Sabbath and Early Christians, Part 3

Sabbath and Early Christians, Part 3

According to the 1647’s Westminster Confession of Faith and the 1689’s London Baptist Confession of Faith, Sabbath observance is a positive, moral, and perpetual command binding all men in all ages but then says from Creation to Christ it was on the Seventh Day but changed into the First Day of the week from Christ to Consummation.

“As it is the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in His Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, He hath particularly appointed one day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto Him: which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week, and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which, in Scripture, is called the Lord’s Day; and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath”

If Sabbath observance as they say is a positive, moral, and perpetual command then it is that important and must have found a place of prominence among the early Christian writers. Not to say that their letters are infallible, nevertheless, let us test this claim by doing a brief survey of what the following ancient writers taught about the Sabbath and perhaps the Mosaic Law and the New Covenant.

Ignatius of Antioch (50 – 108 AD)
Justin Martyr (100 – 165 AD)
Tertullian (160 – 220 AD)
John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD)
Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430 AD)

Unless otherwise specified, all Scripture quote is from the New International Version 2016. And all quotes from the ancient writers is taken from the New Advent, a Roman Catholic Online Encyclopedia.

Part 3 – Tertullian (160 – 220 AD)

According to historians, Tertullian advanced Christian theology through his voluminous Latin writings while in a Roman province of Africa. His are available online in New Advent, Roman Catholic Encylopedia the number of which is at 31. After scouring his works let us turn to his work entitled, An Answer to the Jews, which extensively dealt with the issue at hand. Let us briefly describe what he said about the Sabbath, the Law, perhaps even the New Covenant. But brace yourself this is a bit longer than usual, but despite its length I fear will not do justice compared to the volume of work he contributed in defense of the Christian faith, as a father of Latin or Western theology.

Tertulian’s sees the divine law as something progressive, advancing, developing, or reforming. He calls it’s beginning in human history as “primitive” or “general and primordial law of God” in which is enclosed the subsequent laws. Hence the idea of an anterior law and a posterior laws. He used the analogy of an embryo which germinates to a sprout: “For in this law given to Adam we recognise in embryo all the precepts which afterwards sprouted forth when given through Moses.” (An Answer to the Jews, Chapter 2). He reasoned that the anterior (law given through Adam) enclosed the posterior laws which were later disclosed in their proper times (like the law given to Israel and later to the Gentiles). But before it was written, it was unwritten. And the unwritten, according to him, was understood “habitually and naturally,” hence it also also called the “natural law.” And this same divine law, according to this theologian from Cathage, is reformed at definite periods or proper times: first it was first given to Adam, reformed and then given to Moses, and then “reformed for the better” and given to the Gentiles.

“Whence we understand that God’s law was anterior even to Moses, and was not first (given) in Horeb, nor in Sinai and in the desert, but was more ancient; (existing) first in paradise, subsequently reformed for the patriarchs, and so again for the Jews, at definite periods: so that we are not to give heed to Moses’ Law as to the primitive law, but as to a subsequent, which at a definite period God has set forth to the Gentiles too and, after repeatedly promising so to do through the prophets, has reformed for the better; and has premonished that it should come to pass that, just as the law was given through Moses John 1:17 at a definite time, so it should be believed to have been temporarily observed and kept. And let us not annul this power which God has, which reforms the law’s precepts answerably to the circumstances of the times, with a view to man’s salvation.”

An Answer to the Jews, Chapter 2

He also argued that neither Sabbath nor circumcision was given before Moses and that neither of them saves or able to purge people’s sin, that Adam, Abel, Noah, Enoch, Abraham and even Melchizedec were inobservant of Sabbath or of the [Mosaic] law,

“In fine, let him who contends that the Sabbath is still to be observed as a balm of salvation, and circumcision on the eighth day because of the threat of death, teach us that, for the time past, righteous men kept the Sabbath, or practised circumcision, and were thus rendered friends of God. For if circumcision purges a man since God made Adam uncircumcised, why did He not circumcise him, even after his sinning, if circumcision purges? At all events, in settling him in paradise, He appointed one uncircumcised as colonist of paradise. Therefore, since God originated Adam uncircumcised, and inobservant of the Sabbath, consequently his offspring also, Abel, offering Him sacrifices, uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, was by Him commended; while He accepted what he was offering in simplicity of heart, and reprobated the sacrifice of his brother Cain, who was not rightly dividing what he was offering. Noah also, uncircumcised — yes, and inobservant of the Sabbath— God freed from the deluge. For Enoch, too, most righteous man, uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, He translated from this world; who did not first taste death, in order that, being a candidate for eternal life, he might by this time show us that we also may, without the burden of the law of Moses, please God. Melchizedek also, the priest of the most high God, uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, was chosen to the priesthood of God. Lot, withal, the brother of Abraham, proves that it was for the merits of righteousness, without observance of the law, that he was freed from the conflagration of the Sodomites.”

An Answer to the Jews, Chapter 2

But with the advance, progress, development or reformation into the new law, Tertulian says, the old law is obliterated or consummated,

“Who else, therefore, are understood but we, who, fully taught by the new law, observe these practices — the old law being obliterated, the coming of whose abolition the action itself demonstrates? For the wont of the old law was to avenge itself by the vengeance of the glaive, and to pluck out eye for eye, and to inflict retaliatory revenge for injury. But the new law’s wont was to point to clemency, and to convert to tranquillity the pristine ferocity of glaives and lances, and to remodel the pristine execution of war upon the rivals and foes of the law into the pacific actions of ploughing and tilling the land.”

An Answer to the Jews, Chapter 3

And with the demonstration that the old law has been consummated, Tertulian also says that observance of the Sabbath “is demonstrated to be temporary” and so what Christians observe is not a weekly Sabbath, which is a Sabbath temporal, but a Sabbath eternal. Calling the weekly Sabbath human rather than divine, carnal rather than spiritual, merely a prefiguring, a foreshadowing, a type which points forward to the future or what is to come,

“For the Jews say, that from the beginning God sanctified the seventh day, by resting on it from all His works which He made; and that thence it was, likewise, that Moses said to the People: Remember the day of the sabbaths, to sanctify it: every servile work you shall not do therein, except what pertains unto life. Whence we (Christians) understand that we still more ought to observe a sabbath from all servile work always, and not only every seventh day, but through all time. And through this arises the question for us, what sabbath God willed us to keep? For the Scriptures point to a sabbath eternal and a sabbath temporal. For Isaiah the prophet says, Your sabbaths my soul hates; Isaiah 1:13 and in another place he says, My sabbaths you have profaned. Whence we discern that the temporal sabbath is human, and the eternal sabbath is accounted divine; concerning which He predicts through Isaiah: And there shall be, He says, month after month, and day after day, and sabbath after sabbath; and all flesh shall come to adore in Jerusalem, says the Lord; which we understand to have been fulfilled in the times of Christ, when all flesh — that is, every nation — came to adore in Jerusalem God the Father, through Jesus Christ His Son, as was predicted through the prophet: Behold, proselytes through me shall go unto You. Thus, therefore, before this temporal sabbath, there was withal an eternal sabbath foreshown and foretold.”

An Answer to the Jews, Chapter 4

But what he meant by “Sabbath perpetual” or “eternal Sabbath” he did not say, however, Justin Maryr’s Dialogue With Trypho, Chapter 12 comes to mind, in which he said that in this new law, the true sabbaths of God is perpetual not weekly, when people cease from sinning they are constantly at rest from sin but in Christ.

By the way, Against Marcion (Book I), commenting on Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, he also said something to that effect but in much stronger terms,

“[O]bserving times, and days, and months, and years, according to those Jewish ceremonies which they ought to have known were now abrogated, according to the new dispensation purposed by the Creator Himself, who of old foretold this very thing by His prophets. Thus He says by Isaiah: Old things have passed away. Behold, I will do a new thing. And in another passage: I will make a new covenant, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. In like manner by Jeremiah: Make to yourselves a new covenant, circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart. It is this circumcision, therefore, and this renewal, which the apostle insisted on, when he forbade those ancient ceremonies concerning which their very founder announced that they were one day to cease; thus by Hosea: I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast-days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. So likewise by Isaiah: The new moons, and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; your holy days, and fasts, and feast-days, my soul hates. Now, if even the Creator had so long before discarded all these things, and the apostle was now proclaiming them to be worthy of renunciation.” [Emphasis mine.]

Against Marcion, Book I, Chapter 20

But now that the foreshadow, type, prefiguring, is “understood to have been fufilled in the times of Christ.” For under the New Covenant, the new law is now in operation,

“Therefore, since it is manifest that a sabbath temporal was shown, and a sabbatheternal foretold; a circumcision carnal foretold, and a circumcisionspiritual pre-indicated; a law temporal and a law eternal formally declared; sacrifices carnal and sacrifices spiritual foreshown; it follows that, after all these precepts had been given carnally, in time preceding, to the people Israel, there was to supervene a time whereat the precepts of the ancient Law and of the old ceremonies would cease, and the promise of the new law, and the recognition of spiritual sacrifices, and the promise of the New Testament, supervene; while the light from on high would beam upon us who were sitting in darkness, and were being detained in the shadow of death. And so there is incumbent on us a necessity binding us, since we have premised that a new law was predicted by the prophets, and that not such as had been already given to their fathers at the time when He led them forth from the land of Egypt, to show and prove, on the one hand, that that old Law has ceased, and on the other, that the promised new law is now in operation.“ [Emphasis mine.]

An Answer to the Jews, Chapter 6

Elsewhere, Tertullian said that the Gentiles were never in the old covenant,

“The Jews had formerly been in covenant with God; but being afterwards cast off on account of their sins, they began to be without God. The Gentiles, on the contrary, had never been in covenant with God; they were only as a drop from a bucket, and as dust from the threshing floor, and were ever outside the door.” [Emphasis mine.]

Prescription Against Heretics, Chapter 8

However, despite the distinction between the Old and New Covenant as revealed in the Old Testament and New Testament scriptures, respectively, Tertullian defended such diversity as a result of the change in the covenant announced before hand and brought forth by the same God,

“I do not deny that there is a difference in the language of their documents, in their precepts of virtue, and in their teachings of the law; but yet all this diversity is consistent with one and the same God, even Him by whom it was arranged and also foretold. Long ago did Isaiah declare that out of Sion should go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem — some other law, that is, and another word. In short, says he, He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; meaning not those of the Jewish people only, but of the nations which are judged by the new law of the gospel and the new word of the apostles, and are among themselves rebuked of their old error as soon as they have believed.”

Against Marcion, Book IV, Chapter 1.

“Because the New Testament is compendiously short, and freed from the minute and perplexing burdens of the law. But why enlarge, when the Creator by the same prophet foretells the renovation more manifestly and clearly than the light itself? Remember not the former things, neither consider the things of old (the old things have passed away, and new things are arising). Behold, I will do new things, which shall now spring forth. So by Jeremiah: Break up for yourselves new pastures, and sow not among thorns, and circumcise yourselves in the foreskin of your heart. And in another passage: Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Jacob, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I arrested their dispensation, in order to bring them out of the land of Egypt. He thus shows that the ancient covenant is temporary only, when He indicates its change; also when He promises that it shall be followed by an eternal one. For by Isaiah He says: Hear me, and you shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, adding the sure mercies of David, in order that He might show that that covenant was to run its course in Christ. That He was of the family of David, according to the genealogy of Mary, He declared in a figurative way even by the rod which was to proceed out of the stem of Jesse. Forasmuch then as he said, that from the Creator there would come other laws, and other words, and new dispensations of covenants, indicating also that the very sacrifices were to receive higher offices, and that among all nations, by Malachi when he says: I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord, neither will I accept your sacrifices at your hands. For from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place a sacrifice is offered unto my name, even a pure offering — meaning simple prayer from a pure conscience — it is of necessity that every change which comes as the result of innovation, introduces a diversity in those things of which the change is made, from which diversity arises also a contrariety. For as there is nothing, after it has undergone a change, which does not become different, so there is nothing different which is not contrary. Of that very thing, therefore, there will be predicated a contrariety in consequence of its diversity, to which there accrued a change of condition after an innovation. He who brought about the change, the same instituted the diversity also; He who foretold the innovation, the same announced beforehand the contrariety likewise.” [Emphasis mine.]

Against Marcion, Book IV, Chapter 1

So contrary to some would think that Tertullian contradicted himself. He remained consistent that the old is gone and now the new is now in operation, the old law is changed, reformed for the Gentiles. And so what used to be practiced in the old, since they merely point to something in the future, has outlived their usefulness and have paved the way for something new, spiritual, eternal, lasting because that future is now.

Finally, with regards to Sunday, which he called “a day of festivity” for Christians, Tertullian’s defense against the pagan critics who alleged that Christians worship the sun sounds as if he is countering a Jew in saying,

“[Y]ou who reproach us with the sun and Sunday should consider your proximity to us. We are not far off from your Saturn and your days of rest.

Ad Nationes Book I, Chapter 13

Very little is said regarding what is known to be the Lord’s day except that is the a day of festivity (Ad Nationes, Book I, Chapter 13), when they pray to the east and kneeling is prohibited (The Chaplet, Chapter 3), that it bears the solemnity of the Christians (On Idolatry, Chapter 14) and their sacred rites (A Treatise on the Soul, Chapter 9), and in passing against meat prohibitions (On Fasting, Chapter 15) but there is no mention of its observance as the Seventh day or as a day of rest.