Bible Readings — Bible Questions Answered

When the State Enacts Religious Laws

What has generally been the result of religious legislation, or a union of church and state? BR-ASI9 334.9

Religious intolerance and persecution. BR-ASI9 334.10

What was the first Sunday law? BR-ASI9 334.11

Constantine’s Sunday law of March 7, 321. BR-ASI9 334.12

Note.—“On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or for vine-planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them for the second time.)”—Codex Justinianus, lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; translated by Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Scribner’s seven-volume edition, 1902), vol. 3, p. 380, note. BR-ASI9 334.13

What church council required Sunday observance and forbade Sabbath observance? BR-ASI9 334.14

The Council of Laodicea decreed that Christians should keep the Sunday, and that if they persisted in resting on the Sabbath, “They shall be shut out from Christ.” (See Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, vol. 2, p. 316.) BR-ASI9 334.15

Was there further imperial Sunday legislation? BR-ASI9 335.1

“Constantine’s decrees marked the beginning of a long, though intermittent series of imperial decrees in support of Sunday rest.”—Ibid., p. 29. BR-ASI9 335.2

Note.—The decrees of later emperors between 364 and 467 added other prohibitions and exemptions from time to time. Justinian’s code collected the laws of the empire on the subject, and from the time when Charlemagne, king of the Franks, was crowned emperor (800), this code was in effect all over what later became the “Holy Roman Empire.” The Medieval decrees and canons of popes and councils concerning Sunday observance were enforced by the civil power. (See The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 11, p. 147.) BR-ASI9 335.3

Later the church councils had an influence to some extent throughout the former Roman Empire, for the church maintained a large degree of unity. The Council of Laodicea (fourth century) ordered men to work on the Sabbath and rest if possible on Sunday. “The Council of Orleans (538), while protesting against an excessive Sabbatarianism, forbade all field work under pain of censure; and the Council of Macon (585) laid down that the Lord’s Day ‘is the day of perpetual rest, which is suggested to us by the type of the seventh day in the law and the prophets,’ and ordered a complete cessation of all kinds of business. How far the movement had gone by the end of the 6th cent. is shown by a letter of Gregory the Great (pope 590-604) protesting against prohibition of baths on Sunday.”—Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 12, pp. 105, 106, art. “Decrees of Church Councils.” BR-ASI9 335.4

The first Sunday law in force in America, Virginia, 1610: BR-ASI9 335.5

“Every man and woman shall repair in the morning to the divine service, and sermons preached upon the Sabbath day, and in the afternoon to divine service, and catechizing, upon pain for the first fault to lose their provision and allowance for the whole week following, for the second to lose the said allowance and also be whipped, and for the third to suffer death.”—For the Colony in Virginea Britannia, Lavves Diuine, Morall and Martiall, & c, in Peter Force, Tracts Relating to the Colonies in North America (Washington, 1844), vol. 3, no. 2, p. 10. BR-ASI9 335.6

Modeled somewhat after the Puritan laws of 1644 to 1658, but much shorter and milder, it further forbids travel, but does not mention sports and pastimes, and makes the same exception for food and milk. BR-ASI9 336.1

The importance of this act is that it stood, with modifications, as the basic Sunday law of England for nearly two hundred years (see Encyclopaedia Britannica [1945 ed.], vol. 21, p. 565), and was followed as a model for many of the subsequent Sunday laws in various American colonies, and thus somewhat set the pattern for our State laws. BR-ASI9 336.2