Here are four frauds, constituting the first four instances of the alleged use of Lord’s day as a name for Sunday. Yet it is by means of these very frauds that the Sunday-Lord’s day of later ages is identified with the Lord’s day of the Bible. Somebody invented these frauds. The use to which they are put plainly indicates the purpose for which they were framed. The title of Lord’s day must be proved to pertain to Sunday by apostolic authority. For this purpose these frauds were a necessity. The case of the Sunday-Lord’s day may be fitly illustrated by that of the long line of popes. Their apostolic authority as head of the Catholic church depends on their being able to identify the apostle Peter as the first of their line, and to prove that his authority was transmitted to them. There is no difficulty in tracing back their line to the early ages, though the earliest Roman bishops were modest, unassuming men, wholly unlike the popes of after times. But when they come to make Peter the head of their line, and to identify his authority and theirs, they can do it only by fraudulent testimonials. And such is the case with first-day observance. It may be traced back as a festival to the time of Justin Martyr, A. D. 140, but the day had then no sacred name, and at that time claimed no apostolic authority. But these must be secured at any cost, and so its title of Lord’s day is by a series of fraudulent testimonials traced to the apostle John, as in like manner the authority of the popes is traced to the apostle Peter. 5. The fifth witness of this series is Dionysius of Corinth, A. D. 170. Unlike the four which have been already examined, Dionysius actually uses the term Lord’s day, though he says nothing identifying it with the first day of the week. His words are these:— “To-day we have passed the Lord’s holy day, in which we have read your epistle; in reading which we shall always have our minds stored with admonition, as we shall, also, from that written to us before by Clement.”[443] The epistle of Dionysius to Soter, bishop of Rome, from which this sentence is taken, has perished. Eusebius, who wrote in the fourth century, has preserved to us this sentence, but we have no knowledge of its connection. First-day writers quote Dionysius as the fifth of their witnesses that Sunday is the Lord’s day. They say that Sunday was so familiarly known as Lord’s day in the time of Dionysius, that he calls it by that name without even stopping to tell what day he meant.