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
"Now, we are commanded to reverence and to honor the same one,
being persuaded that he is Word, Saviour, and Leader, and by him,
the Father, NOT ON SPECIAL DAYS, AS SOME OTHERS, but _doing this
continually in our whole life_, and in every way. Certainly the
elect race, justified by the precept, says, 'Seven times a day have
I praised thee.' Whence _not_ in a specified place, or selected
temple, or at _certain festivals_, and on _appointed days_, but
_during his whole life_, the Gnostic in every place, even if he
be alone by himself, and wherever he has any of those who have
exercised the like faith, honors God; that is, acknowledges his
gratitude for the knowledge of the way to live." Book vii. chap.
vii.
2. The second of these facts is that in book vi., chapter xvi., as
already quoted, he expressly represents Sunday as "a day of work."
Certainly Clement of Alexandria should not be cited as teaching the
change of the Sabbath, or advocating the so-called Christian Sabbath.
CHAPTER VII.
TESTIMONY OF TERTULLIAN, A. D. 200.
This writer contradicts himself in the most extraordinary manner
concerning the Sabbath and the law of God. He asserts that the Sabbath
was abolished by Christ, and elsewhere emphatically declares that he
did not abolish it. He says that Joshua violated the Sabbath, and then
expressly declares that he did not violate it. He says that Christ
broke the Sabbath, and then shows that he never did this. He represents
the eighth day as more honorable than the seventh, and elsewhere states
just the reverse. He asserts that the law is abolished, and in other
places affirms its perpetual obligation. He speaks of the Lord's day
as the eighth day, and is the second of the early writers who makes
an application of this term to Sunday, if we allow Clement to have
really spoken of it. But though he thus uses the term like Clement he
also like him teaches a perpetual Lord's day, or, like Justin Martyr,
a perpetual Sabbath in the observance of every day. And with the
observance of Sunday as the Lord's day he brings in "offerings for the
dead" and the perpetual use of the sign of the cross. But he expressly
affirms that these things rest, not upon the authority of the
Scriptures, but wholly upon that of tradition and custom. And though he
speaks of the Sabbath as abrogated by Christ, he expressly contradicts
this by asserting that Christ "did not at all rescind the Sabbath,"
and that he imparted an additional sanctity to that day which from the
beginning had been consecrated by the benediction of the Father. This
strange mingling of light and darkness plainly indicates the age in
which this author lived. He was not so far removed from the time of the
apostles but that many clear rays of divine truth shone upon him; and
he was far enough advanced in the age of apostasy to have its dense
darkness materially affect him. He stood on the line between expiring
day and advancing night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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