Nevertheless, great confusion has continued to exist in the Christian Church as to the keeping of the weekly festival. This inevitably resulted from transferring the sanctions and some of the features of the Jewish Sabbath to the Lord's Day, and from the incorporation of the unaltered Decalogue as a norm in Christian ethics. The Fourth Com- mandment was still held to be binding ; only Sunday was tacitly substituted for ' the seventh day.' The confusion probably still exists, very much helped by the long-established custom of
speaking of the Lord's Day as ' the Christian Sabbath' or even simply 'the Sabbath' or 'the Sabbath Day.' But there is a clear distinction between the two ; and for Christians the Lord's Day is iiaramount. Great as the authority of the Sabbath is, the authority of the Lord's Day for all who accept the resurrection of our Lord is equally great or even greater.
As a matter of fact, the practice of Sabbath keeping among Christians has been made to rest on dili'erent grounds and has been differently inter preted, though the views may ultimately be classi lied as two, the Sabbatical and the Dominical Some supporters of the former have argued even that the seventh day is the true Sabbath and ought still to be observed by Christians (see a curious work by Francis BampCeld written to show that the seventh-day Sabbath is the desirable day and according to 'an unchangeable Law of well- establisht Order both in the Revealed Word and in Created Nature ' [Judgment for the Observa- tion of the Jewish or Seventh-Day Sabbath, London, 1672]). And representatives of this view still exist : e.g. the Seventh Day Adventists, an American sect — not, be it noticed, with a desire to return to primitive practice and observe both Sabbath and Lord's Day, but to observe the seventh day alone.
The Jews have long suffered special disabilities in Christian countries in this respect, but this has not availed to cause them to abandon Sabbath- keeping. And we have Sunday. We must dis- criminate between the day as a day of rest from labour (one day in seven) and as a day of joyful worship and of religious activities. The sanctions for the former are deep-seated in human nature itself. It is simple wisdom to guard such a space of liberty from the encroachments of labour, and to make it, in George Herbert's words, ' The couch of time, care's balm and bay ' [Sunday, line 5). And all enlightened Christians will con- tinue to make the worthiest use of the day so set apart.
LiTERATCRE.— J. A. Hessey, Sunday: its Origin, History, and Present Oblifjation'^, London, 1SS9 ; W. Lotz, Hib-f.ona Sabbati : (Jua^stiunurn de hintoria sabbati libri duo, Leipzig, 1883 ; J. Meinhold, Sabbat und Woche im Alien Testament {= Forschungen zur Retujion und Literatur dee Alten und Neuen Testaments, v.), Obttinpen, 1905; J. Bingrham, An- titfuities of the Christian Church, bk. xx. (=H'orfcs, Oxford, 1855, vol. vii.) ; R. Baxter, A Christian Directory, pt. ii. ch. xviii. {=Works, iid. VV, Ornie, 23 vols., London, 1830, vol. iv. p. '.i40), The Divine Appointmtnt of the Lord's Day (ib. vol. xiii.); E. Schiirer, HJ F n. ii. [Edinburgh, 1885] ; L. Duchesne, Origines du culte Chretien, Paris, 1889 ; C. H. Toy, JBL, 'The Earliest Form of the Sabbath,' xviii. [ISOtfJ 190 9. ; Eight Studies on the Lord's Day (anon.), Cambridge, 1884 ; also artt. 'Sabbath,' in HDB(S. R. Driver), ££i (Robertson Smith, K. Marti, T. K. Cheyne), JE (J. H. Greenstone); artt. 'Festivals and Fasts (Hebrew)' (F. H. Woods), and ' Festivals and Fasts (Christian) ' (J. G. Carleton), in ERE.
J. S. Clemens. SACKCLOTH (o-a/cicos ; from pie, which was intro- duced, probably through the Phcenicians, into all the languages of Europe ; the root is perhaps Egyptian — Coptic sok). — Sackcloth meant pro- perly a coarse black fabric woven from goats or camels' hair, and then an article of clothing made of that material and worn (1) by prophets ; (2) by mourners, penitents, and suppliants ; and (3) by slaves and captives. This garment, wliich was originally, and remained pre-eminently, a sacred covering, was a mere loin-cloth, probably resem- bling the ili.ram of the Muslim pilgrims to Mecca, of whom C. M. Doughty says : ' they enter the town like bathing men — none is excused ' ( Wanderings in Arabia, 1908, ii. 263). The prophet Elijah is described as ' a man with a garment of hair ' (2 K 1* RVm). Isaiah too wore, at least for a time, sack- cloth upon his loins (Is 20'-) ; and ' a hairy garment ' became the characteristic dress of the prophets (Zee 13"). The raiment {Ifdvua) of the Baptist was
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made of eamel's liair (Mt 3''), i.e. of sackcloth. The dark colour and tragic associations of sackcloth suggested to the proj)het of the Kevclation, as it had ah'cady done to Deutcro-lsaiah, a ligure for a solar e<-lii)se which seemed to portend a Uiviue judgment — ' the sun became black as sackcloth of hair ' (Kev 6'''' ; cf. Is oU"). JJefore the Final .ludg- ment two witnesses— apjiarently Enoch and Elijah are meant — are to come and ]no|ihesy, irepi^e^Xrifiivoi aaKKovs, ' clothed in sackcloth' (Rev 1 P), a sj'mbol of the need of humiliation and repentance. See also art. MOURNING.