NEW YORK EVANGELIST VS. ANDREWS' HISTORY OF THE SABBATH.
By John Nevins Andrews
A FRIEND sends me a copy of the New York Evangelist of Jan. 6, 1881, containing an article entitled, "Seventh-day Sabbatarians and Neander." The article is an editorial written to show that the author of the History of the Sabbath has been guilty of fraud in presenting in a false light the testimony of Neander concerning Sunday. The charge is this: that the "History of the Sabbath," on pages 229, 230, quoted the first edition of Neander's "History of the Church," where he says, "The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance;" whereas, says the editor of the Evangelist, Neander, in his second edition, published seventeen years later, maintains that Scriptural authority exists for the change from the seventh day to the first, and this fact, which completely reverses the testimony of the first edition of Neander's work, the "History of the Sabbath" withholds from its readers. The editor makes this charge with becoming severity, and accompanies it with insulting language.
We will presently place the reader in a position to judge for himself respecting the real doctrine of Neander. But first it is proper to state the exact truth as to the use of Neander's testimony in the "History of the Sabbath." That work quoted from his first edition his outspoken declaration that "the festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance," and added that in his later edition he omitted these words, but did not retract them. It said further, that instead of retracting them he actually presented, in substance, the same ideas that he had given in his first edition. This statement remains to be tested, but if it prove to be true, then the "History of the Sabbath" is vindicated from an unjust charge, and a retraction will be due from the editor of the Evangelist.
We will present in parallel columns the entire testimony of each edition of Neander's History concerning Sunday in the primitive church. His first edition was translated from the German by H. J. Rose, a clergyman of the Church of England; his second edition was translated by Prof. Torrey, of Vermont University. The meaning of the quotation from the first edition of Neander is not in dispute. It is an explicit testimony that the festival of Sunday was always only a human ordinance.
But with respect to the quotation from the second edition, the editor of the Evangelist affirms that it reverses the testimony of the first edition, and teaches that Sunday is a divine institution established by Scriptural authority in the place of the seventh day. And because the "History of the Sabbath" denies this, and asserts that in substance the second edition of Neander is in exact harmony with the first edition, the Evangelist charges upon that work the crime of falsehood or fraud.
Let us suppose that the Evangelist has stated the case of Neander correctly. That historian in his first edition cited all the points that seemed to him in any degree to favor the authority of Sunday. Having done this, he summed up the case, and stated his judgment with respect to Sunday, in view of all the facts which could be adduced in its support, saying, "The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance." But seventeen years of serious study of the Bible, and of ancient records, made him a wiser man. Now he sees that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, and that it has taken the place of the seventh day in the fourth commandment by the authority of Christ.
What will be the action of Neander under these circumstances? He was a man of strict integrity and of a tender conscience. He has discovered that in his first edition he greatly injured the cause of Christ by calling the Christian Sabbath nothing but a human ordinance. He has the opportunity to make amends in his second edition for the immense mischief he wrought in his first. How must he do this? 1. By frankly retracting the statement that the festival of Sunday was always only a human ordinance. 2. By directly asserting that it is a divine institution, resting upon the authority of Christ. 3. By giving the evidence which he has discovered during these seventeen years, that has convinced him that it is a divine institution. Neander could not do less than this, if the Evangelist is correct in asserting that he was converted from the view that Sunday is only a human ordinance to the view that it is a divine institution.
Now what did he actually do? 1. He states the evidence in favor of Sunday in his second edition just as he stated it in the first edition, adding only a quotation from the so-called epistle of Barnabas, of which we shall speak presently. 2. He omits the words which he used in the first edition to sum up the nature of the festival of Sunday, but he does not retract them. 3. He does not avow his change from the position that Sunday is only a human ordinance to the position that it is a divine institution.
If Neander had made so great a change in his views concerning this important subject, it is inexplicable that he should have said nothing about it. But it will be asked, Why did he omit his declaration that Sunday is only a human ordinance, if he had not adopted the view that it is a divine institution? The answer is not difficult. Neander thought it possible to preserve his integrity as a historian, and his courtesy as a man toward his eminent friends who believed in first-day sacredness. He must give the facts concerning Sunday in the primitive church in his second edition, precisely as he gave them in his first edition, for he had found nothing to change.
He could not, as a truthful man, express the judgment that these facts proved Sunday to be a divine institution, and139courtesy could not swerve him to give a false judgment. There was, however, one thing that he could do out of courtesy without sacrificing his integrity; he could give the facts concerning the origin of the Sunday festival, so that all his readers could judge for themselves whether it rests upon human authority or upon divine precepts; and having done this, he could refrain from expressing a distinct opinion concerning the nature of that festival. And this is precisely what he did. Now we give in full the words of Neander according to each edition of his history, and we request that the two editions may be compared sentence by sentence:—
FROM THE FIRST EDITION OF NEANDER'S CHURCH HISTORY, TRANSLATED BY H. J. ROSE, P. 186.
1. "Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular festival of Sunday very early indeed into the place of the Sabbath; the first trace of this custom is in the Acts, 20:7, where we find the church assembled together on the first day in the week, and again somewhat later, in Rev. 1:10, where it is hardly possible to understand the day of Judgment by the words 'the Lord's day.' Allusion is also made to the festival of Sunday, as a symbol of new life, consecrated to the Lord, in opposition to the old Sabbath, in the epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians. 'If they who were brought up under the Old Testament have attained to a new hope, and no longer keep Sabbaths holy, but have consecrated their life to the day of the Lord, on which also our life rose up in him, how shall we be able to live without him?'
2. "Sunday was distinguished as a day of joy by the circumstances, that men did not fast upon it, and that they prayed standing up, and not kneeling, as Christ had raised up fallen man to Heaven again through his resurrection. [The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps, at the end of the second century a false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin.]"
FROM THE LAST EDITION OF NEANDER'S CHURCH HISTORY, TRANSLATED BY PROF. TORREY, VOL. I, PP. 295, 296.
1. "The opposition to Judaism early led to the special observance of Sunday in place of the Sabbath. The first intimation of this change is in Acts 20:7, where we find the church assembled on the first day of the week; a still later one is in Rev. 1:10, where by the 'Lord's day,' can hardly be understood the day of Judgment. Thus in the catholic epistle ascribed to Barnabas, at the close of the fifteenth chapter, Sunday is designated as the day of jubilee in remembrance of Christ's resurrection and ascension to Heaven, and of the new creation which then commenced; and in the epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians it is presupposed, that even the Jews who had come over to Christianity substituted Sunday in place of the Sabbath. As the Sabbath was regarded as representing Judaism, Sunday was contemplated as a symbol of the new life consecrated to the risen Christ and grounded in his resurrection.
2. "[Sunday was distinguished as a day of joy, by being exempted from fasts, and by the circumstance that prayer was performed on this day in a standing and not in a kneeling posture, as Christ, by his resurrection, had raised up fallen man again to Heaven.] But as we have already observed in Tertullian a confounding of the Jewish with the Christian view of feasts, so we find also in him indications of the transfer of the law of the Jewish Sabbath to Sunday; for by him, attending to any business on Sunday seems to have been regarded as sinful."
We have thus presented in parallel columns the entire testimony of Neander concerning Sunday in the early church, as given in the two editions of his church history. Not a word is omitted, and not a word is changed; but for convenience of reference and comparison we have divided his testimony into two paragraphs in the case of each edition, and have numbered them. We have inclosed in brackets that portion of each edition of his history that was quoted in the History of the Sabbath, that it may be seen that that work did in truth seize the real meaning of Neander in each case.
Before we analyze the testimony of the second edition, it is necessary to call attention to an act of gross injustice that really constitutes the foundation of the attack made by the editor of the Evangelist. He quotes the History of the Sabbath as speaking thus: "The general tenor of the revised edition is in this place precisely the same as in that from which this outspoken statement is taken." Then he says: "Whether that assertion is true can be judged from the following passage in Neander's later work." Then he quotes from the second edition the paragraph which we have numbered 1.
The reader would suppose from this that the facts which Neander here recites concerning the origin of Sunday observance had been discovered by him during the seventeen years that elapsed between the publication of his two editions, and that he wrote this as new matter to correct the misstatement of his first edition. But, if he will read paragraph No. 1 in the quotation from the old edition, he will see that Neander had every one of these points in that edition, except his reference to Barnabas, and that it was with a full understanding of all these that he there pronounced Sunday a human ordinance. But the Evangelist, merely on the strength of the fact that Neander did not sum up the testimony in the second edition, assures its readers that he no longer regards Sunday as a human ordinance, but as a divine institution. We will test this matter, not by summing up Neander's testimony, but by analyzing it.
1. What does Neander say is the first intimation of the change from the seventh day to the first? The meeting in A. D. 60, mentioned in Acts 20:7.
2. But did not Neander believe that Christ changed the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first by lying in the tomb on the seventh day and rising on the first? And does he not believe that Christ confirmed this great doctrine of the modern church by appearing to his disciples on the day of his resurrection, and possibly on the same day one week later as well as on several other days of the week during the forty days before his ascension? And does he not find evidence that the change had been made in the fact that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost?
3. We have an explicit answer from Neander to this doctrine of modern theology, and one that is as truthful as it is definite. No one of these modern inferences, in the judgment of Neander, amounted even to an intimation of the change; for the first intimation, he says, is found in Acts 20:7.
4. But so far as Neander is concerned, this absolutely overthrows the divine authority of the first day. For as all standard first-day writers contend, the foundation of first-day sacredness is set forth in the New Testament in those passages which speak of the resurrection of Christ. All this he absolutely repudiates, and that with the strictest reason and justice.
5. But he is not content to merely take away the divine authority for Sunday, which others have so laboriously established, and which they hope proves that some secret commandment for the change had been given by Christ. He states plainly what was the inspiring motive with those who first preferred Sunday to the seventh day; it was not a divine or apostolic commandment, but it was opposition to Judaism! That is, the breach between the Jews and the Christians had become so wide, and the hostility so great, that the church gradually put the first day in place of the seventh.
6. But what use does Neander make of 1 Cor. 16:2? In this edition of his church history, where he collects together all the testimonies in favor of first-day observance, he passes this text in silence, a decisive proof that he finds no evidence in it that meetings were held on the first day of the week. He refers us, however, in the margin, to his Planting and Training of the Christian Church, where in vol. 1, p. 158, of Bohn's edition, we read: "But Paul, if we examine his language closely, says no more than this, that every one should lay by in his own house on the first day of the week, whatever he was able to save. This certainly might mean that every one should bring with him the sum he had saved to the meeting of the church, that thus the individual contributions might be collected together, and be ready for Paul as soon as he came. But this would be making a gratuitous supposition, not at all required by the connection of the passage."
7. He does, however, bring forward Rev. 1:10, but in a very hesitating manner; for he intimates that the term "Lord's day" must signify either the day of Judgment or the first day of the week, and, though he gives the preference to the idea that it means first day of the week, he does not do it in a decisive manner.
8. So much for what Neander says relative to Scripture. Now we come to his use of the Fathers. He quotes the so-called epistle of Barnabas as sustaining the observance of the first day of the week. The testimony from Barnabas is the only actual addition to the facts presented in his first edition. We may therefore conclude, that whatever new light Neander had obtained during these seventeen years, came from this remarkable epistle. But, instead of recognizing this as of apostolic authority, he says, on page 657 of the last edition of his history, that we cannot possibly recognize in this production the Barnabas who was deemed worthy to take part as a companion in the apostolic labors of Paul. The most of our readers know that the epistle of Barnabas asserts that the hyena changes its sex every year, and is sometimes male and sometimes female. It makes a statement concerning the hare and another concerning the weasel that are still more ridiculous. How much this epistle added to the divine authority for Sunday in the estimation of Neander we leave our readers to judge.
9. Neander also cites the epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, and says that this epistle intimates that even the Jews who had come over to Christianity substituted Sunday in place of the Sabbath. But if this were true it would indicate nothing more than that Sunday is an institution set up by man. But on page 661 of Neander's last edition he expresses grave doubts concerning the genuineness of the epistles of Ignatius. But this is not all. Every scholar knows that the epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, which is the one here quoted by Neander, would say nothing concerning Sunday were it not for a false translation by which the term "Lord's life" is translated "Lord's day."
We have now analyzed all the testimony presented by Neander, in his last edition, in support of Sunday. When he had given these facts in his first edition, he pronounced judgment upon them, in saying that the festival of Sunday was always only a human ordinance. In presenting these facts in his second edition, he leaves his readers to draw their own conclusion. He adds, however, in the close of what we have taken from each edition, the statement that labor on Sunday began to be regarded as sinful at the end of the second century, which shows that in his judgment it was not so regarded at an earlier date.
The analysis of the testimony of Neander's second edition concerning Sunday being finished, we now have an interesting problem in moral arithmetic, which is, to add up all these points and obtain the sum total. We say that this sum total is precisely what Neander gave in his first edition, that Sunday is only a human ordinance. The Evangelist affirms that Neander finds Scriptural evidence for the divine authority of the day. It says: "Thus Neander finds evidence of the change from the seventh day to the first, in the Scriptures, and in the writings of the two earliest of the Fathers whose writings are preserved, both of whom were living when the apostle John died, and must have known his testimony and teaching—one of them, Ignatius, being reputed to be John's 'disciple.'"
As a response to this untruthful statement of the Evangelist, we present the following synopsis of Neander's views; and with this synopsis close our argument.
1. We have shown from Neander that there are no intimations of the change from the seventh day to the first in the record of Christ's resurrection, nor in that of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
2. That the divine foundation for the first day of the week, so laboriously laid by modern theologians, is therefore entirely repudiated by Neander.
3. That when the change first commenced, it was not by divine commandment, but was instigated by opposition to Judaism.
4. That Neander finds no evidence for the change of the day in 1 Cor. 16:2.
5. That he thinks the term "Lord's day" is more likely to refer to the first day of the week than to the day of Judgment, but he does not express a positive opinion.
6. He quotes the so-called epistle of Barnabas, but repudiates it as wholly unworthy of the companion of St. Paul.
7. He quotes the epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, but expresses grave doubts respecting the genuineness of the epistles of that Father.
8. Finally, he indicates that labor on Sunday began to be considered sinful at the end of the second century.
Now let the reader add up these points which Neander has given as the foundation of the festival of Sunday, and then let each one for himself pronounce judgment whether the History of the Sabbath was guilty of misrepresentation, or whether the editor of the Evangelist is the one who has borne false witness against his neighbor.