Note.—This edict, issued by Constantine, under whom the Christian church and the Roman state were first united, in a manner supplied the lack of a divine command for Sunday observance, and may be considered the original Sunday law, and the model after which all Sunday laws since then have been patterned. It was one of the important steps in bringing about and establishing the change of the Sabbath.
19. What testimony does Eusebius (270-338), a noted bishop of the church, a flatterer of Constantine, and the reputed father of ecclesiastical history, bear upon this subject?
“All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's day.”—“Commentary on the Psalms,” Cox's “Sabbath Literature” Vol. I, page 361.
Note.—The change of the Sabbath was the result of the combined efforts of church and state, and it was centuries before it was fully accomplished.
20. When and by what church council was the observance of the seventh day forbidden, and Sunday observance enjoined?
“The seventh-day Sabbath was ... solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean Council did, in a manner, quite abolish the observation of it. ... The Council of Laodicea [a.d. 364] ... first settled the observation of the Lord's day.”—Prynne's “Dissertation on the Lord's Day Sabbath,” page 163.
21. What did this council, in its twenty-ninth canon, decree concerning the Sabbath and Christians who continued to observe it?
“Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday [Sabbath], but shall work on that day.... If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ.”—Hefele's “History of the Councils of the Church,” Vol. II, page 316.
Notes.—Some of the further steps taken by church and state authorities in bringing about this change may be noted as follows:—
“In 386, under Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, it was decreed that all litigation and business should cease [on Sunday]....