How Sunday Became
the Popular Day of Worship
by Kenneth A. Strand
Contrary to what many Christians believe, Sunday was not observed
by New Testament Christians as a day of worship. They kept Saturday,
the seventh day of the week.
The question of how Sunday, the first day of the week, replaced
Saturday, the seventh day of the week, as the main day of Christian
worship has received increasing attention in recent years. One
widely acclaimed study, for example, suggests that the weekly
Christian Sunday arose from Sunday-evening communion services
in the immediate postresurrection period, with Sunday itself
being a workday until after the time of Constantine the Great
in the early fourth century.[1] Eventually, however, Sunday ceased
to be a workday and became a Christian Sabbath." Some simpler
and more popular views are that either (1) Sunday was substituted
immediately after Christ's resurrection for the seventh-day Sabbath,
or (2) Sundaykeeping was introduced directly from paganism during
the second century or later. But is either of these views correct?
What do the actual source materials tell us?
Both Days Observed.
One thing is clear: The weekly Christian Sunday--whenever
it did arise--did not at first generally become a substitute
for the Bible seventh-day Sabbath, Saturday; for both Saturday
and Sunday were widely kept side by side for several centuries
in early Christian history. Socrates Scholasticus, a church historian
of the fifth century A.D., wrote, "For although almost all
churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries
[the Lord's Supper] on the sabbath of every week, yet the Christians
of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition,
have ceased to do this."[2] And Sozomen, a contemporary
of Socrates, wrote, "The people of Constantinople, and almost
everywhere, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the
first day of the week, which custom is never observed at Rome
or at Alexandria."[3] Thus, "almost everywhere"
throughout Christendom, except in Rome and Alexandria, there
were Christian worship services on both Saturday and Sunday as
late as the fifth century. A number of other sources from the
third to the fifth centuries also depict Christian observance
of both Saturday and Sunday. For example, the Apostolic Constitutions,
compiled in the fourth century, furnished instruction to "keep
the Sabbath [Saturday], and the Lord's day [Sunday] festival;
because the former is the memorial of the creation, and the latter
of the resurrection." "Let the slaves work five days;
but on the Sabbath-day [Saturday] and the Lord's day [Sunday]
let them have leisure to go to church for instruction in piety."[4]
Gregory of Nyssa in the late fourth century referred to the Sabbath
and Sunday as "sisters."[5] And about A.D. 400 Asterius
of Amasea declared that it was beautiful for Christians that
the "team of these two days comes together"--"the
Sabbath and the Lord's day,"[6] which each week gathers
together the people with priests as their instructors. And in
the fifth century, John Cassian refers to attendance in church
on both Saturday and Sunday, stating that he had even seen a
certain monk who sometimes fasted five days a week but would
go to church on Saturday or on Sunday and bring home guests for
a meal on those two days.[7] It is clear that none of these early
writers confused Sunday with the Bible Sabbath. Sunday, the first
day of the week, always followed the Sabbath, the seventh day.
Furthermore, the historical records are clear in showing that
the weekly cycle has remained unchanged from Christ's time till
now, so that the Saturday and Sunday of those early centuries
are still the Saturday and Sunday of today. Later in this article
we will return to data from early church history of the second
and subsequent centuries to trace the manner in which Sunday
eventually eclipsed the Sabbath, but first it is important here
to take a look at the New Testament evidence, inasmuch as the
New Testament is normative for Christian practice.
How did Christ and the apostles
regard the Sabbath and Sunday?
Sabbath in the New Testament. According to Luke 4:16, it was
Christ's "custom" to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath
day. Moreover, at the time of Christ's death and burial, the
women who had followed Him from Galilee "rested the sabbath
day according to the commandment" (Luke 23:56), indicating
that there had been no instruction from Him to the contrary.
They were still observing the seventh day of the week! We may,
in addition, take note of the fact that the implication of this
text is that when Luke wrote the account several decades after
Christ's crucifixion he took for granted that no change in Sabbath
observance had occurred. He reports this Sabbath observance "according
to the commandment" in a totally matter-of-fact way, with
no hint that there had been any new day of worship added in the
interim. On the other hand we must also recognize, of course,
that Christ was accused of Sabbathbreaking by the scribes and
Pharisees. We may take, for example, the incident where Christ's
disciples plucked grain as they walked through a grain field,
rubbed it in their hands, and ate it (Matthew 12:1-8). And we
could also notice several instances of Christ's healing work
that ran counter to the Sabbathkeeping views of the Jewish leaders--perhaps
most strikingly the incident regarding the man with a withered
hand (verses 10-13). What do these experiences mean? In order
to understand the situation, one must recognize that Jewish Sabbath
observance in Christ's day did not mean simply following Scripture
laws but also adherence to strict regulations in Jewish oral
tradition. The Mishnah, wherein multitudinous regulations of
this so-called oral law were written down about A.D. 200, gives
an idea of what Sabbath observance was like among the scribes
and Pharisees.
There were both major laws and
minor laws.
Additional Sabbath regulations. The thirty-nine major laws
listed in the tractate (or section) of the Mishnah entitled "Shabbath"
are given as follows: "The main classes of work are forty
save one: sowing, ploughing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing,
winnowing, cleansing crops, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking,
shearing wool, washing or beating or dyeing it, spinning, weaving,
making two loops, weaving two threads, separating two threads,
tying [a knot], loosening [a knot], sewing two stitches, tearing
in order to sew two stitches, hunting a gazelle, slaughtering
or flaying or salting it or curing its skin, scraping it or cutting
it up, writing two letters, erasing in order to write two letters,
building, pulling down, putting out a fire, lighting a fire,
striking with a hammer, and taking out aught from one domain
into another. These are the main classes of work: forty save
one."[8] These thirty-nine laws had many variations and
ramifications. It would make a difference, for instance, whether
two letters of the alphabet were written in such a way that they
could both be seen at the same time. If water were to be drawn
from a well in a gourd, a stone used as a weight in the gourd
would be considered as part of the vessel if it did not fall
out. However, if it should happen to fall out, it would be considered
as an object being lifted, and therefore the individual with
such an experience would be guilty of Sabbath-breaking.[9] Objects
could be tossed on the Sabbath, but there were regulations pertaining
to allowable distance and as to whether the object went from
a private domain to a public domain, for example.[10] The foregoing
are but a very few of the specifics mentioned in the tractate
"Shabbath." And in addition to the laws mentioned in
that tractate, the Mishnah contains other Sabbath regulations,
the largest number of which deal with the Sabbath day's journey.
(These are treated in the tractate "Erubin.")
In the context of this sort of casuistry regarding Sabbathkeeping,
it is obvious why Christ's disciples were being accused of Sabbathbreaking
by their picking and rubbing kernels of grain. One of the thirty-nine
major Sabbath laws was "reaping"; another was "threshing."
Thus Christ's disciples were both reaping and threshing--breaking
two of the major laws of the Sabbath. If they blew the chaff
away, they could also possibly have been considered as engaged
in "sifting"--in which case they would have broken
three different major Sabbath laws. Such "Sabbathbreaking,"
it must be emphasized, was not against God's commandments as
given in Scripture but was purely and solely against the Jewish
restrictions. In considering the various miracles that Christ
performed on the Sabbath for the purpose of alleviating suffering,
it is interesting that Christ Himself never accepted the Pharisees'
criticism that He was breaking the Sabbath. Indeed, in connection
with the case of the man with the withered hand, He raised a
question, "What man shall there be among you, that shall
have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day,
will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is
a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well
on the sabbath days" (Matthew 12:11, 12). After this, He
proceeded to heal the man. Thus He emphasized the lawfulness
of this kind of deed on the Sabbath.
How about the apostles?
But now, what can we say about apostolic practice after Christ's
resurrection? The book of Acts reveals that the only day on which
the apostles repeatedly were engaged in worship services on a
weekly basis was Saturday, the seventh day of the week. The apostle
Paul and his company, when visiting Antioch in Pisidia, "went
into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down" (Acts
13:14). After the Scripture reading, they were called upon to
speak. They stayed in Antioch a further week, and that "next
sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word
of God" (verse 44). In Philippi Paul and his company went
out of the city by a riverside on the Sabbath day, to the place
where prayer was customarily made (Acts 16:13). In Thessalonica,
"as his manner was," Paul went to the synagogue and
"three sabbath days reasoned with them [the Jews] out of
the scriptures" (Acts 17:2). And in Corinth, where Paul
resided for a year and a half, "he reasoned in the synagogue
every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks" (Acts
18:4; compare verse 11). Thus the evidence in the book of Acts
is multiplied regarding apostolic attendance at worship services
on Saturday.
The Lord's day.
Some believe that "the Lord's day" mentioned in
Revelation 1:10 refers to Sunday. However, when we read the passage,
we find no hint of it being either a Sunday or a worship day.
John here simply states that he "was in the Spirit on the
Lord's day." Although it is true that eventually the term
"Lord's day" came to be used for Sunday, no evidence
indicates this was the case until about a century after the book
of Revelation was written![11]
Most pointedly of all, there is neither prior nor contemporary
evidence that Sunday had achieved in New Testament times a status
that would have caused it to be called "Lord's day."
Another day--the seventh-day Sabbath--had, of course, been the
Lord's holy day from antiquity (see Isaiah 58:13) and was the
day on which Christ Himself and His followers, including the
apostle Paul, had attended religious services, as we have seen.
In fact, there is not one piece of concrete evidence anywhere
in the New Testament that Sunday was considered as a weekly day
of worship for Christians. Rather, Christ Himself, His followers
at the time of His death, and apostles after His resurrection
regularly attended worship services on Saturday, the seventh
day of the week.
Moreover, when widespread Christian Sunday observance finally
did become evident during the third to fifth centuries, this
was side by side with the seventh-day Sabbath, as we have seen.
The question now arises as to when and how Christian Sunday observance
arose.
The first clear evidence for weekly Sunday observance by Christians
comes in the second century from two places--Alexandria and Rome.
About A.D. 130 Barnabas of Alexandria, in a highly allegorical
discourse, refers to the seventh-day Sabbath as representing
the seventh millennium of earth's history. He goes on to say
that the present sabbaths were unacceptable to God, who would
make "a beginning of the eighth day [Sunday], that is, a
beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth
day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from
the dead."[12] About A.D. 150, Justin Martyr in Rome provides
a more clear and direct reference to Sunday observance, actually
describing briefly in his Apology the worship service held on
Sunday: "And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities
or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs
of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as
long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president
verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good
things." Next follow prayer, communion, and an offering
for the poor.[13] The same writer in his Dialogue With Trypho
the Jew manifests an anti-Sabbath bent in a number of statements,
including the following: "Do you see that the elements are
not idle, and keep no Sabbaths? Remain as you were born."[14]
Rome and Alexandria. Thus both Barnabas of Alexandria and
Justin Martyr in Rome not only refer to the practice of Sunday
observance, but they both also manifest a negative attitude toward
the Sabbath. Interestingly, it is precisely these same two cities--Alexandria
and Rome--that are mentioned by two fifth-century historians,
Socrates Scholasticus and Sozomen, as being exceptions to the
general rule that worship services were still held on Saturday
throughout the Christian world as late as the fifth century.
What particular circumstances could have led Rome and Alexandria
to their early adoption of Sunday observance? Moreover, why was
Sunday observance soon (at least by the third century) so readily
accepted throughout the rest of Christendom, even when the Sabbath
was not abandoned? Obviously, the evidence thus far presented
shatters the theory that Sunday was substituted for the seventh-day
Sabbath immediately after Christ's resurrection. But likewise
incorrect is the opposing view that the Christian Sunday was
borrowed directly from paganism early in post-New Testament times.
Not only does this theory lack proof, but the sheer improbability
that virtually all Christendom suddenly shifted to a purely pagan
practice should alert us to the need for a more plausible explanation.
Especially is this so when we remember that numerous early Christians
accepted martyrdom rather than compromise their faith. Justin
himself was such a Christian, suffering martyrdom in Rome about
A.D. 165.
Not a substitute for the Sabbath.
At such a time as this, would a purely pagan worship day have
suddenly captured the entire Christian world, apparently without
any serious protest? Furthermore, if this were the case, how
would we account for the fact that the Christian Sunday, when
it did arise, was regularly looked upon by the Christians as
a day honoring Christ's resurrection, not as a Sabbath? This
latter point deserves special attention. In the New Testament,
Christ's resurrection is symbolically related to the first fruits
of the harvest just as His death is related to the slaying of
the Paschal lamb (see 1 Corinthians 15:20 and 5:7). The offering
of the wave sheaf (grain sample) of the first fruits of the barley
harvest was an annual event among the Jews. But in New Testament
times there were two different methods of reckoning the day for
this celebration. According to Leviticus 23:11, the wave sheaf
was to be offered in the season of unleavened bread on "the
morrow after the sabbath." The Pharisees interpreted this
as the day after the Passover sabbath. They killed the Paschal
lamb on Nisan 14, celebrated the Passover sabbath on Nisan 15,
and offered the first-fruits wave sheaf on Nisan 16, regardless
of the days of the week on which these dates might fall. Their
celebration thus would parallel our method for reckoning Christmas,
which falls on different days of the week in different years.
The Resurrection Festival
On the other hand, the Essenes and Sadducean Boethusians interpreted
"the morrow after the sabbath" as the day after a weekly
Sabbath--always a Sunday. Their day of Pentecost also always
fell on a Sunday--"the morrow after the seventh sabbath"
from the day of the offering of the first fruits (see Leviticus
23:15, 16).[15] It would be natural for Christians to continue
the first-fruits celebration. They would keep it, not as a Jewish
festival, but in honor of Christ's resurrection. After all, was
not Christ the true first fruits (see 1 Corinthians 15:20), and
was not His resurrection of the utmost importance (see verses
14, 17-19)?But when would Christians keep such a resurrection
festival? Would they do it every week? No. Rather, they would
do it annually, as had been their custom in the Jewish celebration
of the first fruits. But which of the two types of reckoning
would they choose--the Pharisaic or the Essene-Boethusian? Probably
both. And this is precisely the situation we find in the Easter
controversy that broke out toward the end of the second century.[16]
At that time Asian Christians (in the Roman province of Asia
Minor) celebrated the Easter events on the Nisan 14-15-16 basis,
irrespective of the days of the week. But Christians throughout
most of the rest of the world--including Gaul, Corinth, Pontus
(in northern Asia Minor), Alexandria, Mesopotamia, and Palestine
(even Jerusalem itself)--held to a Sunday-Easter. Early sources
indicate that both practices stemmed from apostolic tradition.[17]
This is a view more plausible than that the Sunday-Easter was
a late Roman innovation. After all, at a time when Christian
influences were still moving from east to west, how could a Roman
innovation so suddenly and so thoroughly have uprooted an entrenched
apostolic practice throughout virtually the whole Christian world,
East as well as West?[18] A reconstruction of church history
that sees the earliest Christian Sunday as an annual Easter one
rather than as a weekly observance makes historical sense. The
habit of keeping the annual Jewish first-fruits festival day
could be easily transferred into an annual resurrection celebration
in honor of Christ, the First Fruits. But there was no such habit
or psychological background for keeping a weekly resurrection
celebration. It is probable that the weekly Christian Sunday
developed later as an extension of the annual one.
Various factors could have had a part in such a development.
In the first place, not only did almost all early Christians
observe both Easter and Pentecost on Sunday, but the whole seven-week
season between the two holidays had special significance.[19]
As J. van Goudoever has suggested, perhaps the Sundays between
the two annual festivals had special importance too.[20] If so,
elements already present could have aided in extending Sunday
observance to a weekly basis, spreading first to the Sundays
during the Easter-to-Pentecost season itself and then eventually
throughout the entire year.[21] Thus the annual Sunday celebration
could have furnished a source from which the early Christians
in Alexandria and Rome inaugurated a weekly Sunday as a substitute
for the Sabbath. But there is no reason why this kind of weekly
resurrection festival had to supplant the Sabbath. And indeed,
elsewhere throughout Christianity we find it simply emerging
as a special day observed side by side with the Sabbath.
Sunday replaces Sabbath in Rome.
But what factor or factors prompted the displacement of the
Sabbath by a weekly Sunday in Rome and Alexandria? Undoubtedly
the most significant was a growing anti-Jewish sentiment in the
early second century. Several Jewish revolts, culminating in
that of Bar Cocheba in A.D. 132-135, aroused Roman antagonism
against the Jews to a high level--so high, in fact, that Emperor
Hadrian expelled the Jews from Palestine. His predecessor, Trajan,
had been vexed too with Jewish outbreaks; and Hadrian himself,
prior to the Bar Cocheba revolt, had outlawed such Jewish practices
as circumcision and Sabbathkeeping.[22]
Especially in Alexandria, where there was a strong contingent
of Jews, and in the Roman capital itself would Christians be
prone to feel in danger of identification with the Jews. Thus,
especially in these two places would they be likely to seek a
substitute for the weekly Sabbath to avoid being associated with
the Sabbathkeeping Jews. Moreover, with respect to Rome (and
some other places in the West), the practice of fasting on the
Sabbath every week also tended to enhance the development of
Sunday observance by making the Sabbath a gloomy day. This obviously
had negative effects on the Sabbath and could have served as
an inducement in Rome and in some neighboring areas to replace
such a sad and hungry Sabbath with a joyous weekly resurrection
festival on Sunday. As the weekly Sunday arose side by side with
the Sabbath throughout Christendom, elsewhere than at Rome and
Alexandria, perhaps it was inevitable that eventually the two
days would clash quite generally, as they had done as early as
the second century in Rome and Alexandria. This did in fact happen,
and later in this article we will survey the process by which
Sunday finally displaced the Sabbath as the main day for Christian
worship throughout Christendom.
A brief summary of the facts ascertained
thus far will now be in order:
1. The New Testament silence about the weekly observance of Sunday,
in contrast to the recurring statements about the Sabbath, provides
convincing evidence that there was no such Sunday observance
in New Testament Christianity. (Moreover, the second-century
silence regarding the Sabbath and Sunday, except for Rome and
Alexandria, is in large part a result of the fact that basically
no controversy had developed over the two weekly days except
in those two places.)
2. The mushrooming literary evidence from the third through fifth
centuries reveals that at last a weekly Sunday had become quite
generally observed. Furthermore, throughout most of Christendom
it was observed side by side with the Sabbath.
3. The background from Judaism for an annual "first-fruits"
celebration on Sunday provided the basis for an annual resurrection
celebration among Christians. This was undoubtedly the first
step toward a weekly Sunday resurrection festival.
Increased reference to both
Sabbath and Sunday.
It is a curious fact that the references dealing with both
Sabbath and Sunday increased sharply in the fourth century A.D.
and that many of these had overtones of controversy. In some
instances, there was an emphasis to keep both days (as, for example,
in the Apostolic Constitutions).
On the other side, however, stood the anti-Sabbath church leaders.
For example, John Chrysostom, a contemporary of Gregory and Asterius,
went so far as to declare, "There are many among us now,
who fast on the same day as the Jews, and keep the sabbaths in
the same manner; and we endure it nobly or rather ignobly and
basely"![23] Earlier we noted that the Sabbath fast--which
made the Sabbath a sad and hungry day--helped bring about the
rise of Sunday observance in Rome and in some other places in
the West. Indeed, as early as the first quarter of the third
century Tertullian of Carthage in North Africa argued against
the practice.[24] About the same time Hippolytus in Rome took
issue with those who observed the Sabbath fast.[25] However,
in the fourth and fifth centuries evidence of controversy on
this matter heightened. Augustine (died A.D. 430) dealt with
the issue in several of his letters, including one in which he
gave rebuttal to a zealous Roman advocate of Sabbath fasting--an
individual who caustically denounced those who refused to fast
on the Sabbath.[26] As another evidence of the controversy, Canon
64 of the Apostolic Constitutions specifies that "if any
one of the clergy be found to fast on the Lord's day, or on the
Sabbath-day, excepting one only, let him be deprived; but if
he be one of the laity, let him be suspended."[27] The interpolater
of Ignatius, who probably wrote at about the same time, even
declared that "if any one fasts on the Lord's Day or on
the Sabbath, except on the paschal Sabbath only, he is a murderer
of Christ."[28] (On the Paschal Sabbath, the anniversary
of the Sabbath during which Christ was in the tomb, Christians
considered it appropriate to fast.) The last two sources noted
may indicate that the controversy had extended beyond Western
Christianity; but as far as the actual official practice was
concerned, only Rome and certain other Western churches adopted
it. John Cassian (died about A.D. 440) speaks of "some people
in some countries of the West, and especially in the city [Rome]"
who fasted on the Sabbath.[29] And Augustine refers to "the
Roman Church and some other churches . . . near to it or remote
from it" where the Sabbath fast was observed. But Milan,
an important church in northern Italy, was among the Western
churches that did not observe the Sabbath fast, as Augustine
also makes clear.[30] Nor did the Eastern churches ever adopt
it. The question remained a point of disagreement between East
and West as late as the eleventh century.[31]
The increase in references about the Sabbath--both for and
against--indicate that some sort of struggle was beginning to
manifest itself on a rather widespread basis. No longer did the
controversy center in only Rome and Alexandria. What could have
triggered this struggle on such a wide scale in the fourth and
fifth centuries?
Undoubtedly, one of the most important factors is to be found
in the activities of Emperor Constantine the Great in the early
fourth century, followed by later "Christian emperors."
Not only did Constantine give Christianity a new status within
the Roman Empire (from being persecuted to being honored), but
he also gave Sunday a "new look." By his civil legislation,
he made Sunday a rest day. His famous Sunday law of March 7,
321, reads: "On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates
and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be
closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture
may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often
happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing
or for vine-planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for
such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost."[32]
This was the first in a series of steps taken by Constantine
and by later "Christian emperors" in regulating Sunday
observance. It is obvious that this first Sunday law was not
particularly Christian in orientation (note the pagan designation
"venerable Day of the Sun"); but very likely Constantine,
on political and social grounds, endeavored to merge together
heathen and Christian elements of his constituency by focusing
on a common practice. In A.D. 386, Theodosius I and Gratian Valentinian
extended Sunday restrictions so that litigation should entirely
cease on that day and there would be no public or private payment
of debt.[33] Laws forbidding circus, theater, and horse racing
also followed and were reiterated as felt necessary.
Reaction to early Sunday laws.
How did the Christian church react to Constantine's Sunday
edict of March, 321, and to subsequent civil legislation that
made Sunday a rest day? As desirable as such legislation may
have seemed to Christians from one standpoint, it also placed
them in a dilemma. Heretofore, Sunday had been a workday, except
for special worship services. What would happen, for example,
to nuns such as those described by Jerome in Bethlehem, who,
after following their mother superior to church and then back
to their communions, the rest of their time on Sunday devoted
"themselves to their allotted tasks, and made garments either
for themselves or else for others"?[34] There is no evidence
that Constantine's Sunday laws were ever specifically made the
basis for Christian regulations of the day, but it is obvious
that Christian leaders had to do something to keep the day from
becoming one of idleness and vain amusement. Added emphasis on
worship and reference to the Sabbath commandment in the Old Testament
seem to have been the twin routes now taken. Perhaps a first
inkling of the new trend comes as early as the time of Constantine
himself--through the church historian Eusebius, who was also
Constantine's biographer and keen admirer. In his commentary
on Psalm 92, "the Sabbath psalm," Eusebius writes that
Christians would fulfill on the Lord's day all that in this psalm
was prescribed for the Sabbath--including worship of God early
in the morning. He then adds that through the new covenant the
Sabbath celebration was transferred to "the first day of
light [Sunday]."[35] Later in the fourth century Ephraem
Syrus suggested that honor was due "to the Lord's day, the
firstborn of all days," which had "taken away the right
of the firstborn from the Sabbath." Then he goes on to point
out that the law prescribes that rest should be given to servants
and animals.[36] The reflection of the Old Testament Sabbath
commandment is obvious.
With this sort of Sabbath emphasis now being placed on Sunday,
it was inevitable that the Sabbath day itself (Saturday) would
take on lesser and lesser importance. And the controversy that
is evident in literature of the fourth and fifth centuries between
those who would honor it reflects the struggle. Moreover, it
was a struggle that did not terminate quickly, for as we have
seen, the fifth-century church historians Socrates Scholasticus
and Sozomen provide a picture of Sabbath worship services alongside
Sunday worship services as being the pattern throughout Christendom
in their day, except in Rome and Alexandria. It appears that
the "Christian Sabbath" as a replacement for the earlier
biblical Sabbath was a development of the sixth century and later.
The earliest church council to deal with the matter was a regional
eastern one meeting in Laodicea about A.D. 364. Although this
council still manifested respect for the Sabbath as well as Sunday
in the special lections (Scripture readings) designated for those
two days, it nonetheless stipulated the following in its Canon
29: "Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday,
but shall work on that day; but the Lord's day they shall especially
honour, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work
on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall
be shut out from Christ."[37] The regulation with regard
to working on Sunday was rather moderate in that Christians should
not work on that day if possible! However, more significant was
the fact that this council reversed the original command of God
and the practice of the earliest Christians with regard to the
seventh-day Sabbath. God had said, "Remember the sabbath
day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your
work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God;
in it you shall not do any work" (Exodus 20:8-10, RSV).
This council said, instead, "Christians shall not Judaize
and be idle on Saturday but shall work on that day."
Work forbidden on Sunday.
The Third Synod of Orleans in 538, though deploring Jewish
Sabbatarianism, forbade "field labours" so that "people
may be able to come to church and worship."[38] Half a century
later, the Second Synod of Macon in 585 and the Council of Narbonne
in 589 stipulated strict Sunday observance.[39] The ordinances
of the former "were published by King Guntram in a decree
of November 10, 585, in which he enforced careful observance
of the Sunday."[40] Finally, during the Carolingian Age
a great emphasis was placed on Lord's day observance according
to the Sabbath commandment. Walter W. Hyde, in his Paganism to
Christianity in the Roman Empire, has well summed up several
centuries of the history of Sabbath and Sunday up to Charlemagne:
"The emperors after Constantine made Sunday observance more
stringent but in no case was their legislation based on the Old
Testament. . . . At the Third Synod of Aureliani (Orleans) in
538 rural work was forbidden but the restriction against preparing
meals and similar work on Sunday was regarded as a superstition.
"After Justinian's death in 565 various epistolae decretales
were passed by the popes about Sunday. One of Gregory I (590-604)
forbade men 'to yoke oxen or to perform any other work, except
for approved reasons,' while another of Gregory II (715-731)
said: 'We decree that all Sundays be observed from vespers to
vespers and that all unlawful work be abstained from.' . . .
"Charlemagne at Aquisgranum (Aachen) in 788 decreed that
all ordinary labor on the Lord's Day be forbidden, since it was
against the Fourth Commandment, especially labor in the field
or vineyard which Constantine had exempted."[41] God's Sabbath
never forgotten. And thus Sunday came to be the Christian rest
day substitute for the Sabbath. But the seventh-day Sabbath was
never entirely forgotten, of course. This was true in Europe
itself. But particularly in Ethiopia, for example, groups kept
both Saturday and Sunday as "Sabbaths," not only in
the early Christian centuries but down into modern times.
Nevertheless, for a good share of Christendom, the history of
the Sabbath and Sunday had by the sixth through eighth centuries
taken a complete circle. For most Christians, God's rest day
of both Old Testament and New Testament times had through a gradual
process become a workday and had been supplanted by a substitute
rest day. God's command that on the seventh day "you shall
not do any work" had been replaced by the command of man:
Work on the seventh day; rest on the first. However, all Christians
who consider the New Testament as the normative guide for their
lives, rather than the decisions of men hundreds of years later,
will ask whether the worship day of Christ and the apostles--Saturday,
the seventh day of the week--should not still be observed today.
We believe it should.
Kenneth Strand was professor of church history, Theological
Seminary, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, and
editor of Andrews University Seminary Studies, when this article
was written. He has edited, compiled, or authored many books,
including Interpreting the Book of Revelation, A Panorama of
the
Old Testament World, and A Brief Introduction to the Ancient
Near East. He aided in school planning for
several overseas colleges. Copyright 1978 by Kenneth A. Strand.
__________________
1. Willy Rordorf, Sunday: The History of the Day of Rest and
Worship in the Earliest Centuries of the Christian Church, trans.
by A.A.K. Graham from the German ed. of 1962 (Philadelphia, 1968).
2. Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, book 5, chap.
22, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (NPNF) Second Series,
Vol. II, p. 132.
3. Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, book 7, chap. 19, in NPNF,
Second Series, Vol. II, p. 390.
4. Apostolic Constitutions, book 7, sec. 2, chap. 23, and book
8, sec. 4, chap. 33 in The Ante-Nicene Fathers (ANF), Vol. VII,
pp. 469, 495.
5. Gregory of Nyssa, De Castigatione ("On Reproof"),
in J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 46, col. 309 (Greek)
and col. 310 (Latin).
6. Asterius, Homily 5, on Matthew 19:3, in Migne, Patrologia
Graeca, vol. 40, col. 225 (Greek) and col. 226 (Latin).
7. Cassian, Institutes of the Coenobia, book 5, chap. 26, in
NPNF, Second Series, Vol. XI, p. 243. CF. Institutes, book 3,
chap. 2, and Conferences, part 1, conf. 3, chap. 1, in NPNF,
Second Series. Vol. XI, pp. 213, 319.
8. "Shabbath," 7.2, in Herbert Danby, trans., The Mishnah
(London, 1933), p. 106.
9. Ibid., 17.6, in Danby, op. cit., p. 115.
10. Ibid., 11.1-6, in Danby, op. cit., pp. 110, 111.
11. The earliest clear patristic source is Clement of Alexandria.
See, e.g., his Miscellanies, book 5, chap. 14, in ANF, Vol. II,
p. 469.
12. The Epistle of Barnabus, chap. 15, in ANF, Vol. I, pp. 146,
147.
13. Apology I, chap. 67, in ANF, Vol. I, p. 186.
14. Dialogue, chap. 23, in ANF, Vol. I, p. 206. Several other
statements in the Dialogue reveal a similar feeling.
15. J. van Goudoever, Biblical Calendars, 2d rev. ed. (Leiden,
1961), pp. 19, 20, 23, 25, 26, 29. The Boethusians and Essenes
actually chose Sundays a week apart because of a difference in
their understanding of whether the Sabbath of Leviticus 23:11
was the Sabbath during or the Sabbath after the Feast of Unleavened
Bread. Moreover, they used a solar calendar in contrast to the
lunar calendar of the Pharisees.
16. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 5, chaps. 23-25 (NPNF,
Second Series, Vol. I, pp. 241-244), provides the details.
17. Ibid., chaps. 23.1 and 24.2, 3, in NPNF, Second Series, Vol.
I, pp. 241, 242; Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, book 7, chap.
19, in NPNF, Second Series, Vol. II, p. 390.
18. The fact that Victor of Rome could not successfully excommunicate
the Asian Christians (see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book
5, chap. 24, in NPNF, Second Series, Vol. I, pp. 242-244) provides
further substantiation of this view. If Rome could earlier have
influenced almost the entire Christian world, both East and West,
to give up an apostolic practice in favor of a Roman innovation,
why was she now incapable of stamping out the last remaining
vestige of this practice? The only reasonable explanation of
all the data seems to be that the Sunday-Easter was not a late
Roman innovation, but that both it and Quartodecimanism (observance
of Nisan 14) stemmed from apostolic times. For further details,
see my "John as Quartodecimanism: A Reappraisal," Journal
of Biblical Literature, 84 (1965), pp. 251-258.
19. See Tertullian, The Chaplet, chap. 3; On Baptism, chap. 19,
in ANF, Vol. III, p. 678; and On Fasting, chap. 14, in ANF, Vol.
IV, p. 112.
20. Van Goudoever, op. cit., p. 167.
21. Philip Carrington, The Primitive Christian Calendar (Cambridge,
England, 1952), p. 38, has made this suggestion: Since crops
could hardly have been ripe everywhere on the two Sundays especially
set aside (day of barley first fruits and Pentecost day), may
it not have been implied that any Sunday within the fifty days
was a proper day for the offering of the first fruits? For an
excellent discussion of the whole question of Easter in relation
to the weekly Sunday, see Lawrence T. Geraty, "The Pascha
and the Origin of Sunday Observance," Andrews University
Seminary Studies (hereafter cited as AUSS) III (1965), pp. 85-96.
22. See Dio Cassius, Roman History, book 68, chap. 32, and book
69, chaps. 12-14, in Loeb Classical Library, Vol. VIII, pp. 394-397,
420-423, 446-451; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 4, chap.
2, in NPNF, Second Series, Vol. I, pp. 174, 175.
23. Comment on Galatians 1:7 in Commentary on Galatians, in NPNF,
First Series, Vol. XIII, p. 8.
24. In On Fasting, chap. 14 (ANF, Vol. IV, p. 112), Tertullian
indicates that the Sabbath is "a day never to be kept as
a fast except at the passover season, according to a reason elsewhere
given." He also indicates his opposition to the Sabbath
fast in Against Marcion, book 4, chap. 12 (ibid., Vol. III, p.
363).
25. Hippolytus mentions some who "give heed to doctrines
of devils" and "often appoint a fast on the Sabbath
and on the Lord's day, which Christ has, however, not appointed"
(from his Commentary on Daniel, iv. 20; the Greek text and French
translation are given by Maurice Lefevre [Paris, 1947], pp. 300-303).
26. See Augustine's Epistles 36 (to Casulanus), 54 (to Januarius),
and 82 (to Jerome), in NPNF, First Series, Vol. I, pp. 265-270,
300, 301, 353, 354. They are dated between A.D. 396 and 405.
It is Epistle 36 that gives rebuttal to the Roman advocate of
the Sabbath fast.
27. English trans. in ANF, Vol. VII, p. 504. This canon is numbered
66 in the Hefele edition (see note 37, below).
28. Pseudo-Ignatius, To the Philippians, chap. 13, in ANF, Vol.
I, p. 119.
29. Institutes, book 3, chap. 10, in NPNF, Second Series, Vol.
XI, p. 218.
30. The first statement appears in Epistle 36, par. 27 (NPNF,
First Series, Vol. I, p. 268), and a similar remark is made in
Epistle 82, par. 14 (ibid., p. 353). References to Milan are
found in Epistle 36, par. 32, and in Epistle 54, par. 3 (ibid.,
pp. 270, 300, 301).
31. See R. L. Odom, "The Sabbath in the Great Schism of
A.D. 1054," AUSS I (1963), pp. 77, 78.
32. Codex Justinianus, 1. iii., Tit. 12, 3, trans. in Philip
Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 5th ed. (New York, 1902),
Vol. III, p. 380, note 1.
33. Theodosian Code, 11. 7. 13, trans. by Clyde Pharr (Princeton,
N.J., 1952), p. 300.
34. See Jerome, Epistle 108, par. 20, in NPNF, Second Series,
Vol. VI, p. 206.
35. Migne, op. cit., vol. 23, col. 1169.
36. S. Ephraem Syri humni et sermones, ed. by T. J. Lamy (1882),
vol. 1, pp. 542-544.
37. Charles J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church,
trans. by Henry N. Oxenham (Edinburgh, 1896), Vol. II, p. 316.
Canon 16 (ibid., p. 310) refers to lections; and the fact that
Saturday as well as Sunday had special consideration during Lent,
as indicated in Canons 49 and 51 (ibid., p. 320), also reveals
that regard for the Sabbath was not entirely lacking.
38. Ibid., Vol. IV, pp. 208, 209.
39. Ibid., pp. 407-409, 422.
40. Ibid., p. 409.
41. W. W. Hyde, Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire
(Philadelphia, 1946), p. 261.
These Times / May 1982
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