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The Change of the Sabbath

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    Constantine’s Edict

    For three hundred years of church history the rulers of the Roman empire have been pagans. In the early part of the fourth century there came a change; Constantine the Great, so called, professed the Christian religion. Before this, because of persecution, the church had maintained some degree of purity, though many practices had been adopted for which there was no warrant in Scripture. But from this time on, most rapid changes were seen. To obtain favor with the emperor, with their own profit in view, vast multitudes of pagans embraced the Christian religion nominally, though at heart they remained unchanged. All Protestants admit that the age of Constantine and the one immediately succeeding were periods of great corruption. From this time forward the progress was most rapid, till it finally culminated in the full development of the Roman Catholic Church. We shall see that during this very time the most rapid advance of the Sunday institution also occurs.ChSa 112.1

    In the year A. D. 321, Constantine issued the following edict:ChSa 113.1

    “Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun. But let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture; because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines. Lest, the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by Heaven.”ChSa 113.2

    In no document, human or divine, can any command be found to rest on Sunday, the first day of the week, previous to this law by Constantine. Let the discerning reader note carefully the language of this famous law. It does not command us to rest on the Christian Sabbath, on the first day of the week, or the Lord’s day, or on the day in which Christians generally meet to have divine worship; but it is the “venerable day of the sun” which is thus honored, “the wild solar holiday of all pagan times.” The reader will recall what has been stated in former chapters concerning the conflict between the two “memorials,” the one of the Creator’s rest, the other of the earliest form of idolatry-sun worship. Constantine, with the arm of civil law, now strikes the first heavy blow in behalf of the “venerable day of the sun,” thus strengthening the positions taken concerning the antiquity of the heathen custom of sun worship on the first day of the week. It was, then, a very “venerable” day in the year 321. Constantine was still a heathen when he put forth this decree. This edict went into effect on the seventh day of March. The day following, viz., March 8, 321, another heathen decree was issued, the purport of which was:ChSa 113.3

    “That if any royal edifice should be struck by lightning, the ancient ceremonies of propitiating the deity should be practiced, and the haruspices were to be consulted to learn the meaning of the awful portent. The hartispices were soothsayers who foretold future events by examining the entrails of beasts slaughtered in sacrifice to the god’s.”-Andrews’ History of the Sabbath, pp. 347, 348, ed. 1887.ChSa 114.1

    Any one who has read heathen history knows this was a practice very common among them.ChSa 114.2

    Constantine was a worshiper of Apollo, or the sun. Thus Gibbon says:ChSa 114.3

    “The devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the sun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be represented with the symbols of the god of light and poetry.... The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude were taught to believe that the emperor was permitted to behold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity.... The sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine.”-Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 20, par. 3.ChSa 114.4

    Here we plainly discern the reason why the emperor put forth his decree in favor of the “venerable day of the sun.” He was an ardent worshiper of the sun. Mosheim places the nominal conversion of Constantine two years later than the edict. We say “nominal” conversion, for there is no good reason to believe that he was ever a genuine Christian. He was a tyrant, a murderer of many innocent persons, and gave evidence of being anything but a follower of the Prince of peace.ChSa 114.5

    The first law for keeping Sunday as a day of rest, then, was a heathen law in favor of sun worship. This is admitted by many of the best Protestant historians and authors. Dr. Milman, the learned editor of Gibbon, says:ChSa 114.6

    “The rescript commanding the celebration of the Christian Sabbath bears no allusion to its peculiar sanctity as a Christian institution.ChSa 114.7

    It is the day of the sun, which is to be observed by the general veneration. The courts were to be closed, and the noise and tumult of public business and legal litigation were no longer to violate the repose of the sacred day. But the believer in the new paganism, of which the solar worship was the characteristic, might acquiesce without scruple in the sanctity of the first day of the week.”-History of Christianity, book 3, chapter 1, Page 396, edition 1881.ChSa 115.1

    In a subsequent chapter he adds:ChSa 115.2

    “In fact, as we have before observed, the day of the sun would be willingly hallowed by almost all the pagan world, especially that part which had admitted any tendency toward the Oriental theology.”-Idem, book 3, chapter 4, Page 397.ChSa 115.3

    Thus it is fully admitted that the design of this decree was wholly pagan. It was a step in the great contest which had been going on for ages to crowd out the Sabbath of the Lord, and exalt the “memorial” of idolatry in its place.ChSa 115.4

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