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.

1071/1096 (page 1051)

$is Antichrist, who “ at his coming shall cause I the sabbath day, and the Lord’s day to be kept from all work ”—in the one case, he adds, for the sake of Judaizing, in the other, because he himself shall pretend to die, and to rise again. In regard to the sabbath, which is his chief subject, he lays down the broad principle that the laws of the old covenant were but typical, and in the light of Christ’s coming can be kept only in spirit. “ Our true sabbath is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.” He then protests against a prohibition of the bath on the Lord’s day (evidently on Sabbatarian grounds), in a tone which would apply to many other such ordinances. He is content to lay it down that .on the Lord’s day we are to cease from all earthly work, and to devote ourselves alto- gether to prayer (atque omni modo orationi- bus insistendum), in order that any spiritual neglect in the six days may be atoned for on the day of the resurrection. It would have been impossible for him so to have written, had the idea of the transference of the obligation of the fourth commandment to the Lord’s day attained to anything like general acceptation. There is a curious passage in a letter of Gre- gory to St. Augustine of Canterbury (considered to be of doubtful authenticity) which deals with . fasting, and, referring apparently to Sundays in Lent, draws a singularly unpleasant picture of Sunday festivities. “ De ipsa vero die Domi- nica haesitamus quidnam dicendum sit, cum oranes laici et saeculares ilia die plus solito caeteris diebus accuratius cibos carnium appe- tant, et nisi nov'a quadam aviditate usque ad medium noctem se ingurgitent, non aliter se hujus sacri temporis observationem suscipere putant; . . . unde nec a tali consuetudine avert! possunt, et ideo cum venia suo ingenio relin- quendi sunt, ne forte pejores existant si a tali consuetudine prohibeantur ” (Haddanand Stubbs, Cone. iii. 54; Greg. 0pp. ii. 1302, in App. ad Epist. xiii., from Gratian, Dist. iv. can. 6). It is possible that this practice indicates a reaction against the Sabbatarianism referred to in Gre- gory’s letter. Curiously enough, it exactly corresponds to those excessive sabbath festivities with which the Fathers of the 5th century re- proach the Jews. Meanwhile the current of opinion and legis- lation still continues to set in the Sabbatarian direction. Legends of miraculous judgment on those who work on the Lord’s day become rife. In the Life of St. Germanus of Auxerre (written by Venantius Fortunatus in the 6th century) we are told how the hand of a man at Essone, working on the Lord’s day, and of a girl at Melun, spinning on the same day, were suddenly con- tracted (ita contrahitur digitus ut unguium acumen partem transiret in alteram), and how both were miraculously healed by St. Germanus (cc. 14, 16 ; Migne, Patrologie, Ixxii. 61). As time goes on, such portents become more numerous and more striking; the hand which chops wood cleaves to the hatchet, or is withered: a cake made on the Lord’s day streams with blood; a mill-wheel set in motion refuses to turn (see Heylin, On t e Sabbath, part ii. c. v. 3, and Hessoy’s Bampton Lectures, lect. iii. n. 261). Naturally the decrees of councils and the commands of secular authority follow in the same course. Thus in England, in the 7th and 8th centuries, the laws of Ina, king of the West Saxons (about 690), lay it down that “ If a ‘ theowman ’ work on Sunday by his lord’s command, let him be free, and let the lord pay XXX shillings as ‘ wite ’ [fine]. But if th« ‘theow’ work without his knowledge, let him suffer in his hide, or in ‘hide-gild’ [ransom]. But if a freeman work on that day without his lord’s command, let him forfeit his freedom, or sixty shillings ; and let a priest be liable to twice as much.” (See Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, iii. 215.) A law of about the same date makes the observation of the eve of Sunday, as well as the Sunday itself. “ If an ‘ esne ’ do any servile labour, contrary to his lord’s command, from sunset on Sunday eve till sunset on Monday eve [i.e. sunset on Saturday to sunset on Sunday], let him make a ‘ bote’ of Ixxx shillings to his lord. If an ‘esne’ do so ^of his own accord on that day, let him make a ‘ bote ’ of vie?, to his lord, or his hide ” {Laws of Wihtred, K. of Kent, A.D. 696, 11. 9 and 10, in Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 235). In the Council of Clovesho (a.d. 747) it is ordered that all abbots and presbyters shall remain in their monasteries and churches on the Lord’s day, abstaining from all business and from all travelling, except on inevitable necessity. But the object is stated to be that the Lord’s day may be wholly dedicated to the worship of God, and that they may be ready to teach and to minister. Of the laity it is only said that on the Lord’s day and other great festivals the people shall be invited by the priests to assemble in church for the hearing of the word and the celebration of the mass. (See Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 367.) About the same time we find a “ Judicium dementis ” (supposed to be Willebrord, A.D. 693), indicating a still greater extent of Sabbatarian rigour. “ If on the Lord’s day any one by negligence works or bathes or washes his head, let him do penance seven days ; if he repeats the offence, forty days ; if he does so contumaciously (si per dampnatio- nem facit hoc die) and refuses to amend, let him be expelled from the Catholic church like a Jew.” (See Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 226.) (VI.) Still, however, it will be observed that even now no connexion of the Loi'd’s day with the fourth commandment is avowed; and the process of Sabbatarianism is therefore not complete. There is some reason to think that in this, as in some other ecclesiastical matters, we are to look to the time of Charlemagne for the final step. So late, indeed, as a.d. 797, a celebrated decree of Theodulph of Orleans {Capitula, n. 24 ; see Labbe, Co’incils, vol. xiii. p. 999), whivh was apparently observed beyond the limits of his diocese, speaking of the Lord’s day. preserves the old teaching as to the grounds of its consecration, and deals with its observance freely and spiritually: “ Diei vero Dominici, quia in eo Deus lucem condidit, in eo manna in eremo pluit, in eo Redemptor human! generis sponte pro salute nostra a mor- tuis resurrexit, in eo Spiritum Sanctum super discipulos infudit, tanta esse debet observantia, i ut praeter oratioues, et missarum solemnia, et ’ ea quae ad vescendum pertinent, nihil aliud fiat. Nam et si necessitas fuerit naA'igaudi, sive itine- I randi, licentia datur, ita duntaxat, ut horum occasione missa et orationes non jiraetermit- ; tantur. Conveniendum est sabbato die cum lu-$