THE EARLY CHRISTIAN SABBATH - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

The Early Christian Sabbath
refused his demands.
“Among them was Irenaeus, who, sending letters in the name of the brethren in
Gaul [France] over whom he presided, maintained that the mystery of the resurrection of
the Lord should be observed only on the Lord's day. He fittingly admonishes Victor that
he should not cut off whole churches of God which observed the tradition of an ancient
custom.” - The Church History of Eusebius. book 5, chapter 24, paragraph 11, in Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, volume 1, Page 242, 243.
In making this bold attack upon the independence of his fellow bishops, Victor of
Rome was interested in elevating the power of his own see. He was interested also in
bringing in, through an assumption of authority, unity in worship. He was seeking to
remove the church yet farther from Jewish influence. But it must be recognized that here
is a plain effort on the part of the bishop of Rome to emphasize the observance of
Sunday.
This was by no means the end, but rather the beginning, of efforts along this line.
The Easter controversy continued to thrive, and was a concern of the Council of Nicaea
in AD 325. Here it was decided that, first, Easter should be celebrated in the early spring,
following the vernal equinox, instead of the mid spring of the Jewish reckoning; and,
secondly, that Easter should always be celebrated on a Sunday, dated to escape
coincidence with the Jewish Passover celebration. The Roman government under the
emperor Constantine then proceeded to enforce Sunday observance through the Easter
feast. See Letter of Constantine, in Eusebius' Life of Constantine, book 3, chapterw 17-
20, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, volume 1, Pages 524, 525.
How much the bishop of Rome had to do with this decision may be supposed, and
the extent of his influence estimated, from a ruling handed down at this same time by the
pope of Rome, Sylvester 1, at a council in Rome held the same year as the Council of
Nicaea:
“Let it be required of all bishops and presbyters, that they observe the Easter
festival from the fourteenth day until the twenty first, so that the Lord's day may shine
forth.” - Jean Hardouin, Acta Conciliorum, volume 1, column 527. (Italics ours.)
At about the same time, this bishop of Rome issued a ukase which, while it
specified that the days of the week should not be named after heathen gods, ordered that
Sunday be called “the Lord's day.” This information is given to us by the Anglo-Saxon
writer, The Venerable Bede, in chapter 4 of his Book Concerning Times:
“The week consists of seven days, and the eighth day is the same as the first; to
which it returns and in which the week begins again. The Gentiles applied to these,
names from the planets, believing that they had from the sun a soul, from the moon a
body, from Mars blood, from Mercury mentality and speech, from Jove moderation, from
Venus lust, from Saturn slowness. But the holy Sylvester ordered them called festivals
[feriae], calling the first the Lord's day; in imitation of the Hebrews, who called them [the
days] the first of the Sabbath, the second of the Sabbath, and thus the others by number.”
- In Migne, Patrologia Latina, volume 90, column 281.
From this time on the popes were open and vigorous in their urging of Sunday
observance. We have already seen that it was not considered proper in Western
Christendom to kneel or to fast on Sunday, so that worship might be made relaxed and
pleasant. To carry this out in practice, Bishop Innocent 1 of Rome (AD 400) reminded his
churches that the apostles (so he claimed) had fasted on the Sabbath while Jesus was in
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