5. The Early Church Saw Sunday as the Christian Sabbath

Seventh Day Adventists sometimes claim that Sunday observance started with Constantine. Others say that the Pope instituted Sunday in place of Saturday worship. Others more cautiously have suggested that though the church may have worshipped on Sunday, it rested on Saturday and never called Sunday a “rest day.”

This is so clearly wrong that it amazes me how entrenched this mythology has become.

  • In AD 100, Barnabas spoke of Sunday as “the Sabbath” which God had made.
  • In AD 200, Tertullian said that the church solemnizes Sunday just as Jews solemnize Saturday.
  • In AD 220, Origen insisted that on Sundays we must abstain from all work and devote the entire day to worship, readings and private devotions.
  • In AD 300, Eusebius called Sunday “the one and only truly holy day” in 300 AD.

Indeed, from AD 74 and on, there are so many references to Sunday being treated as a rest day, a “commandment,” a holy day, and as a replacement for Saturday Sabbaths that to continue claims to the contrary is either dishonest or ignorant. It is clear that (with the exception of a small heretical Jewish group known as the Ebionites) the universal practice of the church was to treat Sunday as the authorized holy day of the week. It is clear that they saw Saturday Sabbaths as discontinued and Sunday Sabbath worship as obligatory. The following quotes should help to establish that fact.

AD 90 — Didache

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • The Lord’s day (earlier said to be Sunday) is a day for communion

But every Lord’s day, do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord [Matt. 5:23-24].18

AD 100 — Epistle of Barnabas

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Christians keep the eighth day.19
  • This day is the day Christ rose from the grave (Sunday).20
  • This day is a Sabbath.
  • God has rejected the seventh day Sabbath.

Moreover God says to the Jews, ‘Your new moons and Sabbaths 1 cannot endure.’ You see how he says, ‘The present Sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but the Sabbath which I have made in which, when I have rested from all things, I will make the beginning of the eighth day which is the beginning of another world.’ Wherefore we Christians keep the eighth day for joy, on which also Jesus arose from the dead and when he appeared ascended into heaven.21

AD 107 — Ignatius

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • The Jewish Sabbath has been replaced by the Lord’s Day.
  • It is sin to continue to celebrate Saturday as the Sabbath in preference to Sunday, since Sunday alone is the Lord’s Day.
  • Jews (“those who were brought up in the ancient order of things) who convert to Christianity must observe the Lord’s Day, not the Jewish Sabbath.
  • Every Christian is obligated to “keep” the Lord’s Day.
  • Sunday is the chief day of the week.

Be not deceived with strange doctrines, nor with old fables, which are unprofitable. For if we still live according to the Jewish law, we acknowledge that we have not received grace… If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death (which some deny), through which mystery we received faith, and on account of which we suffer in order that we may be found disciples of Jesus Christ our only teacher, how shall we be able to live apart from him for whom even the prophets were looking as their teacher since they were his disciples in the spirit?… let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days of the week. It is absurd to speak of Jesus Christ with the tongue, and to cherish in the mind a Judaism which has now come to an end. for where there is Christianity there cannot be Judaism… These things I address to you, my beloved, not that I know any of you to be in such a state; but, as less than any of you, I desire to guard you beforehand, that ye fall not upon the hooks of vain doctrine, but that you may rather attain to a full assurance in Christ…22

AD 110 — Pliny the Younger

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Christians meet “on a fixed day.”
  • This day is measured not by Jewish reckoning of evening to evening (i.e., Saturday Sabbath), but from morning worship to evening worship. This is indirect evidence of a Sunday gathering from a pagan.

they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath not to (do) any wicked deeds, never to commit any fraud, theft, or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of good food—but food of an ordinary and innocent kind23

AD 150 — Epistle of the Apostles

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • The day belonging to the Lord is said to be the eighth day.

I [Christ] have come into being on the eighth day which is the day of the Lord.”

AD 150 — Justin Martyr

Quote #1

The following quotes demonstrate that:

  • Keeping Sunday as a holy day is binding. Though we would disagree with Justin’s exegesis to support why the church has rejected the Jewish Sabbath, it is clear that he believes the seventh day Sabbath of the Jews is no longer binding.

…those who have persecuted and do persecute Christ, if they do not repent, shall not inherit anything on the holy mountain. But the Gentiles, who have believed on Him, and have repented of the sins which they have committed, they shall receive the inheritance along with the patriarchs and the prophets, and the just men who are descended from Jacob, even although they neither keep the Sabbath, nor are circumcised, nor observe the feasts. Assuredly they shall receive the holy inheritance of God.24

But if we do not admit this, we shall be liable to fall into foolish opinion, as if it were not the same God who existed in the times of Enoch and all the rest, who neither were circumcised after the flesh, nor observed Sabbaths, nor any other rites, seeing that Moses enjoined such observances… For if there was no need of circumcision before Abraham, or of the observance of Sabbaths, of feasts and sacrifices, before Moses; no more need is there of them now, after that, according to the will of God, Jesus Christ the Son of God has been born without sin, of a virgin sprung from the stock of Abraham.25

There is no other thing for which you blame us, my friends, is there than this? That we do not live according to the Law, nor, are we circumcised in the flesh as your forefathers, nor do we observe the Sabbath as you do.26

(In verse 3 the Jew Trypho acknowledges that Christians ‘do not keep the Sabbath.’)

Quote #2

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Public worship is held on Sunday

But Sunday is the day on which we hold our common assembly, because it is the first day of the week and Jesus our saviour on the same day rose from the dead.27

Quote #3

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Uses Old Testament “eighth day” language to speak of the first day of the week.
  • Sunday is the “first of all days.” If (as many Seventh Day Adventists claim), the early church kept a Saturday Sabbath, there is no way that Justin would call Sunday the first of all days. That implies that it is more holy than and supersedes all other days of the week.

The commandment of circumcision, requiring them always to circumcise the children on the eighth day, was a type of the true circumcision by which we are circumcised from error and evil through the resurrection from the dead on the first day of the week of Jesus Christ our Lord. For the first day of the week, although it is the first of all days, yet according to the number of the days in a cycle is called the eighth (while still remaining the first).28

Quote #4

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Full worship service was held on Sunday
  • Christ taught his apostles to worship on Sunday after His resurrection

We are always together with one another. And for all the things with which we are supplied we bless the Maker of all through his Son Jesus Christ and through his Holy Spirit. And on the day called Sunday there is a gathering together in the same place of all who live in a city or a rural district. (There follows an account of a Christian worship service, which is quoted in VII.2.) We all make our assembly in common on the day of the Sun, since it is the first day, on which God changed the darkness and matter and made the world, and Jesus Christ our Savior arose from the dead on the same day. For they crucified him on the day before Saturn’s day, and on the day after (which is the day of the Sun) he appeared to his apostles and taught his disciples these things.29

AD 180 — Acts of Peter

The following quote demonstrates that:

Quote #1

  • Jewish Sabbath abolished

Paul had often contended with the Jewish teachers and had confuted them, saying ‘it is Christ on whom your fathers laid hands. He abolished their Sabbath and fasts and festivals and circumcision.’

Quote #2

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Sunday is a Sabbath
  • Sunday is the Lord’s Day

Early in the morning when the Sabbath dawned, a multitude from Jerusalem and the surrounding country came to see the scaled sepulchre. In the night in which the Lord’s day dawned, while the soldiers in pairs for each watch were keeping guard, a great voice came from heaven…Early in the morning of the Lord’s day Mary Magdalene, a disciple of the Lord…came to the sepulchre.

AD 190 — Clement Of Alexandria

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • The Gospel way of keeping the fourth commandment is on the Lord’s Day
  • The Lord’s Day is the day Christ rose from the dead (Sunday)

He does the commandment according to the Gospel and keeps the Lord’s day, whenever he puts away an evil mind…glorifying the Lord’s resurrection in himself.30

AD 200 — Bardesanes

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Assemble on the first day of the week.
  • The first day is the only day mandated for assembly (“on one day”)

Wherever we are, we are all called after the one name of Christ Christians. On one day, the first of the week, we assemble ourselves together.31

AD 200 — Tertullian

The following quote demonstrates that:

Quote #1

  • Sunday is compared with the Jewish Sabbath
  • Sunday is set apart as a solemn day, whereas Jews solemnize Saturday.

We solemnize the day after Saturday in contradistinction to those who call this day their Sabbath.32

Quote #2

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Saturday Sabbath days were temporary and abolished

It follows, accordingly, that, in so far as the abolition of carnal circumcision and of the old law is demonstrated as having been consummated at its specific times, so also the observance of the Sabbath is demonstrated to have been temporary.33

Quote #3

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Don’t confuse Sunday worship with worship of sun-god.
  • Sunday is our day of joy

Others…suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is well-known that we regard Sunday as a day of joy.34

AD 220 — Origen

The following quote demonstrates that:

Quote #1

  • Sunday is observed by abstaining from all work and devoting the whole day to worship, readings and private devotions

On Sunday none of the actions of the world should be done. If then, you abstain from all the works of this world and keep yourselves free for spiritual things, go to church, listen to the readings and divine homilies, meditate on heavenly things.35

Quote #2

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Sunday is called a rest day.
  • It was authorized as a rest day by Christ Himself.

Hence it is not possible that the [day of] rest after the sabbath should have come into existence from the seventh [day] of our God. On the contrary, it is our Savior who, after the pattern of his own rest, caused us to be made in the likeness of his death, and hence also of his resurrection.36

AD 225 — Didascalia Apostolorum

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Public worship is commanded on first day of the week.
  • This obligation arises by apostolic appointment & by Christ’s meeting on the first day of the week.

The apostles further appointed: On the first day of the week let there be service, and the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and the oblation, because on the first day of the week our Lord rose from the place of the dead, and on the first day of the week he arose upon the world, and on the first day of the week he ascended up to heaven, and on the first day of the week he will appear at last with the angels of heaven.37

AD 250 — Cyprian

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • The first day = what is called the “eighth day”
  • This day is the Lord’s Day

The eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, and the Lord’s Day.38

AD 300 — Victorinus

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Christ abolished the seventh day Sabbath
  • Far from observing the seventh day as a Sabbath, it is proper to make it into a rigorous fast day.

The sixth day is called parasceve, that is to say, the preparation of the kingdom…On this day also, on account of the passion of the Lord Jesus Christ, we make either a station to God or a fast. On the seventh day he rested from all his works, and blessed it, and sanctified it. On the former day we are accustomed to fast rigorously, that on the Lord’s day we may go forth to our bread with giving of thanks. And let the parasceve become a rigorous fast, lest we should appear to observe any sabbath with the Jews…which sabbath he [Christ] in his body abolished.39

AD 300 — Eusebius of Caesarea

The following quote demonstrates that:

Quote #1

  • Jewish Sabbath not observed. It does not belong to Christians.

They did not, therefore, regard circumcision, nor observe the Sabbath neither do we; …because such things as these do not belong to Christians.40

Quote #2

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • The Ebionites (a heretical Jewish group) were an exception, though they also observed Sunday for worship.

[The Ebionites] were accustomed to observe the Sabbath and other Jewish customs but on the Lord’s days to celebrate the same practices as we in remembrance of the resurrection of the Savior.41

Quote #3

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Sunday is the only true holy day to be observed.
  • It is the Lord’s day.
  • It is better than any other day.
  • The Jewish days all passed away with their fulfillment in Christ.

[T]he day of his [Christ’s] light…was the day of his resurrection from the dead, which they say, as being the one and only truly holy day and the Lord’s day, is better than any number of days as we ordinarily understand them, and better than the days set apart by the Mosaic Law for feasts, new moons, and sabbaths, which the Apostle [Paul] teaches are the shadow of days and not days in reality.42

AD 345 — Athanasius

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • The Lord’s Day is to new creation what the Sabbath was to old creation
  • We must honor the Lord’s day in the same way as the Jews honored the Seventh day Sabbath in the Old Testament.
  • The Lord’s Day is a memorial of the new creation.

The sabbath was the end of the first creation, the Lord’s day was the beginning of the second, in which he renewed and restored the old in the same way as he prescribed that they should formerly observe the sabbath as a memorial of the end of the first things, so we honor the Lord’s day as being the memorial of the new creation.43

AD 350 — Cyril of Jerusalem

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • He warned against the Jewish Sabbath.

Fall not away either into the sect of the Samaritans or into Judaism, for Jesus Christ has henceforth ransomed you. Stand aloof from all observance of sabbaths and from calling any indifferent meats common or unclean.44

AD 360 — Council of Laodicea

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • We must not be idle on Saturday.
  • We must reverence the Lord’s day.
  • If possible, we must avoid working on the Lord’s day.

Christians should not Judaize and should not be idle on the sabbath, but should work on that day; they should, however, particularly reverence the Lord’s day and, if possible, not work on it, because they were Christians.45

AD 387 — John Chrysostom

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Do not keep the Jewish Sabbath; it has passed away.

You have put on Christ, you have become a member of the Lord and been enrolled in the heavenly city, and you still grovel in the Law [of Moses]? How is it possible for you to obtain the kingdom? Listen to Paul’s words, that the observance of the Law overthrows the gospel, and learn, if you will, how this comes to pass, and tremble, and shun this pitfall. Why do you keep the sabbath and fast with the Jews?46

The rite of circumcision was venerable in the Jews’ account, forasmuch as the Law itself gave way thereto, and the sabbath was less esteemed than circumcision. For that circumcision might be performed, the sabbath was broken; but that the sabbath might be kept, circumcision was never broken; and mark, I pray, the dispensation of God. This is found to be even more solemn that the sabbath, as not being omitted at certain times. When then it is done away, much more is the sabbath.47

AD 400 — Apostolic Constitutions

Quote #1

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Public worship and communion must be on first day of week.
  • This day is called the Lord’s day.
  • Failure to assemble and to diligently observe Sunday is so serious that they question what apology could be given to God for failing to honor His day.

And on the day of our Lord’s resurrection, which is the Lord’s day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that made the universe by Jesus, and sent him to us, and condescended to let him suffer, and raised him from the dead. Otherwise what apology will he make to God who does not assemble on that day …in which is performed the reading of the prophets, the preaching of the gospel, the oblation of the sacrifice, the gift of the holy food.48

Quote #2

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • There continues to be a weekly day that belongs to God as His day.49
  • This day is interpreted as being the day Christ rose (Sunday).
  • Furthermore, worship must be done on this day.
  • Furthermore, disregard for it by fasting is sin (i.e., this is a Scriptural imperative).

…every Lord’s day, hold your solemn assemblies, and rejoice: for he will be guilty of sin who fasts on the Lord’s day, being the day of the resurrection…50

Quote #3

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • The weekly day of resurrection belongs to God as His day
  • Furthermore, it is the day authorized for public church assembly
  • We must diligently meet on this day
  • Failure to do so is so serious that the writer questions what kind of apology could be made to God.
  • It is the day to hear preaching

And on the day of our Lord’s resurrection, which is the Lord’s day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that made the universe by Jesus, and sent Him to us, and condescended to let Him suffer, and raised Him from the dead. Otherwise what apology will he make to God who does not assemble on that day to hear the saving word concerning the resurrection…?51

Quote #4

The following quote demonstrates that:

  • Lord’s day interpreted again as the day Christ rose (Sunday).
  • Gathering on this day is not an option (“without fail”).

On the day of the resurrection of the Lord, that is, the Lord’s day, assemble yourselves together, without fail, giving thanks to God, and praising Him for those mercies God has bestowed upon you through Christ, and has delivered you from ignorance, error, and bondage, that your sacrifice may be unspotted, and acceptable to God, who has said concerning His universal Church: “In every place shall incense and a pure sacrifice be offered unto me; for I am a great King, saith the Lord Almighty, and my name is wonderful among the heathen” [Malachi 1:11,14].52

Up next

6. Scriptural Guidelines on How to Observe the Sabbath