In the days of Paul, “the mystery of iniquity began to work,” and from that point, its history was one of gradual development. Some of the most destructive heresies afterward incorporated into the faith of papists, it is well understood, were fully fledged, and quite generally accepted, before the installation of the first pope. So, too, concerning the first-day Sabbath. There can be little doubt that before the bishop of Rome became the “Corrector of Heretics,” in A. D. 538, or entered the chair of St. Peter, the Sunday had come to be regarded, by many, as the rival, if not the superior, of the ancient Sabbath. Just how extensively the sentiment prevailed, however, it is hard to determine from church history, because, as has been shown in a previous article, the sources of our information have been so corrupted by unprincipled Romanists, that it is difficult to arrive at the facts in the case. One thing is certain; there was a mighty struggle on this question, the gentleman to the contrary, notwithstanding, which has left the marks of its existence in the records of the past. Clear down to the rise of Roman Catholicism, there were men who were strenuous for the observance of the seventh day, and rejecters of its rival. Doubtless the Sunday, by slow degrees, had worked itself into almost universal acceptance as a festival resting upon human, and not divine, authority; but the Sabbath of the Lord still continued in the faith of many, especially in the East, as a day to be sacredly devoted to the worship of God. On this point, Neander, the learned church historian, has given distinct and unequivocal utterance:— “The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect; far from them and from the early apostolic church to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second century, a false application of this kind had began to take place; for men appear, by that time, to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin.”—_Rose’s Translation of Neander_, p. 186.[15] Giesler also remarks as follows: “While the Christians of Palestine, who kept the whole Jewish law, celebrated, of course, all the Jewish festivals, the heathen converts observed only the Sabbath, and in remembrance of the closing scenes of our Saviour’s life, the passover, though without the Jewish superstitions. Besides these, the Sunday as the day of our Saviour’s resurrection, was devoted to religious worship.”—_Church Hist., Apostolic Age to A. D. 70._