Chapter XIV: The First Witnesses for Sunday

Origin of Sunday observance the subject of present
inquiry—Contradictory statements of Mosheim and Neander—The
question between them stated, and the true data for deciding
that question—The New Testament furnishes no support for
Mosheim’s statement—Epistle of Barnabas a forgery—The testimony
of Pliny determines nothing in the case—The epistle of Ignatius
probably spurious, and certainly interpolated so far as it is
made to sustain Sunday—Decision of the question.

The first day of the week is now almost universally observed as the Christian Sabbath. The origin of this institution is still before us as the subject of inquiry. This is presented by two eminent church historians; but so directly do they contradict each other, that it is a question of curious interest to determine which of them states the truth. Thus Mosheim writes respecting the first century:—

“All Christians were unanimous in setting apart the first day
of the week, on which the triumphant Saviour arose from the
dead, for the solemn celebration of public worship. This pious
custom, which was derived from the example of the church of
Jerusalem, was founded upon the express appointment of the
apostles, who consecrated that day to the same sacred purpose,
and was observed universally throughout the Christian churches,
as appears from the united testimonies of the most credible
writers.”[464]

Now let us read what Neander, the most distinguished of church historians, says of this apostolic authority for Sunday observance:—

“The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always
only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of
the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect,
far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer
the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the
second century a false application of this kind had begun to
take place; for men appear by that time to have considered
laboring on Sunday as a sin.”[465]

How shall we determine which of these historians is in the right? Neither of them lived in the apostolic age of the church. Mosheim was a writer of the eighteenth century, and Neander, of the nineteenth. Of necessity therefore they must learn the facts in the case from the writings of that period which have come down to us. These contain all the testimony which can have any claim to be admitted in deciding this case. These are, first, the inspired writings of the New Testament; second, the reputed productions of such writers of that age as are supposed to mention the first day, viz., the epistle of Barnabas; the letter of Pliny, governor of Bythinia, to the emperor Trajan; and the epistle of Ignatius. These are all the writings prior to the middle of the second century—and this is late enough to amply cover the ground of Mosheim’s statement—which can be introduced as even referring to the first day of the week.

The questions to be decided by this testimony are these: Did the apostles set apart Sunday for divine worship (as Mosheim affirms)? or does the evidence in the case show that the festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance (as is affirmed by Neander)?

It is certain that the New Testament contains no appointment of Sunday for the solemn celebration of public worship. And it is equally true that there is no example of the church of Jerusalem on which to found such observance. The New Testament therefore furnishes no support[466] for the statement of Mosheim.

The three epistles which have come down to us purporting to have been written in the apostolic age, or immediately subsequent to that age, next come under examination. These are all that remain to us of a period more extended than that embraced in the statement of Mosheim. He speaks of the first century only; but we summon all the writers of that century, and of the following one prior to the time of Justin Martyr, A. D. 140, who are even supposed to mention the first day of the week. Thus the reader is furnished with all the data in the case. The epistle of Barnabas speaks as follows in behalf of first-day observance:—

“Lastly he saith unto them, Your new-moons and your sabbaths I
cannot bear them. Consider what he means by it; the sabbaths,
says he, which ye now keep, are not acceptable unto me, but
those which I have made; when resting from all things, I shall
begin the eighth day, that is, the beginning of the other
world; for which cause we observe the eighth day with gladness,
in which Jesus arose from the dead, and having manifested
himself to his disciples, ascended into Heaven.”[467]

It might be reasonably concluded that Mosheim would place great reliance upon this testimony as coming from an apostle, and as being somewhat better suited to sustain the sacredness of Sunday than anything previously examined by us. Yet he frankly acknowledges that this epistle is spurious. Thus he says:—

“The epistle of Barnabas was the production of some Jew,
who, most probably, lived in this century, and whose mean
abilities and superstitious attachment to Jewish fables, show,
notwithstanding the uprightness of his intentions, that he must
have been a very different person from the true Barnabas, who
was St. Paul’s companion.”[468]

In another work, Mosheim says of this epistle:—

“As to what is suggested by some, of its having been written by
that Barnabas who was the friend and companion of St. Paul, the
futility of such a notion is easily to be made apparent from
the letter itself; several of the opinions and interpretations
of Scripture which it contains, having in them so little of
either truth, dignity or force, as to render it impossible that
they could ever have proceeded from the pen of a man divinely
instructed.”[469]

Neander speaks thus of this epistle:—

“It is impossible that we should acknowledge this epistle to
belong to that Barnabas who was worthy to be the companion of
the apostolic labors of St. Paul.”[470]

Prof. Stuart bears a similar testimony:—

“That a man by the name of Barnabas wrote this epistle I doubt
not; that the chosen associate of Paul wrote it, I with many
others must doubt.”[471]

Dr. Killen, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church of Ireland, uses the following language:—

“The tract known as the Epistle of Barnabas was probably
composed in A. D. 135. It is the production apparently of a
convert from Judaism who took special pleasure in allegorical
interpretation of Scripture.”[472]

Prof. Hackett bears the following testimony:—

“The letter still extant, which was known as that of Barnabas
even in the second century, cannot be defended as genuine.”[473]

Mr. Milner speaks of the reputed epistle of Barnabas as follows:—

“It is a great injury to him to apprehend the epistle, which
goes by his name, to be his.”[474]

Kitto speaks of this production as,

“The so-called epistle of Barnabas, probably a forgery of the
second century.”[475]

Says the Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, speaking of the Barnabas of the New Testament:—

“He could not be the author of a work so full of forced
allegories, extravagant and unwarrantable explications of
Scripture, together with stories concerning beasts, and such
like conceits, as make up the first part of this epistle.”[476]

Eusebius, the earliest of church historians, places this epistle in the catalogue of spurious books. Thus he says:—

“Among the spurious must be numbered both the books called,
‘The Acts of Paul,’ and that called, ‘Pastor,’ and ‘The
Revelation of Peter.’ Besides these the books called ‘The
Epistle of Barnabas,’ and what are called, ‘The Institutions of
the Apostles.’”[477]

Sir Wm. Domville speaks as follows:—

“But the epistle was not written by Barnabas; it was not merely
unworthy of him,—it would be a disgrace to him, and what is of
much more consequence, it would be a disgrace to the Christian
religion, as being the production of one of the authorized
teachers of that religion in the times of the apostles, which
circumstance would seriously damage the evidence of its divine
origin. Not being the epistle of Barnabas, the document is, as
regards the Sabbath question, nothing more than the testimony
of some unknown writer to the practice of Sunday observance by
some Christians of some unknown community, at some uncertain
period of the Christian era, with no sufficient ground for
believing that period to have been the first century.”[478]

Coleman bears the following testimony:—

“The epistle of Barnabas, bearing the honored name of the
companion of Paul in his missionary labors, is evidently
spurious. It abounds in fabulous narratives, mystic,
allegorical interpretations of the Old Testament, and fanciful
conceits, and is generally agreed by the learned to be of no
authority.”[479]

As a specimen of the unreasonable and absurd things contained in this epistle, the following passage is quoted:—

“Neither shalt thou eat of the hyena: that is, again, be not an
adulterer; nor a corrupter of others; neither be like to such.
And wherefore so? Because that creature every year changes its
kind, and is sometimes male, and sometimes female.”[480]

Thus first-day historians being allowed to decide the case, we are authorized to treat this epistle as a forgery. And whoever will read its ninth chapter—for it will not bear quoting—will acknowledge the justice of this conclusion. This epistle is the only writing purporting to come from the first century except the New Testament, in which the first day is even referred to. That this furnishes no support for Sunday observance, even Mosheim acknowledges.

The next document that claims our attention is the letter of Pliny, the Roman governor of Bythinia, to the emperor Trajan. It was written about A. D. 104. He says of the Christians of his province:—

“They affirmed that the whole of their guilt or error was, that
they met on a certain stated day, before it was light, and
addressed themselves in a form of prayer to Christ, as to some
god, binding themselves by a solemn oath, not for the purposes
of any wicked design, but never to commit any fraud, theft, or
adultery; never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when
they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was
their custom to separate, and then re-assemble to eat in common
a harmless meal.”[481]

This epistle of Pliny certainly furnishes no support for Sunday observance. The case is presented in a candid manner by Coleman. He says of this extract:—

“This statement is evidence that these Christians kept a day as
holy time, but whether it was the last or the first day of the
week, does not appear.”[482]

Charles Buck, an eminent first-day writer, saw no evidence in this epistle of first-day observance, as is manifest from the indefinite translation which he gives it. Thus he cites the epistle:—

“These persons declare that their whole crime, if they are
guilty, consists in this: that on certain days they assemble
before sunrise to sing alternately the praises of Christ as of
God.”[483]

Tertullian, who wrote A. D. 200, speaks of this very statement of Pliny thus:—

“He found in their religious services nothing but meetings _at
early morning_ for singing hymns to Christ and God, and sealing
home their way of life by a united pledge to be faithful to
their religion, forbidding murder, adultery, dishonesty, and
other crimes.”[484]

Tertullian certainly found in this no reference to the festival of Sunday.

Mr. W. B. Taylor speaks of this stated day as follows:—

“As the Sabbath day appears to have been quite as commonly
observed at this date as the sun’s day (if not even more so),
it is just as probable that this ‘stated day’ referred to by
Pliny was the seventh day, as that it was the first day; though
the latter is generally _taken for granted_.”[485]

Taking for granted the very point that should be proved, is no new feature in the evidence thus far examined in support of first-day observance. Although Mosheim relies on this expression of Pliny as a chief support of Sunday, yet he speaks thus of the opinion of another learned man:—

“B. Just. Hen. Boehmer, would indeed have us to understand this
day to have been the same with the Jewish Sabbath.”[486]

This testimony of Pliny was written a few years subsequent to the time of the apostles. It relates to a church which probably had been founded by the apostle Peter.[487] It is certainly far more probable that this church, only forty years after the death of Peter, was keeping the fourth commandment, than that it was observing a day never enjoined by divine authority. It must be conceded that this testimony from Pliny proves nothing in support of Sunday observance; for it does not designate what day of the week was thus observed.

The epistles of Ignatius of Antioch so often quoted in behalf of first-day observance, next claim our attention. He is represented as saying:—

“Wherefore if they who are brought up in these ancient laws
came nevertheless to the newness of hope; no longer observing
sabbaths, but keeping the Lord’s day, in which also our life
is sprung up by him, and through his death, whom yet some
deny (by which mystery we have been brought to believe,
and therefore wait that we may be found the disciples of
Jesus Christ, our only master): how shall we be able to
live different from him; whose disciples the very prophets
themselves being, did by the Spirit expect him as their
master.”[488]

Two important facts relative to this quotation are worthy of particular notice: 1. That the epistles of Ignatius are acknowledged to be spurious by first-day writers of high authority; and those epistles which some of them except as possibly genuine, do not include in their number the epistle to the Magnesians from which the above quotation is made, nor do they say anything relative to first-day observance. 2. That the epistle to the Magnesians would say nothing of any day, were it not that the word day had been fraudulently inserted by the translator! In support of the first of these propositions the following testimony is adduced. Dr. Killen speaks as follows:—

“In the sixteenth century, fifteen letters were brought out
from beneath the mantle of a hoary antiquity, and offered
to the world as the productions of the pastor of Antioch.
Scholars refused to receive them on the terms required, and
forthwith eight of them were admitted to be forgeries. In
the seventeenth century, the seven remaining letters, in a
somewhat altered form, again came forth from obscurity, and
claimed to be the works of Ignatius. Again discerning critics
refused to acknowledge their pretensions; but curiosity was
roused by this second apparition, and many expressed an earnest
desire to obtain a sight of the real epistles. Greece, Syria,
Palestine, and Egypt, were ransacked in search of them, and
at length three letters are found. The discovery creates
general gratulation; it is confessed that four of the epistles
so lately asserted to be genuine, are apocryphal; and it is
boldly said that the three now forthcoming are above challenge.
But truth still refuses to be compromised, and sternly disowns
these claimants for her approbation. The internal evidence of
these three epistles abundantly attests that, like the last
three books of the Sibyl, they are only the last shifts of a
grave imposture.”[489]

The same writer thus states the opinion of Calvin:—

“It is no mean proof of the sagacity of the great Calvin,
that, upwards of three hundred years ago, he passed a sweeping
sentence of condemnation on these Ignatian epistles.”[490]

Of the three epistles of Ignatius still claimed as genuine, Prof. C. F. Hudson speaks as follows:—

“Ignatius of Antioch was martyred probably A. D. 115. Of the
eight epistles ascribed to him, three are genuine; viz., those
addressed to Polycarp, the Ephesians, and the Romans.”[491]

It will be observed that the three epistles which are here mentioned as genuine do not include that epistle from which the quotation in behalf of Sunday is taken, and it is a fact also that they contain no allusion to Sunday. Sir Wm. Domville, an anti-Sabbatarian writer, uses the following language:—

“Every one at all conversant with such matters is aware that
the works of Ignatius have been more interpolated and corrupted
than those of any other of the ancient fathers; and also that
some writings have been attributed to him which are wholly
spurious.”[492]

Robinson, an eminent English Baptist writer of the last century, expresses the following opinion of the epistles ascribed to Ignatius, Barnabas, and others:—

“If any of the writings attributed to those who are called
apostolical fathers, as Ignatius, teacher at Antioch, Polycarp,
at Smyrna, Barnabas, who was half a Jew, and Hermas, who was
brother to Pius, teacher at Rome, if any of these be genuine,
of which there is great reason to doubt, they only prove the
piety and illiteracy of the good men. Some are worse, and
the best not better, than the godly epistles of the lower
sort of Baptists and Quakers in the time of the civil war in
England. Barnabas and Hermas both mention baptism; but both of
these books are contemptible reveries of wild and irregular
geniuses.”[493]

The doubtful character of these Ignatian epistles is thus sufficiently attested. The quotation in behalf of Sunday is not taken from one of the three epistles that are still claimed as genuine; and what is still further to be observed, it would say nothing in behalf of any day were it not for an extraordinary license, not to say fraud, which the translator has used in inserting the word _day_. This fact is shown with critical accuracy by Kitto, whose Cyclopedia is in high repute among first-day scholars. Thus he presents the original of Ignatius with comments and a translation as follows:—

“We must here notice one other passage ... as bearing on the
subject of the Lord’s day, though it certainly contains no
mention of it. It occurs in the epistle of Ignatius to the
Magnesians (about A. D. 100.) The whole passage is confessedly
obscure, and the text may be corrupt.... The passage is as
follows:—

Εἰ οὖν ὁι ἐν πἀλαιοῖς πράγμασιν ἀναστραφέντες, εἰς καινότητα
ἐλπίδος ἤλθον—μηκέτι σαββατίζοντες, ἀλλὰ κατὰ κυριακὴν ζωὴν
ζῶντες—(ἐν ἡ καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἡμῶν ἀνέτειλεν δὶ’ ἀυτοῦ, etc.)[494]

“Now many commentators assume (on what ground does not appear),
that after κυριακὴν [Lord’s] the word ἡμέραν [day] is to be
understood.... Let us now look at the passage simply as it
stands. The defect of the sentence is the want of a substantive
to which ἀυτοῦ can refer. This defect, so far from being
remedied, is rendered still more glaring by the introduction of
ἡμέρα. Now if we take κυριακὴ ζωὴ as simply ‘the life of the
Lord,’ having a more personal meaning, it certainly goes nearer
to supplying the substantive to ἀυτοῦ.... Thus upon the whole
the meaning might be given thus:—

“If those who lived under the old dispensation have come to
the newness of hope, no longer keeping sabbaths, but living
according to our Lord’s life (in which, as it were, our life
has risen again through him, &c.)....

“On this view the passage does not refer at all to the Lord’s
day; but even on the opposite supposition it cannot be regarded
as affording any positive evidence to the early use of the term
‘Lord’s day’ (for which it is often cited), since the material
word ἡμέρα [day] is purely conjectural.”[495]

The learned Morer, a clergyman of the church of England, confirms this statement of Kitto. He renders Ignatius thus:—

“If therefore they who were well versed in the works of ancient
days came to newness of hope, not sabbatizing, but living
according to the dominical life, &c.... The Medicean copy, the
best and most like that of Eusebius, leaves no scruple, because
ζωὴν is expressed and determines the word dominical to the
person of Christ, and not to the day of his resurrection.”[496]

Sir Wm. Domville speaks on this point as follows:—

“Judging therefore by the tenor of the epistle itself, the
literal translation of the passage in discussion, ‘no longer
observing sabbaths, but living according to the Lord’s life,’
appears to give its true and proper meaning; and if this be
so, Ignatius, whom Mr. Gurney[497] puts forward as a material
witness to prove the observance of the Lord’s day in the
beginning of the second century, fails to prove any such fact,
it appearing on a thorough examination of his testimony that he
does not even mention the Lord’s day, nor in any way allude to
the religious observance of it, whether by that name or by any
other.”[498]

It is manifest, therefore, that this famous quotation has no reference whatever to the first day of the week, and that it furnishes no evidence that that day was known in the time of Ignatius by the title of Lord’s day.[499] The evidence is now before the reader which must determine whether Mosheim or Neander spoke in accordance with the facts in the case. And thus it appears that in the New Testament, and in the uninspired writers of the period referred to, there is absolutely nothing to sustain the strong Sunday statement of Mosheim. When we come to the fourth century, we shall find a statement by him which essentially modifies what he has here said. Of the epistles ascribed to Barnabas, Pliny, and Ignatius, we have found that the first is a forgery; that the second speaks of a stated day without defining what one; and that the third, which is probably a spurious document, would say nothing relative to Sunday, if the advocates of first-day sacredness had not interpolated the word _day_ into the document! We can hardly avoid the conclusion that Mosheim spoke on this subject as a doctor of divinity, and not as a historian; and with the firmest conviction that we speak the truth, we say with Neander, “The festival of Sunday was always only a human ordinance.”