In the days of Paul, “the mystery of iniquity began to work,” and from that point, its history was one of gradual development. Some of the most destructive heresies afterward incorporated into the faith of papists, it is well understood, were fully fledged, and quite generally accepted, before the installation of the first pope. So, too, concerning the first-day Sabbath. There can be little doubt that before the bishop of Rome became the “Corrector of Heretics,” in A. D. 538, or entered the chair of St. Peter, the Sunday had come to be regarded, by many, as the rival, if not the superior, of the ancient Sabbath. Just how extensively the sentiment prevailed, however, it is hard to determine from church history, because, as has been shown in a previous article, the sources of our information have been so corrupted by unprincipled Romanists, that it is difficult to arrive at the facts in the case.
One thing is certain; there was a mighty struggle on this question, the gentleman to the contrary, notwithstanding, which has left the marks of its existence in the records of the past. Clear down to the rise of Roman Catholicism, there were men who were strenuous for the observance of the seventh day, and rejecters of its rival. Doubtless the Sunday, by slow degrees, had worked itself into almost universal acceptance as a festival resting upon human, and not divine, authority; but the Sabbath of the Lord still continued in the faith of many, especially in the East, as a day to be sacredly devoted to the worship of God. On this point, Neander, the learned church historian, has given distinct and unequivocal utterance:—
“The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intention 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 began to take place; for men appear, by that time, to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin.”—Rose’s Translation of Neander, p. 186.[[15]]
Giesler also remarks as follows: “While the Christians of Palestine, who kept the whole Jewish law, celebrated, of course, all the Jewish festivals, the heathen converts observed only the Sabbath, and in remembrance of the closing scenes of our Saviour’s life, the passover, though without the Jewish superstitions. Besides these, the Sunday as the day of our Saviour’s resurrection, was devoted to religious worship.”—Church Hist., Apostolic Age to A. D. 70.
Lyman Coleman, in his “Ancient Christianity Exemplified,” testifies as follows: “The observance of the Lord’s day as the first day of the week was at first introduced as a separate institution. Both this and the Jewish Sabbath were kept for some time; finally, the latter passed wholly over into the former, which now took the place of the ancient Sabbath of the Israelites. But their Sabbath, the last day of the week, was strictly kept in connection with that of the first day for a long time after the overthrow of the temple and its worship. Down even to the fifth century, the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Christian church, but with a rigor and solemnity gradually diminishing, until it was wholly discontinued.... Both were observed in the Christian church down to the fifth century, with this difference, that in the eastern church, both days were regarded as joyful occasions; but in the western, the Jewish Sabbath was kept as a fast.” Chap. 26, sect. 2.
Wm. Twisse, whose antique style comports with that of the period in which he wrote, most pointedly declares the same fact in a work entitled, “The Morality of the Fourth Commandment:” “Yet for some hundred years in the primitive church, not the Lord’s day only, but the seventh day also, was religiously observed, not by Ebion and Cerinthus only, but by pious Christians also, as Baronius writeth and Gomaius confesseth, and Rivut also.” Page 9, London, 1641.
Morer, in speaking of the early Christians, remarks of them as follows: “The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and sermons, and it is not to be doubted but they derived the practice from the apostles themselves.”—Morer’s Lord’s Day, p. 189.
Edward Brerewood, professor in Gresham College, London, writes: “The ancient Sabbath did remain, and was observed by the Christians of the east church above three hundred years after our Saviour’s death, and besides that, no other day, for more hundred years than I spoke of before, was known in the church by the name of the Sabbath.” Page 77, ed. 1631.
Prof. Stuart, in speaking of the period between A. D. 321 and the council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, furnishes the following interesting statement, which discloses the historic fact concerning the ebb and flow of discussion on this subject in the early church: “The practice of it [the keeping of the Sabbath], was continued by Christians who were jealous for the honor of the Mosaic law, and finally became, as we have seen, predominant throughout Christendom. It was supposed at length that the fourth commandment did require the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath [not merely a seventh part of time], and reasoning as Christians of the present day are wont to do, viz., that all which belongs to the ten commandments was immutable and perpetual, the churches in general came gradually to regard the seventh-day Sabbath as altogether sacred.”—Appendix to Gurney’s Hist. of Sabbath, pp. 115, 116.
Concerning the same council, Prynne has made a similar historic record; “The seventh-day Sabbath was solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean Council did, in a manner, quite abolish the observance of it.... The Council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, first settled the observance of the Lord’s day, and prohibited keeping of the Jewish Sabbath, under an anathema.”—Dissertation on the Lord’s Sabbath, pp. 33, 44, ed. 1633.