Liberty of Conscience Threatened
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their dogmas, let him see the spirit which Rome manifested toward the
Sabbath and its defenders.
Royal edicts, general councils, and church ordinances sustained by
secular power were the steps by which the pagan festival attained its
position of honor in the Christian world. The first public measure en-
forcing Sunday observance was the law enacted by Constantine. (A.D.
321; see Appendix note for page 53.) This edict required townspeople
to rest on “the venerable day of the sun,” but permitted countrymen
to continue their agricultural pursuits. Though virtually a heathen
statute, it was enforced by the emperor after his nominal acceptance
of Christianity.
The royal mandate not proving a sufficient substitute for divine
authority, Eusebius, a bishop who sought the favor of princes, and
who was the special friend and flatterer of Constantine, advanced the
claim that Christ had transferred the Sabbath to Sunday. Not a single
testimony of the Scriptures was produced in proof of the new doctrine.
Eusebius himself unwittingly acknowledges its falsity and points to
the real authors of the change. “All things,” he says, “whatever that it
was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord’s
Day.”—Robert Cox, Sabbath Laws and Sabbath Duties, page 538.
But the Sunday argument, groundless as it was, served to embolden
men in trampling upon the Sabbath of the Lord. All who desired to be
honored by the world accepted the popular festival.
As the papacy became firmly established, the work of Sunday
exaltation was continued. For a time the people engaged in agricultural
labor when not attending church, and the seventh day was still regarded
as the Sabbath. But steadily a change was effected. Those in holy
office were forbidden to pass judgment in any civil controversy on the
Sunday. Soon after, all persons, of whatever rank, were commanded
to refrain from common labor on pain of a fine for freemen and stripes
[575]
in the case of servants. Later it was decreed that rich men should be
punished with the loss of half of their estates; and finally, that if still
obstinate they should be made slaves. The lower classes were to suffer
perpetual banishment.
Miracles also were called into requisition. Among other wonders it
was reported that as a husbandman who was about to plow his field on
Sunday cleaned his plow with an iron, the iron stuck fast in his hand,
and for two years he carried it about with him, “to his exceeding great