Some Protestant denominations of an Adventist character maintain that the Christian Church apostatized when it replaced the Sabbath with Sunday as the Lord’s Day. They allege that the first Christians observed the Sabbath, but that following the conversion of Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, he changed the day of rest from Saturday to Sunday in order to make Christianity more acceptable to pagans who on that day worshiped the Sun god. As will be shown below, this is not true.

The Observance of the Sabbath in the New Testament

The day of Christ’s resurrection (Sunday) was for the first Christians the fulfillment of the prophetic word of the Psalm of the Old Testament, in which the Messiah, after being rejected by his own people, would become the cornerstone of the Church, and would free us from sin and death:

“The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”[1]

Following from this, we see how the first Christians began to gather and celebrate the Eucharist on Sunday, the first day of the week, as observed in Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2. Not once in the entire New Testament is it mentioned that the first Christians, after the resurrection of Christ, kept the Sabbath[2].

Another important detail is found in chapter 15 of the Acts of the Apostles, which recounts the first great conflict the primitive Church faced. This occurred when believing Jews arrived at the community of Antioch and were scandalized to find that the converted members had not been circumcised, nor did they observe other precepts of the Jewish laws. These individuals began to preach that circumcision and the adoption of the entire Torah were necessary, causing great consternation among the first Greek believers. For this reason, what is known as the Council of Jerusalem was convened, in which the Apostles gathered to address the matter and then issued the following disciplinary decisions:

“For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”[3]

There was no mention whatsoever of maintaining the Sabbath as a day of rest, nor do we find any other command throughout the entire New Testament reiterating that it must continue to be kept. Quite the opposite occurs, since the insistence of the Jewish Christian converts apparently did not disappear immediately, and Saint Paul must insist:

“Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath.”[4]

“One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind.”[5]

The Observance of the Sabbath in the Primitive Church

The following are some important testimonies from the primitive Church regarding Sunday as the Lord’s Day.

The Epistle of Barnabas (96–98 A.D.)

In this Christian treatise of twenty-one chapters[6] traditionally attributed to Saint Barnabas, who appears in the Acts of the Apostles as a fellow worker and companion of Saint Paul of Tarsus, we find a detailed explanation of the primitive Christian understanding that for Christians the Lord’s Day was Sunday, because it is the day of Christ’s resurrection.

“He says to them finally: “Your new moons and your Sabbaths I cannot endure” (Isaiah 1:13). Do you see what He means? The present Sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but that which I have made, in which I will give rest to all things and make the beginning of an eighth day, that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead. And when He had manifested Himself, He ascended into the heavens.”[7]

The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (65–80 A.D.)

This is a work of capital importance as one of the oldest non-canonical Christian writings among the Apostolic Fathers, considered earlier than many writings of the New Testament. It was written between the years 65 and 80 of the Christian era[8]. We find in it a brief mention of the ongoing celebration of the Eucharist on each Lord’s Day, as the perpetual sacrifice pleasing to God prophesied by the prophet Malachi:

“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. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: “In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, saith the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations” (Malachi 1:11).”[9]

Ignatius of Antioch (107 A.D.)

This constitutes an important testimony, as it comes from a disciple of Peter and Paul, the second bishop of Antioch and a martyr around the year 107 A.D. When writing to the Magnesians, he explains that Christians did not keep the Sabbath but rather Sunday:

“If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things 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—whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master—how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead. … It is absurd to profess Christ Jesus, and to Judaize. For Christianity did not embrace Judaism, but Judaism Christianity, that so every tongue which believeth might be gathered together to God.”[10]

Justin Martyr (100–165 A.D.)

In the writings of Saint Justin there is also evidence that for the earliest Christian communities the Lord’s Day was Sunday. One of these testimonies is found in his First Apology[11], a letter addressed to the Roman emperor of his time in defense of persecuted Christians.

“On the day called of the sun [Sunday], all who live in cities or in the country gather together in 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 finished, the president verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and offer up our prayers; and, as we said before, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president likewise offers up prayers and thanksgivings according to his ability, and the people assent, saying “Amen.” Then follows the distribution to each one, and the participation, of that over which thanks have been given; and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons.”[12]

Another of his works, the Dialogue with Trypho, records one of his debates with one of the Jewish sages of the time, in which the latter reproaches him with the fact that the Christians kept neither circumcision nor the Sabbath: “you neither keep the feasts and sabbaths, nor do you practise circumcision,”[13] and then advises him to obey the Jewish law:

“If, then, you are willing to listen to me, for I esteem you as a friend, be first circumcised, and then observe what ordinances have been enacted with respect to the Sabbath, and the feasts, and the new moons of God; and, in a word, perform all things which have been written in the law: and then perhaps you shall obtain mercy from God.”[14]

“Is there any other matter, my friends, in which we are blamed, than this, that we live not after the law, and are not circumcised in the flesh as your forefathers were, and do not observe sabbaths as you do?”[15]

“The second circumcision is now necessary, and yet you pride yourself in the flesh. The new law requires you to keep perpetual sabbath, and you, because you pass one day in idleness, suppose you are pious…”[16]

“For we 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 upon you… For we do not receive that circumcision which is not necessary for all, but only for you… And without the sabbath all the just men already mentioned were pleasing to God, and after them Abraham and all his descendants until Moses… God also enjoined you to keep the sabbath, that you might keep Him in remembrance.”[17]

“For if there was no need of circumcision before Abraham, or of the observance of Sabbaths, of feasts and sacrifices, before Moses, no more need is there of them now, after Jesus Christ the Son of God, born without sin of the Virgin Mary, of the lineage of Abraham.”[18]

There remains no doubt, therefore, on the basis of this ancient dialogue between a Christian and a Jew of the second century, that already by that time the Jews knew perfectly well that the Christians did not keep the Sabbath, and the Christians acknowledged that they did not.

Tertullian (160–220 A.D.)

Tertullian expressly mentions Sunday rest because it is the day on which the Lord rose:

“We, however (just as tradition has taught us), 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 businesses lest we give any place to the devil.”[19]

Cyprian of Carthage (200 – 258 A.D.)

In a letter addressed to Fidus dealing with the topic of infant baptism, he mentions Sunday as the Lord’s Day because it is the day on which Christ rose:

“For as the eighth day, that is, the day immediately after the Sabbath, was to be the day on which the Lord should rise again, and should quicken us, and give us spiritual circumcision, therefore in the ancient law this day was observed.”[20]

In addition to these and other testimonies, there is the Local Council of Elvira, held in the year 300, which in its canon 21 demonstrates that the day on which the Church assembled was Sunday: “If anyone in the city fails to come to church for three Sundays, let him be excommunicated for a brief time so that he may be corrected.”

Conclusions

The Emperor Constantine decreed freedom of worship in the Edict of Milan in the year 313, but we have already seen testimonies from more than 200 years earlier showing that Christians celebrated the Eucharist on Sunday and did not keep the Sabbath. It is therefore not true that it was Constantine who made this change.

Notes

  1. Psalm 118,22-24 ↩
  2. Saint Paul is frequently seen entering the synagogues on the Sabbath, but in order to evangelize the Jews, who did keep the Sabbath and gathered on that day (cf. Acts 13,14.44; 15,21; 18,4). ↩
  3. Acts 15,28-29 ↩
  4. Colossians 2,16 ↩
  5. Romans 14,5 ↩
  6. You can read this letter on the Web at http://escrituras.tripod.com/Textos/EpBernabe.htm ↩
  7. Epistle of Barnabas, XV, 8-9. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apostólicos, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 65, Fifth Edition, Madrid 1985, p. 803. ↩
  8. You can read the Protestant translation of this letter on the Web at http://escrituras.tripod.com/Textos/Didache.htm ↩
  9. Didache, XIV, 1-3. Ibid., p. 91 ↩
  10. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians, IX; X, 3. Ibid., p. 464-465. ↩
  11. You can read this letter on the Web at http://multimedios.org/docs/d002610/ ↩
  12. Justin Martyr, First Apology, 67. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apologetas Griegos, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 116, Third Edition, Madrid 1996, p. 258. ↩
  13. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 10,3. Ibid., p. 318. ↩
  14. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 8, 4. ANF, vol. 1, p. 199. ↩
  15. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 10, 1. ANF, vol. 1, p. 199. ↩
  16. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 12, 3. ANF, vol. 1, p. 200. ↩
  17. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 18, 2; 19, 2, 4. ANF, vol. 1, pp. 203–204. ↩
  18. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 23, 4. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apologetas Griegos, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 116, Third Edition, Madrid 1996, p. 340. ↩
  19. De orat., XXIII; cf. “Ad nation.”, I, XIII; “Apolog.”, XVI. Catholic Encyclopedia, Sunday ↩
  20. Cyprian of Carthage, Letter LVIII, To Fidus, on the baptism of infants. Obras de San Cipriano Obispo y Mártir, Tomo I, Arámburu y Roldán, Valladolid 1807, p. 262. ↩