The Complete Testimony of the Fathers of the First Three Centuries Concerning the Sabbath and First DayAndrews, John Nevins
Religion
The Complete Testimony of the Fathers of the First Three Centuries Concerning the Sabbath and First Day
Andrews, John Nevins
Sabbath; Seventh-Day Adventists; Sunday
"The command of circumcision, again, bidding [them] always
circumcise the children on the eighth day, was a type of the true
circumcision, by which we are circumcised from deceit and iniquity
through Him who rose from the dead on the first day after the
Sabbath [namely, through], our Lord Jesus Christ. For the first day
after the Sabbath, remaining the first of all the days, is called,
however, the eighth, according to the number of all the days of the
cycle, and [yet] remains the first."
Sunday-keeping must be closely related to infant baptism, inasmuch as
one of the chief arguments in modern times for the baptism of infants
is drawn from the fact that God commanded the Hebrews to circumcise
their male children; and Justin found his scriptural authority for
first-day observance in the fact that this rite was to be performed
when the child was eight days old! Yet this eighth day did not come
on one day of the week, only, but on every day, and when it came on
the seventh day it furnished Justin with an argument against the
sacredness of the Sabbath! But let it come on what day of the week it
might (and it came on all alike), it was an argument for Sunday! O
wonderful _eighth_ day, that can thrive on that which is positively
fatal to the seventh, and that can come every week on the first day
thereof, though there be only seven days in each week!
In chapters xliii., and xlvi., and xcii., Justin reiterates the
assertion that those who lived in the patriarchal age did not hallow
the Sabbath. But as he adds no new thought to what has been already
quoted from him, these need not be copied.
But in chapter xlvii., we have something of interest. Trypho asks
Justin whether those who believe in Christ, and obey him, but who wish
to "observe these [institutions] will be saved?" Justin answers: "In
my opinion, Trypho, such an one will be saved, if he does not strive
in every way to persuade other men ... to observe the same things as
himself, telling them that they will not be saved unless they do so."
Trypho replied, "Why then have you said, 'In my opinion, such an one
will be saved,' unless there are some who affirm that such will not be
saved?"
In reply, Justin tells Trypho that there were those who would have no
intercourse with, nor even extend hospitality to, such Christians as
observed the law. And for himself he says:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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