divisions: (a) movable feasts—Easter, Pentecost, etc.; (b) immovable feasts—Christmas, Epiphany, etc.; (c) such as are not included in the above cycles and are immovable, e.g., the Transfiguration, Invention of the Cross, etc.