The Change of the Sabbath.
By C. P. Bollman
FROM the facts which have been given it is clear, (1) "As it is admitted, that we must go to later than apostolic times for the establishment of Sunday observance;" (2) That Sunday was the festival of the pagans; (3) That with the pagan converts to Christianity, "patriotism gladly united with expediency in making it [Sunday] at once their Lord's day and their Sabbath;" (4) That it was a Roman Catholic council that first decreed that the first day of the week should be kept instead of the seventh day. Therefore we must conclude that the practice of Sunday-keeping was introduced into the church through pagan influence, and that, like many other heathen customs, it was first endorsed, and afterwards enforced by the church and bishops of Rome; and that still later the same power decreed that the first day should supersede the ancient Sabbath; hence we say that the change was made by the Papal power, the "man of sin," the power that Daniel said should "think to change times and laws." The fact that the Papacy was not fully established till many years after the observance of Sunday had become quite general, does not militate in the least against this position; for while we may to some extent distinguish between the "mystery of iniquity" which Paul said was already working in his day, and the fully established Papacy, yet we cannot deny that they are one and the same power. It is a common saying that the United States has had two wars with England; but technically it has had but one; for the United States, as such, had no existence till the adoption of the constitution in A. D. 1788—certainly not till after the Revolutionary War, for until that time what is now only a part of the United States was the thirteen colonies—but nevertheless it is in deed and in truth the same power; and so are Paul's "mystery of iniquity"—the "man of sin" in his infancy—and the fully established Papacy one and the same. Paul said that there should come a falling away, that is, there should be a great departure from the truth, and he added: "The mystery of iniquity doth already work;" that is, the apostasy had already begun. So then any error, I care not what, that was introduced into the church however early, if it was retained and made a part of the fully matured Papal system, may properly be charged to that power. Otherwise the Papacy is responsible for very few of its abominations; for with but few exceptions, they were introduced into the church before the Bishop of Rome attained that pre-eminence which marks the beginning of the 1260 years of Papal supremacy spoken of in Dan. 7:25; Rev. 12:6, 13, 14; 13:5, 6. Thus far in this examination, no mention has been made of Constantine's famous Sunday decree, and its influence upon the action of the church in the fourth century. This edict was issued A. D. 321, and is worthy of some notice, though it makes no mention whatever of Sunday as a Christian festival. Nor is that at all strange since, according to Mosheim (a most excellent authority), at the time of the promulgation of the rescript, and for two years thereafter, Constantine was not even professedly a Christian—if indeed he was ever anything more. But upon this point a single extract must suffice:— "The sincerity of the man, who in a short period affected such amazing changes in the religious world, is best known to Him who searches the heart. Certain is it that his subsequent life furnished no evidence of conversion to God. He waded without remorse through seas of blood, and was a most tyrannical prince."—Marsh's Eccl. Hist., period 3, chap. 5. Both the character of the man, not only before, but also after his so-called conversion, and the decree itself, go far toward proving that the famous "sabbatical" edict of Constantine was, in very truth, only the outgrowth of a heathen superstition, having no reference whatever to any Christian feature which may, at that time, have been supposed by some to attach to the first day of the week. The decree is as follows:— "Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty, attend to the business of agriculture; because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest, the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by Heaven." It will be noticed that it is "the venerable day of the sun" which is to be honored, and that there is not the slightest intimation that its observance has anything whatever to do with Christianity. Upon this point Milman, the learned editor of Gibbon, says:— "The rescript commanding the celebration of the Christian Sabbath, bears no allusion to its peculiar sanctity as a Christian institution. It is the day of the sun which 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 longer to violate the repose of the sacred day. But the believer in the new paganism, of which the solar worship was the characteristic, might acquiesce without scruple in the sanctity of the first day of the week."—History of Christianity, book 3, chap. 1. Again in book 3, chap. 4, Milman remarks: "In fact, as we have before observed, the day of the sun would be willingly hallowed by almost all the pagan world, especially that part which had admitted any tendency towards the oriental theology." Thus it appears even from the testimony of those who would naturally wish to find in this decree some Christian feature, that it was purely a heathen edict; therefore we will be doing the memory of the "first Christian emperor" no injustice by accepting the following from Gibbon as fully explaining Constantine's true motive for the edict:— "The devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the sun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be represented with the symbols of the God of light and poetry. . . . The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive offerings of Constantine, and the credulous multitude were taught to believe that the emperor was permitted to behold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity. . . . The sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine."—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 20. In the light of these facts, what can we think of the learning or honesty of men who without a word of explanation as to the true nature of Constantine's decree, speak of it as403enjoining the observance of the "Christian Sabbath"? The decree was, beyond controversy, purely pagan; but that fact did not prevent those Christian converts from paganism who through motives of "patriotism" and "expediency" had made "the Sunday of their neighbors and respective countrymen" "at once their Lord's day and their Sabbath," from turning it to the account of their now doubly sacred day. And so we find Eusebius, that eminent but cringing and flattering bishop, who was contemporary with Constantine, saying: "All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's day." Upon this statement an able writer has remarked: "The persons here referred to as the authors of this work [or transfer] are the Emperor Constantine, and such bishops as Eusebius, who loved the favor of princes, and [Pope] Sylvester, the pretended successor of St. Peter."—Andrews' History of the Sabbath, page 359. C. P. BOLLMAN. (Concluded next week.)