A distinctive feature of Seventh-day Adventist belief and practice is the observance of the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath, from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, in contrast with the almost universal Christian observance of Sunday. Seventh-day Adventists postulate their belief and practice on the explicit statements of Scripture setting apart the seventh day of the week as a day of rest, on the fact that the distinctive character with which God invested the day is never rescinded in Scripture, on the absence of any recorded transfer of the sacredness of the Sabbath to Sunday or any affirmation of Sunday sacredness, and on the lack of any recorded instance of the observance of the first day of the week as a sabbath by NT Christians.
The fundamental basis for Seventh-day Adventist belief and practice with respect to the seventh-day Sabbath is the fourth command of the Decalogue, God’s moral law, which SDA s consider binding upon people of all ages. Inclusion of the Sabbath with nine other precepts whose moral nature is unquestioned implies that the Author of the Decalogue considered the Sabbath as being invested with moral quality, and as being as important and as universally binding as the other nine. The fact that ritual matters, for example, circumcision, the universal sign of the covenant, were not included in the Decalogue, argues conclusively that the seventh-day Sabbath was not designed to be ritual in quality, but moral.
As the fundamental reason for the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, the fourth command of the Decalogue cites the creation of this world. “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, . . . and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” ( Ex. 20:8–11 ).
For this reason people are to “remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
In Scripture the command to observe the seventh day as the Sabbath is thus linked inseparably to the act of Creation, the institution of the Sabbath and the command to observe it being a direct consequence of the act of Creation. Furthermore, the entire human family owes its existence to the divine act of Creation thus memorialized; accordingly, the obligation to comply with the Sabbath command as a memorial of the creative power of God devolves upon the entire human race.
By its very nature the Sabbath is thus universal in both time and scope. It is effective for as long as the works it was ordained to memorialize endure, and is binding on all who were thus created, and on their descendants. The focus of the Sabbath command is thus within the orbit of human beings’ unalterable moral relationship to their Creator, not of the changing ritual forms by which they worship their Creator.
The Sabbath also supplies a fundamental human need. Said our Lord, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” ( Mark 2:27 ). According to Gen. 2:1–3 , the Sabbath was instituted on the last day of Creation week, when God “rested . . . from all his work. . . . So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation” ( vs. 2 , 3 , RSV ). In other words, the Sabbath was made for human beings and set apart as a holy day—as the climax of the acts of Creation.
Ever since Creation week, then, the seventh day has been the Sabbath of the Lord. Christians generally agree on the desirability of a Sabbath day. But the same Creator, and Author of the Decalogue, who enjoined humanity to keep His holy day, at the same time affirmed that this day was the seventh day of the week. Thus God blended the Sabbath ness and the seventh
In the statement “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath,” Jesus declared human beings to be the Creator’s paramount concern in ordaining the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath. They needed that which the Sabbath was designed to provide: (1) periodic release from what would otherwise have been an unvarying round of daily toil, and (2) an opportunity to cultivate their higher nature as intelligent moral beings.
Christ taught that human beings were not to consider themselves slaves chained to a Sabbath whose restrictions shackled them and prevented their realizing that which would otherwise be for their good. They were to look upon it as a gracious provision made by an all-wise Creator to prevent them from lapsing permanently into the purely materialistic routine of preoccupation with their physical needs and thus, in effect, debasing themselves to the level of the brute creation.
To be sure, human beings are physical creatures, but in addition—and preeminently—they are intelligent, moral, responsible beings made in God’s image ( see Humanity, Doctrine of ). The principal function of the Sabbath day in the Creator’s plan was to provide humanity with an opportunity to develop this aspect of their being, in communion with the One in whose image humans had been created. This was not to be omitted from the six working days but, lest the unvarying routine of daily labor stifle the higher part of their nature, the Creator set apart every seventh day as a time of cessation from ordinary pursuits, and protected it from the intrusion of the physical, material considerations of life by forbidding, on it, the common activities of the workaday week. That is what the word Sabbath in the Hebrew means—cessation.
The day was to be devoted exclusively to the nurture of the intelligent, moral aspects of their being, through communion with God.
From this point of view the ancient rabbinical Sabbath restrictions (see SDACom on Mark 2:24 ; Luke 6:9 ; John 5:10 , 16 , 17 ; 9:6 , 14 ; SB , No. 1373 ) were not only pointless but actually harmful. In fact, they effectively thwarted the Creator’s purpose in ordaining a Sabbath day, for instead of opening up an avenue of communication between humans and their Maker, they perverted the Sabbath command into a legalistic requirement, made its observance a burden, and thus erected a formidable barrier that resulted in a distorted concept of God. The same effect results today when the Sabbath command is construed negatively, as essentially a prohibition of certain activities.
Only when the Sabbath is understood positively, as an opportunity for the development of one’s higher nature through communion with the Creator is its true purpose achieved. The valid negative prohibitions of the fourth commandment are not an end in themselves, but a necessary means to the realization of the higher, positive values with which an all-wise Creator endowed, that is, blessed, the Sabbath. It is this higher concept of the Sabbath to which Christ directs the Christian’s attention in the affirmation that “the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.” God ordained the seventh day of the week as the day on which this dialogue between humans and their Creator should take place.
It is presumptuous to neglect the day God set apart for this purpose, and to substitute in its place a day of our own choosing—the first day of the week—for in so doing we presume to set ourselves above God. The real issue at stake in the observance of the seventh day of the week versus the first day of the week is recognition of the Creator’s transcendent claim to our loyalty versus our innate tendency to substitute our own will for that of the Creator—as Lucifer set out to do in heaven. The principle represented by the Sabbath is thus at the crux of the agelong conflict between good and evil, between Christ and Satan; and true Sabbath observance, in spirit and in truth, is a perpetual affirmation of loyalty to the Creator.
I. Biblical Theology of the Sabbath. 1. General Considerations. The sacredness of the Sabbath derives from a divine blessing ( Gen. 2:3 ), and is significant only in the context of humans. Nature knows no Sabbath, and neither do animals apart from their association with humans as beasts of burden ( Ex. 20:10 ). Only human beings are conscious of the Sabbath. Thus constitutive of the Sabbath is an encounter between God and humanity in the context of a divinely blessed time. The Sabbath cannot be transferred to any other day, for no other day is the “seventh day.” Thus it may be concluded that three factors are constitutive of the Sabbath: God, human beings, and time.
2. The Sabbath and the Covenant. To Israel God declared the Sabbath to be “a sign between me and you . . . ; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you” ( Ex. 31:13 ; cf. Eze. 20:12 , 20 ). It was “a perpetual covenant” ( Ex. 31:16 ). That the significance of the Sabbath is to be found in connection with the covenant is clear also from the Decalogue as given in Deuteronomy, which gives as the reason for the Sabbath Israel’s deliverance from Egypt ( Deut. 5:15 ). This freedom from servitude gives meaning to the provision for the freedom of servants and animals from labor on Sabbath (“Remember that thou wast a servant”). However, more important, as a memorial of Israel’s deliverance from slavery it becomes a sign of the salvation promised in the covenant, an ever-recurring reminder of the covenant relation between Jehovah and Israel. Just as the covenant is based on God’s love for His people ( Deut. 7:7 , 8 ), so the Sabbath, as the sign of that covenant, is a sign of divine love.
The Decalogue in Exodus relates the Sabbath not to the delivery from Egypt but to Creation ( Ex. 20:11 ; cf. 31:17 ). This accords with the fact that in the narrative of Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 the Sabbath is the goal and consummation of Creation. In view of the fact that the story of Creation is told as the prelude to and presupposition of, the covenant of salvation, and in such a way that it is fully understandable only in the light of the covenant, we can say that the Sabbath too, as a memorial of Creation, finds its full meaning only in terms of the covenant.
Theologically, the connection of the Sabbath with Creation is particularly significant. In harmony with the basic meaning of the Heb. shabath , “to cease,” God’s action on the seventh day was a cessation from His work of the first six, not a resting for recuperation from weariness ( Isa. 40:28 ). That God could cease shows His freedom—that He is not a blind, ever on-running force of nature, but a God who in His sovereign freedom can will to create and will to cease creating. That God did cease shows that His work of creating was complete, and His satisfaction with what He had done is shown by the statement “It was very good” ( Gen. 1:31 ).
Thus in the Creation, as well as in the redemption from Egypt, is the implication that the Sabbath is a sign of divine love. His sovereign decision to cease creating also involves a self-limitation, and self-limitation is the essence of covenant making ( cf. Gen. 9:11 ). Thus the Sabbath is both the goal of Creation and the act that makes the covenant possible. At the same time divine action on the seventh day sets the pattern for human celebration of the Sabbath. It is God’s invitation to humanity to share with Him; we cannot participate in the work of the original creation, but it is possible for us to share in the divine rest.
Hence, the Sabbath forms a tie between God’s freedom and the freedom He grants us, and, in this sense, it is the one link between the Creation story in Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 and the subsequent story of redemption. At the same time, it is a recognition on our part that God is Creator, and that we are created beings. This distinction constitutes the foundation of the worship of God.
The divine action of “hallowing,” or sanctifying, the seventh day ( Gen. 2:3 ) signifies the Sabbath’s being set apart as a time in which this divine-human relationship may flourish. The action of “blessing” the Sabbath ( v. 3 ) implies that, in turn, the Sabbath becomes a blessing for us.
3. The Sabbath and the Law. The fact that the Sabbath is contained in the law of God as the fourth command of the Decalogue ( Ex. 20:8–11 ; Deut. 5:12–15 ) is of essential significance. God’s law is a transcript of His character, and the Sabbath command is the only one of the 10 that asserts His authority as lawgiver. This speaks for the perpetuity of the Sabbath. Lying at the heart of the divine law, the Sabbath is particularly revelatory of God’s character of love. In fact, as we have already seen, it is the one of the Ten Commandments that specifically connects the law of God with the covenant of salvation.
4. The Sabbath in the New Testament. The centrality of the Sabbath both to the covenant and to the eternal law of God provides the basis for its significance to the Christian. As with the covenant, so with the Sabbath: the cross, standing at the midpoint of the history of redemption, confirms the hope to which they point, and infuses them with fuller meaning for the Christian ( Jer. 31:31–34 ; Heb. 8:8–12 ).
The Sabbath becomes a symbol of the rest into which the believer enters by faith: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” “We which have believed do enter into rest” ( Heb. 4:9 , 3 ). The reference in this context to “another day” ( v. 8 ) parallels the idea of a “new covenant” ( v. 8 ff. ). As the “new covenant” is not a Christian innovation, but is the everlasting covenant of salvation in its full dimension, so “another day” here is the eternal sabbath of cessation from one’s own efforts at salvation, understood and observed in the depth of Christian perspective—the rest in Jesus Christ that issues from the fulfillment of the covenant promise in Him. The Sabbath is now a memorial not only of Creation but of re-creation in Christ. As the pre-Christian Sabbath stood, in terms of the covenant, between the poles of Creation and the cross, so the Christian Sabbath stands, in terms of the same everlasting covenant, between the poles of the cross and the Second Advent.
This means also that the Sabbath in Christian perspective is divested of all legalism. Its observance, like that of the other Ten Commandments, cannot be for the purpose of salvation; rather, the Sabbath is a joyful act of thanksgiving for the gift of faith and life. It can only be kept truly by the Christian as a result of salvation. The Christian’s Sabbath is thus a delight and a celebration of his or her entrance into rest in Christ Jesus.
5. The Sabbath in Prophecy. In their understanding of biblical prophecy, especially in the books of Daniel and the Revelation, SDA s have seen the issue of Sabbath observance as crucial in our day.
In describing the war of the little horn against the saints of the Most High, the declaration is made that “he . . . shall think to change times and laws” ( Dan. 7:25 ). Identifying the little horn as the Papacy, Seventh-day Adventists have understood this to foreshadow the papal attempt to substitute Sunday observance for that of Sabbath.
Similarly in the prophecies of Revelation 12 to 14 the Sabbath is understood to play a key role. The dragon, representing satanic forces arrayed against the church, makes war against those who “keep the commandments of God” ( Rev. 12:17 ). In such a struggle, fidelity to the Sabbath command becomes a paramount issue. This struggle is reflected again in the activities of the leopard beast ( Rev. 13:1–10 ) and the two-horned beast ( vs. 11–17 ), the former symbolizing the Papacy, the latter the United States. To the Papacy the dragon gives “his power, and his seat, and great authority” ( v. 2 ). In turn, the two-horned beast, the United States, comes to exercise “all the power of the first beast” ( v. 12 ); makes “an image to the beast” ( v. 14 ), and is allowed to cause those who “will not worship the image of the beast” to be slain ( v. 15 ). It also “causeth all, . . . to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads” with a “mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” ( vs. 16 , 17 ). Seventh-day Adventists have understood this passage to mean that ultimately the United States will champion the cause of the Papacy and will seek to enforce the Papacy’s will. The salient issue will be the observance of Sunday in place of Sabbath, and all who do not concur will eventually face the penalty of death.
Thus Sunday observance, in the context of this eschatological struggle , will constitute in the end a distinguishing mark, here spoken of as the mark of the beast. Satan has exalted Sunday as the sign of his authority, while the Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty to God. This issue will divide Christendom into two classes, and will characterize the final time of trouble for the people of God.
The same theme appears in the third angel’s message of Revelation 14 , which is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who “keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” ( v. 12 ). Here the issue described in Rev. 13:12–17 is seen in the context of the rise of the SDA people, proclaiming the binding chain of God’s commandments, including the Sabbath, but from the point of view of faith in Jesus, which is the only valid frame of reference for observing the commandments.
II. Biblical History of the Sabbath. 1. Old Testament. The institution of the “seventh day” as the Sabbath appears at the beginning of the biblical narrative—as the climax of Creation week ( Gen. 2:1 , 2 )—but the term “sabbath” first appears in the narrative of the giving of the manna shortly after the Exodus and before Israel’s arrival at Sinai ( Ex. 16:22 , 23 ). The fourth command of the Decalogue establishes the observance of the Sabbath ( Ex. 20:8–11 ; Deut. 5:14 , 15 ). It is also mentioned in the covenant code ( Ex. 23:12 ) and in what has been called the “ritual decalogue” (see Ex. 34:21 ). In fact, of all the Ten Commandments the Sabbath command is mentioned in the Pentateuch more often than any other ( Ex. 16:23 ; 20:8–11 ; 23:12 ; 31:12–17 ; 34:21 ; 35:1–3 ; Lev. 19:3 ; 23:1–3 ; 26:2 ; Deut. 5:14 , 15 ).
For a consideration of current theories that propose to trace the origin of the Sabbath to the social and cultural environment of the ancient East, see sec. III.
During the history of the Israelite kingdoms the Sabbath is mentioned only a few times, but in such a way as to throw light on various aspects of its observance. Thus, when the Shunammite’s son lay ill, and she asked her husband for a servant and an ass with which to visit Elisha ( 2 Kings 4:22 , 23 ), he replied with surprise, “Why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor sabbath” ( RSV ). This reply suggests (1) that it was customary to visit the prophets on the Sabbath, and (2) that a journey to a prophet was possible because servants and beasts of burden were free from normal labor on that day.
It was also on the Sabbath that the royal palace guard in Jerusalem was changed ( 2 Kings 11:5–7 ), and the high priest Jehoiada took advantage of this fact to stage a coup d’état against Athaliah, since at that time he could have twice the normal number of troops at his disposal without attracting attention. During the reign of Ahaz there seems to have been some kind of “covered way for the sabbath” ( 2 Kings 16:18 , RSV ) within the palace. What this was or why it was removed “because of the king of Assyria” is unclear.
At the same time, the prophets were crying out against a formalized and hypocritical observance of the Sabbath. Isaiah declared, “I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly” ( Isa. 1:13 , RSV ). Hosea prophesied, “I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths” ( Hosea 2:11 , RSV ). Amos bitingly parodied his contemporaries, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great?” ( Amos 8:5 , RSV ). These words also suggest that shops were regularly closed on the Sabbath. Jeremiah emphasized the importance of Sabbath observance if Jerusalem was to be saved, and implied that in previous generations the Sabbath had not been respected by the Israelites ( Jer. 17:21–27 ).
The publication by D. J. Wiseman in 1956 of some cuneiform chronicles of the Chaldean kings of the Neo-Babylonian Empire has given a specific date for the capture of Jerusalem and of King Jehoiachin by Nebuchadnezzar—the second day of the month Adar, which is equated with considerable probability, with Mar. 16, 597 B.C. (see SB , No. 906 ). Some years after this publication it was recognized that this date fell on a Sabbath day. It appears also, from a similar computation, that the end of the siege of Jerusalem under Zedekiah possibly fell on a Sabbath day.
These observations have led to the conclusion that Nebuchadnezzar, like Antiochus Epiphanes, may have made it a special point to attack the Jews on the Sabbath day because they may not have resisted on that day. This cannot be proved as a certainty from the evidence at hand, but the conclusion remains a distinct possibility. (See Alger F. Johns, “The Military Strategy of Sabbath Attacks on the Jews,” Vetus Testamentum 13:482–486, 4th Quarter 1963.)
With the coming of the Exile, Ezekiel repeatedly pointed to the neglect of the Sabbath as an indication of Israel’s apostasy ( Eze. 22:8 , 26 ; 23:38 ; cf. 20:12–24 ). At the same time he looked forward in the portrayal of his ideal, restored Temple to a perfect observance of the Sabbath ( Eze. 44:24 ; 45:17 ; 46:1–12 ).
This emphasis on the Sabbath as a key indication of Israel’s adherence to YHWH’s covenant, in both Jeremiah’s denunciations before the Exile and Ezekiel’s during it, is reflected in the strict concern for Sabbathkeeping evidenced by Nehemiah after the nation was restored.
In Ezra’s public prayer before the people, the Sabbath is specifically mentioned: “Thou didst make known to them thy holy sabbath and command them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses thy servant” ( Neh. 9:14 , RSV ). The written covenant that Nehemiah and the leaders of the Jews publicly sealed included a pledge not to buy from the people of the land on the Sabbath day ( Neh. 10:31 ). The account of Nehemiah’s reform tells in further detail how he enforced this pledge: When he observed men pressing wine, gathering grain and fruit, and bringing them into Jerusalem on the Sabbath, as well as foreigners bringing in and selling fish and other wares, he forbade this with the warning that in doing so they would “bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the sabbath” ( Neh. 13:18 , RSV ). Accordingly he ordered that the gates of Jerusalem should be shut at the beginning of the Sabbath and should not be opened until it was past. In addition, he placed guards at the gates to see that this restriction was enforced ( vs. 19–22 ).
Psalm 92 , of uncertain authorship and date, is entitled “A Psalm or Song for the sabbath day.” It is a psalm of thanksgiving and praise, lauding the steadfast love and faithfulness of God. It reflects the delight of the Jew in the Sabbath and shows that, at its best, the observance of the Sabbath was an occasion of joy, thanksgiving, and exultation. The position of the Sabbath was also reflected in the services of the sanctuary, where it was marked off by special offerings and ritual. Two extra lambs with accompanying food and drink offerings were added to the regular burnt offering ( Num. 28:9 , 10 ), and on this day the showbread was replaced ( Lev. 24:8 ).
2. The Intertestamental Period. The trends toward a strict observance of the Sabbath that began to develop during and following the Exile (Ezekiel, Ezra, Nehemiah) became particularly pronounced during the intertestamental period, and later reached their classic formulation in the Mishnah (third century A.D.). The developments of the intertestamental period are particularly significant for an understanding of the Sabbath in the NT and the early church.
a. Jewish Practice at Elephantine, Egypt. In the fifth century B.C. a colony of Jewish mercenary soldiers lived on the Nile island of Elephantine in Upper Egypt. Early in the twentieth century a collection of ancient papyri, and later more papyri and also inscribed ostraca (potsherds), were found there. These were all written in the Aramaic language and script used by the Jews of that period—the time of Ezra and Nehemiah—and many of them were dated to that time. These texts give a picture of the life of the colony on Elephantine, and reveal that these Jews mixed idolatry with the worship of the true God (see SB , Nos. 910 , 911 ).
Because of this, and because the Sabbath was not mentioned in any of the papyri, many scholars believed that the Jews of Elephantine probably did not observe it as a day of rest. However, when the potsherds were studied in the 1940s, it was found that four of them specifically mentioned the Sabbath as a day of rest. For example, one (bearing the excavators’ number 152) begins with these words: “Greetings to Yislah. Now look, I shall not send the jar tomorrow. Fasten the ox tomorrow, on the Sabbath, lest he may go astray. As Jehovah liveth!” (published by A. Dupont-Sommer in France; see Review and Herald 127:10, Mar. 23, 1950). It is quite possible that some of the Jews of Elephantine chose to follow the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah, which involved stricter Sabbath observance ( Neh. 10:31 ; 13:15–22 ). On the other hand, idolatrous Jews probably had little or no regard for the Sabbath.
b. Problem of Defense on the Sabbath. Repeatedly during this period the Jews faced the same issue they had apparently faced in the days of Nebuchadnezzar: Would they fight on the Sabbath or not? Agatharchides (second century B.C.) is cited by Josephus for the record that around 300 B.C. Ptolemy I chose to occupy Jerusalem on the Sabbath because the Jews would not fight on that day.
This problem became particularly acute during the Maccabean rebellion (168–142 B.C.). At the beginning of the war a group of insurgent Jews took refuge with their families in the caves of the Judean desert.
The Syrians pursued them and attacked them on Sabbath; the Jews refused to resist, and were slaughtered. In the light of this experience, Mattathias, the leader of the revolt, and his colleagues thereafter fought on the Sabbath, but only when attacked.
This problem appeared again in 63 B.C., when the Roman general Pompey marched on Jerusalem. Knowing of the Jews’ refusal to fight on the Sabbath except in self-defense, the Romans used these days for raising earthworks against the city walls, which the Jews would do nothing to stop. After a three-month siege, Pompey was able to take the city on a Sabbath day. Again in 37 B.C., when the Romans took Jerusalem from Antigonus in order to install Herod the Great, it was on a Sabbath that the final resistance was crushed.
From the time of Julius Caesar on, the Roman authorities repeatedly issued edicts granting the Jews the right to live by their own laws, and particularly exempting them from military service and lawsuits on the Sabbath.
c. The Essenes. Probably the strictest observance of the Sabbath during this period is found among the Essenes. Of them Josephus reports: “They are stricter than any other of the Jews in resting from their labours on the seventh day; for they not only get their food ready the day before, that they may not be obliged to kindle a fire on that day, but they will not remove any vessel . . . , nor go to stool thereon” (Jos. War 2. 8. 9).
The prohibition of removing “any vessel” on the Sabbath seems to indicate a rejection of the Pharisaic provision of the Ôerub —a casuistic procedure by which articles could be moved on the Sabbath. This tendency of the Essenes to observe the Sabbath more rigorously than other Jews is reflected also in the Zadokite Document, which if not Essene is at least closely allied to that kind of sectarian Judaism.
There the following are prohibited on Sabbath: empty talk, collection of debts, lawsuits, planning of or preparation for future work, walking more than 1,000 cubits outside the city, eating food not prepared in advance unless when traveling, wearing soiled clothing, or observing a voluntary fast. Especially in regard to animals the restrictions were specific: a beast was not to be taken more than 2,000 cubits from the city for pasture, was not to be struck with the hand nor forced to go out of doors, nor helped in giving birth. Even if its young were dropped into a pit, they were not to be lifted out. Here the more extreme character of the sectarian restriction is evident as compared with that of the Pharisees reflected in Matt. 12:11 .
Similarly the practice of Ôerub is forbidden: No one was to remove an article from his house or bring one in. Household activities in general were at a minimum: no opening of a sealed vessel, sweeping of the floor, or carrying of babies about. Slaves and hired servants were not to be constrained to work, and the hiring of a Gentile to take care of one’s business on Sabbath was specifically forbidden. Many of these laws are similar to those of normative Judaism, but several are more strict.
d. The Followers of Hillel and of Shammai. Another area of difference in Sabbath practice, in the time of Herod the Great, was that between the followers of Hillel and of Shammai, two prominent Pharisaic teachers who represented liberal and conservative tendencies in the interpretation of the law. Thus, for instance, the Shammaites forbade setting nets for game if the hunter was not certain of having his catch before the beginning of the Sabbath, while the Hillelites allowed it; similarly the former forbade sending one’s laundry to a Gentile, unless the work was at least to be begun before the beginning of the Sabbath; the Hillelites, however, allowed any activity as long as the Sabbath had not actually begun.
e. Sabbath Regulations in the Mishnah. The classic expression of Jewish Sabbath regulations is founded in the Mishnah, and particularly in the tractates Shabbath and ÔErubin . Here are found detailed enumerations of what sort of tasks may and may not be performed on the Sabbath, what burdens may and may not be borne, how far one may travel, and in the latter tractate, elaborate rules making possible the transfer of goods from a private to a public place. Much of the tractate Shabbath is concerned with the Thirty-nine Primary Labors prohibited on the Sabbath, and the derivation from these of subsidiary rules for the details of life.
Although these regulations did not reach their present formulation until the third century A.D., a number of their provisions are reflected in incidents described in the NT . Thus the complaint against Jesus’ disciples, that they broke the Sabbath by picking ears of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating them ( Matt. 12:1–8 ; Mark 2:23–28 ; Luke 6:1–5 ), seems to be related to two of the Thirty-nine Primary Labors, threshing and winnowing.
Jesus’ retort to the ruler of the synagogue who criticized Him for healing the bent woman on the Sabbath was, “Doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?” ( Luke 13:15 ). This is paralleled in the tractate Shabbath by a series of conditions under which animals may be taken out on the Sabbath.
The condemnation of the healed paralytic for carrying his bed on the Sabbath is related to another of the forbidden Thirty-nine Primary Labors, that of removing an object from one place to another. Jesus’ reference to the allowing of circumcision ( John 7:22 ) is paralleled by the general provision that all things necessary for circumcision are lawful on the Sabbath.
At the same time, in some instances the Jewish attitudes reflected in the Gospels appear more severe than those found in classical Judaism. Thus as W.O.E. Oesterley has pointed out, the repeated criticism of Jesus for healing on the Sabbath (e.g., Matt. 12:9–13 ; Luke 14:1–6 ; John 5:1–16 ) seems out of harmony with provisions in the Mishnah, allowing certain healing procedures, although this seeming difference may possibly be explained by the fact that Jesus’ healings were performed on chronic cases.
More striking is the abstention of the women from embalming Jesus’ body on the Sabbath ( Luke 23:54–56 ), which reflects a stricter practice than that allowed by the Mishnah. The latter declares, “All the requirements of the dead may be done [on the Sabbath], he may be anointed with oil and washed” (Shabbath 23.5). See SB , No. 1373 .
3. New Testament.
a. Jesus and the Sabbath. The Gospels contain four sayings of Jesus regarding the Sabbath: Mark 2:27 , 28 (= Matt. 12:8 ; Luke 6:5 ); Mark 3:4 (= Matt. 12:12 ; Luke 6:9 ); Matt. 12:11 , 12 ; Luke 14:5 . In Mark 2:27 , 28 , the declaration “the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; so the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath” ( RSV ) is Jesus’ response to the Pharisees’ complaint that His disciples transgressed the Sabbath by plucking grain. Neither in these words nor in His appeal to the example of David in eating the showbread does Jesus claim that His disciples had not broken the Sabbath, as far as the Jewish point of view is concerned. Rather, in Matthew’s words, He declares them guiltless in view of the underlying purpose of the Sabbath—the well-being of humanity. This, no Sabbath proscription can override.
Late in the second century a rabbinic dictum states: “The Sabbath is given to you; you are not given over to the Sabbath.” This dictum, however, is directed only toward situations in which life is in danger, while Jesus takes as His criterion the whole scope of human welfare (see Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, vol. 2, p. 15).
In each of Jesus’ miracles of healing on the Sabbath the basic thought is the same: “Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” ( Mark 3:4 , RSV ). This, in the context of the fact that Jesus’ recorded Sabbath healings were consistently performed on chronic cases who were not in immediate danger of death ( Mark 3:1–5 ; Luke 13:10–17 ; 14:1–6 ; John 5:1–15 ; 9:1–17 ), points to the conclusion that in these actions a dimension deeper than merely a physical healing is involved.
Encounter with Jesus was a matter of life and death. If, as the Jews recognized, the Sabbath might be “transgressed” for the purpose of saving life, then every encounter with Jesus, every healing, whether of a chronic case or not, was a question of life that no Sabbath proscription could supersede. Thus when condemned for healing the man who had been infirm 38 years, He could reply, “My Father is working still, and I am working” ( John 5:17 , RSV ).
From the point of view of their immediate context Jesus’ disputes with the Pharisees over the Sabbath appear to have been attempts to bring a greater humanitarian concern to bear on the Sabbath laws, and a deeper insight into the basic purpose of the Sabbath. Jesus’ custom of attending the synagogue on Sabbath ( Mark 1:21 ; 6:2 ; Luke 4:16 , 31 ; 13:10 ) and participating in its services demonstrates His positive attitude toward this institution as a time of worship.
b. Paul and the Sabbath. Paul’s only direct reference to the Sabbath is in Colossians 2:16 , 17 : “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”
Some commentators have suggested that Paul here does not speak of a “ceremonial” sabbath or annual feast day. They infer this from the sequence “festival or a new moon or a sabbath” ( v. 16, RSV ) representing the yearly, the monthly, and the weekly days of observance, a sequence of terms (or its reverse) that occurs frequently in the OT ( 2 Chron. 2:4 ; 8:13 ; Neh. 10:33 ; Eze. 45:17 ; Hosea 2:11 ). Furthermore, they point out that the ceremonial sabbaths are already included in the word “festival” ( Heb. moÆÔed ; Gr. heorteµ ). It is true that as observed by the Jews certain ritual requirements were prescribed for the weekly Sabbath ( Num. 28:9 , 10 ; etc.). In addition, a long list of rabbinical prohibitions was later attached to its observance. Thus, even if it be understood that Paul here refers to the weekly Sabbath, his concern would be with the ritual observance of the day as part and parcel of the works-righteousness concept of rabbinical Judaism. Even in OT times such observance of the Sabbath was repugnant to God ( Isa. 1:11–15 ).
But the Sabbath antedated the ritual system, and was basically moral in nature. Its later inclusion within the framework of the ritual system did not—in fact, could not—deprive it of its perpetual moral quality, and when the ritual observances attached to the Sabbath in OT times lost their validity at the cross, its basic moral quality and the moral obligation to observe it remained.
Seventh-day Adventists, however, have usually held that since the context deals with ritual matters, the sabbaths here referred to are the ceremonial sabbaths of the Jewish annual festivals “which are a shadow,” or type, of which the fulfillments were to come in Christ; that although the sequence of terms might appear to class the Sabbath with the ceremonial holy days, the rhetorical form cannot outweigh the facts established elsewhere in the Bible, that the types and symbols extending only to Christ do not include the Sabbath of the Decalogue. For the seven annual rest days of the ritual system, which might fall on any day of the week, see Sabbaths, Annual .
A passage closely related to Colossians 2:16 is Galatians 4:10 : “You observe days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid I have labored over you in vain” ( RSV ). The context of this passage, referring to the Galatians’ slavery to the “elemental spirits of the universe” ( vs. 3 , 9 ), as well as Colossians 2:18 , which speaks of the Colossians’ “worship of angels,” has led some scholars to associate these heresies with some type of sectarian Judaism similar to that of Qumrân, instead of with normative Judaism.
In certain parts of the Qumrân literature (Jubilees, 1 Enoch), much is made of the angels, and particularly of the fallen angels, who are understood to dominate the heathen world. Angels, both good and evil, were also identified with the stars (or planets). There is ample evidence that in the first century the veneration of the planets was widespread among the Jews. W. Rordorf has argued convincingly that from the first century B.C. onward Saturn, considered an unlucky star, was associated in many Jewish minds with the celebration of Sabbath ( Der Sonntag, pp. 32, n. 24; 28–37). All this points toward the conclusion that Paul’s declarations concerning the observance of days are probably to be understood in the context of a Judaizing legalism encrusted with an aberrant, sectarian veneration of angels and heavenly bodies.
In his evangelistic travels Paul followed the practice of attending Jewish synagogues ( Acts 13:14 ; 14:1 ; 16:13 ; 17:1 , 2 , 10 , 17 ; 18:4 , 19 ; 19:8 ). Wherever there was a Jewish community or synagogue, there he went first on the Sabbath to preach Christ. Only when the Jews refused to tolerate him did he move his base of operation elsewhere ( Acts 18:6 , 7 ; 19:8 , 9 ). The nature of the synagogue service, in which visiting rabbis were often invited to participate in the Scripture reading and sermon, provided an ideal opportunity for him ( Acts 13:14–41 ), as it had for Jesus ( Luke 4:16 f.). In this action he seems to have been following the example of Jesus Himself. (Luke’s consciousness of this is probably reflected by his almost identical phraseology in Luke 4:16 and Acts 17:2 .) Just as Jesus’ action implied approval of Sabbath worship, so did Paul’s.
c. The Lord’s Day in Revelation. John the revelator declares that his initial vision was given when he “was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” ( Rev. 1:10 ). Seventh-day Adventists have understood this as a reference to the Sabbath because: (1) It is a unique expression in Scripture, where the only day ever identified with the Lord is the Sabbath ( Isa. 58:13 ; Mark 2:28 ): (2) the earliest unequivocal reference to the “Lord’s day” as Sunday does not appear till late in the second century (in the apocryphal Gospel According to Peter 9, 12). For a fuller discussion of this problem, see SDACom 7:735, 736.
III. Theories on the Origin of the Sabbath. As a matter of information, the following discussion and evaluation of current theories about the origin of the Sabbath are included.
Following are the main theories on the origin of the Sabbath in Israel’s history:
1. The Babylonian Theory. The view has been proposed frequently that the Sabbath was derived from Babylonian practices revealed in cuneiform documents, and particularly in connection with the Babylonian word sûapattu .
A century ago Henry Rawlinson published a Babylonian text listing synonyms in parallel columns: here sûapattu is defined as uûm nuûhË libbi , “a day of rest of the [gods’] heart.” The word also appears in the Babylonian Creation Epic, where it refers to the full-moon day at the middle of the lunar month. Its use is attested in a letter as far back as the First Dynasty of Babylon (eighteenth century B.C.): “The [new] moon, the seventh day and the full moon [ sûa-pa-at-ta-am ] complete as has been shown to thee” (E. G. Kraeling, American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 49:220, April 1933).
In another lexicographical tablet the term sûapattu is applied similarly to the fifteenth day of the month. On this day the king was to observe a number of prohibitions: he must not ride in a chariot, make public appearances, eat cooked meat, or wear white garments—lest the gods be displeased. Thus the Babylonian sûapattu was an unlucky day on which the gods were to be appeased.
Another Babylonian tablet lists the days of the intercalary month of Second Elul, naming the god to which each day of the month was sacred and the liturgies to be performed that day. On the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of this month the king was to observe the same restrictions of activity as on the sûapattu . To many it has appeared logical to conclude that in view of these recurrent days on which the king rested from his usual activities in a cycle of approximately every seven days, the Hebrew Sabbath had its origin in Babylonian religious practice.
An ingenious variation of this theory, worked out by Johannes Meinhold ( Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 29:81–112, April 1909; ibid. N.S. 7:121–138, June 1930), has attracted considerable attention. Recognizing that sûapattu , as the fifteenth day of the lunar month, was the full moon, and that “new moon and Sabbath” appear together repeatedly in the OT ( 2 Kings 4:23 ; Isa. 1:13 ; Hosea 2:11 ; Amos 8:5 ), Meinhold proposes the view that the Sabbath among the Israelites was originally a monthly full-moon festival rather than one falling every seven days. At a point before the Exile he sees the Israelites having begun to celebrate a weekly rest day during plowing time and harvest ( Ex. 34:21 ), and eventually extending the practice throughout the year. He thinks that eventually, perhaps under Nehemiah, the name “Sabbath” was transferred from the monthly to the weekly festival.
This reconstruction is untenable for a number of reasons: There is no convincing evidence that the Israelites ever called their full-moon festival the Sabbath (the Heb. word for this is keseÔ, as in Ps. 81:3 ). The transfer of a name from a lunar festival to a free-running weekly cycle is hardly probable, and research has led to the conclusion that the weekly Sabbath can be traced back much too early to fit Meinhold’s theory. Furthermore, the recurrence of the mention of new moon and Sabbath together is sufficiently explained by the fact that these two festivals, unlike all the others, were not yearly.
While the Babylonian sûapattu may be related in some indirect way to the Hebrew Sabbath, it has been pointed out repeatedly that in character and practice the two institutions are almost diametrically opposed.
The Hebrew Sabbath was devoted always to Jehovah; the restrictions placed on work extended to the whole population and not only to the ruler: the Sabbath was not an unlucky day or one on which Jehovah was to be propitiated (though as North has pointed out, there may be indeed some connection between these ideas and that of holiness). There is nothing of the taboo in the Hebrew restrictions on the Sabbath.
The Hebrew Sabbath was not a lunar festival reckoned in terms of the lunar month as were the Babylonian days of prohibition, but was entirely free from lunar reckoning and ran with complete independence of the monthly cycle. No proof has yet been forthcoming that the term sûapattu applied to the fifteenth day or was ever used of the unlucky days in a Babylonian seven-day cycle; nor indeed has a clear etymological relation between Heb. shabbath and Babylonian sûapattu been established.
Thus it is clear that whatever historical interrelationships there may have been between the two institutions, the Hebrew Sabbath, in both its observance and its inner meaning, stands completely apart from its Babylonian parallel. It is to be understood entirely from the point of view of Israel’s faith in, and covenant with, Jehovah.
2. The Market Day Explanation. A sociological explanation of the origin of the Sabbath has been advanced by Max Weber ( Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie III [1921], 159 f. ), Eduard Meyer ( Geschichte des Altertums II², 2, 318 f. ; both as cited by Kraeling [ American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 49: 226–228]) and others. They see the seven-day cycle as a market week and point to Amos 8:5 and Neh. 13:15 as indicative of attempts to enhance the religious observance of the Sabbath at the expense of its original function as the market day. This explanation is not plausible, however, because there is no clear evidence of a market week in Palestine, and the passages cited may equally well be taken to mean that trading on Sabbath was an innovation in the face of an original prohibition against it.
3. A Calendrical Theory. A calendrical explanation has been offered by Julius and Hildegard Lewy ( Hebrew Union College Annual 17:1–152, 1942–1943) and popularized by Julian Morgenstern ( Vetus Testamentum 5:34–76, January 1955, and especially “Sabbath,” Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible [New York, 1962], IV, 135–137). They posit an essentially agricultural calendar as having been used widely in Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and Cappadocia, particularly during the second millennium B.C. This calendar is supposed to have divided the year into seven hÉamuÆstu , or fifties,” i.e. , periods of 50 days each, which the Lewys have called “pentecontads.” Each pentecontad thus consisted of seven weeks plus one day, this final day standing outside the weekly cycle and regularly breaking its continuity. In order to coordinate this with the solar year, which was essential for agricultural purposes, in Palestine two periods of seven days each were supposed to have been intercalated (one following the fourth pentecontad, the other following the seventh), plus one additional sacred day. These are described as festival periods consisting of sacred days (the second period being the Feast of Unleavened Bread). One pentecontad they see reflected in Lev. 23:9–21 , the “morrow after the sabbath” ( vs. 11 , 15 ) being the New Year’s Day following the seven final days of the year (days of Unleavened Bread); the fiftieth day, “the morrow after the seventh sabbath” ( v. 16 ), on which the first fruits were offered, would be the festival terminating the first pentecontad of the new year.
Morgenstern sees this calendar, based on the number seven in terms of a recurring (though broken) seven-day cycle, as the setting in which both the Hebrew Sabbath and the Babylonian sûapattu arose, albeit independently of each other.
The theory of the pentecontad calendar has not met with wide acceptance. It fails to demonstrate how the supposedly broken weekly cycle became an unbroken one independent of any lunar or solar reckoning. However, further investigation has shown that the hÉamuÆstu periods, on which the pentecontad idea is predicated, could not have been as long as 50 days.
4. The Kenite Theory. Other scholars have sought the origin of the Sabbath in connection with the seven planets ( i.e. , the five visible to the ancients plus the sun and moon), and particularly in a supposed worship of Saturn. Amos 5:25 , 26 is understood to mean that as far back as the wilderness period the Hebrews worshiped a star god. The context of such worship they find in the Kenites, a branch of the Midianites among whom Moses settled on his flight from Egypt ( Ex. 2:15 ; Judges 1:16 ), and where—according to this theory—he first came to worship Yahweh ( Ex. 3:15 ; 6:2 , 3 ).
These Kenites met Israel in the wilderness ( Ex. 18 ), and lived on with them in Canaan ( Judges 1:16 ; 4:17 ), where their descendants, the Rechabites ( 1 Chron. 2:55 ), appear both in the time of Jehu ( 2 Kings 10:23 ) and of Jeremiah ( Jer. 35 ) as zealous worshipers of Yahweh and conservators of the primitive wilderness way of life.
Those who hold this theory identify the name Kenite with the name Cain, which in Aramaic and Arabic means “smith” (citing Gen. 4:22 , where one of Cain’s descendants, Tubal-cain, is said to have been a smith, also Jael, whose husband was a Kenite, and who was in possession of a hammer; Judges 4:17 ). This, in turn, they relate to Ex. 35:3 , where the kindling of fire on the Sabbath is particularly forbidden, and to Num. 15:32 , where a man is executed for gathering sticks on the Sabbath (to build a fire). If the Kenites were smiths, it follows that a prohibition to kindle fire would have been tantamount to a prohibition of work. All these evidences are interrelated to suggest that the Kenites were a Midianite tribe of smiths who worshiped Saturn, and as a part of this worship, abstained from work on the seventh day which, as Saturn’s day, was considered unlucky. From them, so the theory concludes, the Israelites received both Yahweh worship and the Sabbath.
This theory, to the extent that it is associated with Saturn-worship, is hardly convincing, because it offers no proof for its basic premise, that the Kenites were worshipers of Saturn, nor indeed that a planetary week (even a week tied to only one planet) existed this early. Actually, not only is there no certain proof of the planetary week earlier than the first century of the Christian Era, but the evidence is against its existence earlier than the Hellenistic period (see SB , No. 1767 ).
Intriguing as some find it to think that Moses’ connections with the Midianites may have had a significant influence on Israelite religion and law as promulgated by him, Rowley’s explanation rests on theories of history and literature for which there is no evidence.
5. Evaluation of Theories. Seventh-day Adventists reject the above theories that attempt to find the origin of the Sabbath in the context of the social and religious history of the ancient Near East and point to the divine institution of the day on the seventh day of Creation week.
IV. Sabbath in Church History. 1. In the Early Centuries. It is assumed by most modern Christians that from apostolic times, if not from the very resurrection of Christ, Sunday replaced the Sabbath. However, the New Testament references to the first day of the week do not bear out this assumption ( see Sunday ).
The introduction of Sunday as a day commemorating the resurrection of Christ did not preclude the continuance of Sabbathkeeping; in fact, the original Christians observed the Sabbath as a matter of course, and some Christians later adopted Sunday also, observing both. The celebration of both days side by side is attested for centuries after the observance of Sunday began.
Even though Sunday was a prominent day of religious observance, at least by the end of the second century and perhaps earlier (see Present Truth 1:82, Nov. 1850), it was not at first celebrated as a “sabbath.” Sunday meetings were held in honor of the creation of the world, the resurrection of Christ, and the “eighth-day circumcision” of the Christian from sin, but not in obedience to the fourth commandment.
New Testament truths were rapidly distorted in the early church. Justification by faith gave way to legalism in the second century, and the doctrines of the nature of humans, the nature of Christ, and the authority of Scripture were seriously deformed. The Sabbath, designed to hold as a reminder of God’s creative and redemptive power, suffered similarly. Paul wrote that “the mystery of iniquity” (or “lawlessness,” RSV ) was already at work ( 2 Thess. 2:7 ), and the evidence from early Christian writers confirms his report. Because the truth about the Sabbath is to be found in the Bible rather than in tradition, neither the statements nor the practices of early Christians outside the Bible can alter its binding authority for people today.
Information from documents of that period as to the practice of Christians in the early centuries with regard to the observance of Sabbath or Sunday is extremely limited and scattered, and any interpretation of the data must remain tentative. None of it rules out the possibility that in the second and third centuries large groups of non-Jewish Christians observed the Sabbath in accordance with the commandment and with the gospel; extant source documents neither prove nor disprove this.
Christians who did not keep the Sabbath, even as early as the second century, wrote against it. The heretical Christians who, from around A.D. 140 on adopted Gnosticism, considered the Sabbath to be a memorial of the God of the OT , a God whom some Gnostics held to be evil. Other prominent heretics, the Montanists, who arose in Asia Minor about A.D. 175, seem to have ignored the Sabbath in spite of their enthusiasm for spiritual reform.
In the church also were those who despised the Sabbath. Justin Martyr ( c. 150), of Rome, alleged that it had been given to the Jews only, because they were notoriously hardhearted. Irenaeus ( c. 185) dispensed with the Sabbath commandment as unnecessary for Christians, as well as for Abraham and the other patriarchs before Moses.
In North Africa, at the beginning of the third century, Tertullian echoed both Justin and Irenaeus. In Syria, in the middle of the century, the Didascalia Apostolorum ordered Jewish converts to Christianity to give up the Sabbath as part of the Mosaic legislation that was done away in Christ. In Pettau, at the end of the century, Victorinus urged his readers to fast on Sabbath in order to avoid any appearance of keeping the Sabbath like the Jews. Christ, he alleged, hated the Sabbath and abolished it.
An interesting apocryphal statement attributed to Christ appears in Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1, published in the 1890s: “Except ye sabbatize the Sabbath ye shall not see the Father” (see Barnard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, Oxyrhynchus Papyri , part 1, pp. 1–3). The same saying was found at Chenoboskion, Egypt, about 1945, incorporated into the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas (A. Guillaumont and others, The Gospel According to Thomas , p. 19). Scholars generally hold that the statement originated at least by A.D. 140. If, as indications suggest, it arose among Jewish-Christian congregations in Syria, it would show a strong regard for the Sabbath among these Christians. On the other hand, its occurrence in the Gospel of Thomas is of doubtful historical significance, because the Gnostics had a remarkable facility for allegorizing the plainest scriptures. The same is true of the assertion in the second-century Gospel of Truth, also found at Chenoboskion about 1945, that the Sabbath is the day “on which salvation should not be idle,” because of the strong possibility that it arose among the Valentinian Gnostics, who also spiritualized Scripture.
Justin Martyr, who was the first-known writer to mention weekly Sunday worship, speaks disparagingly in his Dialogue With Trypho ( ch. 42) of Jewish Christians and their Gentile converts who observed the Sabbath. Tertullian, in the next century, mentions those who insisted on showing the same respect to Sabbath as to Sunday by standing (instead of kneeling) in prayer in church on those days ( On Prayer ch. 23, SB , No. 1409g ).
In the fourth century the so-called Apostolic Constitutions taught that the Sabbath ought to be observed because it is the memorial of Creation, and that slaves should be worked only five days a week, so that on both Sabbaths and Sundays they might have leisure to attend church ( SB , No. 1414 ). At the same time Psuedo-Ignatius taught the observance of both days ( SB , No. 1411 ).
2. Hostility Toward Sabbath Rest. The conversion of Constantine in the fourth century and his legalizing of Sunday as a day of rest in 321 ( see Sunday Laws ) gave Sunday an advantage, but it did not forbid Sabbath observance. The first prohibition against resting on the Sabbath day came from the church.
The Council of Laodicea (date unknown, but somewhere between 343 and 381) commanded Christians to rest on the “Lord’s Day” if possible, and forbade resting on the Sabbath. Yet at the same time it required that the Gospels be read in public worship on the Sabbath. It also stipulated that during Lent both Sabbath and “the Lord’s Day,” and only these two days, should be considered festal days each week (see SB , No. 1416 ).
In Egypt, at about this same time, monks in the new monastic movement held religious services on both Sabbath and Sunday—and only on these days—each week.
At the end of the fourth century two leaders born in Asia Minor spoke highly of Sabbath and Sunday: Asterius of Amasea, a bishop in Pontus, spoke of the two days as a beautiful team, the “mothers and nurses” of the church; while Gregory of Nyssa called them “sisters” (see SB , Nos. 1418 , 1424 ).
It is notable that the Ethiopian church, founded in the fourth century, observed the Sabbath as a day of complete rest along with Sunday.
At the beginning of the fifth century Augustine in North Africa preached on Sabbath, as well as on Sunday (see his Sermon 128); and Epiphanius of Constantia observed that in certain places assemblies were held on both Sabbath and Sunday (see SB , No. 1417 ). By the middle of the fifth century the custom of holding meetings on both Sabbath and Sunday was so widespread that Socrates of Constantinople wrote that it was then being done in “almost all churches throughout the world” except, on account of some “ancient tradition,” in Alexandria and Rome (see SB , No. 1428b ).
It is, of course, significant that Socrates had to except Rome and Alexandria. The hostility of the Roman Church to the seventh-day Sabbath was one of its characteristics in the early centuries, as evidenced not only by its ceasing to hold meetings on that day but also by its practice of downgrading the Sabbath by making it a fast day (see SB , No. 1425 ). Further, about 600, Pope Gregory I denounced as preachers of antichrist those who were teaching in Rome that work should not be done on the Sabbath (see SB , No. 1431 ).
3. The Sabbath in Later Centuries. There is a hint of Sabbathkeeping in the British Isles in the sixth century, in the time of Columba (A.D. 521–597), who left Ireland and founded a religious community off the western coast of Scotland on the island of Iona (see SB , No. 1460 ; cf. GC 62).
From the end of the eighth to the twelfth centuries flourished the Athinganoi, “touch nots,” of Phrygia, in Asia Minor, who were accused of being neither Christians nor Jews because they observed the seventh-day Sabbath but did not practice circumcision. The accounts of their heretical practices, which hint of connections with Jews and Cathari, are not clear (Joshua Starr, “An Eastern Christian Sect: The Athinganoi,” Harvard Theological Review 29:93–106, April 1936).
In the twelfth century numerous sects flourished in Western Europe. One of these groups, the Pasaginians (Passagii, Pasagini), observed the seventh-day Sabbath ( SB , No. 1461 ). A Catholic document from about 1200 describes them as “opposing us in general, then in particular, as concerning the observance of the Sabbath, circumcision, the distinction of foods [those mentioned in Acts 16:28 ] and certain other things” (tr. from Summa Contra Haereticos, ch. 6 A, sec. I; p. 92 in the edition of J. N. Garvin and J. A. Corbett, vol. 15 of Publications in Mediaeval Studies).
The Pasaginians were first mentioned in the condemnation of heretics by the Synod of Verona under Pope Lucius III (1184), but without any statement of their beliefs, and they seem to have survived until late in the thirteenth century, when Clement IV (1267) and Gregory X (1274) directed the inquisitors to punish as heretics Christians who adopted Jewish rites. Some think it probable that the sect originated from the contacts of Christians with influential Jews (O. Zöckler, The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge , vol. 8, pp. 361, 362).
In the fifteenth century there were Sabbathkeepers in Norway, and in the next century in Sweden and Finland. The Ethiopians had continued the practice of observing both days and were weaned away from the Sabbath only after the Jesuits arrived in the country about 1600 (see SB , Nos. 1462–1465 ).
Some of the Waldensians also observed the Sabbath. There is no record of any Sabbathkeepers among the remnant that still survive in the north Italian Alps, but there is record of some in one of the many groups formerly widespread over Europe who bore the Waldensian name. Among the Waldensian Brethren, composed of Waldensian and Hussite elements, there were some who observed the Sabbath (see SB , No. 1469 ; cf. GC 577).
4. Sabbathkeepers in Modern Europe. The Sabbath was discussed in the Reformation—Eck taunted Luther with the change of the Sabbath as an example of the authority of the church, and Karlstadt, Luther’s coworker, spoke doubtfully about Sunday (see SB , Nos. 1445 , 1374 ). Yet the Reformers retained Sunday as the church’s rest day.
The Seventh Day Baptists of England (see SB , No. 199 ), who probably rose late in the sixteenth century, were severely persecuted by Protestants, and one of their leaders, Francis Bampfield, died in prison. The first Seventh Day Baptist church was established in America under the leadership of Stephen Mumford in 1671.
According to Schwenkfeld, some of the Anabaptists who were ostracized by the Reformers, and who lived mostly in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Moravia, and Sweden, held Sunday to be the pope’s invention and called the elimination of the Sabbath “the devil’s work.” In Hungary and Transylvania there were Sabbatarians found among the Unitarians ( c. 1571). In 1635 they were enjoined to unite with the major confessions or lose life and property. In Scandinavia councils outlawed Sabbath observance as Jewish and heathenish (see SB , Nos. 1466–1468 ).
In Russia the Subotniki observed the Sabbath since the fifteenth century. In the eighteenth century they numbered in the thousands. Many suffered persecution in the early nineteenth century, and hundreds were banished to Siberia or the Crimea. Some outwardly joined the Orthodox Church but inwardly continued to believe in the Sabbath. Sabbathkeepers still survived in Russia, as well as in Germany—Silesia, Württemberg, Hesse—into the twentieth century, and some became Seventh-day Adventists (J. N. Andrews and L. R. Conradi, History of the Sabbath, pp. 751, 752).
Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorf observed both days, the Sabbath for rest and Sunday for preaching the gospel (see SB , No. 1470 ). Spangenberg, Zinzendorf’s successor, relates concerning the count’s visit to the Moravians of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1741: “He also resolved, with the church at Bethlehem, to keep the seventh day as a day of rest” (August G. Spangenberg, The Life of . . . Count Zinzendorf, tr. Samuel Jackson, p. 302).
Before Spangenberg’s time there were German Sabbathkeepers in Pennsylvania, in the counties of Lancaster, York, and Bedford. They maintained a community at Ephrata in Lancaster County, where they practiced the washing of the feet and trine immersion, and a monastic order.
V. The Sabbath Among Adventists. During the Adventist movement of the 1840s “the obligation of the seventh day as the Christian Sabbath” was discussed, for example, by J. A. Begg, of Glasgow, Scotland, a writer of books on the Second Advent, who wrote letters to the Millerite paper The Signs of the Times. He later became a Seventh Day Baptist. The Seventh Day Baptists in America, orga