THE
SABBATH FROM THE TIME OF CHRIST TO ITS APPEARANCE IN ENGLAND
A. H. Lewis, D. D., LL. D.
One can not take up the history of an
institution like the Sabbath at any given point without considering its history
previous to that point and its character and standing at the point where the
consideration begins. Before the time of Christ the Sabbath had held a
prominent place in the life of God's ancient people. Much of the religious and
social life of the Hebrews gathered around the Sabbath because it was God's
representative among the days, and their oft-recurring day of worship. During
the centuries more immediately preceding Christ, excessive ceremonialism and
non-spiritual formalism had crept into all departments of the Jewish church.
Because of its prominence, the Sabbath was especially affected by this
formalism and by unscriptural restrictions and evasions.
These restrictions and evasions were
burdensome, many of them foolish, and their adoption cultivated the spirit of
dishonesty and disobedience. There were thirty-nine principal occupations which
were prohibited on the Sabbath. These occupations were varied by subordinate
distinctions as to places where they might occur; for example, "a public
place," a "private place," a place which is "neither public
nor private," and a "free place." The last being described as
"that which is more than three hands deep or high, but not more than four
hands square in width." Examples of these restrictions are as follows:
If a beggar reaches his hand within a house
and gives or takes something from the hand of the master, the beggar is guilty
and the master is free. A man must not sit before the barber near to evening
prayer until after he hath prayed. A tailor must not go out with his needle
late on Sixth-day afternoon nor the scribe with his pen, lest they forget and
carry these implements on the Sabbath. One may not light a lamp with cedar
moss, nor with unbroken flax, nor floss silk, nor wick of willow, on the
Sabbath. A man may extinguish a lamp on the Sabbath if he fears the heathen, or
robbers, or an evil spirit, or that the sick may sleep. If he extinguishes the
lamp that he 'may save the lamp, the oil, or the wick, he is guilty of sin. A
male camel may be led forth on the Sabbath with a headstall, but a female camel
must be led by a nose ring. A woman may not' go out on the Sabbath with laces
of wool or flax, nor with straps on her head. A man may not go out with
hob-nailed sandals, nor with one sandal, unless the unsandalled foot is sore. A
woman may not go out carrying a needle having an eye, nor wearing a signet
ring, nor a spiral head-dress, nor a bottle of musk. A cripple may not go out
wearing a wooden leg. If a man does one principal work, and twenty secondary
works on the Sabbath they will be regarded as one sin. The thirty-nine
principal works are these:
"Sowing, ploughing, reaping, binding
sheaves, threshing, winnowing, sifting, grinding, riddling, kneading, baking,
shearing wool, whitening, carding, dyeing, spinning, warping, making two
spools, weaving two threads, taking out two threads, hoisting, loosing, sewing
two stitches, tearing thread from two sewings, hunting the gazelle,
slaughtering, skinning, salting, curing its skin, tanning, or cutting it up,
writing two, letters, erasing in order to write two letters, building,
demolishing, quenching, kindling, hammering, carrying from private to public
property. Lo, these are the principal works -- forty less one."
A priest might replace a plaster on a wound
in the temple on the Sabbath, but not elsewhere. One might borrow jars
containing wine, or oil on the Sabbath, but he must not say: "lend it to
me." Through many other restrictions, similar to these, insincerity was
cultivated, in that a large number of actions were reckoned as "commixtures"
or "connections," entitled "Erubin" in the Talmud. These
commixtures were of every conceivable sort, notably those pertaining to
traveling on the Sabbath, in order to evade the commandment, "Abide ye
every man in his own place, let no man go out of his place on the Sabbath-day."
CHRIST CHARGED WITH SABBATH-BREAKING
One of the prominent features in Christ's
work was the condemnation of these false restrictions concerning the Sabbath.
By precept and example he denounced this formalism, ignored these restrictions,
and taught those larger views and better practices concerning the Sabbath which
fitted it for a place in his Kingdom. His opposition to the false notions of
the Jews increased their enmity 'toward him and toward the development of
Christianity. They could not rise high enough to appreciate the true view of
the Sabbath which he presented, while their religious zeal and national pride
spurred them into more bitter opposition to Christ because of his attitude
toward these false notions concerning the Sabbath. Thus the correct conception
of the Sabbath became a strong and permanent barrier between the Jewish leaders
and Christ, and the Christian movement within the Jewish church.
ATTITUDE OF THE GENTILES
It is clear from the history of Christianity
after the New Testament period that there was a strong tendency on the part of
Gentile converts to object to the Sabbath as a Jewish institution. With the
death of the apostles and the passage of Christian history westward from
Palestine, the men of culture who became associated with Christianity were
nearly all from the ranks of Grecian and Roman Pagan philosophers. For
generations there had been strong dislike of the Hebrews because of their
unwillingness to grant any recognition to the various heathen deities. The attitude
of the Jews toward Christ because of his teachings concerning the Sabbath, gave
new impetus to this anti-Jewish prejudice, and as Pagan leaders became
prominent in the development of the Christian church, their opposition to all
Sabbath-keeping became more pronounced.
Beginning with Justin Martyr, about the
middle of the second century, these leaders gave utterance to the largest type
of no-Sabbathism, claiming that the Sabbath was only a Jewish institution, that
Jehovah to whom it was sacred was only an inferior deity, and that the Old
Testament had little or no binding force upon any but Hebrews. This doctrine
with its attendant errors, was one of the leading influences which changed
Christian history, soon making it more Pagan than of Christian, according to
the standard set by Christ and his immediate followers. Hence a sharp struggle
ensued in which the Sabbath maintained its place with the common people long
after it was theoretically set aside through the influence of the
Pagan-Christian leaders. That struggle continued for four or five centuries.
INTRODUCTION OF SUNDAY
Through the combined influence of ancient
Sun worship and the tradition that Christ rose from the dead on the first day
of the week, in which fact men sought to find an analogy between the risen
Christ and the rising sun, the Sun's day together with many other Pagan
festivals found a place in the Christian church under the growing influence of
Roman Paganism and the political influences which were brought to bear upon
Christianity in the Roman Empire. When Christianity ascended the throne of the
Caesars, early in the fourth century, it was destructively remodeled according
to the genius of the Pagan state-church. In that remodeling, the Sunday and
other Pagan festivals were supported by the Civil power, while public opinion
and civil legislation combined to degrade and drive out the Sabbath. Thus the
struggle went forward for four or five hundred years until the full development
of the Roman Catholic church and the completed union of church and state in the
declining Roman Empire practically annulled the Sabbath in the Roman branch of
the Christian church.
DURING THE DARK AGES
The term "Dark Ages" is used here in
a general sense to cover the time from the fifth to the fifteenth century.
During that time the Papacy never succeeded in driving the Sabbath wholly from
its dominions. There is much evidence showing that as the Roman church
gradually expelled the Sabbath, those who were loyal to the law of God and the
practices of the apostolic church, stood firm, regardless of excommunication
and persecution. Dissenters who kept the Sabbath, existed under different names
from the time of the Pope to the Reformation. They were either the descendants
of those who fled from the heathen persecutions previous to the time of
Constantine, or else those who, when he began to rule the church and force
false practices upon it, refused submission, and sought seclusion and freedom to
obey God. In their earlier history they were known as Nazarenes, Cerinthians
and Hypsistarii, and later, as Vaudois, Cathari, Toulousians, Albigenses,
Petrobrusians, Passagii, and Waldenses. We shall speak of them in general,
under this latter name. They believed the Romish church to be the Anti-Christ,
spoken of in the New Testament.. Their doctrines were comparatively pure and
Scriptural, and their lives were holy, in contrast with the ecclesiastical
corruption which surrounded them. The reigning church hated and followed them
with its persecutions. In consequence of this unscrupulous' opposition, it is
difficult to learn all the facts concerning them, since the only available
accounts have come to us through the hands of their enemies. -Before the age of
printing, their books were few, and from time to time these were destroyed by
their persecutors, so that we have only fragments from their own writers. At
the beginning of the twelfth century they had grown in strength and numbers to
such an extent as to call forth earnest apposition and bloody persecution from
the Papal power. Their enemies have made many unreasonable and false charges
concerning their doctrines and practices, but all agree that they rejected the
doctrine of "church authority," and appealed to the Bible as their
only rule of faith and practice. They condemned the usurpations, the
innovations, the pomp and formality, the worldliness and immorality which
attended the development and supremacy of the Romanized church. They made the
Bible their only standard of faith and practice and rejected all changes and
additions which the Roman Catholics had made. Benedict in his history of the
Baptists says of the Waldenses:
"We have already observed from Claudius
Seyssel, the popish archbishop, that one Leo was charged with originating the
Waldensian heresy in the valleys, in the days of Constantine the great. When
those severe measures emanated from the Emperor Honorius against rebaptizers,
the Baptists left the seat of opulence and power, and sought retreats in the
country, and in the valleys of Piedmont; which last place, in particular,
became their retreat from imperial oppression."
Rainer Sacho, a Roman Catholic author, says
of the Waldenses:
"There is no sect so dangerous as
Leonists, for three reasons: first, it is the most ancient; some say it is as
old as Sylvester, others, as the apostles themselves. Secondly, it is very
generally disseminated; there is no country where it has not gained some
footing. Third, while other sects are profane and blasphemous, this retains the
utmost show of piety; they live justly before men, and believe nothing
concerning God which is not good."
Sacho admits that they flourished at least
five hundred years before the time of Peter Waldo. Their great antiquity is
also allowed by Gretzer, a Jesuit, who wrote against them. Crantz, in his
"History of the United Brethren," speaks of this class of Christians
in the following words:
"These ancient Christians date their
origin from the beginning of the fourth century, when one Leo, at the great
revolution in religion under Constantine the Great, opposed the innovations of
Sylvester, Bishop of Rome. Nay, Rieger goes further still, taking them for the
remains of the people of the valleys, who, when the Apostle Paul, as is said,
made a journey 'over the Alps into Spain, were converted to Christ."
The extent of their position and influence
is shown by the fact that in the thirteenth century, from the accounts of
Catholic historians, all of whom speak of the Waldenses in terms of complaint
and reproach, they had founded individual churches, or were spread out in
colonies in Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Bohemia, Poland, Lithuania,
Albania, Lombardy, Milan, Romagna, Vicenza, Florence, Velepenetine,
Constantinople, Philadelphia, Sclavonia, Bulgaria, Diognitia, Livonia,
Sarmatia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Briton, and Piedmont.
OUR DENOMINATIONAL ANCESTORS
These widely scattered Sabbath reformers
were our denominational ancestors, in fact, if not by direct organic
connection. Through them we are in touch with the last representatives of the
Sabbath-keeping apostolic church, and with the first genuine Protestants. This
fact is set forth by many of the older writers of the Reformation Period, and
by Cox and Hessey, the two ablest English writers of the last century on the
Sabbath question. The Sabbath found little recognition on the continent of
Europe during the first stage of the Lutheran movement. As Protestant
principles were more definitely formulated, and the Second General Stage of the
Reformation was developed in England, the Sabbath question underwent a radical
change. English Seventh-day Baptists were brought out and organized and our
present denominational life began. It is not the province of this paper to deal
with that phase of our history, but the results of the survey made in this
paper support and emphasize the fact that this centennial year is an epoch in
the history of Sabbath-keeping Christians which links us with the earliest
Seventh-day Baptist churches, those which were founded by the Sabbath-keeping
Christ, Lord of the Sabbath and Head of the church universal. Herein is an
honor too lightly prized, and a sacred trust too little appreciated. This
persistent perduring of the Sabbath in spite of opposition and obloquy is
highest proof of .its value in the eyes of God who overrules the affairs of men
in history.
Standing at this point in the history of
Seventh-day Baptists, the example of Christ and his teachings concerning the
Sabbath ought to be given first place. He is supreme authority as to the
interpretation of the Ten Commandments. Being a Jew and the Messiah of God, he
was not only the founder of Christianity, but the authoritative interpreter of
Judaism, and of the relation of the Ten Commandments to the kingdom of God and
the Christian church. The basis of Sabbath- keeping, at the present time, is
found in the interpretation which Christ made and in the example which he set.
Too much importance can not be given to the fact that what Christ said and did
concerning the Sabbath was by way of pruning it.-as one prunes over-growth from
a vine. He interpreted the Fourth Commandment and purified the Sabbath from
formalism and false casuistry, that it might be fitted for its place in the New
Dispensation. The almost universal, popular error concerning the Sabbath under
the Christian Dispensation has come because men have assumed that Christ
discarded the Sabbath instead of cleansing and uplifting it, thus fitting it
for a new place and a higher mission. Upon that broad basis the faith of
Seventh-day Baptists finds secure foundation. Even they have not fully
appreciated the value of appealing to Christ as the first and foremost
authority in all matters connected with Sabbath observance. It is to be hoped
that this anniversary of our Conference may induce such a restudy of
Sabbath-keeping and of the work now demanded of us, as will place Christ and
his interpretation of the Sabbath more prominently before us and before the
world. His own words -- "The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath day"--
have a far deeper meaning than is usually apprehended. The Jews complained
because Christ discarded and condemned their formalism and disobedient evasions
in the matter of Sabbath-keeping. Christ gave a larger interpretation and new meaning
to each of the Ten Commandments, including the Sabbath law. He did not weaken
nor discard the commandment. He did reject and condemn those false
interpretations which the Jews had heaped upon it. Let us begin the work of the
coming century from a higher denominational standpoint than ever before -- the
standpoint of the law of God, interpreted by Christ and enforced by his
example.