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?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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.

    1066/1096 (page 1046)
    virtual substitution of the Lord’s day for the sabbath, not prevented by the assertion of the same superiority over it which the gospel mani- fests over the law. If we turn to Tertullian, the same conception of substitution presents itself in a more concrete form. He is anti-Judaic enough ; the sabbaths and all the ceremonials of the law are, in his eyes, absolutely gone ; they were but preparatory, and cannot continue when their function is completed. But in pleading against frequenting idolatrous festivals he makes the keeping of the Lord’s day and the Pentecost the badge of Christianity, contrasting them with the heathen festivals on one side, and the sab- baths and “ feriae aliquando a Deo dilectae ” on the other. In speaking of the habit of stand- ing in prayer on the Lord’s day, he urges that on that day we should cast oif all worldly anxieties, “ differentes etiam negotia ne quern diabolo locum demus ” (de Oratione, c. 23). The rest enjoined is, no doubt, simply a means, not an end; but it is notable as the first direct recognition of a sacred rest, as inseparable from the idea of the Lord’s day. In a time like Ter- tulHan’s, when the church system was fully, even rigidly, organised, it is not difficult to trace here a preparation for some Sabbatarianism hereafter. In fact, two lines of thought must have co- existed in the church. On the one side there was the conviction, not only that the Jewish sabbath had passed away, but thait the spirit of sti’ict legal observance, esjjecially in any negative aspect, was foreign to the whole spirit of the gospel. On the other side, there was the ten- dency to more regular and formal Christian observance, gathering naturally round the recurring weekly festival of the resurrection; and allied with this, the perception of the value of an ordinance of weekly rest, such as that or- dained in the fourth commandment, to man as man. From this, by a natural transition, would grow up the disposition to set up the Lord’s day, first for religious worship and then for rest, in some rivalry to the ancient sabbath, as being, indeed, superior in dignity and spirituality, but yet a supreme and unique festival, to be ob- served with equal strictness. These last lines of thought might enter sometimes into alliance, sometimes into conflict. Each would in turn emerge into prominence, and the conception of the Lord’s day would fluctuate accordingly. (III.) But with the beginning of the conversion of the empire a crisis came. The most important epoch in the history of the Lord’s day is marked by the issue of the celebrated edict of Constan- tine : “ Omnes judioes urbanaeque plebes et cunctarum artium offioia venerabili die Solis quiescant. Ruri tamen positi agrorum culturae liberb licenterque inservianr, quoniam fre- quenter evenit ut non aptius alio die frumenta sulcis aut vineae scrobibus mandentur, ne occa- sione momenti pereat commoditas coelesti pro- visione concessa” (see Cod. Just, book iii. tit. 12, 3). This edict was clearly intended to pay honour to the great Christian festival, although, in accordance with Constantine’s general policy, it declined to identify the emperor with the religion, which he desired only indirectly to support, and only gradually to establish. The use of the heathen name of the “ solis dies,” with ' the vague titte “ venerabilis ” —a title rendered the more ambiguous by the known re- verence which Constantine had delighted to pay to the Sun-god—was probably something more than conventional. But the tdect of the edict, at a time when Christianity was rising as rapidly as heathenism was sinking into decay, must un- doubtedly have told mainly on the Christian festival. It would invest the observation of the Lord’s day with all the strength (and the weak- ness) which the sanction of civil law to religious observance must nece.ssarily produce. But more particularly by the prominence given to the idea of rest from ordinary work, which was emphasised all the more by the exemption granted to agri- cultural labour on the plea of necessity, it introduced a new conception of the day itself.* The advocates of the Sabbatarian view in later times were not wholly wrong when they com- pared Constantine to Moses, on the ground that he instituted a kind of new sabbath in the Chris- tian church. For whatever tendency there was already existing to sabbatize the Lord’s day would be enormously increased by this inter- ference of the temporal power. The idea of rest would become primary instead of subsidiary ; the observance would have more of the law, less of the spirit. The tendency towards Sabbatarianism was evidently slow, for it had the old and well- established conception of the day to overcome. But, although slow, it appears to have been sure. The edict itself was only the beginning of a long series of imperial laws, constantly in- creasing in stringency and in unambiguous con- nexion of the solis dies with Christianity. Eusebius (de I V^. Const, iv. 18, 19, 20) declares that Constantine himself went much farther in this course, as his adhesion to Christianity became more decided. He speaks of two edicts to the army, enjoining rest from arms on that day and celebration of religious worship, by the Christians in the church service, by the pagans in the fields, offering to the supreme Deity a prayer authorised by the emperor. This prayer he quotes. It is a prayer in which nothing occurs distinctively Christian, but which is essentially monotheistic and entirely uncon- nected with the pagan mythology. In speaking of the ordinance for the Christians, Eusebius calls the day the ^fxepa Kal (pwrhs slyai Kal tjK'iov eTrwvvfiov (Tv/x^aivei: in refer- ence to the heathen, simply rj roO (purbs ri/aepa. He then adds, 8ib rots virh r^v ‘Poo/aaiovif ap^ TToKiTivofiivois oiiraaiv o’XoA'Jjv &yeiv raTs eirojvvfxois TOO ^ccrripos 7)fjL€pais iuovdeTei. ufjLoius Sf TTph Tov (TajSjSaTOo If rifiau' iavf]/j.r]S f In another law of Constantine, a.d. 321, there is a recognition of the fitness of certain exceptional legal operations for this day: “ gratum et jucundum est, eo die quae sunt maxinib votiva compleri, atque ideb enianci- pandi et manumittendi die festo cuncto liceutiam ha- beant” (Cod. Theod. II. tit viii. 1). This appears to have been borrowed from older practice as to heathen festivals. But it is not Improbable that in this case there was a special reference to the characteristic idea of the Lord’s day, as the day of the completion of our redemption. e This is an emendation for ra? row aapparov, evi- dently nt'cessary. There is a passage in Sozomen (Hist. Eccl. i. c. 8) which forms an excellent elucidation of this, especially of the last clause, in the words erifia Si r^v KvpiaKrjv, d)S-€V TavTf) tov Xpi<rTOv ivacTTat/TOS ex TTjv Si erepav, ws ev avT^ (TTavpujOivTO^.