In this passage, it will be observed, the writer draws a contrast between Judaism and Christianity. To keep the seventh-day Sabbath was to live according to Judaism. To live according to the dominical life, or, as the thought is otherwise expressed, to live according to Christianity, was opposed to the keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath. The argument of Ignatius tells strongly in favor of the first-day Sabbath. If Jews, he argues, brought up in the old order of things, on turning Christians, no longer keep the seventh-day Sabbath, but live according to the dominical life, observing as part of that life, the dominical day, the day on which the Lord rose from the dead, surely those who never had been Jews should live according to Christianity, and not give heed to Judaizing teachers.
Passing on, we come to a document called “The Epistle of Barnabas.” This letter, though not the composition of the Barnabas of the New Testament, was written in the early part of the second century. It cannot be determined who was the author, but the early date of the letter is fully established; and that is the main point. Its language is: “We celebrate the eighth day with joy, on which Jesus rose from the dead.”—Coteler’s Edition of the Apostolic Fathers, vol. i. p. 47.
The testimony of Justin Martyr is full and explicit. As an itinerant evangelist for many years during the first half of the second century, just after the time of the apostle John, he enjoyed an excellent opportunity of becoming, acquainted with the customs of the whole church. Writing in the year 139 to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, in vindication of his Christian brethren, he gives the following account of their stated religious services: “On the day called the day of the sun is an assembly of all who live either in cities or in the rural districts, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read;” i. e., the Old and New Testaments. Then he goes on to specify the various parts of their first-day services. Just as at the present day, in Christian congregations, there were preaching, prayer, the celebration of the Lord’s supper, and the contribution of alms. As reasons why Christians should observe the first day, he assigns the following: “Because it was the first day on which God dispelled the darkness and chaos, and formed the world, and because Jesus Christ, our Saviour, rose from the dead on it.”—Robert Stephens’ edition of the works of Justin Martyr, p. 162. Lutetiæ, 1551.
In another of his works, the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, written about the same time as the Apology, from which we have quoted, occurs this passage: “The command to circumcise infants on the eighth day was a type of the true circumcision by which we were circumcised from error and evil through our Lord Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead on the first day of the week; for the first day of the week remains the chief of all the days.” (Stephens’ Edition, p. 59. See also Trollope’s edition of the Dialogue with Trypho, pp. 85, 86.) The careful reader of Justin Martyr will observe that, in addressing Trypho the Jew, he uses different terms for the days of the week from those which he employs in addressing the Emperor Antoninus. Addressing a heathen emperor, he employs the heathen names for both the seventh and the first day of the week.
Two important notices of the Lord’s day, all the more important because of their incidental character, are found in the History of Eusebius. Dionysius, bishop or presbyter of Corinth, A. D. 170, in a letter to the church at Rome, a fragment of which is preserved by Eusebius, says: “To-day we kept the Lord’s holy day, in which we read your letter.” (Hist. Eccles. iv. 23, Paris Ed. 1678, pp. 117, 118.) The other of these notices is in regard to a treatise on the Lord’s day, by Melito, bishop of Sardis, A. D. 170. This treatise, Eusebius remarks, along with others by the same writer, had come to the historian’s knowledge.—Hist. Eccles. iv. 26, Paris Ed. 1678, p. 119.
Although the letter of Pliny to Trajan is so well known as hardly to need quotation, we shall close this article with its interesting testimony in confirmation, from a pagan quarter, of what has already been adduced from Christian writers: “They [the Christians] affirmed that the sum of their fault, or error, was that they were accustomed to assemble on a stated day—Stato die—before it was light, and sing praise alternately among themselves to Christ as God—carmenque Christo, quasi Deo, dicere secum, invicem.” (Plin. Epist. x., 97.) Here we have the fact that Christians in the early part of the second century met regularly on a stated day, and this stated day, as all the Christian authorities of the same date prove, was the first day of the week, the Lord’s day.
Additional patristic evidence will be given in the next article.
A REJOINDER.
“TESTIMONY OF THE EARLY FATHERS TO THE FIRST-DAY SABBATH.”
There is one feature which has characterized this debate, hitherto, which has been a source of considerable satisfaction. The controversy, up to this point, has been urged purely with reference to the teaching of the Bible, as drawn from its sacred pages. Henceforth, however, this is not to be the case. We are now to have, not the “sure word of prophecy,” with the clear and forcible lines of textual evidence, drawn from its inspired utterances, but that “word of prophecy,” supplemented and explained by the apostolic fathers.
It has been said, and well said, that history repeats itself. If there was one thing which marked the religious impulse that Protestantism gave to the world, it was an utter rejection, in the decision of religious opinions, of everything but Bible authority. The voice of Martin Luther even now seems to reverberate in our ears, as—when fighting the very battles which Sabbatarians am being called upon to fight over again—he retorted in sharp and stinging words upon his cowled and priestly opponents, who were ever citing patristic evidence, The Bible, and the Bible alone, is our rule of faith. Again, as we read the words addressed by him to those friends who were hopefully waiting the expected reply from the Romanists of his time, to a courageous assault which he had made upon them from the stand-point of the Bible, it seems as if they were designed to be prophetic of our time, rather than descriptive of his own. He said: “You are waiting for your adversaries’ answer; it is already written, and here it is: ‘The fathers, the fathers, the fathers; the church, the church, the church; usage, custom; but of the Scriptures—nothing!’”—D’Aubirgne’s Hist. Ref., vol. viii., p. 717.