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314
From Here to Forever
enforcing Sunday observance was the law enacted by Constantine.
Though virtually a heathen statute, it was enforced by the emperor
after his nominal acceptance of Christianity.
Eusebius, a bishop who sought the favor of princes, and who
was the special friend of Constantine, advanced the claim that Christ
had transferred the Sabbath to Sunday. No testimony of Scripture
[351]
was produced in proof. Eusebius himself unwittingly acknowledges
its falsity. “All things,” he says, “whatever that it was duty to do on
the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord’s Day.
As the papacy became established, Sunday exaltation was con-
tinued. For a time the seventh day was still regarded as the Sabbath,
but steadily a change was effected. Later the pope gave directions
that the parish priest should admonish violators of Sunday lest they
bring some great calamity on themselves and neighbors.
The decrees of councils proving insufficient, the secular authori-
ties were besought to issue an edict that would strike terror to the
hearts of the people and force them to refrain from labor on Sunday.
At a synod held in Rome, all previous decisions were reaffirmed and
incorporated into ecclesiastical law and enforced by civil authori-
ties
Still the absence of scriptural authority for Sundaykeeping oc-
casioned embarrassment. The people questioned the right of their
teachers to set aside the declaration, “The seventh day is the Sabbath
of the Lord thy God,” in order to honor the day of the sun. To supply
the lack of Bible testimony, other expedients were necessary.
A zealous advocate of Sunday, who about the close of the twelfth
century visited the churches of England, was resisted by faithful
witnesses for the truth; and so fruitless were his efforts that he
departed from the country for a season. When he returned, he
brought with him a roll purporting to be from God Himself, which
contained the needed command for Sunday observance, with awful
threats to terrify the disobedient. This precious document was said
to have fallen from heaven and to have been found in Jerusalem
upon the altar of St. Simeon, in Golgotha. But, in fact, the pontifical
palace at Rome was the source. Frauds and forgeries have in all ages
2
Robert Cox, Sabbath Laws and Sabbath Duties, p. 538.
3
See Heylyn, History of the Sabbath, pt. 2, ch. 5, sec. 7.