HISTORY OF THE SABBATH - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

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History of the Sabbath by J.N Andrews"Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observedby the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a singleproof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to theSabbatical edict of Constantine in A.D. 321." 29What these able modern writers set forth as to labor on Sunday before the edict of Constantinewas promulgated, we have fully proved in the preceding chapters out of the most ancientecclesiastical writers. That such an edict could not fail to strengthen the current alreadystrongly set in favor of Sunday, and greatly to weaken the influence of the Sabbath, cannot bedoubted. Of this fact, an able writer bears witness:"Very shortly after the period when Constantine issued his edict enjoining thegeneral observance of Sunday throughout the Roman Empire, the party thathad contended for the observance of the seventh day dwindled intoinsignificance. The observance of Sunday as a public festival, during which allbusiness, with the exception of rural employments, was intermitted, came to bemore and more generally established ever after this time, throughout both theGreek and the Latin churches. There is no evidence however that either at this,or at a period much later, the observance was viewed as deriving anyobligation from the fourth commandment; it seems to have been regarded as aninstitution corresponding in nature with Christmas, Good Friday, and otherfestivals of the church; and as resting with them on the ground of ecclesiasticalauthority and tradition." 30This extraordinary edict of Constantine caused Sunday to be observed with greater solemnitythan it had formerly been. Yet we have the most indubitable proof that this law was a heathenenactment; that it was put forth in favor of Sunday as a heathen institution and not as aChristian festival; and that Constantine himself not only did not possess the character of aChristian, but was at that time in truth a heathen. It is to be observed that Constantine did notdesignate the day which he commanded men to keep, as Lord's day, Christian Sabbath, or theday of Christ's resurrection; nor does he assign any reason for its observance which wouldindicate it as a Christian festival. On the contrary, he designates the ancient heathen festival ofthe sun in language that cannot be mistaken. Dr. Hessey thus sustains this statement:"Others have looked at the transaction in a totally different light, and refused todiscover in the document, or to suppose in the mind of the enactor, anyrecognition of the Lord's day as a matter of divine obligation. They remark,and very truly, that Constantine designates it by its astrological or heathen title,Dies Solis, and insist that the epithet venerabilis with which it is introduced hasreference to the rites performed on that day in honor of Hercules, Apollo, andMithras." 31On this important point, Milman, the learned editor of Gibbon, thus testifies:"The rescript commanding the celebration of the Christian Sabbath, bears noallusion to its peculiar sanctity as a Christian institution. It is the day of the sunwhich is to be observed by the general veneration; the courts were to be closed,and the noise and tumult of public business and legal litigation were no longerto violate the repose of the sacred day. But the believer in the new paganism,of which the solar worship was the characteristic, might acquiesce withoutscruple in the sanctity of the first day of the week." 32194
Chapter Nineteen – The Sabbath and First During the First Five CenturiesAnd he adds in a subsequent chapter:"In fact, as we have before observed, the day of the sun would be willinglyhallowed by almost all the pagan world, especially that part which hadadmitted any tendency towards the Oriental theology." 33On the seventh day of March, Constantine published his edict commanding the observance ofthat ancient festival of the heathen, the venerable day of the sun. On the following day, Marcheighth, 34 he issued a second decree in every respect worthy of its heathen predecessor. 35 Thepurport of it was this: That if any royal edifice should be struck by lightning, the ancientceremonies of propitiating the deity should be practiced, and the haruspices were to beconsulted to learn the meaning of the awful portent. 36 The haruspices were soothsayers whoforetold future events by examining the entrails of beasts slaughtered in sacrifice to thegods! 37 The statute of the seventh of March enjoining the observance of the venerable day ofthe sun, and that of the eighth of the same month commanding the consultation of theharuspices, constitute a noble pair of well-matched heathen edicts. That Constantine himselfwas a heathen at the time these edicts were issued, is shown not only by the nature of theedicts themselves, but by the fact that his nominal conversion to Christianity is placed byMosheim two years after his Sunday law. Thus he says:"After well considering the subject, I have come to the conclusion, thatsubsequently to the death of Licinius in the years 323 when Constantine foundhimself sole emperor, he became an absolute Christian, or one who believes noreligion but the Christian to be acceptable to God. He had previouslyconsidered the religion of one God as more excellent than the other religions,and believed that Christ ought especially to be worshiped: yet he supposedthere were also inferior deities, and that to these some worship might be paid,in the manner of the fathers, without fault or sin. And who does not know, thatin those times, many others also combined the worship of Christ with that ofthe ancient gods, whom they regarded as the ministers of the supreme God inthe government of human and earthly affairs." 38As a heathen, Constantine was the worshiper of Apollo or the sun, a fact that sheds much lightupon his edict enjoining men to observe the venerable day of the sun. Thus Gibbon testifies:"The devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius of thesun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to berepresented with the symbols of the god of light and poetry. . . . The altars ofApollo were crowned with the votive offerings of Constantine; and thecredulous multitude were taught to believe that the emperor was permitted tobehold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity. . . The sunwas universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector ofConstantine." 39His character as a professor of Christianity is thus described:"The sincerity of the man, who in a short period effected such amazingchanges in the religious world, is best known to Him who searches the heart.Certain it is that his subsequent life furnished no evidence of conversion toGod. He waded without remorse through seas of blood, and was a mosttyrannical prince." 40 195
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HISTORY OF THE SABBATHandFIRST DAY
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Chapter One - The CreationHISTORY O
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