Volume 1

A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood.

Date:: [between 1890 and 1899?]

Credit: A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

1063/1096 (page 1043)

$at the close of the Gospel), we have Trpcirr) aa$- ^drov or The use of the rj KvpiaKT) by St. John marks transition to the common post-apostolie usage. In one well-known passage in the (so-called) Epistle of Barnabas (c. xvi.), for a reason suggested by the context, we find the day, in contrast with the Jewish sabbath, called the 07S0)? rjuepa, an expression taken up and amplified into the 07S07J rjfxepa Kal ■npuTT] of subsequent Fathers. At a later period, when the hebdomadal division of the time began to prevail in the Roman empire, we find Chris- tian writers designating the day by its heathen name (the t] tov T]\iov X^yop.^yr) ripLepa of Justin Martyr). And from the time of the cele- brated edict of Constantine, which speaks of the “ venerabilis Solis dies,’’ the two names were much interchanged, Christian writers sometimes using (though less frequently than we do) the name “ Sunday,” and on the other hand the Christian designation making its way into the statute book, as in the edict of Gratian, a.d. 386 (“ Solis die, quern Dominicum rite dixere ma- jores ”). [Week.] (I.) Turning from the name to the thing, it seems impossible to doubt that from the earliest existence of the church the Lord’s day was observed as the characteristic Christian festival, hallowed as a commemoration of that Resurrec- tion of the Lord, which was the leading subject in the earliest forms of Christian preaching. To this primary consecration of the day was added a second, in the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, which in that year fell on the first day of the week. The passage in the Epistle of Barnabas referred to (Sih kuI ayo/xeu ^fi4pav TT]P oySo^y els ev(ppo(rvvr}y, ev fi Kai 6 'Irjaovs dveart] e/c twv veKpwv Kal (pavepwdels dve^r] els tovs ovpayovs) seems even to indicate the notion that it was the day of the Ascension also. We may naturally ask, How could a day so hallowed fail of reverent festal observance? We trace indications of such observance, brief indeed, but unmistakeable, in Holy Scripture itself (see Dr. Hessey’s article or his Bampton Lectures) ; and these are still further illustrated by the testimony of early writers. But the undoubted fact of this observance by no means involves the inference often drawn from it, that the keeping of the Lord’s day must be traced to an apostolic decree, transferring to it, directly or by implication, the sanctity of the Sabbath, which was familiar to the early Christians, as being themselves Jews, or having been converted under Jewish influence. It is almost needless to say that of such a decree we have no evidence whatever, either in Holy Scrip- ture or in Church History. Kow in regard to Holy Scripture, it would, indeed, be most unsafe to allege its silence as conclusive against the existence of such a decree ,• although that silence must to some degree tell against it, especially when we consider the many references in the Pastoral Epistles to details of church order and practical religious life. But we are not left here to negative evidence. There are positive indica- tions of an absolute freedom of dealing with such subjects, quite incompatible not merely with the existence of a formal apostolic decree, but even with the idea that the observance of the Lord’s day had yet attained to the supreme and unique sanctity accorded to it in later ages. St. Paul’s treatment of the general question of the observation of days in Rom. xiv. 5 (hs yXy Kpivei 7]p.epay trap' Tjjxepav^ ts de Kpiyei Tvdcrav r-pepav' eKacTos ev tS ISlco vot Tr\7]po(pope(a'9co), and his unqualified condemnation of the “ observ- ing of days” in Gal. iv. 10—to say nothing of the tone of his celebrated reference to the abolition of the sabbath in Col. ii. 16—appear decisive on this point. Granting that the especial reference of the apostle was in all cases to the Jewish festivals, it is instructive to compare with his sweeping treatment of the sub- ject the apologetic comments on these very pas- sages, made by patristic writers, at a time when the Lord’s day and other Christian festivals had established themselves in definite observance. See, for example, St. Jerome’s twofold attempt to an- swer (“ simpliciter ” and “ acutius respondere ”) the objection, “ Dicat aliquis; Si dies observare non licet . . . nos quoque simile crimen incurra- mus, quartam sabbati observantes et Parasceven et diem Dominicam ” (Comm, in Gal. lib. ii. ad c. iv. 10). If we pass from Holv Scripture to the writers of the early church, the fact of utter silence on this subject becomes more and more significant, when we remember their natural anxiety to appeal on all points to apo- stolic authority, their constant declaration or assumption that all Jewish observances had passed away, and their delight in tracing in these transitory observances types of the higher Christian ordinances, which were not to pass away. Hence we must, indeed, fully agree with those who urge that the celebi-ation of the Lord’s day is one of these essential and principal ele- ments of the religious life of the church, which can plead apostolical authority. A priori we should hold it all but impossible that the day should have been neglected among the followers of Him who “ was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.” From the indications in holy Scripture, which have- been so often commented upon, we cannot doubt that it was so regularly hallowed, as to make- its observance, both to Christian and heathen, a distinctive mark of Christianity. But the- notion that the Lord’s day, in that complete- ness of sacred distinction from all other days which is now universal among all Christians, was formally established by apostolic decree is pro- bably, in relation to historical truth, much what the old legend of the composition of the Apostles’’ Creed is to the actual process of its formation. In both cases what are chief treasures of our later Christianity grew up by the natural fitness of things and were never formally made. It is obvious that the true view of their genesis de- tracts nothing from their sacredness, nothing from their claim to be of the essence of the Christian system. The history of the celebrated Paschal contro- versy is singularly instructive on this very point. If the Lord’s day had been already stamped by definite apostolic decree as the one great Christian festival, deriving its sacred- ness from the resurrection of the Lord, it would have been impossible for the churches of Palestine and Asia to dream of keeping the annual commemoration of the resurrection itself on any day, except the Lord’s day. But the gradual acceptance of the Roman view, disre- garding all Jewish associations in consideration 67$