The Sabbath During the Apostolic Days through the Fourth Century

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Today we're going to go on and cover the history of the Saturday Sabbath from the time after the immediate disciples of Jesus through to the fourth century.

In summary, we found that Jesus scrupulously kept the Saturday Sabbath. We also found ample evidence that after Jesus' death the disciples and the new Christian converts spent their Saturdays either in the Temple (for those in Jerusalem) or in the synagogues (both Jews and Gentiles).

Before we get into the further history I need to point out that heresy in the church began during the days of the disciples. Many of the epistles in the New Testament were written because of some heresy that had begun to catch on amongst the believers. For example, John spoke against the Gnostics and Paul battled the Colossian Heresy. This is human nature. I believe that moving away from the Saturday Sabbath was one such heresy. And because this began so early on we do find evidence in the early church fathers that Sunday had crept into the practice of some. This was not universal, however, and there remains a strand of Saturday Sabbath practice throughout our history. This is what I want to report on.

Saturday Sabbath History of the First and Second Centuries

"The first Christian church established at Jerusalem by apostolic authority became in its doctrine and practice a model for the greater part of those founded in the first century...These Judaizing Christians were first known by the outside world as 'Nazarenes.' ... All Christians agreed in celebrating the seventh day of the week in conformity to the Jewish converts" (Smith, Hugh, History of the Christian Church, pp. 50, 51, 69).

Prior to the destruction of the Temple Christianity was viewed as a sect of Judaism. When the Christians feared that the Romans were on the verge of attacking Jerusalem in 70 A.D. they fled to Pella, a town in Perea (Eusebius III:5). The Jews stayed and many were slaughtered. This resulted in increased tension between the Jews and Christians.

Then after the Second Jewish-Roman War in 135 A.D. the Jews were forced to leave Judea and spread throughout the Roman Empire. This also created further animosity between the two religious groups. At this time of history it became very dangerous to be considered a Jew, so the Christians began to remove themselves from any association with the Jews. Many Christians no longer wanted to share rites viewed as "Jewish".

Yet there were many who still held to a Saturday Sabbath.

"Yet, for some hundred years in the primitive church, not the Lord's day only, but the seventh day also, was religiously observed, not by Ebion and Cerinthus only, but by pious Christians also, as Baronius writeth, and Gomarus confesseth, and Rivert also" (Twisse, William D.D., "Morality of the Fourth Commandment", p.9, London, 1641). (Notice that the practice of meeting every day that existed in the early church quickly became just the Saturday Sabbath and the meeting on Sunday to commemorate the Lord's resurrection.)

"Have before thine eyes the fear of God, and always remember the ten commandments of God,- to love the one and only Lord God with all thy strength; to give no heed to idols, or any other beings, as being lifeless gods, or irrational beings or demons. Consider the manifold workmanship of God, which received its beginning through Christ. Thou shalt observe the Sabbath, on account of Him who ceased from His work of creation, but ceased not from His work of providence; it is a rest for meditation of the law, not for the idleness of the hands" (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7, p.413, 1951 Edition).

"Before the second century was half gone, before the last of the apostles had been dead forty years, this apostate, this working of the 'Mystery of Iniquity,' had so largely spread over the east and the west, that it is literally true, that a large part of the Christian observances and institutions, even in this century, had the aspect of the pagan mysteries" (Mosheim, in Ecclesiastical History, Century 2, Part 2, Chapter 4, Paragraph 1).

Saturday Sabbath History of the Third and Fourth Centuries

"The observance of the Sabbath among the Jewish Christians gradually ceased. Yet the Eastern Church to this day marks the seventh day of the week (excepting only the Easter Sabbath) by omitting fasting, and standing in prayer; the Latin Church, in direct opposition to Judaism, made Saturday a fast day. The controversy on this point began as early as the end of the second century" (Schaff, Philip, History of the Church, p. 372, 1864 edition, p. 205, 1952 edition).

"Nazarenes, an obscure Jewish-Christian sect, existing at the time of Epiphanius (fl. A.D. 370) in Coele-Syria, Decapolis (Pella) and Basanitus (Cacabe). According to that authority, they dated their settlement in Pella from the time of the flight of the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, immediately before the siege in A.D. 70; he characterizes them as neither more or less than Jews pure and simple, but adds that they recognized the new covenant as well as the old, and believed in the resurrection, and in the one God and His Son Jesus Christ" (The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Vol. 19).

In 313 A.D. when Constantine was emperor of the Roman Empire, the Edict of Milan ended the persecution of the church. This put Christianity on an equal footing with the pagan religions. In A.D. 321 he recognized the "day of the sun" (Sunday) as the day of rest.

But it was Sylvester I (314-337 A.D.) that used his authority to coerce the abandonment of the Saturday Sabbath. Following Constantine's Edict he said the following.

"If every Sunday is to be observed joyfully by the Christians on account of the resurrection, then every Sabbath on account of the burial is to be execration [loathing or cursing] of the Jews " (-quoted by S.R.E. Humbert, Adversus Graecorum calumnias 6, in Patrologie Cursus Completus, Series Latine, ed. J.P. Migne, 1844, p. 143).

At the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) the question of when to celebrate Easter was decided. It would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. This was to make Easter independent of Passover.  Pressure was brought to bear on those who wanted to continue the observance of Passover as proscribed in Scripture. Yet, not all fell in line.

Polycrates, a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John, said the following:

"As for us, then, we scrupulously observe the exact day, (the Feast of Passover), neither adding nor taking away. For in Asia great luminaries have gone to their rest, who shall rise again in the day of the coming of the Lord, when He cometh with glory from heaven and shall raise again all the saints. I speak of Philip, one of the twelve apostles who is laid to rest at Hierapolis; and his two daughters, who arrived at old age unmarried; his other daughter also, who passed her life under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and reposes at Ephesus; John, moreover, who reclined on the Lord's bosom, and who became a priest wearing the mitre and a witness and a teacher-he rests at Ephesus. Then there is Polycarp, both bishop and martyr at Smyrna; and Thraseas from Eumenia, both bishop and martyr, who rests at Smyrna. Why should I speak of Sagaris, bishop and martyr, who rests at Laodicea? of the blessed Papirius, moreover? and of Melito the eunuch, who performed all his actions under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and lies at Sardis, awaiting the visitation from heaven, when he shall rise again from the dead? These all kept the passover on the fourteenth. day of the month, in accordance with the Gospel, without ever deviating from it, but keeping to the rule of faith.
Moreover I also, Polycrates, who am the least of you all, in accordance with the tradition of my relatives, some of whom I have succeeded-seven of my relatives were bishops, and I am the eighth, and my relatives always observed the day when the people put away the leaven.-I myself, brethren, I say, who am sixty-five years old in the Lord, and have fallen in with the brethren in all parts of the world, and have read through all Holy Scripture, am not frightened at the things which are said to terrify us. For those who are greater than I have said, 'We ought to obey God rather than men.'" (quoted from Eusebius).

While this doesn't speak about the Sabbath it does lend support to the changing of the so-called Jewish customs from Scripture.

"Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular festival of Sunday very early, indeed into the place of the Sabbath" (Neander, Church History).

It was at the Council of Laodicea in 364 A.D. that Sunday became the official day of worship and Saturday was to be a work day.

"Christians ought not to Judaize, and to rest on the Sabbath, but preferring the Lord's day, should rest if possible as Christians. Wherefore if they shall be found to Judaize, let them be accursed from Christ" (Bishop Hefele, History of the Councils).

The progression of history shows that after the death of Jesus the disciples continued the custom of a Saturday Sabbath. When they could they met on the other days of the week as well. Eventually, Christians dropped meeting on all days except for the Saturday Sabbath and a meeting on Sunday in honor of the Lord's resurrection. As we come to the end of the fourth century we see that this is still the practice, but the Sunday meeting is beginning to look more and more like the Sabbath day while Saturday is beginning to be viewed as a day of work. Observing a Saturday Sabbath is becoming a supposed identification with hated Judaism.

Stay tuned for the next installment.

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