THE EARLY CHRISTIAN SABBATH - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

The Early Christian Sabbath
old day of the sun, heathen practices could easily be revived among surviving heathen,
and among Christians only half-converted from pagan ways. Had the true Sabbath of
God's word been maintained among Christians of that day, there would unquestionably
have been less trouble with remnants of paganism, and with the other evils as well.
In the kingdom of the Visigoths in Spain similar actions were taken during this
period. In the year 589 a council met in the city of Narbonne, then a part of the Visigothic
kingdom. It decreed:
“Every man, as well a freeman as a servant, whether Goth, Roman, Syrian, Greek,
or Jew, shall do no work on the Lord's day, nor shall an ox be yoked, except if necessity
require it in moving. If anyone should presume to do this, if he is a freeman, let him pay
to the count of the city six shillings: if a servant, let him receive a hundred strokes of the
whip.” - Jean Hardouin, Acta Conciliorum, volume 3, column 492. (Author's translation.)
(A shilling was worth at that time far more than the modem English shilling.)
Next, Pope Gregory I, surnamed the Great, declared himself. Sometime during the
last decade of the sixth century he issued an epistle, numbered 1 of book 13, addressed
“to his most beloved sons the Roman citizens,” in which he said that he had learned that
“certain men of perverse spirit” had thought to prohibit labor on the Sabbath day. “What
else can I call these but preachers of antichrist,” says Gregory, “who, when he comes,
will cause the Sabbath day as well as the Lord's day to be kept free from all work. For,
because he pretends to die and rise again, he [antichrist] wishes the Lord's day to be had
in reverence. And, because he compels the people to Judaize that he may bring back the
outward rite of the law, and subject the perfidy of the Jews to himself, he wishes the
Sabbath to be observed.” - In Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Second Series, volumn 13,
Page 92.
It was blasphemous to call it the work of antichrist to urge Sabbath keeping. It
seems hardly less so, that Pope Gregory then proceeds to spiritualize away completely
the admonitions of Scripture which he quotes concerning the Sabbath. He adds:
“On the Lord's day, however, there should be a cessation of labor and attention
given in every way to prayers, so that if anything is done negligently during the six days,
it may be expiated by supplications on the day of the Lord's resurrection.” - Labbe and
Cossart, Sacrosancta Concilia, volumn 5, column 1511.
In Gaul, under the Franks, many more Sunday laws were passed. Decrees were
issued, too, against *the Jews, compelling them to become Christians. However, this was
carried to a much greater extent in Spain under the Visigoths. The Visigothic king Ervig
is said to have issued some twenty laws against the Jews. At a council held in Toledo in
the year 681, with a number of nobles in attendance, as well as bishops, these laws
against the Jews were confirmed. Among other things, these regulations for bade the
Jews from celebrating the seventh day Sabbath or the Jewish feasts, and commanded
them to abstain from labor on the Lord's day. (Hefele, A History of the Councils of the
Church, volume 5, pages 210, 2 11)
The Anglo-Saxon regulations concerning Sunday observance were very definite.
The Angles and Saxons had become Roman Catholic during the seventh century, and
Sunday observance was emphasized by both state and church. About the year 690 a
church council, summoned by King Ina of the kingdom of Wessex and composed of both
bishops and noblemen, declared:
“If a slave works on Sunday, by command of his master, then the slave goes free,
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