Sabbath or Sunday?
Some religious organizations (Seventh-Day Adventists,
Seventh-Day Baptists, and certain others) claim that Christians must not
worship on Sunday but on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. They claim that,
at some unnamed time after the apostolic age, the Church "changed" the
day of worship from Saturday to Sunday.
However, passages of Scripture such as Acts 20:7,
1 Corinthians 16:2, Colossians 2:16-17, and Revelation 1:10 indicate that,
even during New Testament times, the Sabbath is no longer binding and that
Christians are to worship on the Lord’s day, Sunday, instead.
The early Church Fathers compared the observance
of the Sabbath to the observance of the rite of circumcision, and from
that they demonstrated that if the apostles abolished circumcision (Gal.
5:1-6), so also the observance of the Sabbath must have been abolished.
The following quotations show that the first Christians understood this
principle and gathered for worship on Sunday.
The Didache
"But every Lord’s day . . . gather yourselves together
and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions,
that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one that is at variance with
his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your
sacrifice may not be profaned" (Didache 14 [A.D. 70]).
The Letter of Barnabas
"We keep the eighth day [Sunday] with joyfulness,
the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead" (Letter of Barnabas
15:6–8 [A.D. 74]).
Ignatius of Antioch
"[T]hose who were brought up in the ancient order
of things [i.e. Jews] have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer
observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s day,
on which also our life has sprung up again by him and by his death" (Letter
to the Magnesians 8 [A.D. 110]).
Justin Martyr
"[W]e too would observe the fleshly circumcision,
and the Sabbaths, and in short all the feasts, if we did not know for what
reason they were enjoined [on] you—namely, on account of your transgressions
and the hardness of your heart. . . . [H]ow is it, Trypho, that we would
not observe those rites which do not harm us—I speak of fleshly circumcision
and Sabbaths and feasts? . . . God enjoined you to keep the Sabbath, and
imposed on you other precepts for a sign, as I have already said, on account
of your unrighteousness and that of your fathers . . ." (Dialogue with
Trypho the Jew 18, 21 [A.D. 155]).
"But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our
common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought
a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our
Savior on the same day rose from the dead" (First Apology 67 [A.D.
155]).
Tertullian
"[L]et him who contends that the Sabbath is still
to be observed as a balm of salvation, and circumcision on the eighth day
. . . teach us that, for the time past, righteous men kept the Sabbath
or practiced circumcision, and were thus rendered ‘friends of God.’ For
if circumcision purges a man, since God made Adam uncircumcised, why did
he not circumcise him, even after his sinning, if circumcision purges?
. . . Therefore, since God originated Adam uncircumcised and unobservant
of the Sabbath, consequently his offspring also, Abel, offering him sacrifices,
uncircumcised and unobservant of the Sabbath, was by him [God] commended
[Gen. 4:1–7, Heb. 11:4]. . . . Noah also, uncircumcised—yes, and unobservant
of the Sabbath—God freed from the deluge. For Enoch too, most righteous
man, uncircumcised and unobservant of the Sabbath, he translated from this
world, who did not first taste death in order that, being a candidate for
eternal life, he might show us that we also may, without the burden of
the law of Moses, please God" (An Answer to the Jews 2 [A.D. 203]).
The Didascalia
"The apostles further appointed: On the first day
of the week let there be service, and the reading of the holy scriptures,
and the oblation [sacrifice of the Mass], because on the first day of the
week [i.e., Sunday] our Lord rose from the place of the dead, and on the
first day of the week he arose upon the world, and on the first day of
the week he ascended up to heaven, and on the first day of the week he
will appear at last with the angels of heaven" (Didascalia 2 [A.D.
225]).
Origen
"Hence it is not possible that the [day of] rest
after the Sabbath should have come into existence from the seventh [day]
of our God. On the contrary, it is our Savior who, after the pattern of
his own rest, caused us to be made in the likeness of his death, and hence
also of his resurrection" (Commentary on John 2:28 [A.D. 229]).
Victorinus
"The sixth day [Friday] is called parasceve,
that is to say, the preparation of the kingdom. . . . On this day also,
on account of the passion of the Lord Jesus Christ, we make either a station
to God or a fast. On the seventh day he rested from all his works, and
blessed it, and sanctified it. On the former day we are accustomed to fast
rigorously, that on the Lord’s day we may go forth to our bread with giving
of thanks. And let the parasceve become a rigorous fast, lest we
should appear to observe any Sabbath with the Jews . . . which Sabbath
he [Christ] in his body abolished" (The Creation of the World [A.D.
300]).
Eusebius of Caesarea
"They [the early saints of the Old Testament] did
not care about circumcision of the body, neither do we [Christians]. They
did not care about observing Sabbaths, nor do we. They did not avoid certain
kinds of food, neither did they regard the other distinctions which Moses
first delivered to their posterity to be observed as symbols; nor do Christians
of the present day do such things" (Church History 1:4:8 [A.D. 312]).
"[T]he day of his [Christ’s] light . . . was the
day of his resurrection from the dead, which they say, as being the one
and only truly holy day and the Lord’s day, is better than any number of
days as we ordinarily understand them, and better than the days set apart
by the Mosaic law for feasts, new moons, and Sabbaths, which the apostle
[Paul] teaches are the shadow of days and not days in reality" (Proof
of the Gospel 4:16:186 [A.D. 319]).
Athanasius
"The Sabbath was the end of the first creation,
the Lord’s day was the beginning of the second, in which he renewed and
restored the old in the same way as he prescribed that they should formerly
observe the Sabbath as a memorial of the end of the first things, so we
honor the Lord’s day as being the memorial of the new creation" (On
Sabbath and Circumcision 3 [A.D. 345]).
Cyril of Jerusalem
"Fall not away either into the sect of the Samaritans
or into Judaism, for Jesus Christ has henceforth ransomed you. Stand aloof
from all observance of Sabbaths and from calling any indifferent meats
common or unclean" (Catechetical Lectures 4:37 [A.D. 350]).
Council of Laodicea
"Christians should not Judaize and should not be
idle on the Sabbath, but should work on that day; they should, however,
particularly reverence the Lord’s day and, if possible, not work on it,
because they were Christians" (Canon 29 [A.D. 360]).
John Chrysostom
"[W]hen he [God] said, ‘You shall not kill’ . .
. he did not add, ‘because murder is a wicked thing.’ The reason was that
conscience had taught this beforehand, and he speaks thus, as to those
who know and understand the point. Wherefore when he speaks to us of another
commandment, not known to us by the dictate of conscience, he not only
prohibits, but adds the reason. When, for instance, he gave commandment
concerning the Sabbath— ‘On the seventh day you shall do no work’—he subjoined
also the reason for this cessation. What was this? ‘Because on the seventh
day God rested from all his works which he had begun to make’ [Ex. 20:10-11].
. . . For what purpose then, I ask, did he add a reason respecting the
Sabbath, but did no such thing in regard to murder? Because this commandment
was not one of the leading ones. It was not one of those which were accurately
defined of our conscience, but a kind of partial and temporary one, and
for this reason it was abolished afterward. But those which are necessary
and uphold our life are the following: ‘You shall not kill. . . . You shall
not commit adultery. . . . You shall not steal.’ On this account he adds
no reason in this case, nor enters into any instruction on the matter,
but is content with the bare prohibition" (Homilies on the Statutes
12:9 [A.D. 387]).
"You have put on Christ, you have become a member
of the Lord and been enrolled in the heavenly city, and you still grovel
in the law [of Moses]? How is it possible for you to obtain the kingdom?
Listen to Paul’s words, that the observance of the law overthrows the gospel,
and learn, if you will, how this comes to pass, and tremble, and shun this
pitfall. Why do you keep the Sabbath and fast with the Jews?" (Homilies
on Galatians 2:17 [A.D. 395]).
"The rite of circumcision was venerable in the
Jews’ account, forasmuch as the law itself gave way thereto, and the Sabbath
was less esteemed than circumcision. For that circumcision might be performed,
the Sabbath was broken; but that the Sabbath might be kept, circumcision
was never broken; and mark, I pray, the dispensation of God. This is found
to be even more solemn than the Sabbath, as not being omitted at certain
times. When then it is done away, much more is the Sabbath" (Homilies
on Philippians 10 [A.D. 402]).
The Apostolic Constitutions
"And on the day of our Lord’s resurrection, which
is the Lord’s day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that made
the universe by Jesus, and sent him to us, and condescended to let him
suffer, and raised him from the dead. Otherwise what apology will he make
to God who does not assemble on that day . . . in which is performed the
reading of the prophets, the preaching of the gospel, the oblation of the
sacrifice, the gift of the holy food" (Apostolic Constitutions 2:7:60
[A.D. 400]).
Augustine
"Well, now, I should like to be told what there
is in these ten commandments, except the observance of the Sabbath, which
ought not to be kept by a Christian. . . . Which of these commandments
would anyone say that the Christian ought not to keep? It is possible to
contend that it is not the law which was written on those two tables that
the apostle [Paul] describes as ‘the letter that kills’ [2 Cor. 3:6], but
the law of circumcision and the other sacred rites which are now abolished"
(The Spirit and the Letter 24 [A.D. 412]).
Pope Gregory I
"It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse
spirit have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to the
holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the Sabbath day. What
else can I call these [men] but preachers of Antichrist, who when he comes
will cause the Sabbath day as well as the Lord’s day to be kept free from
all work. For because he [the Antichrist] pretends to die and rise again,
he wishes the Lord’s day to be held in reverence; and because he compels
the people to Judaize that he may bring back the outward rite of the law,
and subject the perfidy of the Jews to himself, he wishes the Sabbath to
be observed. For this which is said by the prophet, ‘You shall bring in
no burden through your gates on the Sabbath day’ [Jer. 17:24] could be
held to as long as it was lawful for the law to be observed according to
the letter. But after that the grace of almighty God, our Lord Jesus Christ,
has appeared, the commandments of the law which were spoken figuratively
cannot be kept according to the letter. For if anyone says that this about
the Sabbath is to be kept, he must needs say that carnal sacrifices are
to be offered. He must say too that the commandment about the circumcision
of the body is still to be retained. But let him hear the apostle Paul
saying in opposition to him: ‘If you be circumcised, Christ will profit
you nothing’ [Gal. 5:2]" (Letters 13:1 [A.D. 597]).
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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