Abram Herbert Lewis - Spiritual Sabbathism

NO-SABBATHISM AND THE SUNDAY 1 49
matter." Plato, he Insists, had unconsciously copied
Moses In this. Moses was the original Platonlst,
so to speak. But Justin has nothing to say of the
Mosaic conception of the Sabbath. He lets that
severely alone, and offers for his Sunday-keeping the
Importance of the first day of creation. So, after
all, Justin props up Sunday with Plato, Nothing
would more have astonished that eminent thinker
than to be set above Moses for the purpose of persuading
a Stoic to protect Christians In violating a
Mosaic ordinance.
It was a pallid argument, and yet It is
significant that Justin advances It first. It would
really have been more effective to resist the rhetorician's
desire to convert a stern materialist to the
unsubstantial pageant of Plato's dream. To have
resisted that desire would have left him free to
pursue an argument which, elsewhere In his apology,
he had almost entered upon. He had referred kindly
to Heraclltus, from whom the Stoics derived so
much, and had allowed him a share In Christ.
Now
Heraclltus believed that the world began and will
end in fire. Here was a real chance that Justin
might have seized. He might have maintained that
not only do Christians believe in a final conflagration,
but that they are essentially Stoics, because they
identify Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, with that