This writer contradicts himself in the most
extraordinary manner concerning the Sabbath
and the law of God. He asserts that the Sabbath
was abolished by Christ, and elsewhere emphatically
declares that he did not abolish it. He
says that Joshua violated the Sabbath, and then
expressly declares that he did not violate it. He
says that Christ broke the Sabbath, and then
shows that he never did this. He represents the
eighth day as more honorable than the seventh,
and elsewhere states just the reverse. He asserts
that the law is abolished, and in other places
affirms its perpetual obligation. He speaks of
the Lord’s day as the eighth day, and is the
second of the early writers who makes an application
of this term to Sunday, if we allow Clement
to have really spoken of it. But though
he thus uses the term like Clement he also like
him teaches a perpetual Lord’s day, or, like
Justin Martyr, a perpetual Sabbath in the observance
of every day. And with the observance
of Sunday as the Lord’s day he brings in “offerings
for the dead” and the perpetual use of the
sign of the cross. But he expressly affirms that
these things rest, not upon the authority of the
Scriptures, but wholly upon that of tradition and
custom. And though he speaks of the Sabbath
as abrogated by Christ, he expressly contradicts
this by asserting that Christ “did not at all rescind
the Sabbath,” and that he imparted an
additional sanctity to that day which from the
beginning had been consecrated by the benediction
of the Father. This strange mingling of light
and darkness plainly indicates the age in which
this author lived. He was not so far removed
from the time of the apostles but that many clear
rays of divine truth shone upon him; and he
was far enough advanced in the age of apostasy
to have its dense darkness materially affect him.
He stood on the line between expiring day and
advancing night. Sometimes the law of God
was unspeakably sacred; at other times tradition
was of higher authority than the law. Sometimes
divine institutions were alone precious in
his estimation; at others he was better satisfied
with those which were sustained only by custom
and tradition.
Tertullian’s first reference to Sunday is found
in that part of his Apology in which he excuses
his brethren from the charge of sun-worship.
Thus he says:—
“Others, again, certainly with more information and
greater verisimilitude, believe that the sun is our God.
We shall be counted Persians, perhaps, though we do
not worship the orb of day painted on a piece of linen
cloth, having himself everywhere in his own disk. The
idea, no doubt, has originated from our being known to
turn to the east in prayer. But you, many of you, also,
under pretense sometimes of worshiping the heavenly
bodies, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise. In
the same way, if we devote Sunday to rejoicing, from a
far different reason than sun-worship, we have some resemblance
to those of you who devote the day of Saturn
to ease and luxury, though they, too, go far away from
Jewish ways, of which indeed they are ignorant.”—Thelwell’s
Translation, sect. 16.
Several important facts are presented in this
quotation.
1. Sunday was an ancient heathen festival in
honor of the sun.
2. Those Christians who observed the festival
of Sunday were claimed by the heathen as sun-worshipers.
3. The entrance of the Sunday festival into
the church in an age of apostasy when men very
generally honored it, was not merely not difficult
to be effected, it was actually difficult to be
prevented.
It would seem from the closing sentence that
some of the heathen used the seventh day as a
day of ease and luxury. But Mr. Reeve’s Translation
gives a very different sense. He renders
Tertullian thus:—
“We solemnize the day after Saturday in contradistinction
to those who call this day their Sabbath, and devote
it to ease and eating, deviating from the old Jewish
customs, which they are now very ignorant of.”
The persons here mentioned so contemptuously
could not be heathens, for they do not call any
day “their Sabbath.” Nor could they be Jews,
as is plain from the form of expression used.
If we accept Mr. Reeve’s Translation, these persons
were Christians who observe the seventh
day. Tertullian does not say that the Sunday
festival was observed by divine authority, but
that they might distinguish themselves from
those who call the seventh day the Sabbath.
Tertullian again declares that his brethren did
not observe the days held sacred by the Jews.
“We neither accord with the Jews in their peculiarities
in regard to food, nor in their sacred days.”—Apology,
sect. 21.
But those Christians who would not keep the
Sabbath because the festival of Sunday was in
their estimation more worthy of honor, or more
convenient to observe, were greatly given to the
observance of other days, in common with the
heathen, besides Sunday. Thus Tertullian charges
home upon them this sin:—
“The Holy Spirit upbraids the Jews with their holy
days. ‘Your sabbaths, and new moons, and ceremonies,’
says he, ‘my soul hateth.’ By us (to whom Sabbaths
are strange, and the new moons, and festivals
formerly beloved by God) the Saturnalia and New Year’s
and mid-winter’s festivals and Matronalia are frequented—presents
come and go—New Year’s gifts—games join
their noise—banquets join their din! Oh! better fidelity
of the nations to their own sect, which claims no solemnity
of the Christians for itself! Not the Lord’s day,
not Pentecost, even if they had known them, would they
have shared with us; for they would fear lest they should
seem to be Christians. We are not apprehensive lest we
seem to be heathens! If any indulgence is to be granted
to the flesh, you have it. I will not say your own days,
but more too; for to the heathens each festive day occurs
but once annually; you have a festive day every eighth
day.”—On Idolatry, chap. xiv.
These Sunday-festival Christians, “to whom
Sabbaths” were “strange,” could not have kept
Sunday as a Sabbath. They had never heard
that by divine authority the Sabbath was changed
from the seventh to the first day of the week, and
that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. Let any
candid man read the above words from Tertullian,
and then deny, if he can, that these strangers to
the Sabbath, and observers of heathen festivals,
were not a body of apostatizing Christians!
Hereafter Tertullian will give an excellent commentary
on his quotation from Isaiah. It seems
from him that the so-called Lord’s day came once
in eight days. Were these words to be taken in
their most obvious sense, then it would come one
day later each week than it did the preceding
week, and thus it would come successively on all
the days of the week in order, at intervals of
eight days. He might in such case well say:—
“However, every day is the Lord’s; every hour, every
time, is apt for baptism; if there is a difference in the
solemnity, in the grace, distinction there is none.”—On
Baptism, chap. xix.
But it seems that Tertullian by the eighth day
intended Sunday. And here is something from
him relative to the manner of keeping it. Thus
he says:—
“In the matter of kneeling also, prayer is subject to diversity
of observance, through the act of some few who
abstain from kneeling on the Sabbath; and since this
dissension is particularly on its trial before the churches,
the Lord will give his grace that the dissentients may
either yield, or else indulge their opinion without offense
to others. We, however (just as we have received), only
on the day of the Lord’s resurrection ought to guard not
only against kneeling, but every posture and office of
solicitude; deferring even our businesses, lest we give
any place to the devil. Similarly, too, in the period of
Pentecost; which period we distinguish by the same
solemnity of exultation. But who would hesitate every
day to prostrate himself before God, at least in the first
prayer with which we enter on the daylight.”—On Prayer,
chap. xxiii.
A more literal translation of this passage would
expressly connect the term Lord’s day with the
day of Christ’s resurrection, the original being
“die Dominico resurrexionis.” The special weekly
honor which Tertullian would have men confer
solely upon Sunday was to pray on that day
in a standing posture. And somewhat to his
annoyance, “some few” would thus act with reference
to the Sabbath. There is, however, some
reference to the deferral of business on Sunday.
And this is worthy of notice, for it is the first
sentence we have discovered that looks like abstinence
from labor on Sunday, and we shall not
find another before the time of Constantine’s famous
Sunday law, a. d. 321.
But this passage is far from asserting that labor
on Sunday was sinful. It speaks of “deferring
even our businesses;” but this does not necessarily
imply anything beyond its postponement
during the hours devoted to religious services.
And we shall find nothing in Tertullian, nor in
his cotemporaries, that will go beyond this, while
we shall find much to restrict us to the interpretation
of his words here given. Tertullian could
not say that Sabbaths were strange to him and
his brethren if they religiously refrained from labor
on each Sunday. But let us hear him again
concerning the observance of Sunday and kindred
practices:—
“We take also, in meetings before daybreak, and from
the hand of none but the presidents, the sacrament of the
Eucharist, which the Lord both commanded to be eaten
at meal-times, and enjoined to be taken by all [alike].
As often as the anniversary comes round, we make offerings
for the dead as birth-day honors. We count fasting
or kneeling in worship on the Lord’s day to be unlawful.
We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Whit-sunday.
We feel pained should any wine or bread, even
though our own, be cast upon the ground. At every forward
step and movement, at every going in and out, when
we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when
we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on
seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon
the forehead the sign [of the cross].
“If, for these and other such rules, you insist upon
having positive Scripture injunction, you will find none.
Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of
them, custom, as their strengthener, and faith, as their observer.
That reason will support tradition, and custom,
and faith, you will either yourself perceive, or learn from
some one who has.”—De Corona, sects. 3 and 4.
The things which he counted unlawful on
Sunday he expressly names. These are fasting
and kneeling on that day. But ordinary labor
does not come into his list of things unlawful on
that day. And now observe what progress apostasy
and superstition had made in other things
also. “Offerings for the dead” were regularly
made, and the sign of the cross was repeated as often
as God would have men rehearse his commandments.
See Deut. 6:6-9. And now if you wish
to know Tertullian’s authority for the Sunday festival,
offerings for the dead, and the sign of the
cross, he frankly tells you what it is. He had no
authority from the Scriptures. Custom and tradition
were all that he could offer. Modern divines
can find plenty of authority, from the Scriptures,
as they assert, for maintaining the so-called Lord’s
day. Tertullian knew of none. He took the
Sunday festival, offerings for the dead, and the
sign of the cross, on the authority of custom and
tradition; if you take the first on such authority,
why do you not, also, the other two?
But Tertullian finds it necessary to write a
second defense of his brethren from the charge of
being sun-worshipers, a charge directly connected
with their observance of the festival of Sunday.
Here are his words:—
“Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must
be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians,
because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards
the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity.
What then? Do you do less than this? Do not many
among you, with an affectation of sometimes worshiping
the heavenly bodies likewise, move your lips in the direction
of the sunrise? It is you, at all events, who have even
admitted the sun into the calendar of the week; and you
have selected its day [Sunday], in preference to the preceding
day, as the most suitable in the week for either an
entire abstinence from the bath, or for its postponement
until the evening, or for taking rest, and for banqueting.
By resorting to these customs, you deliberately deviate
from your own religious rites to those of strangers. For
the Jewish feasts are the Sabbath and ‘the Purification,’
and Jewish also are the ceremonies of the lamps, and the
fasts of unleavened bread, and the ‘littoral prayers,’ all
which institutions and practices are of course foreign from
your gods. Wherefore, that I may return from this digression,
you 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,
b. i. chap. xiii.
Tertullian in this discourse addresses himself to
the nations still in idolatry. The heathen festival
of Sunday, which was with some nations more
ancient, had been established among the Romans
at a comparatively recent date, though earlier
than the time of Justin Martyr, the first Christian
writer in whom an authentic mention of the
day is found. The heathen reproached the early
Sunday Christians with being sun-worshipers,
“because,” says Tertullian, “we pray towards the
east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity.”
And how does Tertullian answer this grave
charge? He could not say, We do it by command
of God to honor the first day of the week, for he
expressly states in a former quotation that no
such precept exists. So he retorts thus: “What
then? Do you [heathen] do less than this?”
And he adds: “You have selected its day [Sunday]
in preference to the preceding day” (Saturday),
etc. That is to say, Tertullian wishes to
know why, if the heathen could choose Sunday
in preference to Saturday, the Christians could
not have the same privilege! Could there be a
stronger incidental evidence that Sunday was
cherished by the early apostatizing Christians, not
because commanded of God, but because it was
generally observed by their heathen neighbors,
and therefore more convenient to them?
But Tertullian next avows his faith in the ten
commandments as “the rules of our regenerate
life,” that is to say, the rules which govern Christian
men; and he gives the preference to the seventh
day over the eighth:—
“I must also say something about the period of the
soul’s birth, that I may omit nothing incidental in the
whole process. A mature and regular birth takes place,
as a general rule, at the commencement of the tenth
month. They who theorize respecting numbers, honor
the number ten as the parent of all the others, and as imparting
perfection to the human nativity. For my own
part, I prefer viewing this measure of time in reference to
God, as if implying that the ten months rather initiated
man into the ten commandments; so that the numerical
estimate of the time needed to consummate our natural
birth should correspond to the numerical classification of
the rules of our regenerate life. But inasmuch as birth is
also completed with the seventh month, I more readily
recognize in this number than in the eighth the honor of
a numerical agreement with the Sabbatical period; so
that the month in which God’s image is sometimes produced
in a human birth, shall in its number tally with the
day on which God’s creation was completed and hallowed.”—De
Anima, chap. xxxvii.
This kind of reasoning is of course destitute of
any force. But in adducing such an argument
Tertullian avows his faith in the ten commandments
as the rule of the Christian’s life, gives the
preference to the seventh day as the Sabbath,
and deduces the origin of the Sabbath from God’s
act of hallowing the seventh day at creation.
Though Tertullian elsewhere, as we shall see,
speaks lightly of the law of God, and represents
it as abolished, his next testimony most sacredly
honors that law, and while acknowledging the
Sabbath as one of its precepts, he recognizes the
authority of the whole code. Thus he says:—
“Of how deep guilt, then, adultery—which is likewise
a matter of fornication, in accordance with its criminal
function—is to be accounted, the law of God first comes to
hand to show us; if it is true [as it is], that after interdicting
the superstitious service of alien gods, and the making
of idols themselves, after commending [to religious observance]
the veneration of the Sabbath, after commanding
a religious regard toward parents, second [only to that]
toward God, [that law] laid, as the next substratum in
strengthening and fortifying such counts, no other precept
than ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’”—On Modesty,
chap. v.
And of this precept Tertullian presently tells
us that it stands “in the very forefront of the
most holy law, among the primary counts of the
celestial edict.”
In his treatise “On Fasting,” chapter xiv., he
terms “the Sabbath—a day never to be kept
as a fast except at the passover season, according
to a reason elsewhere given.” And in chapter
xv., he excepts from the two weeks in which
meat was not eaten “the Sabbaths” and “the
Lord’s days.”
But in his “Answer to the Jews,” chapter ii.,
he represents the law as variously modified from
Adam to Christ; he denies “that the Sabbath is
still to be observed;” classes it with circumcision;
declares that Adam was “inobservant of the
Sabbath,” affirms the same of Abel, Noah, Enoch,
and Melchizedek, and asserts that Lot “was freed
from the conflagration of the Sodomites” “for
the merits of righteousness, without observance
of the law.” And in the beginning of chapter
iii., he again classes the Sabbath with circumcision,
and asserts that Abraham did not “observe
the Sabbath.”
In chapter iv., he declares that “the observance
of the Sabbath” was “temporary.” And
he continues thus:—
“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,’” etc.
Now see how Tertullian and his brethren disposed
of this commandment respecting the seventh
day:—
“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.”
That is to say in plain language, they would,
under pretense of keeping every day as a Sabbath,
not only work on the seventh day of the
week, but on all the days of the week. But this
plainly proves that Tertullian did not think the
seventh day was superseded by the first. And
thus he proceeds:—
“And through this arises the question for us, what
Sabbath God willed us to keep.”
Our first-day friends quote Tertullian in behalf
of what they call the Christian Sabbath.
Had he believed in such an institution he would
certainly have named it in answer to this question.
But mark his answer:—
“For the Scriptures point to a Sabbath eternal and a
Sabbath temporal. For Isaiah the prophet says, ‘Your
Sabbaths my soul hateth.’ And in another place he says,
‘My Sabbaths ye have profaned.’ Whence we discern
that the temporal Sabbath is human, and the eternal Sabbath
is accounted divine.”
This temporal Sabbath is the seventh day;
this eternal Sabbath is the keeping of all days
alike, as Tertullian affirms that he and those with
him did.
He next declares that Isaiah’s prediction respecting
the Sabbath in the new earth (Isa. 66:
22, 23), was “fulfilled in the times of Christ,
when all flesh—that is, every nation—came to
adore in Jerusalem God the Father.” And he
adds: “Thus, therefore, before this temporal Sabbath
[the seventh day], there was withal an
eternal Sabbath foreshown and foretold,” i. e., the
keeping of all days alike. And this he fortifies
by the assertion that the holy men before Moses
did not observe the seventh day. And in proof
that the Sabbath was one day to cease, he cites
the compassing of Jericho for seven days, one of
which must have been the Sabbath. And to this
he adds the case of the Maccabees who fought
certain battles on the Sabbath. In due time we
shall see how admirably he answers such objections
as these of his own raising.
In chapter vi., he repeats his theory of the
“Sabbath temporal” [the seventh day], and the
“Sabbath eternal” or the “Spiritual Sabbath,”
which is “to observe a Sabbath from all ‘servile
works’ always, and not only every seventh day,
but through all time.” He says that the ancient
law has ceased, and that “the new law” and the
“Spiritual Sabbath” have come.
In the twentieth chapter of his first book
against Marcion, Tertullian cites Hosea 2:11,
and Isa. 1:13, 14, to prove that the Sabbath is
now abrogated. And in his fifth book against
Marcion, chapter iv., he quotes Gal. 4:10; John
19:31; Isa. 1:13, 14; Amos 5:21, and Hosea
2:11, to prove that “the Creator abolished his
own laws,” and that he “destroyed the institutions
which he set up himself.” These quotations
are apparently designed to prove that the
Sabbath is abolished, but he does not enter into
argument from them. But in the nineteenth
chapter of this book he quotes Col. 2:16, 17,
and simply says of the law: “The apostle here
teaches clearly how it has been abolished, even
by passing from shadow to substance—that is,
from figurative types to the reality, which is
Christ.” This remark is truthful and would
justly exclude the moral law from this abolition.
But in chapter xxi. of his second book against
Marcion, he answers the very objection against
the Sabbath which himself has elsewhere urged,
as we have noticed, drawn from the case of Jericho.
He says to Marcion:—
“You do not, however, consider the law of the Sabbath:
they are human works, not divine, which it prohibits.
For it says, ‘Six days shalt thou labor, and do
all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work.’ What
work? Of course your own. The conclusion is, that
from the Sabbath day he removes those works which he
had before enjoined for the six days, that is, your own
works; in other words, human works of daily life. Now,
the carrying around of the ark is evidently not an ordinary
daily duty, nor yet a human one; but a rare and a
sacred work, and, as being then ordered by the direct
precept of God, a divine one.... Thus, in the present
instance, there is a clear distinction respecting the Sabbath’s
prohibition of human labors, not divine ones. Accordingly,
the man who went and gathered sticks on the
Sabbath day was punished with death. For it was his
own work which he did; and this the law forbade.
They, however, who on the Sabbath carried the ark
round Jericho, did it with impunity. For it was not
their own work, but God’s, which they executed, and
that, too, from his express commandment.”
In the following chapter he again cites Isa. 1:11-14,
as proof that the Sabbath is abolished.
He will, however, presently explain this text
which he has so many times used against the
Sabbath, and show that it actually has no such
bearing. In the meantime he will again declare
that Joshua did not break the Sabbath, and having
done this he will find it in order again to assert
that “the Sabbath was actually then broken
by Joshua.” In his fourth book against Marcion,
chapter xii., he discusses the question whether
Christ as Lord of the Sabbath had the right to
annul the Sabbath, and whether in his life he
did actually violate it. To do this he again cites
the case of Jericho, and actually affirms that the
Sabbath was broken on that occasion, and at the
same time denies it. Thus he says:—
“If Christ interfered with the Sabbath, he simply
acted after the Creator’s example; inasmuch as in the
siege of the city of Jericho the carrying around the walls
of the ark of the covenant for eight days running, and
therefore on a Sabbath day, actually annulled the Sabbath,
by the Creator’s command—according to the opinion
of those who think this of Christ [Luke 6:1-5] in their
ignorance that neither Christ nor the Creator violated
the Sabbath, as we shall by-and-by show. And yet the
Sabbath was actually then broken by Joshua, so that the
present charge might be alleged also against Christ.”
The Sabbath was not violated in the case of
Jericho, and yet it certainly was there violated!
Tertullian adds that if Christ hated the Sabbath
he was in this like the Creator himself, who
declares [Isa. 1:14] that he hates it. He forgets
that the Creator has expressly declared his great
regard for the Sabbath by this very prophet
[chap. 58:13, 14], and overlooks the fact that
what God hates is the hypocritical conduct of
the people as set forth in Isaiah 1. In his fourth
book against Marcion, chapter xvi., Christ is
mentioned as the Lord of the Sabbath, but nothing
is said bearing upon Sabbatic obligation. In
chapter xxx., of this same book, he alludes to the
cure wrought by Christ upon the Sabbath day,
mentioned in Luke 13:11-16, and says, “When,
therefore, he did a work according to the condition
prescribed by the law, he affirmed, instead
of breaking, the law,” etc.
In the twelfth chapter of this book, however,
he asserts many things relative to Christ. He
says that the disciples in rubbing out the ears of
corn on the Sabbath “had violated the holy
day. Christ excuses them and became their
accomplice in breaking the Sabbath.” He argues
that as the Sabbath from the beginning, which
he here places at the fall of the manna though
elsewhere dating it from the creation, had never
been designed as a day of fasting, the Saviour
did right in justifying the act of the disciples in
the cornfield. And he terms the example of
David a “colorable precedent” to justify the
eating of the corn. But though he represents
the Saviour as “annulling the Sabbath” at this
time, he also asserts that in this very case “he
maintains the honor of the Sabbath as a day
which is to be free from gloom rather than from
work.” He justifies the Saviour in his acts of
healing on the Sabbath, declaring that in this
he was doing that which the Sabbath law did
not forbid. Tertullian next affirms precisely the
reverse of many things which he has advanced
against the Sabbath, and even answers his own
objections against it. Thus he says:—
“In order that he might, whilst allowing that amount
of work which he was about to perform for a soul, remind
them what works the law of the Sabbath forbade—even
human works; and what it enjoined—even divine works,
which might be done for the benefit of any soul, he was
called ‘Lord of the Sabbath’ because he maintained the
Sabbath as his own institution. Now, even if he had
annulled the Sabbath, he would have had the right to do
so, as being its Lord, [and] still more as he who instituted
it. But lie did not utterly destroy it, although its Lord,
in order that it might henceforth be plain that the Sabbath
was not broken by the Creator, even at the time
when the ark was carried around Jericho. For that was
really God’s work, which he commanded himself, and
which he had ordered for the sake of the lives of his
servants when exposed to the perils of war.” Book iv.
chap. xii.
In this paragraph Tertullian explains the law
of God in the clearest manner. He shows beyond
all dispute that neither Joshua nor Christ ever
violated it. He also declares that Christ did not
abolish the Sabbath. In the next sentence he
goes on to answer most admirably his own repeated
perversion of Isaiah 1:13, 14, and to
contradict some of his own serious errors. Listen
to him:—
“Now, although he has in a certain place expressed an
aversion of Sabbaths, by calling them ‘your Sabbaths,’
reckoning them as men’s Sabbaths, not his own, because
they were celebrated without the fear of God by a people
full of iniquities, and loving God ‘with the lip, not the
heart,’ he has yet put his own Sabbaths (those, that
is, which were kept according to his prescription) in a
different position; for by the same prophet, in a later
passage, he declares them to be ‘true, delightful, and
inviolable.’ [Isa 58:13; 56:2.] Thus Christ did not
at all rescind the Sabbath: he kept the law thereof, and
both in the former case did a work which was beneficial
to the life of his disciples (for he indulged them with the
relief of food when they were hungry), and in the present
instance cured the withered hand; in each case intimating
by facts, ‘I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill
it,’ although Marcion has gagged his mouth by this
word.”
Here Tertullian shows that God did not hate
his own Sabbath, but only the hypocrisy of those
who professed to keep it. He also expressly declares
that the Saviour “did not at all rescind the
Sabbath.” And now that he has his hand in, he
will not cease till he has testified to a noble Sabbatarian
confession of faith, placing its origin at
creation, and perpetuating the institution with
divine safeguards and additional sanctity. Moreover
he asserts that Christ’s adversary [Satan]
would have had him do this to some other days,
a heavy blow as it happens upon those who in
modern times so stoutly maintain that he consecrated
the first day of the week to take the place
of the Creator’s rest-day. Listen again to Tertullian,
who continues as follows:—
“For even in the case before us he fulfilled the law,
while interpreting its condition; [moreover,] he exhibits
in a clear light the different kinds of work, while doing
what the law excepts from the sacredness of the Sabbath,
[and] while imparting to the Sabbath day itself, which
from the beginning had been consecrated by the benediction
of the Father, an additional sanctity by his own beneficent
action. For he furnished to this day divine safeguards,—a
course which his adversary would have pursued for some
other days, to avoid honoring the Creator’s Sabbath, and
restoring to the Sabbath the works which were proper for
it. Since, in like manner, the prophet Elisha on this day
restored to life the dead son of the Shunammite woman,
you see, O Pharisee, and you too, O Marcion, how that
it was [proper employment] for the Creator’s Sabbaths of
old to do good, to save life, not to destroy it; how that
Christ introduced nothing new, which was not after the
example, the gentleness, the mercy, and the prediction
also of the Creator. For in this very example he fulfills
the prophetic announcement of a specific healing: ‘The
weak hands are strengthened,’ as were also ‘the feeble
knees’ in the sick of the palsy.”—Tertullian against Marcion,
b. iv. chap. xii.
Tertullian mistakes in his reference to the
Shunammite woman. It was not the Sabbath day
on which she went to the prophet. 2 Kings 4:23.
But in the last three paragraphs quoted
from him, which in his work form one continuous
statement, he affirms many important truths
which are worthy of careful enumeration. They
are as follows:—
1. Christ, in determining what should, and
what should not, be done on the Sabbath, “was
called ‘Lord of the Sabbath,’ because he maintained
the Sabbath as his own institution.”
2. “The Sabbath was not broken by the Creator,
even at the time when the ark was carried
around Jericho.”
3. The reason why God expressed his aversion
to “your Sabbaths,” as though they were “men’s
Sabbaths, not his own,” was “because they were
celebrated without the fear of God, by a people
full of iniquities.” See Isa. 1:13, 14.
4. “By the same prophet [Isa. 58:13; 56:2],
he declares them [the Sabbaths] to be ‘true and
delightful and inviolable.’”
5. “Thus Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath.”
6. “He kept the law thereof.”
7. “The Sabbath day itself, which from the beginning
had been consecrated by the benediction
of the Father.” This language expressly assigns
the origin of the Sabbath to the act of the Creator
at the close of the first week of time.
8. Christ imparted to the Sabbath “an additional
sanctity by his own beneficent action.”
9. “He furnished to this day divine safeguards,—a
course which his adversary would have pursued
for some other days, to avoid honoring the
Creator’s Sabbath, and restoring to the Sabbath
the works which were proper for it.”
This last statement is indeed very remarkable.
Christ furnished “the Creator’s Sabbath,” the
seventh day, with “divine safeguards.” His adversary
(THE adversary of Christ is the devil)
would have had this course “pursued for some
other days.” That is to say, the devil would
have been pleased had Christ consecrated some
other day, instead of adding to the sanctity of
his Father’s Sabbath. What Tertullian says that
the devil would have been pleased to have Christ
do, that our first-day friends now assert that he
did do in the establishment of what they call the
Christian Sabbath! Such an institution, however,
was never heard of in the days of the so-called
Christian fathers. Notwithstanding Tertullian’s
many erroneous statements concerning
the Sabbath and the law, he has here borne a noble
testimony to the truth, and this completes his
words.
