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.

    1067/1096 (page 1047)
    eVe/ccf /jLOi SoKetv tmv ravrais rqU KOiucfi 'Zurripi TTfirpdxQai p.vf]fiovivop.4voov. This passage ex- tends the statement to the civil population, and adds the celebration of the Friday to that of the Sunday. It is true that these edicts of Constan- tine are not found in the codes, and that Euse- bius is anxious to make the most of the Christianity of the subject of his panegyric. But it is incredible that he should have been either misinformed or insincere in the main substance of his statements ; and it would have been quite accordant with Constantine’s temporising policy to issue such commands, as special edicts, not to be enrolled among formal laws. However this may be, under Constantine’s successors there were reiterated enactments in this direction, free from the ambiguity of the original law. Thus we have two laws prohibiting exaction of debt on that day, one under Valentinian and Valens (a.d. 368), protecting Christians against being forced into litigation on that day, the “ dies solis, qui dudum faustus habetur ” (Cod Theod. Vlll. tit. viii. 1) ; the other under Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius (a.d. 386), extending this immunity to all, calling the day plainly the “dies 'solis quern Dominicum rite dixere majores,” and branding any infringer of the law as “ non modo notabilis, verum etiam saci-ilegus ” {Cod. Theod. VIII. tit. viii. 2). The progress marked by the contrast of these two laws is significant. The former, recognising the Christians as a sect, is exactly of the same nature as a law of Honorius and Theodosius in 409, protecting the Jews from being forced to work or litigation on the sabbath or other of their sacred days {Cod. Theod. II. tit. viii. 3). The latter accepts Christianity as the religion of the empire, and enforces on all by law the sacredness of its chief festival. Again, the celebration of the day w'as gradually separated by law from all heathen and even secular associations. In 389, under Theodosius, the “ solis dies ” and the “ Sancti Paschae dies ” (the weeks before and after Easter) are included with the harvest and vint- age seasons, the Kalends of January, and the days of the foundation of Rome and Constantinople, as forensic holidays {Cud. Theod. II. tit. viii. 2). In 386 it was ordered that no one should pre- sent to the people any spectacle on the “ dies solis,” “ ne divinam venerationem confecti sol- lemnitate confundat ” {Cod. T/ieod.XV. tit. v. 2). In 425, under Theodosius the younger, we find a law enacting an entire abstinence from all amusements of the theatre or the circus, on the “ Dies Dominicus,” Christmas day, Epiphany, Easter, and the Pentecost, in order that the whole minds of Christians may be devoted to worship of God. It denounces any infringement of the law by the infatuated impiety of the Jews or the stolid error and madness of heathen- ism,” and orders the <;elebiation even of the em- peror’s birthday to be set aside for the sake of the Christian holy day {C>d. Theod. XV. tit. v. 5). The same law is reiterated in even stronger terms under Leo and Anthemius (a.d. 469), in reference to the Lord’s day, which is to be kept absolutely sacred, not only from business, but also from “ obscene pleasures ” of the theatre, the circus, and the amphitheatre {Cod. Just. lib. iii. tit. xii. 11). Nor should we pass over a re- markable law of Honorius and Theodosius (a.d. 409), which expressly orders that on the Lord’s day the judges shall have prisoners brought before them, to inquire whether they have been treated humanely, to see that food is given to the destitute, and that the prisoners be allowed,, under guard, to go to the bath. The bishopa were to put the judges in mind of this duty {Cod. Just. i. tit. iv. 9). It may be noted that at a later period (a.d. 529) under Justinian, the bishops were ordered to visit the prisoners on Wednesdays or Fridays (the Lord’s day being probably thought to be too much occupied), to inquire into the cases of the prisoners, and to see whether any neglect of duty on the part of the magistrates had taken place {Cod. Just. tit. iv. 22). But the fifth council of Orleans, twenty years later (a.d. 549), orders the arch- deacon or provost (praepositus ecclesiae) to make the visitation on the Lord’s day itself, with a view to the relief of necessitous prisoners (see Labbe, Councils, vol. ix. p. 134). It should be observed that these laws recognise the positive duty of works of charity on the Lord’s day, precisely as He Himself had recognised it on the sabbath. This long series of temporal enactments (in considering which we have, for the sake of ex- hibiting them as a whole, anticipated chronolo- gical order) must have told very powerfully upon the conception of the Lord’s day in the church itself, not only tending to formalize its celebra- tion, but to invest it in great degree with the character of a sabbath. Still, however, there was no connexion of its observance with the obligation of the fourth commandment, and therefore no application to it either of the laws of the Jewish sabbath, or of our Lord’s teaching on the subject, as modifying and spiritualizing these laws. But when the legal enforcement of rest on the Lord’s day was once established, the next step would not unnaturally follow. In fact, the conception of it, as formally sanctioned by a divine law, would recommend itself tu different schools of thought. It would be a refuge to any who scrupled to accept in respect of Christian festivals the authority of a merely temporal power, not yet absolutely identified with Chris- tianity. It would appear to earnest-minded men as a short and ready way of maintaining a high spirituality of tone, in the face of the con- ventional and insincere observance to which the imperial interference would probably give rise. It would afford to the courtly satellites of the emperor an opportunity of flattering his desire of being “ a bishop as to things and men with- out,” by representing him as being the restorer of a half-forgotten divine law. From various causes it would make its way; and, if once admitted, its simplicity and cogency would help it to supersede other pleas for the sacredness of the day. (IV.) This effect is not at first visible in the great leaders of ecclesiastical opinion and faith, in them we find the same general line of thought which has already been described. It will be sufficient to quote a few leading examples from the East and West. St. Athanasius delights to trace signs of honour done prophetically to the Lord’s day, the resurrection day of the Lord {avaardcriibLOs rj/j-epa), as in the title of the sixth Psalm, “ Upon the eighth ” (which, however.