The Change of the Sabbath

Effect on the Church

How did this heathen decree affect the practice of the Christian church? We have already seen that the two days, the seventh and the first, were balancing in popular favor, and that the Roman Church had been doing what it could to suppress the Sabbath and exalt Sunday. We shall now see that the so-called Church of Jesus Christ took advantage of this heathen decree in behalf of the “venerable day of the sun,” to complete the work already begun. This edict was a heavy blow to the Sabbath, and as great an aid to the Sunday. We quote from the Encyclopedia Britannica as follows: ChSa 115.5

“It was Constantine the Great who first made a law for the proper observance of Sunday, and who, according to Eusebius, appointed it should be regularly celebrated throughout the Roman empire. Before him, and even in his time, they observed the Jewish Sabbath, as well as Sunday.... By Constantine’s law, promulgated in 321, it was decreed that for the future the Sunday should be kept as a day of rest in all cities and towns; but he allowed the country people to follow their work.”-Art. Sunday, seventh edition, 1842. ChSa 115.6

Mosheim, who was a strong advocate for Sunday, says of this law: ChSa 116.1

“The first day of the week, which was the ordinary and stated time for the public assemblies of the Christians, was, in consequence of a peculiar law enacted by Constantine, observed with greater solemnity than it had formerly been.”-Ecclesiastical History, cent. 4, part 2, chapter 4, section 5. ChSa 116.2

This is quite an admission for this historian to make. This heathen law, permitting those who followed the occupation of agriculture to plow, sow, plant trees, etc., but which forbade the town people to work, caused the Christians to observe Sunday more strictly than they had formerly. As the law required only a part of the people to rest on Sunday, while the others could freely work, we must conclude that before the issue of this edict, none of the people had refrained from labor on Sunday. This we have seen was the case, since there was no law in existence before this requiring it. Sir William Domville says: ChSa 116.3

“Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the Sabbatical edict of Constantine in AD. 321.”—Examination of the Six Texts, page 291. ChSa 116.4

This edict of Constantine’s greatly accelerated the current already setting strongly against the ancient Sabbath. It furnished some authority, if it was only heathen, in behalf of the Sunday. Every advance it made correspondingly depressed the Sabbath, inasmuch as keeping two days in each week as a rest-day would be absurd. An able writer thus expresses the result throughout the Roman empire: ChSa 116.5

“Very shortly after the period when Constantine issued his edict enjoining the general observance of Sunday throughout the Roman empire, the party that had contended for the observance of the seventh day dwindled into insignificance. The observance of Sunday as a public festival, during which all business, with the exception of rural employment, was intermitted, came to be more and more generally established ever after this time, throughout both the Greek and the Latin churches. There is no evidence, however, that either at this or at a period much later the observance was viewed as deriving any obligation from the fourth commandment; it seems to have been regarded as an institution corresponding in nature with Christmas, Good Friday, and other festivals of the church. And as resting with them on the ground of ecclesiastical authority and tradition.”—Cox’s Sabbath Laws, pp. 280, 281. ChSa 116.6

We see, therefore, that that which caused the Sabbath to be greatly neglected was the heathen decree of the emperor. Heathenism and corrupted Christianity united their forces in putting down the Sabbath and exalting Sunday in its place. ChSa 117.1

It might be said that this decree was the expiring act of heathenism. In one sense it was so; but the kind of Christianity which took its place really resembled heathenism more than it did the pure and humble religion of Christ and his apostles. This remark at first may seem harsh and incredible; but truly the reflecting, observing mind must admit its truthfulness. ChSa 117.2