Some Christians who wish to defend the practice of Sunday-keeping claim that
the observance of the Sabbath (Saturday) was part of the Jewish ceremonial law
and so was abolished at the cross. If this be so, then we are faced with a major
dilemma: When writing with His finger the Ten Commandments on tables of stone,
God became disorientated and failed to differentiate between His moral and
ceremonial laws. If and when He discovered His oversight, He didn't bother to
correct it, but left it to theologians to sort out His problem. Strangely, it is
only the inclusion of the commandment which deals with Sabbath observance which
some have discovered to be misplaced! But do we as Christians really believe
that God is the author and perpetrator of confusion?
We are told by the Creator and Lord of the Sabbath that "The Sabbath was
made for man." (Mark 2:27,28). Therefore it has been in place for man's
benefit since creation. When we read the record of creation in the first two
chapters of Genesis we are reminded of certain facts fundamental to Christian
believers: God created man in His own image; the evening and the morning were
the sixth day; God rested from this work of Creation on the seventh day, and He
blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. This all took place about 2,000 years
before Abraham, the father of the Jews, was born. So it is evident that the
Sabbath was not just made for Jews, but made for "man", a generic
expression denoting all mankind.
That all mankind recognizes this Sabbatical division of time is evidenced by
our world-wide weekly cycle 1. It is significant that it is mentioned in the
work contract between Jacob and Laban. (Gen. 29:27,28). According to Usher's
chronology of the Bible, this was in 1760 B.C., about 270 years prior to the
giving of the Decalogue. Canon F.C. Cook had no doubts about the Sabbath being
instituted at Creation:
"'And God blessed the seventh day'. The natural interpretation of these
words is that the blessing of the Sabbath was immediately consequent on the
first creation of man, for whom the Sabbath was made, Mark 2:27."
("The Holy Bible, with an explanatory and Critical Commentary by Bishops
and Clergy of the Anglican Church" Vol. 1, p.37).
1 see Appendix E
In recognizing Jesus Christ as Lord of the Sabbath, how futile it would be
had He come to this earth with the intention of abolishing His very own special
day! He said, "I am not come to destroy [the law] ... but to fulfil"
(Matt. 5:17).
Far from anticipating its extinction along with the ceremonial law, Christ
forecast continued Sabbath observance after His resurrection and ascension.
Speaking to his followers of the coming destruction of Jerusalem, He instructed
them, "Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the
Sabbath day." (Matt. 24:20).
So carefully had Christ instructed His followers in Sabbath-keeping they dare
not anoint His broken body on the Sabbath. Instead, on the preparation day,
which was Friday, they "prepared spices and ointments ... and rested the
Sabbath day according to the commandment'—not according to the old
commandment—according to the commandment—"On the first day of
the week," which is Sunday, they then came to the grave to work - to carry
out the anointing. (Luke 23:52-56). it is understood that Luke's account of the
Gospel was written thirty-five years after the resurrection, yet he is here
reminding his readers that the Sabbath commandment is binding. Obviously he is
referring to the day between Friday and Sunday.
Nowhere do we find the Apostles advising Christians or Jews of a transfer of
the sanctity of the Sabbath to the first day of the week. On the other hand we
read in Acts 13 of Paul preaching in Antioch on the Sabbath and, in response to
a request form the Gentiles, he waited until the following Sabbath day to preach
to them again.
In another situation where there was apparently no synagogue we read,
"And on the Sabbath he went out of the city by a river side where prayer
was wont to be made." (Acts 16:12,13).
Some proponents of Sunday observance claim that the disciples commenced
keeping the new Sabbath day by meeting on the first day of the week in honour of
the resurrection. John 20:19 and Mark 16:9-14 are quoted as proof. But an
examination of these texts reveals that they could not have gathered together to
celebrate Christ's resurrection, for they did not know that He had risen. No!
They were despondent at losing their Master and discouraged to the point that
they had "assembled for fear of the Jews". That was the reason for
their meeting together - sheer cold fear!
Others point to Acts 20:7 citing a meeting at Troas as proof that the early
Christian believers were accustomed to meeting on the "first day of the
week".
But we are also told in Acts 2:46 that the believers gathered "daily..
breaking bread". Does that mean that every day was made holy? Not at all!
The fact is that the meeting in Troas was held on a Saturday night.
Therefore Paul departed on his journey on the Sunday morning, something which
he would not have done had Sunday been regarded as a sacred day of rest. So
really it is futile to quote this text in support of Sunday observance because
it proves the opposite! McGarvey in his commentary says:
"I conclude that the brethren met on the night after the Jewish Sabbath
which was still observed as a day of rest by all who were Jews or Jewish
proselytes; and considering this the beginning of the first day of the week
spent it in the manner above described. On Sunday morning Paul and his
companions resumed their journey" ("Commentary on Acts." Acts
20:7).
Had the Apostles changed their day of worship from Saturday to Sunday, we
would also expect the early Christian churches to be worshipping on that day.
But history testifies to the contrary. Says Lyman Coleman (1852):
"Down even to the fifth century the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was
continued in the Christian Church, but with a rigor and solemnity gradually
diminishing until it was wholly discounted." ("Ancient Christianity
Exemplified" Chap.26, Sec.2, p.527).
Socrates, that famous Greek traveler and historian was able to write in 391
A.D.:
"For although almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the
sacred mysteries [The Lord's Supper] on the Sabbath of every week, yet the
Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition,
refuse to do this. The Egyptians in the neighbourhood of Alexandria, and the
inhabitants of Thebais hold their religious meetings on the Sabbath ..."
("Ecclesiastical History" Book 5, 1892 p.289).
After affecting conversion to Christianity, the Roman emperor Constantine
sought to unite Christendom with his pagan state. To accommodate the pagan sun
worshippers he declared Sunday to be a day of celebration and feasting:
"Unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which
the Sabbath observance of Sunday is known to have been ordained, is the
Sabbatical edict of Constantine, A.D. 321" (Chamber's Encyclopedia, art.
"Sunday").
and from the Encyclopedia Britannica we read:
"It was Constantine the Great who first made a law for the proper
observance of Sunday; who appointed it should be regularly celebrated through
out the Roman empire." (Art. "Sunday")
Constantine's Sunday Law was issued on the seventh day of March, 321 A.D.
From "Codex Justinianus" Philip Schaff translates thus:
"On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing
in the cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however,
persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits;
..." ("History of the Christian Church", Vol. III, p. 380).
However, it must not be thought that Constantine had any purpose other than
enforcing a popular pagan festival. Nor did he intend it to replace
Sabbath-keeping as a religious day of rest. (This was to come later from the
emerging Roman Catholic Church).
Christian Edwardson in his book, "Facts of Faith" (p. 112) quotes
Hugo Grotius to reveal Constantine's attitude to the Sabbath and Sunday:
"He refers to Eusebius for proof that Constantine besides issuing his
well-known edict that labour should be suspended on Sunday, enacted law courts
on the seventh day of the week, which also, he adds, was long observed by the
primitive Christians as a day for religious meetings ... And this says he
'refutes those who think that the Lord's day was substituted for Sabbath—a
thing nowhere mentioned either by Christ or his apostles"' ("Opera Omnia Theologica" 1679).
Edwardson points out that at this time the church consisted of two widely
different classes of members. There was the old class who had accepted
Christianity in a primitive way with genuine conversion and separation from the
world. Mostly they were country dwellers. Then there were the new converts who
lived mostly in the large cities who had come to Christianity on a tide of
popular mass movement with its opportunities for temporal gain and honour. Being
in the majority, they elected bishops of their own kind. ("Facts of
Faith" P. 115).
Thus the spirit of popery and politics came to be manifested as popular
prelates of the church sought to impose religious laws to support their plans
for future Christianity.
By the fourth century the dominant bishops felt sufficiently confident in the
acceptance of Sunday to promulgate a decree, which they did at the Council of
Laodicea (Circa 336 A.D.). John Fulton, DD, LLD, translates it thus:
"Christians shall not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work
on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting then as
Christians" (Canon XXIX, "Index Canonum" p. 259).
It is not only interesting but important to note that the Sabbath day is here
being stigmatized as "Judaizing", the keeping of which is promoted as
being unchristian!
Although the keeping of the "Jewish Sabbath" was placed under an
anathema (Wm. Prynne, "Dissertation on the Lord's Day" p. 34) yet true
Christians continued to keep the seventh-day Sabbath. This we know because Pope
Gregory I (A.D. 590-640) was constrained to remonstrate with "Roman
citizens [who] forbid any work being done on the Sabbath day"
("Post-Nicene Fathers" Second Series, Vol. XIII, p. 13).
The Roman Catholic Church makes no attempt to hide its interference with the
Biblical day of rest. One Catechist, Peter Geiermann, openly boasts of his
Church's authority in this respect:
"We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in
the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to
Sunday" ("The Convert's Catechism of Christian Doctrine" p. 50,
1934) Sanctioned by the Vatican, Jan. 25, 1910.
So, without delving further into the plethora of evidence available to the
student of Scripture and history, we have established that:
1. The Sabbath was instituted by God at creation for all mankind.
2. Christ expected His followers to continue Sabbath-keeping after His death
and resurrection.
3. Neither the disciples, apostles, nor any of the early Christians
advocated, let alone kept, Sunday as sacred.
4 When Sunday-keeping did creep into the Christian church, it was at the
instigation and commands of Constantine and the newly emerging Roman Catholic
Church during the fourth century A.D.
The obvious and inescapable conclusion then is that, if the apostle Thomas
took Christianity to India, and there established churches, then his converts,
the so-called St Thomas Christians, were seventh-day Sabbath-keepers.
But for those who discount the St Thomas legend, believing that Christianity
was brought to India at a later date from Persia, it is still incumbent on them
to accept the evidence of history, that the early Christians were
Sabbath-keepers. If the Syrian Christians in India were subject to the Eastern
Syrian Church it follows that they would be in agreement as to their day of
worship; for Mingana writes:
"Any attempt to speak of early Christianity as different from the East
Syrian Church, is, in our judgment, bound to fail". ("Early Spread of
Christianity", Bulletin of John Rylands Library, Vol. 10, p. 440)
In order to unlock the door to the mystery of the disappearance of the
Sabbath from Indian Christianity it is obvious that we need a key. It so happens
that the key, like Malachai Martin's, has very much to do with blood; not
Christ's blood, not the blood of saints, but the blood of Indians!
When we unlock that door, we shall not only gain insight into the extent of
Christian Sabbath observance but we shall also discover a sinister plan to
shield modern-day Christendom from the light of truth.
Little is known of early Christianity in India. The church records and
literature of the St Thomas Church have mysteriously disappeared. But thanks to
historians and travelers who recorded their experiences, we can piece together
an interesting picture of the early Indian Christians which links them to the
early Antioch church. However there is nothing recorded that would throw any
light on the welfare or otherwise of the original church communities thought to
have been established by St Thomas.
It is this absence of information that causes many to doubt that St Thomas
ever reached Southern India.
It will be recalled that it was in the Syrian region around Antioch that the
followers of Jesus Christ first became known as Christians. The bulk of these
Christians were Jews. With the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. there was a
tremendous exodus northward into Syria, especially around Antioch.
With their renowned business acumen and missionary zeal, Christians not only
settled along the trade routes of Asia but soon colonised large areas in Asia
Minor (now part of Turkey), as well as spreading eastward into Assyria (parts of
Persia and Iraq).
During renewed, but selective forms of persecution of the Christians who
refused to fall in with Constantine's politicised form of Christianity, a group
of Assyrian Christians migrated to India in the year 345 A.D. They were received
cordially by the King of Malabar, and this influenced successive waves of
migrants to settle in that area. There is no record of these immigrants meeting
up with descendants of the original St Thomas Christians, but it is tempting for
some to conclude that it was their established presence that attracted the
immigrants to India.
The historian Mingana leaves no doubt that these Christians brought with them
the beliefs and scriptures of the Syrian Church and that this characterised them
as separate in jurisdiction and belief from papal and Jewish beliefs:
"The fifth century opens with an Indian Christianity which was in such a
state of development that she is able to send her priests to be educated in the
best schools of the East Syrian Church and to assist the doctors of that Church
in their revision of the ancient Syriac translations of the Pauline
Epistles." ("Early Spread of Christianity" Bulletin of John
Rylands Library, Vol. 10, p. 459).
Mingana's statement is important. Notice that these Indian St Thomas
Christians were actually assisting in the revision of "ancient Syriac
translations of the Pauline Epistles". This links this church and its
Bibles to the purity of the apostolic age. The line of New Testament Scripture
is now identified as the Byzantine or Received Text line from which the King
James Version derives. As the doctrines of a church can be no purer than the
Bible which it uses, we may here pause to acknowledge the impoverished nature of
the corrupted Bibles used in Rome and Alexandria which eventually formed the
basis of the Roman Catholic Vulgate, and we may reflect on the effects of such a
travesty as shown in the doctrines of a church that interprets scripture in
accordance with tradition and dogma.
Owing to subsequent persecution by the Romans, no doubt brought about by
their refusal to obey the Sunday law of the Council of Laodicea, there were
periodic migrations of Syrian Christians to India. One such company of some
three thousand Christians departed Persia in 822 A.D. to settle in the Southern
Indian State of Travancore. Here the King of Malabar is reported to have
welcomed them, and recognizing the advantages of having people with business
enterprise and acumen, bestowed on them social and commercial privileges usually
available only to nobility.
With further clashes between the Roman Empire and the Persians following the
death of Constantine, many Assyrian and Persian Christians came to look to India
as a haven of peace (See Wilkinson, "Truth Triumphant" pp. 307,308).
As shown in the previous chapter, the Christians kept holy the seventh-day
Sabbath. In this regard, the Syrian and Persian churches which parented the
Eastern branches of Christianity were no exception. Dr Peter Heylyn confirms
that in spite of papal pressure the Eastern Churches still remained loyal to
Sabbath-keeping:
"Innocentius did ordain the Saturday or Sabbath to be always fasted ....
It was by him intended for a binding law. [Most of the churches refused,
however, to obey him]. And in this difference it stood a long time together,
till in the end the Roman Church obtained the cause, and Saturday became a fast,
almost through all parts of the Western world. I say the Western world, and of
that alone: The Eastern Churches being so far from altering their ancient
custom, that in the sixth Council of Constantinople, Anno 692, they did admonish
those of Rome to forebear fasting on that day, upon pain of censures"
("History of the Sabbath" part 2, pp. 44,45, (1636)). (Cited by
Christian Edwardson in "Facts of Faith" 1943, p. 84).
Dr B.G. Wilkinson, in his comprehensive coverage of the history of the
Christian Churches, summarizes Mingana's conclusive evidence of Sabbathkeeping
in the Eastern Churches. He says:
"Mingana proves that as early as 225 A.D. there existed large bishoprics
or conferences of the Church of the East stretching from Palestine to, and
surrounding, India. In 370 A.D. Abyssinian Christianity (a Sabbath-keeping
church) was so popular that its famous director, Musaeus, travelled extensively
in the East promoting the church in Arabia, Persia, India and China ... These
churches were sanctifying the seventh day, as can be seen by the famous
testimonies of Socrates and Sozomen, Roman Catholic historian (c.A.D. 450), that
all the churches throughout the world sanctified Saturday except Rome and
Alexandria, which two alone exalted Sunday." ("Truth Triumphant"
note, p. 308).
In more recent times, we have evidence that the Jacobites of India, a branch
of the early Syrian Christians, also refused to make Saturday a fast day. Samuel
Purchas tells us that they regarded Saturday in a similar way as did the Jews:
"They keep Saturday holy, nor esteem the Saturday fast lawful, but on
Easter even. They have solemn service on Saturday, eat flesh, and feast it
bravely like the Jews." ("Pilgrims" Part 2, Book 8, p.1269,
(1625)).
