The Complete Testimony of the Fathers of the First Three Centuries Concerning the Sabbath and First Day — John Shaqi
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
And yet this man who bears such a noble testimony to the commandments
and the law, and who says not one word concerning the festival of
Sunday, is made to speak explicitly in behalf of this so-called
Christian Sabbath!
TESTIMONY OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, A. D. 194.
This father was born about A. D. 160, and died about A. D. 220. He
wrote about A. D. 194, and is the first of the fathers who uses the
term Lord's day in such a manner as possibly to signify by it the first
day of the week. And yet he expressly speaks of the Sabbath as a day of
rest, and of the first day of the week as a day for labor! The change
of the Sabbath and the institution of the so-called Christian Sabbath
were alike unknown to him. Of the ten commandments, he speaks thus:--
"We have the decalogue given by Moses, which, indicating by
an elementary principle, simple and of one kind, defines the
designation of sins in a way conducive to salvation," etc.--_The
Instructor_, b. iii. chap. xii.
He thus alludes to the Sabbath:--
"Thus the Lord did not hinder from doing good while keeping the
Sabbath; but allowed us to communicate of those divine mysteries,
and of that holy light, to those who are able to receive
them."--_The Miscellanies_, b. i. chap. i.
"To restrain one's self from doing good is the work of vice; but to
keep from wrong is the beginning of salvation. So the Sabbath, by
abstinence from evils, seems to indicate self-restraint." Book iv.
chap. iii.
He calls love the Lord of the Sabbath:--
"He convicted the man, who boasted that he had fulfilled the
injunctions of the law, of not loving his neighbor; and it is by
beneficence that the love which, according to the Gnostic ascending
scale, is Lord of the Sabbath, proclaims itself." Book iv. chap. vi.
Referring to the case of the priests in Eze. 43:27, he says:--
"And they purify themselves seven days, the period in which
creation was consummated. For on the seventh day the rest is
celebrated; and on the eighth, he brings a propitiation, as it is
written in Ezekiel, according to which propitiation the promise is
to be received." Book iv. chap. xxv.
We come now to the first instance in the fathers in which the term
Lord's day is perhaps applied to Sunday. Clement is the father who does
this, and he very properly substantiates it with evidence. He does not
say that Saint John thus applied this name, but he finds authority for
this in the writings of the heathen philosopher Plato, who, he thinks,
spoke of it prophetically!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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