The Sabbath

The implications of this new doctrine were pervasive throughout contemporary Christian belief, as in the keeping of the Sabbath: During the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Christians were in the habit of keeping Sabbath on both Saturday and Sunday. In fact Ethiopian Christians still do today. During that time, Christians rested on the Sabbath (in the Lord) and had communion or fellowship on Sundays. The Church Fathers at the Council of Laodicea were not opposed to Sunday services but were opposed to Christians Judaizing the Sabbath (see 29th Canon), Judaizing is what they labeled Christians resting on the Sabbath day. At the Council of Laodicea, they published as doctrine that the practice of staying at home and resting on the Sabbath was sinful and anathema to Christ.

CANON XXIX. Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord’s Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ.

[Mostacci, C. The Council of Laodicea in Phrygia Pacatiana 364 AD.]

Now the Scriptures alone do not contain all the truths which a Christian is bound to believe, nor do they explicitly enjoin all the duties which he is obliged to practice. Not to mention other examples, is not every Christian obliged to sanctify Sunday and to abstain on that day from unnecessary servile work? Is not the observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties? But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.

[Gibbons, J. (1917). The Faith of our fathers (83rd ed.). P.J. Kenedy.]

Written by the finger of God on two tables of stone, this Divine code was received from the Almighty by Moses amid the thunders of Mount Sinai, and by him made the ground-work of the Mosaic Law.

The Church, on the other hand, after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath, or seventh day of the week, to the first, made the Third Commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord’s Day.

Some theologians have held that God likewise directly determined the Sunday as the day of worship in the New Law, that He Himself has explicitly substituted the Sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is now entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His Church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days.

[Laux, J. J. (1934). A course in religion for Catholic high schools and academies. Benziger Brothers.]

The following statement comes from a tract written to the Protestants of England, by John Milner (1752-1826), the English Vicar Apostolic of the Roman Catholic Church. The entire tract is an appeal for Protestants to return fully to the Church of Rome:
“The first precept in the Bible, is that of sanctifying the seventh day: ‘God blessed the SEVENTH DAY, and sanctified it.’ Gen. 2:3. This precept was confirmed by God, in the Ten Commandments: ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy’. ‘The SEVENTH DAY is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.’ [Ex. 20:8-11]. On the other hand, Christ declares that he is ‘not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it.’ Matt. 5:17. He himself observed the [Seventh-day] Sabbath: ‘And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.’ Lk. 4:16. His disciples likewise observed it, after His death: ‘They rested on the Sabbath day according to the commandment.’ Lk. 23:56.

“It is worthwhile to remember that this observance of Sunday–in which after all, the only Protestant worship consists–not only has no foundation in the Bible, but it is in flagrant contradiction with its letter, which commands rest on the Sabbath, which is Saturday. It was the Catholic Church which, by the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest to the Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] Church.”–Monsignor Louis Segur, Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today, p. 213 [L.G. Segur (1820-1881), a French prelate, later was appointed as a diplomatic and judicial official in Rome].

“Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the church has no good reasons for its Sunday theory, and ought logically to keep Saturday as the Sabbath.” —John Gilmary Shea, “The Observance of Sunday and Civil Laws for its Enforcement,” in The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Jan. 1883, p. 152 [Shea (1824-1892), a Catholic priest, wrote an important history of American Catholicism].

“For ages all Christian nations looked to the Catholic Church, and, as we have seen, the various states enforced by law her ordinances as to worship and cessation of labor on Sunday. Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the Church, has no good reason for its Sunday theory, and ought logically, to keep Saturday as the Sabbath. The State in passing laws for the due Sanctification of Sunday, is unwittingly acknowledging the authority of the Catholic Church, and carrying out more or less faithfully its prescription. The Sunday as a day of the week set apart for the obligatory public worship of Almighty God is purely a creation of the Catholic Church.”–John Gilmary Shea, in The American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883, p. 139 [Shea (1824-1892) was an important Catholic historian, of his time].

The following Catholic tract was originally published in The Catholic Mirror (the magazine of Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore), on September 2, 1893. In it, a contrast is made between the Biblical faith and practice of the Hebrews, the Seventh-day Adventists, and the other Protestant churches, in order to ridicule the usual Protestant position in regard to Sunday:
“The Israelite respects the authority of the Old Testament only, but the Adventist who is a Christian, accepts the New Testament on the same ground as the Old, viz.: an inspired record also. He finds that the Bible, his teacher is consistent in both parts; that the Redeemer, during His mortal life, never kept any other day than Saturday. The Gospels plainly evince to him this fact; while in the pages of the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles and the Apocalypse [Revelation], not the vestige of an act canceling the Saturday arrangement [seventh-day Sabbathkeeping] can be found.

“Prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic Church alone. The Bible says ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.’ The Catholic Church says, No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week. And ho! The entire civilized world bows down in reverent obedience to the command of the Holy Catholic Church.”–Priest Thomas Enright, CSSR, President of Redemptorist College, Kansas City, Mo., in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, February 18, 1884, and printed in the Hartford Kansas Weekly Call, February 22, 1884, and the American Sentinel, a New York Roman Catholic journal in June 1893, page 173.

“Reason and common sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday, or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible.”–The Catholic Mirror, December 23, 1893 [The Mirror is a Baltimore Roman Catholic weekly newspaper].

“By what authority did the [Catholic] Church change the observance of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday?
“The Protestant world has been, from its infancy in the sixteenth century, in thorough accord with the Catholic Church, in keeping ‘holy’ not Saturday, but Sunday . . . If however, on the other hand, the latter [the Catholics] furnish arguments, incontrovertible by the great mass of Protestants, . . . [they] appealing to their common teacher, the Bible, the great body of Protestants, so far from clamoring, as they do with vigorous pertinacity for the strict keeping of Sunday, have no other resource left than the admission that they have been teaching and practicing what is Scripturally false for over three centuries, by adopting the teaching and practice of what they have always pretended to believe an apostate church, contrary to every warrant and teaching of Sacred Scripture. To add to the intensity of this Scriptural and unpardonable blunder, it involves one of the most positive and emphatic commands of God to His servant, man: ‘Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.’ “–The Christian Sabbath [a tract for Protestants], 2nd ed., The Catholic Mirror, 1893, pp. 6-7.

“If you follow the Bible alone there can be no question that you are obliged to keep Saturday holy, since that is the day especially prescribed by Almighty God to be kept holy to the Lord.”–Priest F.G. Lentz, The Question Box, 1900, p. 98 [Lentz (d. 1917) was a Catholic priest and writer, based in the Illinois area].

“The Catholic Church . . . by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.” —The Catholic Mirror, September 23, 1893 [The Mirror, a Baltimore -based Catholic weekly, was the official organ for Cardinal Gibbons].

“The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her Divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday . . . But the Protestant says: ‘How can I receive the teachings of an apostate Church?’ How, we ask, have you managed to receive her teaching all your life, in direct opposition to your recognized teacher, the Bible, on the Sabbath question?”–The Christian Sabbath, 2nd ed., published by the Catholic Mirror of Baltimore, 1893, pp. 29-31. [The journal of James Cardinal Gibbons].

“Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act . . . AND THE ACT IS A MARK of her ecclesiastical power.”–from the office of Cardinal Gibbons, through Chancellor H.F. Thomas, November 11, 1895.

“Yet, with all this weight of Scripture authority for keeping the Sabbath, or seventh day holy, Protestants, of all denominations, make this a profane day and transfer the obligation of it to the first day of the week, or the Sunday. Now what authority have they for doing this? None at all, but the unwritten Word, or Tradition of the Catholic church, which declares that the apostles made the change in honor of Christ’s resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Ghost, on that day of the week.”–John Milner, The End of Religious Controversy, in a Friendly Correspondence Between a Religious Society of Protestants, and a Roman Catholic Divine, “Letter 11, To James Brown, Esq,” 1897, p. 89.

“Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles. From beginning to end of scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first.”– Catholic Press Sydney, Australia, August 1900.

“Is there no express commandment for the observance of the first day of the week as a Sabbath, instead of the seventh day? None whatever. Neither Christ nor His apostles nor the first Christians celebrated [observed] the first day of the week, instead of the seventh as the Sabbath.” —New York Weekly Tribune [Roman Catholic], May 24, 1900.

“It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of the Catholic Church.”–Priest Brady, in an address at Elizabeth, N.J. on March 17, 1903, reported in the Elizabeth, N.J. News of March 18, 1903.

“If Protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping the Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church.”–Albert Smith, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replying for the Cardinal in a letter dated February 10, 1920.

“Some non-Catholics object to Purgatory because there is no specific mention of it in Scripture. There is no specific mention of the word Sunday in Scripture [either]. The Sabbath is mentioned, but Sabbath means [a keeping of] Saturday. Yet the Christians of almost all denominations worship on Sunday not on Saturday. The Jews observe Saturday. Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday.”–Martin J. Scott, Things Catholics are Asked About, 1927, p. 236 [Scott (1865-1954) was a Jesuit theologian and one of the foremost Catholic defenders of his time].

“Now the [Catholic] Church . . . instituted, by God’s authority, Sunday as the day of worship. This same Church, by the same divine authority, taught the doctrine of Purgatory . . . We have, therefore, the same authority for Purgatory as we have for Sunday.”–Martin J. Scott, Things Catholics Are Asked About, 1927, p.236 [Jesuit theologian and writer].

“Protestants often deride the authority of Church tradition, and claim to be directed by the Bible only; yet they, too, have been guided by customs of the ancient Church, which find no warrant in the Bible, but rest on Church tradition only! A striking instance of this is the following:–The first positive command in the Decalogue is to ‘Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy,’ . . . But the Sabbath Day, the observance of which God commanded, was our Saturday. Yet who among either Catholics or Protestants, except a sect or two, ever keep that commandment now? None. Why is this? The Bible, which Protestants claim to obey exclusively, gives no authorization for the substitution of the first day of the week for the seventh. On what authority, therefore, have they done so? Plainly on the authority of that very Catholic Church which they abandoned, and whose traditions they condemn.”–John L. Stoddard, Rebuilding a Lost Faith, p. 80 [Stoddard (1850-1931) was an agnostic writer most of his life, who later was converted to Catholicism].

“The [Catholic] Church, by the power our Lord gave her, changed the observance of Saturday to Sunday.”–The Catholic canon, H. Cafferata, The Catechism Simply Explained, 1932 edition, p.80.

“Scripture and Tradition are called the remote rule of faith, because the Catholic does not base his faith directly on these sources. The proximate rule of faith is for him the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, which alone has received from God the authority to interpret infallibly the doctrines He has revealed, whether these be contained in Scripture or in Tradition . . .
“If we consulted the Bible only, we should still have to keep holy the Sabbath Day, that is, Saturday.”–John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies, 1936 edition, vol. 1, p. 51 [J.J. Laux (1878-1939) was a Catholic priest, teacher, and author of many Catholic histories as well as biographies of their saints].

“The Church changed the observance of the Sabbath to Sunday by right of the divine, infallible authority given to her by her founder, Jesus Christ. The Protestant claiming the Bible to be the only guide of faith, has no warrant for observing Sunday. In this matter the Seventh-day Adventist is the only consistent Protestant.”–The Catholic Universe Bulletin, August 14, 1942, p. 4 [This is the political weekly newspaper at the Cleveland Catholic Diocese].

“All of us believe many things in regard to religion that we do not find in the Bible. For example, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the apostles changed [the day] from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath Day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the Church outside the Bible.”– “To Tell You The Truth,” The Catholic Virginian, 22, October 3, 1947, p. 9.

“Protestants . . . accept Sunday rather than Saturday as the day for public worship after the Catholic Church made the change . . . But the Protestant mind does not seem to realize that in accepting the Bible, in observing the Sunday, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the church, the Pope.”–Our Sunday Visitor, Feb. 5, 1950 [One of the largest U.S. Roman Catholic magazines].

“Ques. –Which is the Sabbath day?
“Ans. –Saturday is the Sabbath day.
“Ques. –Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
“Ans. –We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.” —Peter Geiermann, The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, 1957 edition, p. 50 [Geiermann (1870-1929) received the “apostolic blessing” of pope Pius X on this book, January 26, 1910].

“The Catholic Church has decreed for many centuries that Christians observe this day of rest on Sunday.”–Pope John XXIII, Mater et Magistra (Mother and Teacher), section 251, dated May 15, 1961 [John XXIII was pope from 1958 to 1963].

Not the Creator of the universe, in Genesis 2:1-3,–but the Catholic Church “can claim the honor of having granted man a pause to his work every seven days [!]”–S. C. Mosna, Storia della Domenica, pp. 366-367 [This is a recent work of the twentieth century (1969), prepared by the author under the direction of the leading Jesuit university in the world–the Gregorian, in Rome].

“We Catholics, then, have precisely the same authority for keeping Sunday holy instead of Saturday as we have for every other article of our creed; namely, the authority of ‘the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth’ (1 Timothy 3:15); whereas you who are Protestants have really no authority for it whatever; for there is no authority for it in the Bible, and you will not allow that there can be authority for it anywhere else. Both you and we do, in fact, follow tradition in this matter; but we follow it, believing it to be a part of God’s word, and the [Catholic] Church to be its divinely appointed guardian and interpreter; you follow it [the Catholic Church], denouncing it all the time as a fallible and treacherous guide, which often ‘makes the commandments of God of none effect’ [quoting Matt. 15:6].”–The Brotherhood at St. Paul, The Clifton Tracts, Vol. 4, tract 4, p. 15 [Roman Catholic].

“The Church, . . . after changing the day of rest from Sabbath, or the seventh day of the week, to the first, made the Third Commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord’s Day.”–The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4, p. 153 [The Sabbath commandment is the fourth commandment (Ex. 20:8-11), but is reckoned as the third by Roman Catholics, because they dropped the second (that forbade image worship), and then split the tenth into two to make up the full number].