Bible Readings for the Home Circle Part 123

"_Ques._-Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to inst.i.tute festivals of precept?

"_Ans._-Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her,-she could not have subst.i.tuted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Sat.u.r.day, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."-_"__A Doctrinal Catechism,__"__ by Rev. Stephen Keenan, page 174._

"The Catholic Church of its own infallible authority created Sunday a holy day to take the place of the Sabbath of the old law."-_Kansas City Catholic, Feb. 9, 1893._

"The Catholic Church, ... by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Sat.u.r.day to Sunday."-_Catholic Mirror, official organ of Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893._

"_Ques._-Which is the Sabbath day?

"_Ans._-Sat.u.r.day is the Sabbath day.

"_Ques._-Why do we observe Sunday instead of Sat.u.r.day?

"_Ans._-We observe Sunday instead of Sat.u.r.day because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Sat.u.r.day to Sunday."-_"__The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine,__"__ by Rev. Peter Geiermann, C. SS. R., page 50, third edition, 1913, a work which received the __"__apostolic blessing__"__ of Pope Pius X, Jan. 25, 1910._

What was done at the Council of Laodicea was but one of the steps by which the change of the Sabbath was effected. See under questions 17-21. The date usually given for this council is 364 A.D.

12. Do Catholic authorities acknowledge that there is no command in the Bible for the sanctification of Sunday?

They do.

NOTE.-"You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Sat.u.r.day, a day which we never sanctify."-_Cardinal Gibbons, in __"__The Faith of Our Fathers,__"__ edition 1892, page 111._

"Sunday is a Catholic inst.i.tution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles.... From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single pa.s.sage that warrants the transfer of weekly public wors.h.i.+p from the last day of the week to the first."-_Catholic Press (Sydney, Australia), Aug. 25, 1900._

13. Do Protestant writers acknowledge the same?

They do.

NOTE.-"Is there no express commandment for observing the first day of the week as Sabbath, instead of the seventh day?-None whatever.

Neither Christ, nor His apostles, nor the first Christians celebrated the first day of the week instead of the seventh as the Sabbath."-_New York Weekly Tribune, May 24, 1900._

"The Scriptures nowhere call the first day of the week the Sabbath.... There is no Scriptural authority for so doing, nor of course any Scriptural obligation."-_The Watchman (Baptist)._

"The observance of the first instead of the seventh day rests on the testimony of the church, and the church _alone_."-_Hobart Church News (Episcopalian), July 2, 1894._

For additional testimonies, see reading on page 454.

14. How did this change in observance of days come about, suddenly or gradually?

Gradually.

NOTES.-"The Christian church made no formal, but a gradual and almost unconscious transference of the one day to the other."-_"__The Voice From Sinai,__"__ by Archdeacon F. W. Farrar, page 167._

This of itself is evidence that there was no divine command for the change of the Sabbath.

15. For how long a time was the seventh-day Sabbath observed in the Christian church?

For many centuries. In fact, its observance has never wholly ceased in the Christian church.

NOTES.-Mr. Morer, a learned clergyman of the Church of England, says: "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 that they derived this practise from the apostles themselves."-_"__Dialogues on the Lord's Day,__"__ page 189._

Prof. E. Brerwood, of Gresham College, London (Episcopal), says: "The Sabbath was religiously observed in the Eastern church three hundred years and more after our Saviour's pa.s.sion."-_"__Learned Treatise of the Sabbath,__"__ page 77._

Lyman Coleman, a careful and candid historian, says: "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 diminis.h.i.+ng until it was wholly discontinued."-_"__Ancient Christianity Exemplified,__"__ chap.

26, sec. 2._

The historian Socrates, who wrote about the middle of the fifth century, says: "Almost all the churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, refuse to do this."-_"__Ecclesiastical History,__"__ book 5, chap. 22._

Sozomen, another historian of the same period, writes: "The people of Constantinople, and of several other cities, a.s.semble together on the Sabbath as well as on the next day; which custom is never observed at Rome."-_"__Ecclesiastical History,__"__ book 7, chap.

19._

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 const.i.tution 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, t.i.t. 12, 3._

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 establis.h.i.+ng 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?