Sabbath timing The Hebrew
Shabbat, the seventh day of the week, is "Saturday" but in the
Hebrew calendar a new day begins at sunset (or, by custom, about 20 minutes earlier) and not at midnight. The Shabbat therefore coincides with what is now commonly identified as Friday sunset to Saturday night when three stars are first visible in the night sky. The Sabbath continued to be observed on the seventh day in the early Christian church. To this day, the liturgical day continues to be observed in line with the Hebrew reckoning in the church calendars in
Eastern Orthodoxy and
Oriental Orthodoxy. In the
Latin Church, "the liturgical day runs from midnight to midnight. However, the celebration of Sundays and of Solemnities begins already on the evening of the previous day". In non-liturgical matters, the canon law of the Latin Church defines a day as beginning at midnight.
Early Christianity Jewish Christians continued to observe Shabbat but met together at the end of the day, on a Saturday evening. In the gospels, the women are described as coming to the empty tomb , although it is often translated "on the first day of the week". This is made clear in Acts 20:7 when Paul continued his message "until midnight" and a young man went to sleep and fell out of the window. Many Christians celebrate on Sunday because it is the day on which Jesus had risen from the dead and on which the
Holy Spirit had come to the apostles. Although Christians meeting for worship on the first day of the week (Sunday for Gentiles) dates back to
Acts and is historically mentioned around 115 AD, Constantine's edict was the start of many more Christians observing only Sunday and not the Sabbath. A
Church Father,
Eusebius, who became the bishop of
Caesarea Maritima about AD 314, stated that for Christians, "the sabbath had been transferred to Sunday". According to
Socrates of Constantinople and
Sozomen, most of the early Church (excluding
Rome and
Alexandria) observed the seventh day Sabbath in Easter.
Corporate worship While the
Lord's Day observance of the
Eucharist was established separately from the Jewish Shabbat, the centrality of the Eucharist itself made it the commonest early observance whenever Christians gathered for worship. In many places and times as late as the 4th century, they did continue to gather weekly on the Sabbath, often in addition to the Lord's Day, celebrating the Eucharist on both days. No disapproval of Sabbath observance of the Christian festival was expressed at the early church councils that dealt with
Judaizing. The
Council of Laodicea (363–364), for example, mandated only that Sabbath Eucharists must be observed in the same manner as those on the first day. wrote about the cessation of Hebrew Sabbath observance and stated that the Sabbath was enjoined as a temporary sign to Israel to teach it of human sinfulness, no longer needed after Christ came without sin. He rejected the need to keep a literal seventh-day Sabbath, arguing instead that "the new law requires you to keep the sabbath constantly." However, Justin Martyr believe the Sabbath has only attributed to Moses and the Israelites. According to J.N Andrews, a historian, and theologian, he mentions, "In his (Justin) estimation, the Sabbath was a Jewish institution, absolutely unknown to good men before the time of Moses, and of no authority whatever since the death of Christ." He identifies this through Justin's writings: "Do you see that the elements are not idle, and keep no Sabbaths? Remain as you were born. 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 of them is there 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." With more clarification, Andrews also states: "Not only does he (Justin) declare that the Jews were commanded to keep the sabbath because of their wickedness, but in chapter nineteen he denies that any Sabbath existed before Moses. Thus, after naming Adam, Abel, Enoch, Lot, and Melchizedek, he says: "Moreover, all those righteous men already mentioned, though they kept no Sabbaths were pleasing to God." But though he thus denies the Sabbatic institution before the time of Moses he presently makes this statement concerning the Jews: "And you were commanded to keep Sabbaths, that you might retain the memorial of God. For his word makes this announcement, saying. 'That ye may know that I am God who redeemed you.'"[Eze.20:12.]. On these statements from Justin Martyr, J.N Andrews concludes "The Sabbath is indeed the memorial of the God that made the heavens and the earth. And what an absurdity to deny that that memorial was set up when the creative work was done, and to affirm that twenty-five hundred years intervened between the work and the memorial!" and
Tertullian (early 3rd century) argued "that we still more ought to observe a sabbath from all servile work always, and not only every seventh-day, but through all time". This early metaphorical interpretation of Sabbath applied it to the entire Christian life.
Ignatius, cautioning against "
Judaizing" in the
Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, contrasts the Jewish Shabbat practices with the Christian life which includes the Lord's Day: The 2nd and 3rd centuries solidified the early church's emphasis upon Sunday worship and its rejection of a Jewish (Mosaic Law-based) observation of the Sabbath and manner of rest. Christian practice of following Sabbath after the manner of the Hebrews declined, prompting Tertullian to note "to [us] Sabbaths are strange" and unobserved. Even as late as the 4th century, Judaizing was still sometimes a problem within the Church, but by this time it was repudiated strongly as heresy. Sunday was another work day in the Roman Empire. On March 7, 321, however,
Roman Emperor Constantine I issued a civil decree making Sunday a day of rest from labor, stating: While established only in civil law rather than religious principle, the Church welcomed the development as a means by which Christians could the more easily attend Sunday worship and observe Christian rest. At Laodicea also, the Church encouraged Christians to make use of the day for Christian rest where possible, Sunday worship and Sunday rest combined powerfully to relate to Sabbath commandment precepts.
Continuations of Hebrew practices Seventh-day Sabbath was observed at least sporadically by a minority of groups during the Middle Ages. In the early church in Ireland, there is evidence that a sabbath-rest on Saturday may have been kept along with Mass on Sunday as the Lord's Day. It appears that many of the canon laws in Ireland from that period were derived from parts of the laws of Moses. In Adomnan of Iona's biography of
St Columba it describes Columba's death by having Columba say on a Saturday, "Today is truly my sabbath, for it is my last day in this wearisome life, when I shall keep the Sabbath after my troublesome labours. At midnight this Sunday, as Scripture saith, 'I shall go the way of my fathers'" and he then dies that night. The identification of this Sabbath day as a Saturday in the narrative is clear in the context, because Columba is recorded as seeing an angel at the Mass on the previous Sunday and the narrative claims he dies in the same week, on the Sabbath day at the end of the week, during the 'Lord's night' (referring to Saturday night-Sunday morning). An Eastern body of Christian Sabbath-keepers mentioned from the 8th century to the 12th is called Athenians ("touch-not") because they abstained from uncleanness and intoxicating drinks, called Athinginians in Neander: "This sect, which had its principal seat in the city of Armorion, in upper Phrygia, where many Jews resided, sprung out of a mixture of Judaism and Christianity. They united baptism with the observance of all the rites of Judaism, circumcision excepted. We may perhaps recognize a branch of the older Judaizing sects." Cardinal Hergenrother says that they stood in intimate relation with Emperor Michael II (AD 821–829), and testifies that they observed Sabbath. As late as the 11th century Cardinal Humbert still referred to the Nazarenes as a Sabbath-keeping Christian body existing at that time. But in the 10th and 11th centuries, there was a great extension of sects from the East to the West. Neander states that the corruption of the clergy furnished a most important vantage-ground on which to attack the dominant church. The abstemious life of these Christians, the simplicity and earnestness of their preaching and teaching, had their effect. "Thus we find them emerging at once in the 11th century, in countries the most diverse, and the most remote from each other, in Italy, France, and even in the Harz districts in Germany." Likewise, also, "traces of Sabbath-keepers are found in the times of Gregory I, Gregory VII, and in the 12th century in Lombardy."
Oriental Orthodoxy The Sabbath is considered holy in the
Oriental Orthodox churches, both Sunday (the "Christian Sabbath") and Saturday (the "Old Sabbath"). The
Orthodox Tewahedo churches are known for celebrating the Sabbath, a practice defended in the
Oriental Orthodox church in Ethiopia in the 1300s by
Ewostatewos (, ) but deriving from the
Apostolic Constitutions and the
Canons of the Apostles, an early Christian text invoking the authority of the
Apostles and practiced in the
Coptic Orthodox Church much earlier. In response to colonial pressure by missionaries of the
Catholic Church in the 1500s, the emperor
Saint Gelawdewos wrote his
Confession, an
apologia of traditional beliefs and practices including observation of the Sabbath and a theological defense of the
Miaphysitism of
Oriental Orthodoxy. In it, he cites the Didascalia and distances the Christian observance of the seventh-day Sabbath from the Jewish observance, explicitly stating "we do not honour it as the Jews do... but we so honour it that we celebrate thereon the Eucharist and have love-feasts, even as our Fathers the Apostles have taught us in the Didascalia".
Protestant Reformation displaying a sign "Please do not use this playing field on Sundays" Protestant reformers, beginning in the 16th century, brought new interpretations of Christian law to the West. The
Heidelberg Catechism of the
Reformed Churches founded by
John Calvin teaches that the moral law as contained in the
Ten Commandments is binding for Christians and that it instructs Christians how to live in service to God in gratitude for His grace shown in redeeming mankind. Likewise,
Martin Luther, in his work against the
Antinomians, rejected the idea of the abolition of the Ten Commandments. They also viewed Sunday rest as a civic institution established by human authority, which provided an occasion for bodily rest and public worship. Another Protestant,
John Wesley, stated "This 'handwriting of ordinances' our Lord did blot out, take away, and nail to His cross. But the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments, and enforced by the prophets, He did not take away. ... The moral law stands on an entirely different foundation from the ceremonial or ritual law. ... Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind and in all ages."
Sabbatarianism arose and spread among both the continental and English Protestants during the 17th and 18th centuries. The
Puritans of England and Scotland brought a new rigorism into the observance of the Christian Lord's Day in reaction to the customary Sunday observance of the time, which they regarded as lax. They appealed to Sabbath ordinances with the idea that only the Bible can bind men's consciences on whether or how they will take a break from work, or to impose an obligation to meet at a particular time. Their influential reasoning spread to other denominations also, and it is primarily through their influence that "Sabbath" has become the colloquial equivalent of "Lord's Day" or "Sunday". Sunday Sabbatarianism is enshrined in its most mature expression, the
Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), in the
Calvinist theological tradition. Paragraphs 7 and 8 of Chapter 21 (
Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day) read: {{Blockquote|{{ordered list|start=7| As it is the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in his Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which, in Scripture, is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath. The confession holds that not only is work forbidden on Sunday, but also "works, words, and thoughts" about "worldly employments and recreations". Instead, the whole day should be taken up with "public and private exercises of [one's] worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy". The latter follows the
reformed confessions of faith of
Continental Europe such as the
Heidelberg Catechism, which emphasize rest and worship on the Lord's Day, but do not explicitly forbid recreational activities. However, in practice, many continental Reformed Christians also abstain from recreation on the Sabbath, following the admonition by the Heidelberg Catechism's author Zacharaias Ursinus that "To keep holy the Sabbath, is not to spend the day in slothfulness and idleness". Though first-day Sabbatarian practice declined in the 18th century, the
First Great Awakening in the 19th century led to a greater concern for strict Sunday observance. The founding of the
Day One Christian Ministries in 1831 was influenced by the teaching of Daniel Wilson. ==Common theology==