We will now present historical evidence, proving that the observance of the first day of the week, as a day of worship, was universal among Christians in the days immediately following the apostles. If Sunday observance existed here, then it did not originate several hundred years later with Constantine, or with the Papacy. We will begin soon after the close of the New Testament.
PLINY’S LETTER, A.D. 107
Pliny was governor of Bithynia, Asia Minor, A.D. 106-108. He wrote A.D. 107 to Trajan, the emperor, concerning the Christians, thus: “They were wont to meet together, on a stated day before it was light, and sing among themselves alternately a hymn to Christ as God. . . . When these things were performed, it was their custom to separate and then to come together again to a meal which they ate in common without any disorder” (Horne’s” Introduction,” Vol. I, Chap. iii, Sec. 2, p. 84. 129). That this was Sunday is evident.
- They came together to worship Christ.
- They assembled to eat a meal together, the Lord’s Supper.
The “stated day” for this was Sunday. “Upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread” (Acts 20:7). This is exactly parallel to Pliny’s statement.
Eusebius, the historian, A.D. 324, says: ” I think that he [the Psalmist] describes the morning assemblies in which we are accustomed to assemble throughout the world.” “By this is prophetically signified the service which is performed very early and every morning of the resurrection day throughout the whole world.” (Sabbath Manual, p. 126)
This is exactly what Pliny says: They met together “on a stated day before it was light;” they assembled to eat together a meal. Eusebius says it was the custom of all Christians “to meet very early and every morning of the resurrection day.” This ought to settle it and does. Pliny’s stated day was Sunday. This was in the very region where the apostles labored, and only eleven years after St. John died. The “Advent History of the Sabbath,” edition of 1912, is compelled to admit that Sunday observance was in the Christian Church at the beginning of the second century. The author says: “The results of our investigation concerning the origin of Sunday [is] that it was not introduced into the Christian Church until the beginning of the second century” (page 450). That is exactly the date when Pliny wrote, immediately following the death of the last apostle.
BARNABAS, A.D. 120
This epistle was highly prized in the earliest Churches, read in some of them as part of Scripture, and is found in the oldest manuscript of the Scriptures, namely the Sinaitic. That it was written by a pious man of learning and influence cannot be doubted.
Johnson’s New Universal Encyclopedia says: “It is frequently cited by the Fathers, and was by many regarded as being of authority in the Church; some even claiming for it a place in the sacred canon.”
This is a summary of the best modern criticism as to the date, character and authority of the epistle of Barnabas. Read and reverenced in the Church as next to the Gospels themselves as early as A.D. 120, or within twenty-four years of the death of St. John, it shows what Christians believed and practiced immediately after the apostles. In this epistle we read: “Incense is a vain abomination unto me, and your new moons and Sabbaths I cannot endure. He has, therefore, abolished these things” (Chapter II). Elder Andrews admits that “he presently asserts the abolition of the Sabbath of the Lord.” (Testimony, etc., p. 22) Coming to the first day of the week, Barnabas says; ” Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day, also, on which Jesus rose again from the dead” (Chapter XV). Notice this fact: All admit that this epistle of Barnabas was in existence in the beginning of the second century, or not later than the middle of it.
At that time it was supposed by the Churches to have been written as a part of the New Testament Scriptures. It is in the oldest copy of the Bible right after Revelation. It states in positive terms that the Jewish Sabbath was abolished and that Christians kept the day of the resurrection. Now would the Churches, week after week, read this language as inspired, and then not keep Sunday? That is not reasonable. Hence this book does show what Christians believed and practiced at that date, A.D. 120.
But Adventists say this writing was a forgery. It was no such thing. There is not a word in the whole epistle claiming that the author was the apostle Barnabas. No name is attached to it nor is there any claim that it was written by an apostle. For some reason, not now known, it came to be attributed to Barnabas. The book of Hebrews has no name to it; it is supposed that Paul wrote it and we accept it as such, but some doubt it, and it cannot be proved. Shall we call it a forgery? Just as well as to call the epistle of Barnabas a forgery.
Here, once for all, we will notice the chief argument on which Adventists depend to invalidate the testimony of all the early Fathers in favor of the Lord’s Day. They try to show that Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Origen, etc., held some notions which none of us now believe. Hence their testimony must be unreliable. This argument they repeat over and over at great length in the case of every early writer who witnesses for Sunday. Now it occurs that one of their writers, Elder J. H. Waggoner, when it happens to suit his purpose, has himself answered this argument. Of the Reformers he says: “We think the Reformers retained a grievous error of their early training; but that does not invalidate their testimony in regard to a matter of fact with which they were well acquainted.” (Replies to Canright, p. 164)
Now apply that to the early Fathers. They lived there, and state over and over, all agreeing in it, that they themselves and all Christians then observed Sunday. This was a simple matter of fact with which they were well acquainted. Waggoner says such testimony is reliable. Of
course it is. It proves beyond question that the Lord’s Day was an unquestioned practice of the early Church. We do not quote these Fathers to prove a doctrine; for that we go only to the Bible. We quote them to prove a simple, historical fact, viz.: that the early Christians did keep Sunday; hence it could not have started with the Popes centuries later.
THE TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES, A.D. 125
This was not written by the apostles; yet its date is very early. Some place it as early as A.D. 80.
Professor Harnack, of Berlin, says many place it between A.D. 90, and A.D. 120. This is the date most favored. It cannot be much later. The New York Independent says of it: “By all odds the most important writing exterior to New Testament.” Prof. D. E. Dungan, President of Drake University, says: “It is evident that it is not far on this side of the death of the apostle John.” The noted scholar, Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, in his “Sabbath for Man,” page 383, says: It was “written, as the best scholars almost unanimously agree, not later than forty years after the death of the last of the apostles, and during the lifetime of many who had heard John’s teaching.”
In the preface to this important document, the editors, Professors Hitchcock and Brown in the Union Theological Seminary, New York, say: “The genuineness of the document can hardly be doubted.” “The document belongs undoubtedly to the second century; possibly as far back as 120 A.D.; hardly later than 160” (Introduction).
Chapter fourteen of the Teaching of the Apostles says: ” But every Lord’s Day do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving,” etc. This testimony is clear and decisive that the Lord’s Day was the established day of worship, at that early day.
JUSTIN MARTYR, A.D. 140
I quote from The Testimony of the Fathers by Elder Andrews: “Justin’s ‘Apology’ was written at Rome about the year 140,” “and this at a distance of only forty-four years from the date of John’s vision upon Patmos.” “It does not appear that Justin, and those at Rome who held with him in doctrine, paid the slightest regard to the ancient Sabbath. He speaks of it as abolished, and treats it with contempt” (page 33).
This is the confession which even the historian of the Seventh-Day Adventists is compelled to make. The Jewish Sabbath was disregarded by Christians within forty-four years of the death of the last apostle. And this is proven by the testimony of an eminent Christian minister who lived right there.
Justin in his “Apology” for them to the emperor fairly represented what Christians generally held then, just as he should have done. Elder Andrews conveys the impression that Justin represented only a small party of apostate Christians at Rome and that he is quite unreliable. But the facts are just the reverse. He was a Greek, born in Palestine and held his “Dialogue with Trypho” at Ephesus, Asia Minor, in the church where St. John lived and died, the very center of the Eastern Church, and only forty-four years after John’s death. Of Justin the “Encyclopedia Americana ” says: ” One of the earliest and most learned writers of the Christian Church. … He was also equally zealous in opposing alleged heretics.” “Schaff- Herzog Encyclopedia” says: “In these works Justin professes to present the system of doctrine held by all Christians and seeks to be orthodox on all points.
The only difference he knows of as existing between Christians concerned the millennium. Thus Justin is an incontrovertible witness for the unity of the faith in the Church of his day, and to the fact that the Gentile type of Christianity prevailed.”
Notice carefully: At that date, A.D. 140, the only difference among Christians was about the millennium. Then they must all have agreed in keeping Sunday, as Justin says that was the day all kept as we will soon see.
“Eusebius says that he overshadowed all the great men who illuminated the second century by the splendor of his name.” His writings are “the most important that have come to us from the second century.” (McClintock and Strong’s Encyclopedia, Article “Justin Martyr”)
Doctor Schaff says of him: “After his conversion Justin devoted himself wholly to the vindication of the Christian religion, as an itinerant evangelist, with no fixed abode.” (Church History,” Vol. I, p. 482). Not only were his books accepted without dispute as expressing the practice of the Church, but his itinerant life, now in Palestine, then in Rome, Greece and Ephesus, enabled him to know this practice, and stamps his testimony with a force equal to demonstration. So, then, Justin is an unimpeachable witness for the faith and practice of Christians generally a few years after the death of the apostles.
Now hear what Justin says about the first day of the week: “And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying, Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succors the orphans and widows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the strangers sojourning among us, and, in a word, takes care of all who are in need. 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 Saviour, on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.” (The First Apology of Justin, Chap. xlvii)
This “Apology” was written by Justin when Christians were being terribly persecuted. It was addressed to Antoninus, the emperor, “also to the sacred senate and the whole Roman people in behalf of those who of all nations are now unjustly hated and aspersed.” (Eusebius, Eccl. History, Book IV, Chap. xii, p. 139)
It was in behalf of the entire Christian Church in all the vast Roman Empire, as he plainly states. Hence it presents the practice of the general Church, not simply a local church at Rome as Adventists unfairly state. It was addressed to the Roman emperor and the senate to correctly inform them of the faith and practice of Roman Christian subjects. Justin was martyred because he would not sacrifice to pagan gods. Notice that he says that, “On the day called Sunday, all who live in the cities, or in the country gather together to one place,” etc. “But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly.” This practice was general among all Christians as far as he had traveled, and he was an itinerant preacher like Moody, or General Booth of the Salvation Army.
Hence this is positive proof that Sunday-keeping was general in the Christian Church at that early date. Justin does not state simply his opinion, but a fact then existing, viz., that all Christians “whether in cities or country ” “in all nations” held their assemblies on Sunday.
Justin does not call Sunday the Sabbath nor the Lord’s Day (Dialogue with Trypho, Chap. xxvi). This is readily answered by the fact that Justin was writing to a heathen emperor who would have been wholly ignorant of the meaning of either of those terms. But there the naked facts stand, clear, positive and undeniable, that within forty-four years after the book of Revelation was written Christians did hold their assemblies on Sunday. And Justin says that Jesus taught these things to the apostles. Probably the Jewish Christians did continue to observe the Sabbath the same as they did other Jewish customs for a time. But even these also kept the Lord’s Day as will be seen later.
Justin plainly states that the Gentile believers did not keep the Sabbath. He says; “The Gentiles who have believed on Him, although they neither keep the Sabbath, nor are circumcised, nor observe the feasts” yet are God’s children. (Dialogue with Trypho, Chap. xxvi)
So today: go to any part of the globe and wherever you find Christians of any sect or nation, there you find them keeping Sunday. A few Sabbatarians of late origin are the only exceptions to this. How did this universal custom come about if not started at the very foundation of the Church by the apostles themselves?
DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF CORINTH IN GREECE, A.D. 170
But we will hear further from these Fathers themselves as to whether they kept Sunday. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, the Church which Paul raised up and to which he gave the command about Sunday collections, 1 Cor. 16:1-2, says: “We passed this holy Lord’s Day, in which we read your letter, from the constant reading of which we shall be able to draw admonition.” (Eusebius, “Eccl. History,” Book IV, Chap. xxiii). That the Lord’s Day is the resurrection day we have seen. This term is never applied to any other than the first day. Notice that this witness is from Greece, not Rome. So the resurrection day was a “holy” day, A.D. 170.
In this chapter Eusebius gives quite a lengthy account of Dionysius as a most devoted Christian, a bishop of great and wide influence. He warned others against all heresies in many letters he wrote.
Eusebius quotes his exact words about the “Holy Lord’s Day ” as above. As these letters were sent to many other Churches it shows that the Lord’s Day was by all regarded as a holy day.
BARDESANES OF EDESSA, SYRIA, A.D. 180
Coming down only ten years later, we have the testimony of the heretic Bardesanes, the Syrian, who flourished about A.D. 180. He belonged to the sect of the Gnostics which was very numerous all over the far East. He says: “What then shall we say respecting the new race of ourselves who are Christians, whom in every country, and in every region the Messiah established at His coming? For, lo, wherever we be, all of us are called by the one name of the Messiah, Christians, and upon one day, which is the first day of the week, we assemble ourselves together.” (Laws of Countries, A.D. 180)
Notice that these Christians were scattered widely “in every country and every region.”
Bardesanes says just the same as Justin Martyr, “We assemble ourselves together ” upon the first day of the week. These two witnesses are much alike as to Sunday. Justin, strictly orthodox, says that “all in cities and country” assemble on Sunday. Bardesanes, heretic, says the same for all the countries of the Far East. The observance of Sunday was general both among orthodox and heretics. Notice here also a refutation of the idea so strongly urged by Sabbatarians, that Sunday-keeping originated at Rome, and was for a long time confined there. Elder Andrews has to admit that the Gnostics at this date used Sunday as a day of worship. But, the Gnostics were emphatically an eastern sect, originating in Syria, and were most numerous in Alexandria, Asia Minor, and the East.
Rome never had any influence over them. Bardesanes himself lived at Edessa, in Mesopotamia, 2,500 miles east of Rome, on another continent, under another nation. This sect was numerous in the East as early as A.D. 150, or fifty-five years after the death of John. So we have Sunday-keeping not only at Rome, but all over the East as early as A.D. 150, hundreds of years before there was any “Pope” at Rome.
No exception to this can be found whether orthodox or heretic. All observe the Lord’s Day. Even Sabbatarians are compelled to admit this. Elder Andrews says: “Those Fathers who hallow the Sabbath do generally associate with it the festival called by them the Lord’s Day” (Testimony of the Fathers, p. 11). Yes, while some did, for a while, keep the Sabbath, yet even they, in every instance, also kept the Lord’s Day.
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT, A.D. 194
Clement was one of the most celebrated of the Christian Fathers. He writes about A.D. 194. He says: “He, in fulfillment of the precept, keeps the Lord’s Day when he abandons an evil disposition, and assumes that of the Gnostic, glorifying the Lord’s resurrection in himself ” (Book VII, Chapter XII). The Lord’s Day, it will be seen here, and all along, is the resurrection day. Clement lived, not at Rome, but in Egypt. So Sunday-keeping was not simply a Roman usage, as Adventists claim.
Adventists seek to discredit Clement’s testimony about the Lord’s Day by saying that he was influenced by Greek philosophy as taught by Plato, Socrates, etc. But this is easily answered by the fact that neither the Greeks in general, nor any of the philosophers, ever practiced, or taught, any observance of Sunday. They never knew anything about a weekly day of rest or worship. The weekly calendar was unknown to them till taught it by Christians at a later date. (See Chapter 5.)
Hence, whatever else Clement and the Church at Alexandria gathered from Greek philosophers, they did not get the Lord’s Day from them. When they adopted Christianity they accepted the Lord’s Day as a part of it. Heathen Gnosticism knew nothing of any weekly rest day; hence, Christian Gnostics could not get their Lord’s Day from them.
TERTULLIAN OF AFRICA, A.D. 200
Tertullian was one of the most noted of the early Fathers. Was born A.D. 160. He was highly educated, bred to the law, and very talented. Brought up a pagan, he was converted to Christ and vehemently opposed heathenism ever after. Radically severe in his principles, opposed to all conformity to the world, the laxity of the Roman Church drove him to withdraw from it, which he ever after hotly opposed. So he was not a Romanist, nor did Rome have a particle of influence over him only to drive him the other way. He was strictly orthodox in faith and a lover of the Scriptures. Hence if it were true that Sunday-keeping, as a heathen institution, was being introduced into the Church by Rome, Tertullian is just the man who would have opposed and fearlessly condemned it.
Johnson’s Cyclopedia says of him: “One of the greatest men of the early Church.” He joined the Puritanic sect of the Montanists. They were orthodox in doctrine, but stern in spirit and discipline.” “He remained true to the faith of the Catholics, but fought them vehemently on matters of morality and discipline. He was also a representative of the African opposition to Rome.”
The Schaff-Herzog Cyclopedia says of him: “One of the grandest and most original characters of the ancient Church.” “Greek philosophy he despised.”
Of his great book they say: “One of the magnificent monuments of the ancient Church.” Authon’s “Classical Dictionary” says of him: “He informs us more correctly than any other writer respecting the Christian doctrines of his time. . . . Tertullian was held in very high esteem by the subsequent Fathers of the Church.” Neander says; “Tertullian is a writer of peculiar importance.” (Rose’s Neander, p. 424)
Here then is a competent and unimpeachable witness to the doctrines and practices of the universal Church, A.D. 200, or only 104 years after John.
Tertullian says: “We solemnize the day after Saturday in contradistinction to those who call this day their Sabbath, and devote it to ease and eating, deviating from the old Jewish customs, which they are now very ignorant of.” (Tertullian’s Apology, Chap. xvi.)
Tertullian again declares that his brethren did not observe the days held sacred by the Jews:
“We neither accord with the Jews in their peculiarities in regard to food, nor in their sacred days.” “We, however (just as we have received), only on the day of the Lord’s resurrection ought to guard not only against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude; deferring even our business, lest we give any place to the devil” (Tertullian on Prayer, Chap. xxiii). Sunday, then, was observed by Christians at that early date, but Saturday was not.
The above testimony of this great Christian teacher is clear, positive, and decisive. The Jewish Sabbath was not kept; the Lord’s Day was. Tertullian was one of the greatest Christian teachers of that day, A.D. 200. Could it be that these influential leaders taught and practiced thus, while all the Churches believed and did just the other way?
That is, kept the Jewish Sabbath and did not keep the Lord’s Day? Might as well say that Moody and Spurgeon taught Sunday observance while none of their followers believed it.
In the case of Tertullian, the last edition of the “Advent History of the Sabbath” devotes twelve large pages trying to discredit him. Why? Because his testimony is squarely against them and they fear it. It is a significant fact that Adventists do not find even one single Christian writer or leader for hundreds of years after Christ who is worthy of any reliance! All are fools, forgers, unreliable, apostates, semi-pagans, etc.! Why this effort to impeach them all? The reason is easy to find-all bear a decided witness against Sabbatarian teachings.
ORIGEN, A.D. 225
Origen (about A.D. 225) was a man of immense learning, and his writings are numerous. “Origen may well be pronounced one of the ablest and worthiest of the church Fathers” (McClintock and Strong’s Encyclopedia).
The following items about Origen are gathered from the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia. He was born at Alexandria, A.D. 185. Was carefully trained by Christian parents. His father was martyred. He was one of the most learned men of his age. He was devoutly pious. He became the teacher of the greatest men of his time, even teaching bishops and emperors. He traveled extensively to Rome, Arabia, Antioch, Greece, Tyre, Cappadocia, Jerusalem, Caesarea, etc. Hence he was familiar with all the customs of Christians everywhere. This makes his testimony to the Lord’s Day at that early date reliable and of great importance. He says: “If it be objected to us on this subject that we ourselves are accustomed to observe certain days, as, for example, the Lord’s Day, the preparation, the Passover, or Pentecost” (Origen against Celsus, Book VIII, Chap. xxii.).
In his commentary on Exodus, Par. 5, he says: “It is plain from Holy Writ that manna was first given on earth on the Lord’s Day. But if it be clear from the Holy Scriptures that God rained manna from Heaven on the Lord’s Day, and rained none on the Sabbath Day, let the Jews understand that from that time our Lord’s Day was set above the true Sabbath-for on our Lord’s Day God always rains down manna from Heaven; for the discourses which are delivered to us are from Heaven.” Here Origen shows that the Jewish Sabbath was set aside, and the Lord’s Day was the superior day, the day on which Christians assembled to hear discourses from God’s ministers. This agrees with Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and all as above. Notice that this witness is from the East, not from pagan Rome. Origen was a Greek, not a Latin. As Origen traveled extensively among the Churches and preached for them, and his books were read by them, it shows that the observance of the Lord’s Day was general among them all. He would not have been everywhere invited to preach for them if they had not believed as he did.
THE APOSTOLICAL CONSTITUTIONS, A.D. 250
Of the Apostolical Constitutions (A.D. 250) Elder Andrews, Adventist, says: “The so-called Apostolical Constitutions were not the work of the apostles, but they were in existence as early as the third century, and were then very generally believed to express the doctrine of the apostles. They do therefore furnish important historical testimony to the practice of the Church at that time. Mosheim, in his Historical Commentaries, Cent. 1, section 51, speaks thus of these ‘constitutions’: ‘The matter of this work is unquestionably ancient; since the manners and discipline of which it exhibits a view are those which prevailed among the Christians of the second and third centuries, especially those resident in Greece and the oriental regions.'” (Testimony, etc., p. 13.)
Notice again that this work was the product of the Eastern Church and hence shows the custom of the Church in the East instead of that at Rome. These, then, will be good witnesses to the practice of the Church about A.D. 250. In section 7, paragraph 59, we read: “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.” “Otherwise what apology will He make to God who does not assemble on that day to hear the saving word concerning the resurrection.” In Book VII, section 2, paragraph 30, he says: “On the day of the resurrection of the Lord, that is, the Lord’s Day, assemble yourselves together, without fail, giving thanks to God,” etc. In the same paragraph, in speaking of the resurrection of Christ, the writer says: “On which account we solemnly assemble to celebrate the feast of the resurrection on the Lord’s Day,” etc.
These testimonies are decisive, and do show beyond a doubt that the Christians of those early days used the Lord’s Day just as it is used now for religious worship.
CYPRIAN, BISHOP OF CARTHAGE, A.D. 253
Cyprian was one of the greatest scholars and men of influence in all Christendom about seventy-five years before the date of Constantine’s edict of A.D. 321. He was a most devoted Christian, had great wealth, half of which he gave to the poor. Refusing to reverence the pagan idols, he was martyred. He opposed the Roman Church and bishop. Of him the “Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia” says: ” At the time when the controversy concerning baptism broke out between him and Bishop Stephen of Rome (255) Cyprian stood undoubtedly as the prominent and most influential leader in the Christian Church.” “The Papacy was not yet born.” (Cyprian’s Epistles, No. 68, Sect. 4.)
Of this great leader, the Advent History of the Sabbath (1912) says: “The next Father offering an argument for Sunday is Cyprian” (page 370). Hence there is no doubt that Cyprian kept the Lord’s Day and defended it. He said: “Because the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, was to be that on which the Lord should rise again, and should quicken us, and give us circumcision of the Spirit; the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, and the Lord’s Day, which went before in the figure.”‘
Did not the Churches practice as this great leader did and taught? Surely. Then they kept the Lord’s Day sixty years before Constantine’s conversion, a generation before his Sunday law. Notice that Cyprian lived in Africa, not at Rome, and that he opposed Rome.
ANATOLIUS, A.D. 270, BISHOP OF LAODICEA, ASIA
He was Bishop of Laodicea, Asia Minor. Not a Roman, but a Greek. This Church was raised up by Paul himself, and must have been well acquainted with the apostle’s doctrine. In his seventh canon Anatolius says: “The obligation of the Lord’s resurrection binds us to keep the paschal festival on the Lord’s Day.” In his tenth canon he uses this language: “The solemn festival of the resurrection of the Lord can be celebrated only on the Lord’s Day.” In his sixteenth canon he says: “Our regard for the Lord’s resurrection which took place on the Lord’s Day will lead us to celebrate it on the same principle.” See how all these early Christians call the resurrection day “the Lord’s Day ” and how they honor it. How entirely different from our Sabbatarians who can hardly find terms mean enough by which to express their contempt for Sunday! Why is this difference and what does it show?
VICTORINUS, BISHOP OF PETAU, A.D. 300
“On the former day [the sixth] 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 Christ Himself, the Lord of the Sabbath, says by His prophets that His soul hateth which Sabbath He in His body abolished.” (Creation of the World, section 4.)
Here is another Christian bishop who says most distinctly that Christians did not keep the Jewish Sabbath and that the Lord had abolished it; but they did religiously regard the Lord’s Day. This was twenty-one years before Constantine’s Sunday law and sixty-four years before the Council of Laodicea.
PETER, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA, A.D. 306
“But the Lord’s Day we celebrate as a day of joy, because on it He rose again, on which day we have received it for a custom not even to bow the knee” (Canon 15). He gives the same reason for keeping the Lord’s Day that Christians give now.
This was more than two hundred years before the Pope came into power. Notice that these witnesses for Sunday are from all parts of the world, from Africa, Asia and Europe, not simply from Rome as Seventh-Day Adventists say. These show that Sunday-keeping was as widespread as the Christian Church itself, and that from the earliest days.
EUSEBIUS, A.D. 324
Eusebius was born in Palestine, the very home of Christ and the apostles and the cradle of the early Church. He was Bishop of Caesarea where Paul abode two years (Acts 23:33; 24:27). He studied at Antioch where Paul labored for years (Acts 15:1). He traveled to Egypt and over Asia Minor. He was one of the most noted men of his age. He wrote the first history of the Christian Church and bears the title of “Father of Church History.” The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia says: “As a repertory of facts and documents, his work is invaluable.” Johnson’s “Cyclopedia” says: ” He was very eminent for learning, as well as talents.” Home’s Introduction says; “A man of extraordinary learning, diligence and judgment, and singularly studious in the Scriptures…. His chief work is his Ecclesiastical History, in which he records the history of Christianity from its commencement to his own time…. He has delivered, not his own private opinion, but the opinion of the Church, the sum of what he had found in the writings of the primitive Christians.” (Vol. I, Chap. xi, Sec. 2, p. 42)
He had every possible opportunity to know what Christians did throughout the world. Of him Justin Edwards, D.D., says: “He lived in the third century, was a man of vast reading, and was as well acquainted with the history of the Church from the days of the apostles as any man of his day.” At Caesarea was “a very extensive library, to which Eusebius had constant access. He was a learned and accurate historian and had the aid of the best helps for acquiring information upon all subjects connected with the Christian Church.” (Sabbath Manual, pp. 124-126)
He lived right there, knew just what Christians did, and wrote about fifty years before the Council of Laodicea where Adventists say the Sabbath was changed to Sunday. True, there was a small heretical sect who kept the Sabbath as Judaizers do now. Of them he says: They are “those who cherish low and mean opinions of Christ. . . . With them the observance of the law was altogether necessary [just like Seventh-Day Adventists] as if they could not be saved only by faith in Christ and a corresponding life…. They also observe the Sabbath and other discipline of the Jews just like them, but on the other hand they also celebrate the Lord’s Days very much like us in commemoration of His resurrection.” (Ecclesiastical History, pp. 112-113) Even these Judaizers kept Sunday.
On the Ninety-second Psalm he says: “The word by the new covenant translated and transferred the feast of the Sabbath to the morning light and gave us the true rest, viz., the saving Lord’s Day.” “On this day which is the first of light and of the true Sun, we assemble, after an interval of six days, and celebrate holy and spiritual Sabbaths, even all nations redeemed by him throughout the world, and do those things according to the spiritual law which were decreed for the priests to do on the Sabbath.” Again: “And all things whatsoever that it was the duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord’s Day as more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath.” (Commentary on Ps. 92)
This testimony of the great historian of the early Church is decisive. It puts it beyond doubt that Christians in general in all the world did then keep Sunday, the Lord’s Day, and did not keep the Jewish Sabbath.
Eusebius bears witness to an actual existing fact, not to some speculative theory. He says that all Christians throughout the world kept the Lord’s Day. He lived there and knew of what he affirmed.
Is not his testimony better than that of some sectarian Adventist 1,500 years later?
Eusebius says, “We have transferred” the duties of the Sabbath to the Lord’s Day. On this Adventists try to make it appear that Eusebius himself with Constantine and others at that date, A.D. 324, were the ones who transferred the day. This is an unfair inference contradicted by all that has gone before. Eusebius writes this as a Christian History relating what the early Church had done. To illustrate: Roosevelt says: “We defeated the British in 1776.” “We took Texas from Mexico.” Does he mean that he and his officers did this now? All know better. Eusebius writes in the same way of what his brethren did centuries before. That is all.
TESTIMONY OF THE COUNCIL OF NICE, A.D. 325
This was the first general council. There were three hundred and eighteen bishops present from all Christendom with about fifteen hundred lower clergy. Surely these would know which day was then observed. The twentieth canon says: “As some kneel on the Lord’s Days, and on the days of Pentecost, the holy synod has decided that for the observance of a general rule, all shall offer their prayers to God standing.”
There was no objection to this rule, no question about it, all agreed in it as a thing universally understood. The Lord’s Day was the Christian day of worship. The Sabbath was not even mentioned, showing that none of them kept it. As the delegates represented the entire Christian Church and in all nations, it proves that the observance of the Lord’s Day was then kept the world over.
ATHANASIUS, A.D. 326
In the great council of Nice A.D. 325, the one man who towered above all others in influence was Athanasius, the “Father of Orthodoxy.” There he defeated the heresy of Arianism and settled for the Church ever since the Deity of Christ. He traveled extensively among the Churches, knew their customs well, and was himself a leader among them. It is certain that his teaching and his custom as to the Lord’s Day was that of the entire Church. I will quote from the “Seventh-Day Adventist History of the Sabbath,” edition 1912, so that his position will not be questioned. The author says: “Of the early Fathers the later ones spare no effort to manufacture new, fanciful, rhetorical phrases to surround Sunday with greater luster, and to cause the Sabbath to fade out of sight.
Athanasius of Alexandria (A.D. 326) gives us a fair sample. The sixth psalm is said to be upon the Sheminith (the eighth) an instrument for the eighth key. This is seized upon by Athanasius as a proof for Sunday. ” What else could this octave be but the resurrection of Christ?” Then again speaking of Psalm 118:24, “What day can this be but the resurrection day of the Lord which has received its name from Him, to wit, the Lord’s Day?” (pages 418, 419). Then the author gives other quotations from Athanasius along the same line defending the Lord’s Day. Notice that all the great leaders of the Church kept the Lord’s Day and defended it, but rejected the Jewish Sabbath. Then did not the general Church follow their leaders? Leaders determine what their Churches believe and practice. Lutherans follow Luther, Methodists follow Wesley, etc. All the leaders of the early Church condemned the Jewish Sabbath and observed the Lord’s Day.
Did not the Churches follow their teachers then the same as they do now? Seventh-Day Adventists confess that the leading men, ministers, and writers, during the first centuries opposed the Jewish Sabbath. Thus Elder J. N. Andrews in History of the Sabbath, edition of 1873, says: “Several of the early Fathers wrote in opposition to the seventh day. We now give the reasons assigned by each for that opposition. The writer called Barnabas did not keep the seventh day” (page 299).
Andrews finds that Barnabas gave seven reasons why the Sabbath should not be kept. He wrote A.D. 120, at the very beginning of the second century. His book was read in the Churches as Scripture. Then did those Churches keep the Sabbath? Of course not.
JUSTIN MARTYR, A.D. 140
Of this renowned early Christian Father Andrews says: “He expressly affirms the abolition of both the Sabbath and the Law.” “Here are three reasons” (pages 301, 303). So Justin gave his reasons for rejecting the Sabbath. Of him the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia says: “In these works Justin professes to present the system of doctrine held by all Christians.”
IRENEUS, A.D. 178
Of him Andrews says: “These things indicate that Ireneus was opposed to Sabbath observance” (page 305). He was one of the greatest and most beloved of the early Fathers. Did he oppose the Sabbath and yet all his people keep it? Hardly.
TERTULLIAN, A.D. 200
Of him Andrews says: “Tertullian offers numerous reasons for not observing the Sabbath” (page 305). He not only did not keep it, but gave numerous reasons for his faith. Of him Authon’s Classical Dictionary says: “He informs us more correctly than any other writer respecting the Christian doctrine of his times.” He had a tremendous influence on the Church then. Did they all keep the Sabbath while he opposed it?
Reader, how is this?
EUSEBIUS, A.D. 324
No early church Father surpasses Eusebius for learning or influence in the Church. Of him Andrews says: “Eusebius came out and declared that Christ transferred the Sabbath to Sunday” (page 358). The same History of the Sabbath, edition of 1912, says: “Eusebius sets aside the Sabbath of the Lord” (page 396). Then that was what all Christians did the world over. Now if the leaders and representative writers opposed the keeping of the Sabbath, will any one believe that the common Christians all kept a day which all their leaders and writers opposed? Elder Andrews in History of the Sabbath, page 308, says: “The reasons offered by the early Fathers for neglecting the observance of the Sabbath show conclusively that they had no special light on the subject by reason of living in the first centuries, which we in this latter age do not possess.” This is the confession from the ablest historian the seventh day ever had! He admits that “the early Fathers” “in the first centuries” neglected “the observance of the Sabbath and gave their reasons for it!”
What further need have we for witness to prove that the seventh day was not observed in the first centuries? But how does this harmonize with the theory that the Sabbath was changed to Sunday by the Pope several hundred years afterwards?
I could multiply indefinitely from Sabbatarian authors such confessions as these. Against their will, they are compelled to make them. They prove conclusively that the observance of the Jewish Sabbath had, largely at least, dropped out of the Church at that early date.
THE COUNCIL OF LAODICEA, A.D. 364
This Christian council plainly states that the Jewish Sabbath was no longer to be kept, while the Lord’s Day was. The twenty-ninth canon says: “Christians ought not to Judaize, and to rest in the Sabbath, but to work in that day; but preferring the Lord’s Day, should rest, if possible, as Christians. Wherefore if they shall be found to Judaize, let them be accursed from Christ.”
Thirty-two bishops were present, all Greeks, in the Eastern Church. Did they know which day the Church kept at that date? Surely. They agree with all the witnesses already quoted. At that date keeping the Jewish Sabbath was condemned, and the Lord’s Day approved.
ST. AUGUSTINE, A.D. 395
Next to Paul, probably Augustine has had a wider influence on the Christian Church than any other man. He was born in Numedia, Africa, A.D. 353. His mother was a devout Christian. He became Bishop of Hippo, Africa. Of him the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia says: “From his diocese a relentless war was waged upon every heresy.” “These made him immortal, and have tempered the theology of all after times.” “The Protestants emulate the Romanists in paying him honor.” “He claims the reverence of the world.” By him “the idea of the Trinity was for the first time clarified.”
This great Christian leader, within three hundred years of St. John, had access to all the Christian writings before him, knew perfectly the practice of the Christians in his day the world over and wrote against pagans and every heresy then extant. He explicitly teaches that the Sabbath was not for Christians. Of Sunday he writes often and fully. We quote only a few lines. “That day which we now call Sunday is the first day of the week, as is clearly seen from the Gospels. The first day of the week is thus named as the day of the resurrection of the Lord, by all the four evangelists, and it is known that this is the day which was later called the Lord’s Day.” “Sunday was not appointed for the Jews, but through the resurrection of the Lord for Christians.” “We celebrate the Lord’s Day, and Easter, and other Christian festivities.” “To fast on the Lord’s Day is a great scandal.” (To Casulanua, Epistle 28.)
Certainly this is plain enough. This brings us down to A.D. 400, with the Lord’s Day so fully and clearly recognized in all Christendom that it is useless to follow it further. Now read the testimony of the ancient Eastern Greek Church, the first one founded by the apostles. Right Rev. Bishop Raphael, of Brooklyn, N. Y., head of that Church in America, writes me under date of March 30, 1914, as follows: “Our Church, which included all the very first Churches founded by the apostles, such as Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Alexandria, and even Rome, for the first three hundred years, has kept the first day of the week as a day of rest and in holy remembrance of the resurrection of our blessed Lord from the dead. From the dawn of Christianity she bears witness that it has been the sacred day on which the faithful assembled for the partaking of the Lord’s Supper, for the saying of public prayers, and the hearing of sermons. All our historians bear record to this fact.”
This witness fully confirms the testimony of all the early Christian Fathers quoted in this chapter.
As a fair, impartial and clear statement of the teachings of the early Christian Fathers concerning the observance of Sunday, we refer the reader to the following from Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” Article “Lord’s Day.” Here is a book easy of access to all anywhere, unsectarian, embodying the results of the most thorough and scholarly examination of every passage in all the Fathers having any bearing upon the Sunday question. Any one who has read the Fathers must confess that its statements are fair and truthful. I have only room for one short quotation:
“The results of our examination of the principal writers of the two centuries after the death of St. John are as follows: ‘The Lord’s Day existed during these two centuries as a part and parcel of apostolical, and so of Scriptural Christianity. It was never defended; for it was never impugned, or at least only impugned as were other things received from the apostles. . . . Religiously regarded, it was a day of solemn meeting for the holy eucharist, for united prayer, for instruction, for almsgiving.”
So Johnson’s New Universal Cyclopedia, Article “Sabbath,” says: “For a time the Jewish converts observed both the seventh day, to which the name Sabbath continued to be given exclusively, and the first day, which came to be called the Lord’s Day. . . . Within a century after the death of the last of the apostles we find the observance of the first day of the week, under the name of the Lord’s Day, established as a universal custom of the Church.”
No higher authority than this could be quoted. It states the truth exactly. So the Schaff- Herzog Encyclopedia, Article “Sunday,” says: “In the second century its observance was universal. . . . The Jewish Christians ceased to observe the Sabbath after the destruction of Jerusalem.”
Doctor Schaff, than whom there is no higher authority, says: “The universal and uncontradicted Sunday observance in the second century can only be explained by the fact that it had its roots in apostolic practice.” (History of the Christian Church, Vol. I, p. 478).
The man who will shut his eyes to all this mass of testimony and still insist that Sunday- keeping is only an institution of Popes of later ages, is simply held by a theory which he is bound to maintain anyway. I have had a sad experience in this matter, and know just how a seventh-day man feels in reading these historical facts. I read some of them then. They perplexed me some, but I got over this by my strong faith in our doctrines and by believing them to be mostly forgeries. Afterwards as I read more, I saw these testimonies were reliable and very decidedly against our theory of the Pope’s Sunday. This disturbed me quite a little, but still I got over them by simply ceasing to think of them at all, and by dwelling upon other arguments in which I had perfect confidence. In debate I was always anxious to shut these out of the discussion. I know that Seventh-Day Adventist ministers generally feel as I did, for we often referred to these testimonies of the Fathers and the effect they had in debate. Of course, the great body of the members never read these things, and are in blissful ignorance concerning them. Or, if they do read them, it is in their own books where they are all explained away. Their unbounded faith in “the message” and in their leaders carries them right over these facts as matters of no consequence.
For myself, when once I decided to look these historical facts squarely in the face and give them whatever force they fairly deserved, I soon saw the utter falsity of the claim that the “Pope changed the Sabbath.” The old feeling of uneasiness on this point is entirely gone. I feel that so far as the evidence of history is concerned, my feet stand on solid ground. †
In 1867 he married Lucretia Cranson who had been orphaned and partially reared by Ellen G. White. Together they had two surviving children, but in 1879 Lucretia died of tuberculosis. Two years later Dudley remarried. He and his second wife, Lucy Hadden, had three surviving children.
For 20 years Dudley worked as a minister and evangelist for the Adventists and was a frequent writer for the official Adventist magazine Review and Herald (now the Adventist Review). He was also often called on to debate Christian ministers, defending the seventh-day Sabbath.
Canright gradually became unable to support the “autocratic” behavior of James and Ellen White. He grew to disbelieve Ellen White’s visions and realized that according to Scripture, the Ten Commandments were not binding upon the church. He believed the Adventists were putting the law above Christ, and in 1887, Canright and his wife Lucy left the Seventh-day Adventist organization. He pastored two Baptist churches after he left, first in the Otsego Baptist Church in Michigan, and then, in 1890, he became the Pastor Emeritus of the Berean Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
During these years Canright wrote Seventh-day Adventism Renounced, and two months after his death in May, 1919, his critique The Life of Mrs. E. G. White was published.
The Adventist organization invented a story that members still believe—that Canright repented of his “apostasy” from Adventism before his death and returned to the Adventist fold. In fact, he never "repented" nor returned. According to a close friend, E.S. Ballenger, who was with Canright days before he died, "He said he was so disgusted with the deceptions of Mrs. White, James White and other leaders that he wanted to wash his hands entirely clean of the whole system. He died very quietly and peacefully and never made any confession or expressed any regrets regarding his course after leaving the denomination."
- 23. Appendixes - September 23, 2021
- 22. The Nature of Man - September 16, 2021
- 21. Forty-Seven Prominent Texts used by Sabbatarians Examined - September 9, 2021