HISTORIC EVIDENCE

     A correspondent in writing us on this subject says: "In Chambers' Encyclopedia I read that Constantine changed the day [of the Sabbath] from the seventh to the first -- 321 years after Christ. If that be true, what right had man to change God's law?" etc. Sure enough! But it isn't true. Nor does Chambers say it is, as a closer scrutiny of the passage referred to will fully prove.

     In the first place, we have shown by abundant scripture testimony that the change was made by the apostles of our Lord, with the divine warrant and approval. In the next place, the passage from Chambers has been misunderstood and misquoted. After rehearsing the scriptural grounds on which the primitive Christians made the first day of the week the day of holding their religious assemblies, and after quoting Justin Martyr in his Apology to Antoninus Pius, written between A. D. 138 and A. D. 150, as giving several reasons why Christians then observed the first day of the week, Chambers says:

     "But whatever may have been the opinion and practice of these early Christians in regard to cessation from labor on the Sunday, unquestionably the first law, 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.," etc. So Chambers clearly teaches that, instead of Constantine changing the day, he merely enacted a law requiring all his subjects to observe that day as sacred which Christians had observed ever since the resurrection of Christ. Whether ignorantly or otherwise, the pleaders for a Saturday Sabbath have committed "a flagrant falsification of history," in alleging Constantine to have changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. The very terms in which his edict was expressed imply that Sunday had long been observed as a sacred day, though voluntarily and not by legal enactment. He says: "Let all judges, inhabitants of cities, and artificers rest on the venerable Sunday," etc. Thus his own words refute the charge that he first changed the Sabbath to the first day of the week.

     In the earliest days of the church the term Sabbath was not applied to the first day, although the Sabbath character was ascribed to it. It was commonly called "the Lord's day," "First-day," or "Resurrection-day," to distinguish it from the day observed by the Jews and by them for ages called the Sabbath. That the first day was observed in the early church from apostolic times and that it was invested with a sabbatic character is amply proved by the testimony of the ancient Fathers, as many reputable authors have shown.

     Ignatius was a disciple of St. John, and is reputed to have been made bishop of Antioch by that apostle. In his epistle to the Magnesians, he says: "If they who were brought up in these ancient laws, come nevertheless to the newness of hope, no longer observing Sabbaths [of a Jewish character] but keeping the Lord's day, in which our life is sprung up by him," etc. This proves (1) that Christians did not then keep the Hebrew Sabbath; (2) that they did observe "the Lord's day" instead of the Sabbath of the law; and (3) that "the Lord's day" was the day our Lord arose from the dead.

     Barnabas, believed to have been the companion of St. Paul as mentioned in the book of Acts, speaks in his epistle of "the eighth day" as the day of Jehovah's choice, and rest, because it is "the beginning of the other world;" and adds: "For which cause we observe the eighth day with gladness, in which Jesus arose from the dead," etc.

     Justin Martyr, in the Apology already cited, assigning reasons why Christians of his day held Sunday meetings, says: "We all of us assemble together on Sunday because it is the first day, in which God changed darkness and matter, and made the world. On the same day also, Jesus Christ our Saviour arose from the dead." Justin, therefore, regarded the first day of the week as the suitable day for Sabbath observance (1) as commemorating the creation of the world, and (2) as commemorating the resurrection of Christ.

     Eusebius, A. D. 267-339, referring to the heresy of the Ebionites, says: "They also observe the Sabbath and other discipline of the Jews, but also on the other hand, they celebrate the Lord's day very much like us." This shows that at that time orthodox Christians did not observe the Jewish Sabbath, and that they did observe the Lord's day instead.

     Many other equally pertinent quotations might be adduced, but these must suffice. Having traced in outline the history of the Sabbath and its changes from the creation far into the Christian era, and having presented what we consider abundant scriptural and historical warrant that the observance of the First-day Sabbath by Christians is divinely authorized, we take our leave of the subject, indulging the hope that what we have written may clear up the matter in some degree to such of our readers as have been in doubt or perplexity on this important matter.

     May the Christian Sabbath become ever brighter and dearer to us all, and may we ever be able confidently to say, "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."