All this would have been inconceivable and impossible had there been a divine command given for the change of the Sabbath. The last two quotations also show that Rome led in the apostasy and in the change of the Sabbath.
16. What striking testimony is borne by Neander, the noted church historian, regarding the origin of the Sunday sabbath?
“Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular festival of Sunday very early, indeed, into the place of the Sabbath.... The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second century a false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin.”—Neander's “Church History” Rose's translation, page 186.
17. Who first enjoined Sunday-keeping by law?
Constantine the Great.
Notes.—“The earliest recognition of the observance of Sunday as a legal duty is a constitution of Constantine in 321 a.d., enacting that all courts of justice, inhabitants of towns, and workshops were to be at rest on Sunday (venerabili die Solis), with an exception in favor of those engaged in agricultural labor.”—Encyclopedia Britannica, ninth edition, article “Sunday.”
“Constantine the Great made a law for the whole empire (321 a.d.) that Sunday should be kept as a day of rest in all cities and towns; but he allowed the country people to follow their work.”—Encyclopedia Americana, article “Sabbath.”
“Unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the Sabbatical observance of that day is known to have been ordained, is the edict of Constantine, 321 a.d.”—Chambers's Encyclopedia, article “Sabbath.”
18. What did Constantine's law require?
“Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty, attend to the business of agriculture; because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by heaven.”—Edict of March 7, 321 a.d., Corpus Juris Civilis Cod., lib. 3, tit. 12, 3.