WHO CHANGED THE SABBATH FROM SATURDAY TO SUNDAY? WAS IT THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH?
"Often the question is asked, "Isn't it paying homage to the Roman Catholic church to worship on Sunday because didn't Constantine change the day of worship?"
It is claimed that Constantine's edict of March 7, 321 changed the day. Constantine's edict reads:
"On the venerable Day of The Sun [venerablili dei Solis] 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 Codex Justinianus, book 3, title 12,3, trans. in Schaff, History of the Christian Church 5th ed. (New York: Charles Scribner, 1902), vol. 3, p. 380, note 1.
PLINY'S LETTER, AD 107
Pliny was governor of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, from AD 106-108. He wrote in AD 107 to Trajan, the emperor, concerning the Christians. This is what he said:
They were wont to meet together, on a stated day before it was light, and sing among themselves alternately a hymn to Christ as God....When these things were performed, it was their custom to separate and then to come together again to a meal which they ate in common without any disorder."
We know the day the early church broke bread on was Sunday. "Upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread" Acts 20:7.
IN AD 120 THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS says in chapter 2:
"Incense is a vain abomination unto me, and your new moons and Sabbaths I cannot endure. He has, therefore, abolished these things.
When he speaks of the first day of the week, Barnabas says: "Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day, also, on which Jesusrose again from the dead" Chapter 25.
JUSTIN MARTYR (140 AD)
Justin's 'Apology' was written at Rome about the year 140, only 44 years after the apostle John received the vision of The Revelation at Patmos.
The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge says this about Justin's works:
"In these works Justin professes to present the system of doctrine held by all Christians and seeks to be orthodox on all points. The only difference he knows of as existing between Christians concerned the millennium. Thus Justin is an incontrovertible witness for the unity of the faith in the Church of his day, and the fact that the Gentile type of Christianity prevailed." Quoted by Canright in The Compete Testimony of the Early Fathers, Fleming H. Revell, 1916, pp. 24-25.
NOTE: At this early date, AD 140, the only major difference among Christians was concerning the millennium. At that time they had no disagreement in keeping Sunday, and as you will see, Justin says that was the day on which all Christians worshipped.
In chapter 67 of his first Apology, entitled, "Weekly Worship of the Christians,"writing to the pagan emperor, Justin states:
"...we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. 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. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought...But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought the change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead."The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, pp. 185-186 (emphasis added).
DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF CORINTH IN GREECE, (AD 170)
Dionysius was Bishop of Corinth, the Church which Paul raised up and to which he gave the command about Sunday collections, in I Corinthians 16:1-2. He says:
"We passed this holy Lord's Day, in which we read your letter, from the constant reading of which we shall be able to draw admonition." Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Bk. 4, Chapt. 23 (emphasis added).
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, in Egypt, (AD 194)
Clement, writing around AD 194 says:
"He, in fulfillment of the precept, keeps the Lord's day when he abandons an evil disposition, and assumes that of the Gnostic, glorifying the Lord's resurrection in himself" Book 7, Chapter 12 (emphasis added).
IGNATIUS, the third bishop of Antioch, who died in AD 108, wrote:
"If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him... Let us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner, and rejoice in days of idleness; for "he that does not work, let him not eat."...let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days [of the week]" "Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians," The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, pp. 62-63 (emphasis added).
TERTULLIAN of Africa, wrote around AD 200:
In his Apology, Chapter 16, Tertullian says:
"We solemnize the day after Saturday in contradistinction to those who call this day their Sabbath, and devote it to ease and eating, deviating from the old Jewish customs, which they are now very ignorant of."
"Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christian, because it is a well- known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity" The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, p. 123 (emphasis added).
NOTE: The early church explained why they prayed toward the east. It was because, "as the lightning which lighteneth from the east and is seen even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of man be:" that by this we might know and understand that He will appear from the east suddenly" Ancient Syriac Documents, The Ante- Nicene Fathers, vol. 8, p. 668.
The Sabbath & Sunday
