[158]
Section Titles
Did the Greek Church Change the Sabbath?
The Christian Sabbath Was Kept for Several Centuries of the
Christian Era by the Entire Church
How Sunday Later
Crept Into the Church
Constantine's Sunday Law
Led by Rome, the Church Makes Laws Favoring Sunday
Did the Popes Change the Sabbath?
Foretold by Prophets
The Testimony of the
Protestant World
The Mark of the
Beast
Finding in previous chapters that the Sabbath of the
Decalogue was never changed by divine authority, and yet knowing that most of
the religious world today keep the first day of the week instead of the
original seventh day, we are led to inquire, Who did change the Sabbath? How
has this change been brought about? If the change was not made by Christ or His
apostles, by whose authority was it made?
Seventh-day Adventists, since their rise, have claimed
that the change was made by the great apostasy which headed up in Rome, through
councils, prelates, and popes. This Mr. Canright stoutly denies.
He first claims very vehemently that “the change
was made by the apostles.” This he reiterates over and over in one of his
last books, The Lord's Day, published in 1915. (See pages 83,
89-99.)
This error we have already completely answered. We have
in a previous chapter studied every verse in the New Testament where the first
day of the week is mentioned, and have found that not once is it called the
Sabbath, the Lord's day, a holy day, or a day of rest. There is absolutely no
mention of Sunday sacredness in all the New Testament. There is no suggestion
from either Christ or the apostles that it was to take the place of the
seventh-day Sabbath.
[159]
We are clearly told in the Gospels that the Sabbath
comes between the sixth and the first days of the week (see Luke 23:54-56;
24:1); therefore it is the seventh day. We find Luke talking about the Sabbath
“according to the commandment,” and stating that the followers of
Jesus kept it even after Christ's crucifixion. (See Luke 23:56.) Thus this
companion of Paul, who wrote at least twenty-eight years after the cross, does
not recognize any change as having taken place.
Mark declares that when the first day of the week comes,
the Sabbath is past. (See Mark 16.)
This shows that Mark also did not recognize any change
in the Sabbath obligation. John in Revelation 1:10 speaks of the Lord's day,
but he does not hint that he was referring to Sunday. He merely says “the
Lord's day,” and both Jesus and inspired writers insist that the Lord's
day is the original Sabbath. Thus through Isaiah, God calls it “My holy
day.” Isaiah 58:13. And Jesus declared, “The Son of man is Lord also
of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:28. Can such a statement be produced in support of
a Sunday Lord's day? Absolutely not. If it had been there Mr. Canright would
have found it. The Word of God is not divided against itself. It is not yea and
nay, but yea and amen; that is, it is a harmonious whole. (See 2 Corinthians
1:19, 20.) When it declares in one place that one day is the Lord's day, it
does not contradict it in some other place and substitute another Lord's day.
Therefore no Sunday Lord's day is to be found in Scripture.
But Mr. Canright himself reveals the fact that he was
conscious of this weakness in his argument. He quotes
[160]
from a Catholic author in support of the theory that the
apostles changed the day, and yet he had formerly said:
“In commemoration of Christ's resurrection, the
church observes Sunday. The observance does not rest on any positive law, of
which there is no trace.”—The Lord's Day, p. 93.
So here we have the confession of utter failure. There
is no trace of a law for Sundaykeeping in Holy Scripture. It does not therefore
rest on divine authority, and we must of necessity look elsewhere to ascertain
its origin.
Upon utterly failing to prove the theory that the
apostles changed the Sabbath, Mr. Canright moves to an entirely new platform
and boldly declares:
“Sunday observance originated with the Eastern or
Greek Church, not with Rome in the West.” “the proof of this is
abundant.”—Ibid., p. 165.
And again:
“All the first witnesses for the Lord's day were
not Romans, but Greeks living in the East.”—Ibid., p. 167.
Now this is certainly a most important admission. Mr.
Canright made it in an attempt to disprove the claim that the Roman Church
changed the day, but he has proved too much. In fact, he has given his case
entirely away. Seventh-day Adventists have always claimed that the Sabbath was
changed by human and not divine authority, and here we have a full admission of
this fact by Mr. Canright. The only difference now left between his position
and that of the Seventh-day Adventists is that he tries to differentiate
between actions of the churches in the East and those in the West. He claims
that it was not the church at Rome
[161]
or any of the Western Catholic churches that did the
changing of the Sabbath, but that it was the Greek Catholic churches in the
East. So says Mr. Canright.
Suppose for the moment that we admit this sharp
distinction between the actions of these branches of the early Catholic
Church—that the Greek Catholic Church in the East was entirely responsible
for the change. What have we now? Why, in Sunday we have a Greek Catholic
sabbath instead of a Roman Catholic sabbath. And may we inquire what advantage
we have thus gained? Is a Greek Catholic sabbath better in any particular than
a Roman Catholic sabbath? Did the churches in the East have greater authority
to tamper with God's law than the churches in the West? How is this? So long as
the change was not made on Scriptural authority, but by human organizations
after the days of Christ and His apostles, what binding claim can this new
Sunday rest day have upon Christians, even if it did come from the Greeks
instead of the Romans? The really important consideration is that it originated
with man, and not with God.
But let us note the dilemma in which Mr. Canright has
placed himself. Says he:
“The change was made by the
apostles.”—Ibid., p. 83.
Then he says:
“Sunday observance originated with the Eastern, or
Greek, Church, not with Rome in the West.”—Ibid., p. 165.
Now we ask, How can both of these statements be true? If
the change were made by the apostles, how could Sunday observance have
originated with the Greeks? Were the twelve apostles Greeks? Not one of them.
They were
[162]
all Galilean Jews. It was not until after every ordinance of
the Christian church had been instituted and placed in order; not until the
death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord, which ratified the new covenant;
not, in fact, until Pentecost that the gospel began to be proclaimed to the
Greeks and other Gentile nations. In fact, Mr. Canright refers to Pentecost to
show that the Greeks heard the gospel on that occasion, and carried it to the
countries in the East. (See The Lord's Day, by D. M. Canright, p.
166.)
But what has this to do with the Sabbath? The early
church was already established, its laws and ordinances were fixed, it had been
given its commission to “go, … teach all nations,” and the
teaching was to lead people “to observe all things whatsoever I [Jesus]
have commanded you.” Matthew 28:19, 20. The commands had been given, and
with Peter's sermon on Pentecost the apostolic church, under the endowment of
the Holy Spirit, entered upon its Heaven-appointed task of world evangelism.
Any change of laws or ordinances after that would be invalid. It had not been
left for Gentile converts of later centuries to make the rules and laws of the
church, but Christ had carefully attended to all this Himself, and had given
His disciples full instruction as to what to teach. Concerning the Ten
Commandments, He had said to them: “It is easier for heaven and earth to
pass, than one tittle of the law to fail”; and “whosoever shall do
and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Luke 16:17; Matthew 5:19. This, then, included the Sabbath and all, every
tittle. This is as though Jesus had said that not so much as the dot of an
i or the cross of a t was to fail or he changed. And the
disciples are
[163]
commanded to both do and teach them. Thus the
commission given by our Lord to the church to “teach them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you,” included the teaching of the
whole Decalogue. Any subsequent change in the Sabbath, by either Greek or
Roman, could therefore in no way alter our obligation to keep the original
Sabbath of creation.
Let us carefully note Mr. Canright's statement already
quoted:
“All the first witnesses for the Lord's day were
not Romans, but Greeks living in the East. These were Barnabas, Justin Martyr,
Dionysius, Clement, Anatolius, Origen, Eusebius, etc.”—The Lord's
Day, p. 167.
Let the reader carefully note this candid admission. Why
does he not cite Christ, Paul, Peter, James, John, Matthew, and the other
apostles and New Testament writers, as the “first witnesses for the Lord's
day”? Simply because the apostles knew nothing of a Sunday Lord's day, and
therefore could not bear witness to it. No such thing as substituting Sunday
for Saturday, the original seventh-day Sabbath, had been thought of in their
day. All this change followed later, in the wake of the apostasy which engulfed
Christendom during the Middle Ages, and Mr. Canright here frankly admits that
he has to turn to the church Fathers of these medieval times, when the church
had departed from the apostolic faith, to find the first witnesses for his
Sunday Lord's day. But Mr. Canright's witnesses have come on the stand a few
centuries too late, and their testimony cannot be admitted as evidence by the
true disciple of Christ.
[164]
The Christian Sabbath Was Kept for Several Centuries of
the Christian Era by the Entire Church
It is some time subsequent to the time of the apostles
that we must look for the change from Sabbath to Sunday observance. We must
find it in history, since it cannot be found in Scripture. As the canon of
Scripture closes with the Revelation, we are left without any record whatsoever
of a change. It had not therefore taken place up to that time. It was
altogether a later development, and came in as a perversion of the teachings of
Christ and the apostles.
The first recorded instance of religious meetings being
held by some of the Christian churches on Sunday, which has any claim to be
considered genuine, is mentioned by Justin Martyr, A.D. 140, when some
Christians met and read the writings of the apostles. Justin does not, however,
even intimate that this day had any divine authority, either from Christ or
from His apostles. Nor was it kept as a day of rest. It was about this time,
however, that the great apostasy began to develop, which was foretold by the
apostle Paul in the following scriptures:
“I know this, that after my departing shall
grievous wolves enter among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves
shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after
them.” Acts 20:29, 30.
Again:
“The time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers,
having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and
shall be turned unto fables.” 2 Timothy 4:3, 4.
[165]
And yet again:
“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day
shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be
revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all
that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the
temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that when I was
yet with you, I told you these things? … For the mystery of iniquity doth
already work.” 2 Thessalonians 2:3-7.
This apostasy, which was already working in Paul's day,
soon began to play havoc with the church. The pagan Romans who nominally
accepted Christianity, generally remained unchanged at heart, and in a short
time they began to remodel the religion of the apostles. The Baptist historian
Robinson says:
“Toward the latter end of the second century, most
of the churches assumed a new form; the first simplicity disappeared; and
insensibly, as the old disciples retired to their graves, their children came
forward, and new-molded the cause.”—Ecclesiastical Researches,
chap. 6, p. 51.
It was a number of centuries, however, before the
Sabbath began to be superseded by Sunday as a day of rest from labor. On this
point the historian Coleman says:
“Down even to the fifth century the observance of
the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Christian church.”—Ancient
Christianity Exemplified, chap. 26, sec. 2, p. 527.
In the same chapter he also says:
“During the early ages of the church, it [Sunday]
was never entitled ‘the Sabbath,’ this word being confined to the
seventh day of the week.”
[166]
Dr. T. H. Morer (Church of England) also makes this
statement:
“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 practice from the apostles themselves, as
appears by several scriptures to that purpose.”—Dialogues on the
Lord's Day, p. 189.
H. C. Haggtveit (Lutheran) bears the following
testimony:
“For the first five centuries of the church there
is no mention of any transfer or change of the Sabbath to the first day of the
week.”—Church History, p. 79.
Neander, one of the greatest of church historians,
says:
“The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals,
was 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.”—The History of the Christian Religion and Church,
vol. 1, p. 186.
Early in the Christian Era a new form of heathen worship
sprang up and spread rapidly throughout the then Gentile world. It was known as
Mithraism, and had to do with the worship of the sun as did other forms of
heathenism; but its philosophy was more fascinating than the more crude form of
paganism, and made a pretense of holding up high standards of morality. This
new heathenism soon captured the Caesars, invaded the Roman armies and the
centers of learning, and was embraced by the higher classes of society.
Alexandria and Rome soon became important Mithran centers, and, in fact,
history records
[167]
that in “the middle of the third century Mithraism
seemed on the verge of becoming the universal religion,” and that it
“became the greatest antagonist of Christianity.” Some of the
peculiar doctrines enunciated by its priests were “the immortality of the
soul,” “the use of bell and candle, holy water and communion;
sanctification of Sunday and the 25th of
December.”—Encyclopedia Britannica (11th ed.), art.
“Mithras.”
“The devotees of Mithra held Sunday sacred because
Mithra was identified with the ‘invincible sun.’”—Letter to
C. P. Bollman from W. de C. Ravenel, administrative assistant to the secretary
of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., quoted in Sunday, p.
3.
Franz Cumont, Ph.D., LL.D., speaking of Mithraists,
says:
“They held Sunday sacred, and celebrated the birth
of the Sun on the 25th of December.”—The Mysteries of Mithra
(1910), pp. 190, 191.
There soon set in a life-and-death struggle between
Mithraism and Christianity, and since apostasy was already rife in the
Christian church, it was only a short step further for her leaders to agree
upon a compromise. Many of these leaders had themselves come into the church as
converts from Mithraism, and still had a certain veneration for the sun and
those institutions held sacred to it. It was therefore agreed by them that, in
order to facilitate the conversion of the heathen, and thus advance the cause
of Christ over that of Mithra, they would incorporate many of the teachings and
institutions of Mithraism into the church, and among these was the Sunday
festival.
On this point we have the following striking testimony
of the Catholic World, published in 1894:
[168]
“The church took the pagan philosophy and made it
the buckler of faith against the heathen. She took the pagan Roman Pantheon,
temple of all the gods, and made it sacred to all the martyrs; so it stands to
this day. She took the pagan Sunday and made it the Christian Sunday.
She took the pagan Easter and made it the feast we celebrate during this
season….
“The sun was a foremost god with heathendom….
There is, in truth, something royal, kingly about the sun, making it a fit
emblem of Jesus, the Sun of justice. Hence the church in these countries would
seem to have said, ‘Keep that old pagan name. It shall remain consecrated,
sanctified.’ And thus the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder [the god of
light and peace], became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus.”—Vol.
58, no. 348, March, 1894, p. 809.
With the celebration of Sunday came the worship toward
the east in the early morning hour, at the rising of the sun, and Christianity
came so nearly to resemble the religion of the heathen world that many of its
adherents were no longer able to distinguish between the two. Dr. Franz Cumont
tells us in the following passage how that which should have been rendered to
God was now often rendered to the dazzling sun:
“On the other hand, the ecclesiastical writers
… contrasted the ‘Sun of justice’ with the ‘invincible
sun,’ and consented to see in the dazzling orb which illuminated man a
symbol of Christ, ‘the light of the world.’ Should we be astonished
if the multitudes of devotees failed always to observe the subtle distinctions
of the doctors, and if in obedience to a pagan custom they rendered to the
radiant star of the day the homage which orthodoxy reserved for God? In the
fifth century, not only heretics, but even faithful followers were still wont
to bow their heads toward its dazzling disc as it rose above the horizon, and
to murmur the prayer, ‘Have mercy on us.’”—Mysteries of
Mithra, p. 193.
[169]
Christianity finally came to look just like paganism.
Faustus, a pagan of the fourth century, in speaking to the Christians,
declared:
“You celebrate the solemn festivals of the
Gentiles, … and as to their manners, those you have retained without any
alteration. Nothing distinguishes you from the pagans except that you hold your
assemblies apart from them.”—Faustus (a non-Christian) to St.
Augustine (4th Century), cited in History of the Intellectual Development of
Europe, John William Draper, M.D., LL.D., vol. 1, p. 310.
“The Christian church made no formal but a gradual
and almost unconscious transference of the one day to the
other.”—Archdeacon F. W. Farrar, The Voice From Sinai (1892),
p. 167.
Dr. Peter Heylyn (Church of England):
“It was near 900 years from our Saviour's birth, if
not quite so much, before restraint of husbandry on this day, had been first
thought of in the East; and probably being thus restrained, did find no
more obedience there, than it had done before in the Western
parts.”—History of the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 5, par. 6.
Bishop Grimelund of Norway:
“Now, summing up what history teaches regarding the
origin of Sunday and the development of the doctrine about Sunday, then this is
the sum: It is not the apostles, not the early Christians,
nor the councils of the ancient church which have imprinted the name and
stamp of the Sabbath upon the Sunday, but it is the Church of the Middle Ages
and its scholastic teachers.”—Sondagens Historie, p. 37.
Thus a gradual change from Sabbath observance to Sunday
observance came in after the first centuries of the Christian Era had passed,
especially among the Western
[170]
churches. The more the pagan world came to favor
Christianity, and the further removed the church became from the influence of
the apostolic example of the first century, the more Sunday observance and the
other heathen festivals prevailed. This change, covering centuries, was greatly
helped by Constantine's civil law of 321 in favor of the first day of the week,
which banned work on that day in the cities, and commanded the people to rest
on “the venerable day of the sun.” This famous decree said nothing
about the “Lord's day,” but was promulgated apparently for the
purpose of finally establishing a heathen festival. This law of Constantine's
is quoted in the old Chambers's Encyclopedia, in its article
“Sabbath,” as follows:
“‘Let all judges, inhabitants of the cities,
and artificers, rest on the venerable day of the sun. But in the country,
husbandmen may freely and lawfully apply to the business of agriculture; since
it often happens that the sowing of corn and the planting of vines cannot be so
advantageously performed on any other day.’
“But it was not until the year 538 that abstinence
from agricultural labor was recommended, rather than enjoined, by an
ecclesiastical authority (the third Council of Orleans), and this expressly
that people might have more leisure to go to church and say their
prayers.”
From the Encyclopedia Britannica we read:
“The earliest recognition of the observance of
Sunday as a legal duty is a constitution 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.”—Article “Sunday,”
vol. 26 (11th ed.), p. 95.
This, then, is admittedly the very first law for the
[171]
observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, and it is
made, not by “the Lord from heaven,” our one and only Lawgiver, but
by Emperor Constantine, who was of questionable character, and whose sympathies
were more with paganism than with Christianity. Even this was not an
ecclesiastical law of the church at that time, but merely a civil law made by
the ruling emperor, and it was made in the fourth century after Christ, too
late, it seems to us, to deserve any recognition from Christians as
establishing a Christian institution which they are bound, under penalty of
sin, to recognize; and, besides, it comes from a very questionable source.
The fact seems to be that Constantine's law for Sunday
observance was not made for the purpose of favoring and establishing a
Christian day of worship at all, but to enforce a pagan festival upon
Christians and pagans alike, Mr. Canright's argument to the contrary
notwithstanding. Thus his law, instead of commanding rest upon “the Lord's
day,” commands it “on the venerable day of the sun.” He
did not recognize Sunday as a Christian ordinance, but as a day sacred to the
sun-god worshiped by the pagan world. It was the holy day of Mithraism, the
great rival of Christianity. His law, therefore, was not for the purpose of
enforcing Christianity on the pagans under his jurisdiction but for enforcing
the new paganism upon the Christians.
In his book The Lord's Day, Mr. Canright makes a
long, labored effort to prove that Constantine had become a Christian convert
some years before the promulgation of this famous Sunday law, and that he was
therefore enforcing Sunday rest as a Christian ordinance, and not as a heathen
festival. Now there is one difficulty here. When
[172]
Constantine made his law, it was to the effect that people
were to “rest on the venerable day of the sun,” not on the
Sunday—Lord's day. Does this indicate that he was enforcing a Christian
Sabbath? The answer is clear. The emperor was en joining upon Christians and
pagans alike the festival of the sun-god, and was thereby legalizing sun
worship and making it a civil crime for Christians to work on Sunday, as
thousands were still doing up to this time. It was an effort to enforce heathen
practices upon the Christian church.
Mr. Canright admits that when Constantine made his
famous Sunday law, he was still ordering that sacrifices be made to pagan gods,
and that he had pagan rites performed for himself, but asserts that he was
doing this, not from choice, but to avoid a rebellion among his pagan subjects.
(See The Lord's Day, by D. M. Canright, p. 197.) But how can it be
demonstrated that this was his motive? The admitted fact is that he was still a
heathen, and that when he made a law enforcing Sunday rest, he chose a pagan
title for the day, boldly calling it “the venerable day of the
sun,” not the day of the Son, or Lord.
As to whether Constantine was here seeking to enforce a
heathen or Christian festival, Professor Webster makes the following pertinent
statement:
“This legislation by Constantine probably bore no
relation to Christianity; it appears, on the contrary, that the emperor, in his
capacity of Pontifex Maximus, was only adding the day of the sun, the worship
of which was then firmly established in the Roman Empire, to the other ferial
days of the sacred calendar.”—Prof. Hutton Webster, Ph.D. (University
of Nebraska), Rest Days, p. 122.
“What began, however, as a pagan ordinance, ended
as a Christian regulation; and a long series of imperial decrees,
[173]
during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, enjoined with
increasing stringency abstinence from labor on Sunday.”—Ibid.,
p. 270.
Dean Stanley declares:
“The retention of the old pagan name ‘Dies
Solis,’ or ‘Sunday,’ for the weekly Christian festival, is, in
great measure, owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which
the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his subjects, pagan
and Christian alike, as the ‘venerable day of the sun.’ … It was
his mode of harmonizing the discordant religions of the empire under one common
institution.”—Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Lectures on the
History of the Eastern Church, lecture 6, par. 15, p. 184.
And from Philip Schaff we quote:
“The Sunday law of Constantine must not be
overrated…. There is no reference whatever in his law either to the fourth
commandment or to the resurrection of Christ. Besides, he expressly exempted
the country districts, where paganism still prevailed, from the prohibition of
labor…. Christians and pagans had been accustomed to festival rests;
Constantine made these rests to synchronize, and gave the preference to
Sunday.”—Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Third
Period, chap. 7, sec. 75 (vol. 3, p. 380).
But suppose Constantine had been a Christian when he
made his Sunday law, and that he did it to establish a Christian sabbath. Would
that prove anything for its sacredness? Was this Roman emperor, who, according
to Mr. Canright, was still sacrificing to heathen deities, a suitable founder
of the Christian religion? Was he among the prophets called of God to deliver
His oracles to His people? Was his authority above that of Christ and the
[174]
apostles? Does God's rest day require such props to hold it
up? Is not this very effort thus to bolster up the Sunday rest day an admission
of the weakness of the claims made for it?
If a single text of Scripture in favor of Sunday
observance could have been found, how totally unnecessary would be all this
effort to prove Constantine to have been a great benefactor to the Christian
church! The Sabbath law is found in the Word of God. Failing to find a Sunday
law there, Mr. Canright resorts to the edict of a half Christian, half pagan
emperor, of the fourth century. The Sabbath was given at creation, spoken by
God on Sinai, observed by patriarchs and prophets, and kept by Christ and the
apostles to the very close of New Testament times. Sunday came in later. The
earliest trace Mr. Canright can find of it is in the second century.
People in that century were saying the apostles changed
it, but they offered no proof. No word of Christ or apostle is ever quoted by
them on this point. The testimony of Scripture is silent on the subject of
Sunday sacredness—not a word about it. There is not an instance of
observance. Had there been such a word spoken, Mr. Canright would certainly
have built his argument upon it, instead of trying to bolster it up with this
Sunday law of Constantine, who he admits was still head of the heathen religion
when his Sunday law was enacted. Mr. Canright cites certain texts where he
thinks perhaps Sunday is alluded to, but later frankly admits that they do not
furnish a real record of a change. For such a record he has to go to his
Christian-heathen emperor, Constantine, and there too he is disappointed,
because this man, unfortunately, referred to Sunday by using its pagan name
instead of calling it the
[175]
Lord's day. It seems to us that Mr. Canright's Lord's-day
argument is built upon a sandy foundation.
We believe that the above historical quotations
constitute a complete answer to Mr. Canright's declaration that the pagans did
not regard Sunday as a festival on which they worshiped the sun-god. The first
day of the week was known throughout the pagan world as the sun's day. The name
given to it was Dies Solis, or the day of the sun, sacred to the sun-god. The
Religious Encyclopedia says:
“The Ancient Saxons called it by this name, because
upon it they worshiped the sun.”
According to this, the title originated in heathen
idolatry. Do authorities agree upon this? Yes; there is not a recognized author
in all the rounds of history or literature who dissents from this.
Turning to Webster's New International Dictionary
we find this definition:
“Sunday: so named because anciently dedicated to
the sun or its worship.”
These authorities give an ancient origin to the name.
Constantine was not the originator of the title which he gave to the day. Dr.
T. H. Morer, of the church of England, says:
“It is not to be denied but [that] we borrow the
name of this day from the ancient Greeks and Romans, and we allow that the old
Egyptians worshiped the sun, and as a standing memorial of their veneration,
dedicated this day to him.”—Dialogues on the Lord's Day.
Thus it is shown that Constantine probably had no
thought of enforcing respect for a Christian institution by his famous Sunday
law, but rather a very ancient heathen
[176]
festival, which was then beginning to compete strongly with
the Christian Sabbath (Saturday). This resulted from the influence of paganism
upon the Christian church.
Of the popularity of sun worship at Rome at that time,
and the consequent influence this had on the Christian religion, the following
historical quotations will testify:
“Sun worship, however, became increasingly popular
at Rome in the second and third centuries A. D. The sun god of Emesa in
Syria—Deus Sol invictus Elagabalus—was exalted above the older
gods of Rome by the emperor [Macrinus, A. D. 217, taking the name Elagabalus],
who, as his priest, was identified with the object of his worship; and in spite
of the disgust inspired by the excesses of the boy priest, an impulse was given
to the spread of a kind of ‘solar pantheism,’ which embraced by a
process of syncretism the various Oriental religions and was made the chief
worship of the state by Aurelian.”—H. Stuart Jones, Companion to
Roman History, p. 302.
Milman says:
“It was openly asserted that the worship of the
sun, under his name of Elagabalus, was to supersede all other
worship.”—Henry Hart Milman, The History of Christianity, book
2, chap. 8, par. 22.
Prof. Hutton Webster calls Sunday a pagan institution
which was engrafted onto Christianity:
“The early Christians had at first adopted the
Jewish seven-day week, with its numbered week days, but by the close of the
third century A.D. this began to give way to the planetary week; and in the
fourth and fifth centuries the pagan designations became generally accepted in
the western half of Christendom. The use of the planetary names by Christians
attests the growing influence of astrological speculations introduced by
converts from paganism…. During
[177]
these same centuries the spread of Oriental solar worship,
especially that of ‘Mithra,’ in the Roman world, had already
led to the substitution by pagans of dies Solis for dies Saturni,
as the first day of the planetary week…. Thus gradually a pagan
institution was engrafted on Christianity.”—Prof. Hutton Webster,
Rest Days, pp. 220, 221.
We now quote in this connection an amazing confession by
Dr. Hiscox, author of the Baptist Manual, in which he also admits that
Sunday came into the church from paganism.
“Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come
into use in early Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from the
Christian Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that it comes branded with
the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, when adopted
and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to
Protestantism!”—Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, author of The Baptist
Manual, in a paper read before a New York City Ministers' Conference, held
in New York City, Nov. 13, 1893.
On this point Mr. Canright, as an Adventist writing in
1885, before he had renounced his faith in the Bible Sabbath, truly said:
“Now it is a very common error to suppose that a
practice which is very old, and can be traced back to somewhere near the
apostolic church, must be correct. But this is an evident mistake, for apostasy
commenced so early that there is no safety in accepting tradition on any
subject. Our only safety is the Scriptures themselves. Protestants claim to
rely wholly on this authority, leaving tradition to Catholics; and yet, on this
subject, as well as some others, they follow Rome, because the Bible gives them
no help….
“Now the question arises, Just when did the
practice of Sunday keeping commence? No one can tell exactly. Why?
[178]
If the change had been made by divine authority, we could
put our finger on the exact point, and show where it was done. But, like all
error, its introduction was gradual. You cannot follow a river into the ocean,
and put your finger down and say, There, just at that spot the fresh water
stops and the salt water begins; neither can you tell where Sabbath keeping
stopped and Sunday observance began, as there was a gradual mingling of truth
and error.
“You will hear men say with all confidence that,
while the seventh day was kept to the crucifixion, the practice of the church
since then has been unanimous in keeping the first day. I do not see how a man
can be honest and say this, unless he is very ignorant, as the most trustworthy
historians … testify to the contrary….
“When it [Sunday] was introduced, it did not come
in as a sabbath. Look at the word itself, ‘Sunday.’ Webster defines
it as ‘so-called, because this day was anciently dedicated to the
sun;’ and the North British Review styles it ‘the wild solar
holiday of all pagan times.’ Now, how did it creep into the church? I'll
tell you how. When the early Christians evangelized the heathen tribes, they
would go to the head, or chief, and labor with him to convince him of the
superiority of the Christian religion. If he became convinced, he would command
his entire tribe to be baptized. They were pagans, and had kept Sunday as a
festival in honor of one of their gods, the sun; and when they outwardly
accepted Christianity, they kept up their observance of Sunday, which gradually
supplanted the Lord's Sabbath. And while some of these might have been soundly
converted, there is evidence to show that though the Sabbath was kept, Sunday
was also observed as a kind of holiday, but with no idea of sacredness attached
to it….
“And so we might trace the history down through the
first centuries. The observance of Sunday, introduced as a holiday, or
festival, gradually assumed more importance as a rival of God's Sabbath, until,
by the influx of half-converted pagans into the church, bringing with them
their solar holiday, it began to supplant its divinely appointed
[179]
rival…. It was not until the Council of Orleans, 538 A.
D., that Sunday labor in the country was prohibited, and thus, as Dr. Paley
remarked, it became ‘an institution of the church,’ and of that
church into whose hands the saints, times, and laws were to be given for 1260
years; and it may be something more than a coincidence that 538 A. D. was the
beginning of that period.”—D. M. Canright, Tabernacle
Lectures, Lecture Ten, pp. 76-83.
J. N. Andrews, author of The History of the
Sabbath, tells us how Constantine was really responsible for laying the
foundations of the Papacy. We quote two paragraphs from him:
“Bower minutely details the order of the hierarchy,
its divisions, and the orders of its officers, as established by Constantine,
making it an ecclesiastical government closely modeled after the civil.
Although the exarchs and metropolitan bishops were over all the bishops in
their dioceses and provinces, there was no one bishop over all. Yet it was
declared by the Council of Nice that the primacy should rest in the bishop of
Rome, in honor of that city. The title was then an empty one, except in the
honor of the name; but it became fruitful both of dignity and power. The
bishop of Rome soon became the representative of the faith of the church.
To be in harmony with Rome was to be orthodox; disagreement with Rome was
heresy….
“A certain writer well observed that Constantine
would have proved himself a noble ruler if he had rested with the acts of
toleration of Christianity; but he followed this up with acts of intolerance
against all Christians but those who happened to enjoy his favor, who composed
that party which could best serve the interests of the empire. This party, of
course, was represented by the bishop of Rome; for it would have been absurd to
think of best serving the empire by conferring the primacy on any bishop but
that of the imperial city. It was Constantine who convened the Council of Nice,
where the famous creed of the church was formed.
[180]
Thus was laid the foundation of the Papacy, or papal
hierarchy.”—Replies to Elder Canright's Attacks on Seventh-day
Adventists (1895), pp. 148, 149.
It was not long after Constantine's civil law for Sunday
observance was promulgated until the church, through its councils, bishops, and
popes, began to make religious laws in favor of Sunday. The church was by now
in an almost complete state of apostasy. The rites and ceremonies of the pagan
religions had almost wholly taken the place of the commands of God and the
ordinances of the New Testament. The doctrine of the conscious state of the
dead, witchcraft, spiritism, sprinkling for baptism, infant baptism, etc., were
being embraced. Soon the mass was substituted for the Lord's supper; Mary for
Jesus, as mediator between God and man; human priests usurped the position of
Christ as our High Priest; the confessional was established; and the Papacy was
well under way, though it had not yet reached the zenith of its power. The
crowning act in all this apostasy was the changing of the Sabbath, substituting
by church authority the pagan festival of Sunday for the Christian Sabbath,
Saturday. This the church began to enforce by edict.
The first ecclesiastical law for Sunday
observance recorded in history is that of the Council of Laodicea, held about
the year 364. The pronouncement of the council was:
“Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on
Saturday [Sabbath, original], but shall work on that day; but the Lord's day
they shall especially honor, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do
no work on that day. If, however,
[181]
they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from
Christ.”—Rt. Rev. Charles Joseph Hefele, D.D., A History of the
Church Councils, book 6, sec. 93, canon 29 (vol. 2, p. 316).
The canons of this council were adopted by the churches,
and have always been accepted as Catholic. This was a church council, an
ecclesiastical congress. What it did was representative of the Catholic Church.
Did it do anything toward changing the Sabbath? It did. It required Christians
to rest on the Lord's day, meaning Sunday, and prohibited them from resting on
the Bible Sabbath (Saturday), under penalty of being accursed of Christ. Than
this the church could pronounce no severer penalty. The command of the council
was absolute. People were peremptorily ordered to rest on Sunday and to work on
Saturday. The very fact that the order was given proves beyond all possible
doubt that at least a large section of the Christian church still kept the
Bible Sabbath, Saturday, and this canon (29) of Laodicea was given in an effort
to change this practice, or, in other words, to change the Sabbath.
Mr. Canright the Baptist says:
“We have given plenty of proof that Sunday was
observed by all Christians as early at least as 140 A. D., or nearly two
hundred years before even the foundation of the Papacy was
laid.”—The Lord's Day, p. 221.
Does it not, then, strike the reader as passing strange
that a church council held in A.D. 364 should be making laws to enforce upon
its members a custom which had been universally observed by them for over two
hundred years? Why should the Council of Laodicea have wasted time legislating
about people's keeping the Sabbath when no one had kept it since A.D. 140?
[182]
In order to get over this point, Mr. Canright is forced
to admit that there were those who were still keeping the Sabbath, but he
brands them as heretics, and tries to make it appear that they were a small
minority. (See The Lord's Day, p. 217.)
But we have only the statement of Mr. Canright himself
that the Sabbath observers were the real heretics and were in the minority. We
have already furnished abundant proof that the Sabbath was still observed very
largely by the church, but that through the influence of thousands of converts
from paganism, its sanctity was now diminishing and the day of the sun was
rapidly supplanting it. The fact, however, which even Mr. Canright must admit,
that there were Christians even in the fourth century who still persisted in
the observance of the Sabbath and who had to be suppressed in this matter by an
action of a church council, entirely disproves his statement that Sunday was
observed by all Christians as early at A.D. 140. It also further proves
that the then Christian world had no clear knowledge of any change having been
made in the Sabbath by divine command. Nor does the Laodicean Council invoke a
command of Christ or the apostles when it thus takes its first action favoring
Sunday observance, but it issues the command purely on its own authority.
It was therefore the voice of a church in apostasy,
influenced by the multitudes who had newly come to her from the heathen world
and whose sympathies were still largely with the tenets of their former
religion, who thus promulgated the first ecclesiastical law for
Sundaykeeping.
They made no claim whatsoever that their enforcement of
Sunday was in any way based on Scriptural authority. Whether it was or was not
in harmony with
[183]
Biblical testimony seems not to have concerned them in the
least. They had set out to reform the Christian religion, and the former
heathen festival of Sunday was to become the new Sabbath rest. That was
all.
Now this one action of one Catholic council would not
have been sufficient completely to reverse the practices of the entire church
in all parts of the world where the Sabbath was still kept, but it did
constitute the first official utterance by the church in that direction,
and instead of repudiating what was done at Laodicea, later councils have
invariably upheld it. The sixty-four articles adopted by that council are today
practically a part of the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church.
It was the churches in the West—Rome, Alexandria,
etc.—that took the lead in swinging entirely over from Sabbath to Sunday
observance, and as Rome rose in power and prestige among the churches, she
began a relentless effort to enforce this new doctrine in all the churches. On
this point we have the testimony of Sozomen and Socrates.
Sozomen says:
“The people of Constantinople, and of several other
cities, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the next day; which
custom is never observed at Rome, or at Alexandria.”—Sozomen,
Ecclesiastical History, from A. D., 324-440, book 7, chap. 19, p.
355.
Socrates was born about A.D. 380, and lived during the
time when the first attempts were made by the Bishop of Rome to suppress the
Sabbath. He had traveled over a considerable part of Christendom, and spoke of
the church in general from personal knowledge. He said:
“Almost all churches throughout the world celebrate
the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath of every week, yet the Christians
[184]
of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient
traditions, refuse to do this.”—Socrates, Ecclesiastical
History, book 5, chap. 22, p. 404.
It was the church at Rome, therefore, that took the lead
in authoritatively substituting the papal Sunday for the Christian Sabbath.
Many of the churches in the East, however, soon followed its example. At the
Laodicean Council began the long struggle to enforce its observance upon all.
Thereafter everything was done that “Christian” emperors, kings,
popes, councils, and synods could do to swing all the churches, both east and
west, into line, to uphold the canon of Laodicea, and to add to the sanctity of
the day of the sun. Charlemagne did more, perhaps, than any other emperor to
make this part of the faith of the church effective, and in his first decree he
referred directly to this canon of the Council of Laodicea. But it required
repeated councils, actions, bulls, and encyclicals of the bishops and popes
finally to establish the change. Yes, more still, it required bitter
persecution, and a large number of those who refused to surrender their
observance of the true Sabbath upon the mere authority of the church, had the
privilege of sealing their faith with the blood of martyrdom.
In the time of Constantine, Bishop Sylvester ordained
that Sunday should be called the Lord's day.
Pope Leo I, of the fifth century, in his letter No. 19,
written to the bishop of Alexandria, commanded that even the consecration of
priests should be performed on Sunday instead of the Sabbath, setting forth
reasons why Sunday was the more fitting day for this sacred work. We quote the
following passage from this letter, which has become famous in religious
literature:
[185]
“For this reason you will observe the apostolic
institutions in a devout and commendable way, when you observe this rule in the
ordination of priests, in the churches over which the Lord has made you
overseer; namely, that the one to be ordained receives the consecration solely
and only on the day of the resurrection of the Lord, which, as you know, begins
from the evening of the Sabbath, and is made sacred by so many divine
mysteries, that whatever of greater prominence was commanded by the Lord, took
place on this exalted day. On this day the world had its beginning; on it,
through the resurrection of Christ, death found its end and life its beginning
[9 Decret. cf. D. LXXV. c. 5]; on it the apostles received their commission
from the Lord to proclaim the gospel to all nations, and to dispense to the
entire world the sacrament of the regeneration. On it, as the holy evangelist
John testifies, the Lord, after He had joined the assembled disciples by closed
doors, breathed upon them and said: ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye
retain, they are retained.’ On this day, finally, came the Holy Spirit,
which the Lord had promised to the apostles in order that we might recognize,
as it were, inculcated and taught by a divine [heavenly] rule, that we are
to undertake on that day the mysteries of the priestly consecration, on
which all gifts and graces were imparted.”—Leo's Letters, from
Letters of the Popes, No. 9 (German edition).
The first religious council to urge refraining from
labor in the rural districts in the Western Empire was that of Orleans, A.D.
538, and the reason given for this was that it might be possible for the people
to attend the services of the church on that day.
There was no such specific law covering this point in
the Eastern Empire until the decree of Emperor Leo VI, called the philosopher,
near the close of the ninth century. From this decree we quote the following
passage:
[186]
“We ordain, according to the true meaning of the
Holy Ghost, and of the apostles thereby directed, that on the sacred day
[meaning Sunday] wherein our own integrity was restored, all do rest and
surcease labor; that neither husbandmen nor other on that day put their hands
to forbidden works.”—Quoted in The Literature of the Sabbath
Question, by Robert Cox, vol. 1, p. 422.
Bishop Skat Rordam, of Denmark, clearly states that the
change was made by the church under the Roman pope, its head. Note the
following from his pen:
“As to when and how it became customary to keep the
first day of the week the New Testament gives us no information….
“The first law about it was given by Constantine
the Great, who in the year 321 ordained that all civil and shop work should
cease in the cities, but agricultural labor in the country was allowed….
But no one thought of basing this command to rest from labor on the third
[fourth] commandment before the latter half of the sixth century. From that
time on, little by little, it became the established doctrine of the church
which was in force all through the Middle Ages during the ‘Dark Ages of
the Church,’ that ‘the holy church and its teachers,’ or the
bishops with the Roman pope at their head, as the vicar of Christ and His
apostles on earth, had transferred the Old Testament Sabbath with its glory and
sanctity over to the first day of the week.”—P. Taaning, Report of
the Second Ecclesiastical Meeting in Kopenhagen, Sept. 13-15, 1887
(Kopenhagen, 1887), pp. 40, 41.
But is it correct to say that the Sabbath was changed by
the popes? Was it not rather by church councils and the edicts of emperors? Mr.
Canright scoffs at the idea, and tauntingly asks, Which pope? We reply that the
actions of
[187]
any council or any number of councils could not have
established the canon law of the church without the full approval of the
bishops and popes. Had the Council of Laodicea not later been, either
officially or otherwise, approved by the church hierarchy, its canons never
could have been taken almost bodily into the canon law and preserved there
until the present day. To make any doctrine really Catholic it must have the
approval of the popes.
The pope is not only a man elevated by vote of the
cardinals to be the visible head of the Catholic Church, but he is the very
embodiment of the whole papal system, the name itself being derived from the
office. “Papal, of or pertaining to the pope.”—Webster. It
follows that what the Papacy does the pope does; and the acts of the Papacy may
very properly be attributed to the pope. When we speak of Pharaoh as the
oppressor of the children of Israel, we do not think of any particular ruler;
in fact, we have every reason to believe that there was more than one. We think
rather of the whole government of Egypt represented by Pharaoh. Similarly, when
we speak of the pope, we do not necessarily think of one particular pope, but
of the whole order of popes, and of the organization represented by the
popes.
On this point we have the following terse statements of
the Catholic historian Hefele:
“The decrees of the ancient ecumenical councils
were confirmed by the emperors and by the popes; those of the later councils by
the popes alone.”—Rev. Charles Joseph Hefele, D.D., A History of
the Church Councils, to A.D 325 (first volume), p. 42.
“We see from these considerations of what value the
sanction of the Pope is to the decrees of a council. Until the
[188]
Pope has sanctioned these decrees, the assembly of bishops
which formed them cannot pretend to the authority belonging to an ecumenical
council, however great a number of bishops may compose it; for there cannot be
an ecumenical council without union with the Pope.
“This sanction of the Pope is also necessary for
insuring infallibility to the decisions of the council. According to Catholic
doctrine, this prerogative can be claimed only for the decisions of ecumenical
councils, and only for their decisions in rebus fidei et morum [in
matters of faith and morals], not for purely disciplinary
decrees.”—Ibid., p. 52.
From another Catholic source we quote the following
amazing declarations:
“He [the Pope] is not subject to them [the canons
of the church], because he is competent to modify or to annul them when he
holds this to be best for the church.”—The Catholic
Encyclopedia, vol. 12, art. “Pope,” p. 268.
“The Pope is of so great dignity and so exalted
that he is not a mere man, but as it were God, and the vicar of God….
“The Pope by reason of the excellence of his
supreme dignity is called bishop of bishops….
“He is likewise bishop of the universal church.
“He is likewise the divine monarch and Supreme
emperor, and king of kings.
“Hence the Pope is crowned with a triple crown, as
king of heaven and of earth and of the lower regions.
“Moreover the superiority and the power of the
Roman Pontiff by no means pertain only to heavenly things, to earthly things,
and to things under the earth, but are even over angels, than whom he is
greater.
“So that if it were possible that the angels might
err in the faith, or might think contrary to the faith, they could be judged
and excommunicated by the Pope.
“For he is of so great dignity and power that he
forms one and the same tribunal with Christ.
[189]
“So that whatever the Pope does, seems to proceed
from the mouth of God, as according to most doctors, etc.
“The Pope is as it were God on earth, sole
sovereign of the faithful of Christ, chief king of kings, having plenitude of
power, to whom has been intrusted by the omnipotent God direction not only of
the earthly but also of the heavenly kingdom.
“The Pope is of so great authority and power that
he can modify, explain, or interpret even divine laws.”—Extracts from
Ferraris's Ecclesiastical Dictionary (R.C.), art. “Pope.”
“The full title of this work is ‘Prompta
Bibliotheca canonica, juridica, moralis, theologica nec non ascetica, polemica,
rubricistica, historica.’ There have been various editions of this
book since the first was published in 1746, the latest one being issued from
Rome in 1899 at the Press of the Propaganda. This shows that this work still
has the approval of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and the Catholic Encyclopedia
(Vol. VI, p. 48) speaks of it as ‘a veritable encyclopedia of religious
knowledge’ and ‘a precious mine of information.’ It is therefore
legitimate to conclude that the statements in this work represent the current
Roman Catholic view concerning the power and authority of the
Pope.”—Note on the above quotation by the editors of the Source
Book for Bible Students, Review and Herald Pub Assn., Washington, D.C.
Thus it is clear that any number of actions taken by
church councils regarding Sunday observance, or anything else, for that matter,
could not have become accepted canon law of the Roman Catholic Church without
the full approval of the popes. Had they been displeased with any of these,
they had the full authority to alter them at will.
Now is the action of the Council of Laodicea regarding
the change of the Sabbath recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as a binding
obligation, and does the Roman Catholic Church recognize that the action
involved
[190]
a literal change of the Sabbath? For reply we quote the
following from a recent Roman Catholic Catechism:
“Question.—Which is the Sabbath
day?
“Answer.—Saturday is the Sabbath
day.
“Ques.—Why do we observe Sunday instead
of Saturday?
“Ans.—We observe Sunday instead of
Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (336 A. D.),
transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.”—Rev. Peter
Geiermann, C.SS.R., The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (2d
ed., 1910), p. 50. (This work received the “apostolic blessing” of
Pope Pius X, Jan. 25, 1910.)
Note that this catechism received the blessing of Pope
Plus X, which indicates that he approved and endorsed all its teachings.
Now, we believe that we have offered conclusive proof on
three very important points:
1. Sunday observance originated in heathenism.
2. Sunday observance as a Christian ordinance is wholly
a Catholic institution.
3. The change was made from Saturday to Sunday by
actions of church councils, bulls issued by the popes, laws promulgated by
Catholic emperors, and by the approval of popes of the various council
proceedings.
We unhesitatingly reiterate, therefore, that Sunday is a
papal festival, borrowed from paganism, and that the original Sabbath was
changed by the church councils and the popes. The church could not have
done it without the approval and blessing of the popes, and this was given in
the most active manner, as we have already seen. Thus Mr. Canright's challenge
to Seventh-day Adventists that the popes did not change the Sabbath is
effectually answered.
[191]
Foretold by Prophets
Now, to all this agree the words of the Bible prophets,
for this whole matter is clearly foretold by them. In Daniel 7:25 the
prediction is made that an apostate power, represented in the prophecy by a
“little horn,” would attempt to change God's times and laws: “He
shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of
the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be
given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.”
This power was to continue forty-two months, or one
thousand two hundred sixty days. (Revelation 13:5; 12:6.) A day for a year,
according to Biblical interpretation of prophetic time, gives us 1260 years
during which this power would hold sway in the world.
There is general agreement among students of prophecy
that this power is papal Rome. The papal supremacy was fully established in 538
(the very year the Council of Orleans made its famous edict that people in the
rural communities should not work, but attend church on Sunday) and received
its deadly wound in 1798 (see Revelation 13:3), after a period of just 1260
years.
During this time the special efforts of this power were
to be directed against the Most High. He would speak great words against the
Most High, wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and
laws—evidently the laws of the Most High, as the change of human laws
would not be worthy of notice in prophecy nor peculiar to this power.
Now, the law of the Most High contains ten distinct
precepts. Nine of these precepts are acknowledged by all
[192]
Protestant Christians to be binding. The other one, the
fourth, is in dispute, and strange to say, it is the only one that relates in
any way to time. It commands the observance of a specific day in each
week, because that day is declared to be holy, and to belong to the Lord God.
The first three commands and the last six are silent on the subject of time,
but the fourth is based on it. It deals with God's time, commanding man
to remember it and not desecrate it by secular labor.
The prophecy asserts that this apostate power will seek
to change times and laws, and the only way God's law could be altered so far as
to affect God's time would be by a change in the Sabbath command.
Here, then, is a definite charge made by God Himself
through His prophets that this little-horn power, the Papacy, would attempt to
change His Sabbath.
But does the Catholic Church admit responsibility for
having changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday?
When an individual is charged with a crime (as God here
charges the Papacy), the case is greatly strengthened if he makes a confession.
When a defendant admits his own guilt, further testimony is scarcely necessary.
Let us, then, bring leading representatives of this church onto the stand and
hear their testimony on this point.
In a Catholic work called Abridgment of Christian
Doctrine, page 58, is the following:
“Question.—How prove you that the
church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
“Answer.—By the very act of changing
the Sabbath into Sunday.”
We have this further testimony:
[193]
“Question.—Have you any other way of
proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?
“Answer.—Had she not such power, she
could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with
her,—she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day
of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which
there is no Scriptural authority.”—Doctrinal Catechism, p.
174.
Another catechism, The Catholic Christian
Instructed, page 209, says:
“Question.—What warrant have you for
keeping the Sunday, preferably to the ancient Sabbath, which was Saturday?
“Answer.—We have for it the authority
of the Catholic Church, and apostolic tradition.
“Ques.—Does the Scripture anywhere
command the Sunday to be kept for the Sabbath?
“Ans.—The Scripture commands us to hear
the church, … but the Scripture does not in particular mention this change
of the Sabbath.”
On page 15 of volume 4 of Clifton Tracts
(Catholic), in an article on “A Question for All Bible Christians,”
this question is thus dealt with:
“We Catholics, then, have precisely the same
authority for keeping Sunday holy, instead of Saturday, as we have for every
other article of our creed; namely, the authority of ‘the church of the
living God, the pillar and ground of the truth;’ whereas, you who are
Protestants have really no authority for it whatever; for there is no authority
for it in the Bible, and you will not allow that there can be authority for it
anywhere else. Both you and we do, in fact, follow tradition in this matter;
but we follow it, believing it to be a part of God's word, and the church to be
its divinely appointed guardian and interpreter; you follow it, denouncing
[194]
it all the time as a fallible and treacherous guide, which
often makes the commandment of God of none effect.”
Cardinal Gibbons, in his book Faith of Our
Fathers, edition of 1893, page 111, says:
“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 Saturday, a day which we
never sanctify.”
Thus it will be seen that the Roman Church deliberately
confesses to the crime of tampering with the divine law in changing the
observance of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. History as clearly and
definitely testifies that the charge is true. And thus the Roman Church stands
before the world convicted by her own testimony of laying impious hands upon
the Sabbath of the Lord, and tearing from its place in the very heart of the
law of God, the fourth commandment, substituting instead a spurious and
counterfeit sabbath, which is no sabbath at all, since it rests solely on the
traditions of that church, and not in any sense upon the Word of God.
But let it be noticed, the Roman Church is more
consistent in the observance of Sunday than are the Protestant churches. As was
shown in the preceding chapter, the Roman Church does not base its teachings on
the Bible alone, but on the Bible and tradition, holding that
tradition is the safer guide of the two. But the Protestant belief is that the
Bible and the Bible alone is the foundation of true faith. The Sunday
institution can be found only in tradition. It cannot be found in the
Bible.
It is evident, therefore, that the Protestant churches,
in observing Sunday, have left the true ground and basis of
[195]
Protestantism, and are following the Roman Church in
accepting a doctrine and practice which are not founded on the Bible.
Do the Protestant churches admit that there is no Bible
authority for observing Sunday instead of Saturday? For reply, we offer the
following testimony of some of their historians and leaders of religious
thought:
“The current notion that Christ and His apostles
authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh is absolutely without
authority.”—Lyman Abbott, in an editorial in the Christian
Union, June 26, 1890.
“And where are we told in Scripture that we are to
keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are
nowhere commanded to keep the first day…. The reason why we keep the first
day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we
observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the church, has
enjoined it.”—Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., Plain Sermons on the
Catechism (Church of England), vol. 1, pp. 334-336.
“There was and is a commandment to keep holy the
Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will be said, however, and
with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to
the first day of the week, with all its duties, privileges, and sanctions.
Earnestly desiring information on this subject, which I have studied for many
years, I ask, Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the
New Testament, absolutely not. There is no Scriptural evidence of the change of
the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week.
“I wish to say that this Sabbath question, in this
aspect of it, is the gravest and most perplexing question connected
[196]
with Christian institutions which at present claims
attention from Christian people; and the only reason that it is not a more
disturbing element in Christian thought and in religious discussions, is
because the Christian world has settled down content on the conviction that
somehow a transference has taken place at the beginning of Christian
history….
“To me it seems unaccountable that Jesus, during
three years' intercourse with His disciples, often conversing with them upon
the Sabbath question, discussing it in some of its various aspects, freeing it
from its false glosses, never alluded to any transference of the day; also,
that during forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was intimated.
Nor, so far as we know, did the Spirit which was given to bring to their
remembrance all things whatsoever that He had said unto them, deal with this
question. Nor yet did the inspired apostles, in preaching the gospel, founding
churches, counseling and instructing those founded, discuss or approach this
subject.”—Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, author of The Baptist Manual,
in a paper read before a New York Ministers' Conference, held November 13,
1893.
Dr. N. Summerbell:
“The Roman Church had totally apostatized…. It
reversed the fourth commandment by doing away with the Sabbath of God's word,
and instituting Sunday as a holiday.”—History of the Christian
Church, pp. 417, 418.
As to whether or not the Catholic Church claims that the
act of changing the Sabbath to Sunday is a “mark,” or sign, of her
power in religious matters, it is necessary for the reader only to review some
of the quotations from Catholic authors already cited. Let us note again the
first two that were given:
“You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation
and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification
[197]
of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance
of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.”—Faith of Our
Fathers, p. 111.
“Question.—How prove you that the
church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
“Answer.—By the very act of changing
the Sabbath into Sunday.”—Abridgment of Christian Doctrine, p.
58.
Here the change of the Sabbath is definitely set forth
as a “mark” of authority. The “act” is a mark of her
ecclesiastical power. Her power to command feasts, etc., is proved by what she
did to the Sabbath. Therefore, when Seventh-day Adventists refer to
Sundaykeeping as the “mark” of the Papacy, or of the beast of
Revelation 13, which represents the papal church, they are only agreeing with
what the Catholics claim for themselves.
Mr. Canright in his defense of a Sunday Sabbath
wrote:
“This Advent mark of the beast is an absurdity and
only a scarecrow. Don't be frightened.”—The Lord's Day, p.
239.
But let it be carefully noted that against this
“mark” God has sent to men the most fearful warning that is to be
found in the Scriptures:
“The third angel followed them, saying with a loud
voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his
forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God,
which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he
shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels,
and in the presence of the Lamb.” Revelation 14:9, 10.
There will be a company of people on earth when Jesus
comes who will have gotten the victory over this apostate
[198]
power, spoken of under the symbol of a beast, and also over
his mark. Instead of drinking of the wine of God's wrath, they will be
transported to the kingdom of our God, where John, in holy vision, saw them and
heard them singing the song of the redeemed:
“I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire:
and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and
over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass,
having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God,
and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God
Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints.” Revelation
15:2, 3.
The sincere wish of the author is that in the day of God
every reader of this volume may be found numbered among that glad, triumphant
company.