568
The Great Controversy
Baronius, Ecclesiastical Annals, Vol. 9, pp. 391-407 (Antwerp, 1612);
J. Mendham, The Seventh General Council, the Second of Nicaea;
Ed. Stillingfleet, Defense of the Discourse Concerning the Idolatry
Practiced in the Church of Rome (London, 1686); A Select Library
of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2d series, vol. 14, pp. 521-587
(New York, 1900); Charles J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the
Church, from the Original Documents, B. 18, ch. 1, secs. 332, 333;
ch. 2, secs. 345-352 (T. and T. Clark Education, 1896), vol. 5, pp.
260-304, 342-372.
Page 53. The Sunday Law of Constantine.—The law issued by the
Emperor Constantine on the seventh of March, A.D. 321, regarding a
day of rest from labor, reads thus:
“All judges and city people and the craftsmen shall rest upon the
venerable day of the sun. Country people, however, may freely attend
to the cultivation of the fields, because it frequently happens that no
other days are better adapted for planting the grain in the furrows
or the vines in trenches. So that the advantage given by heavenly
providence may not for the occasion of a short time perish.”—Joseph
Cullen Ayer, A Source Book for Ancient Church History (New York:
Charles Scribner’s sons, 1913), div. 2, per. 1, ch. 1, sec. 59, g, pp.
284, 285.
The latin original is in the Codex Justiniani (Codex of Justinian),
Lib. 3, Title 12, Lex 3. The law is given in Latin and in English
[681]
translation in Philip Schaff’s History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3,
3d period, ch. 7, sec. 75, p. 380, footnote 1; and in James A. Hessey’s
Bampton Lectures, Sunday, Lecture 3, par. 1, 3d ed., Murray’s printing
of 1866, p. 58. See discussion in Schaff, as above referred to; in Albert
Henry Newman, A Manual of Church History (Philadelphia: the Amer-
ican Baptist Publication Society, printing of 1933), rev.
Education,
305-307
; and in Leroy E. Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers
(Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1950), vol.
1, pp 376-381.
Page 54. Prophetic Dates.—An important principle in prophetic
interpretation in connection with time prophecies is the year-day prin-
ciple, under which a day of prophetic time is counted as a calendar year
of historic time. Before the Israelites entered the land of Canaan they
sent twelve spies ahead to investigate. The spies were gone forty days,
and upon their return the Hebrews, frightened at their report, refused