§ 17. LEGAL 6AJJCTI0N OF SUNDAY. lOt
tice or mercy. Tlie beneficence of this law, whicli bad its root not in superstition alone, but in the nobler synipatbies of the people, comes most impressively to view amidst the ragings of the great migration and of the frequent intestine wars.'
§ 17. Legal Sanction of Sunday.
7. The civil sanction of the observance of Sunday and other festivals of the church.
Tlie state, indeed, should not and cannot enforce this observance upon any one, but may undoubtedly and should prohibit the public disturbance and profanation of the Christian Sabbath, and protect the Christians in their right and duty of its proper observance. Constantino in 321 forbade the sitting of courts and all secular labor in towns on " the venerable day of the sun," as he expresses himself, perhaps with reference at once to the sun-god, Apollo, and to Christ, the true Sun of righteousness; to his pagan and his Christian subjects. But he distinctly permitted the culture of farms and vineyards in the country, because frequently this could be attended to on no other day so well ; '^ though one would suppose that the hard-working peasantry were the very ones who most needed the day of rest. Soon afterward, in June, 321, he allowed the manumission of slaves on Sunday ; ^ as this, being an act of benevolence, was diiferent from ordinary business, and might be altogether appropriate to the day of resurrection and redemption. According to Eusebius, Constantino also
* "Tbe rash violence of despotism," says even Gibbon, "was suspended by the mild interposition of the church ; and the lives or fortunes of the most eminent subjects might be protected by the mediation of the bishop."
^ This exception is entirely unnoticed by many church histories, but stands in the same law of 321 in the Cod. Justin, lib. iii. tit. 12, de feriis, 1. 3: "Omnes judices, urbanceque plebes, et cunctarum artium officia venerabili die Solis qniescant. Ruri tamen positi agrorum culturte libere licenterque inserviant : quoniam frequenter evenit, ut non aptius alio die frumenta sulcis, aut vinese scrobibus niandentur, ne occasione momenti pereat commoditas coelesti provisione concessa." Such work wa"? formerly permitted, too, on the pagan feast days. Comp. Virgil. Georg. i. v. 268 sqq. Cato, De re rust. c. 2.
* Cod. Theodos. lib. ii. tit. 8.1. 1: "Emancipandl et manumittendi die fe8t« ciiBcti licentiam habcant, et super his rebus actus non prohibcantur."
106 TIJIKD PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
prohibited all uiilitary excrcites on Sunday, and at tlie same time enjoined the observance of Friday in memory of the death of Christ.'
N^ay, he went so far, in well-meaning but mistaken zeal, as to require of his soldiers, even the pagan ones, the positive observance of Sunday, by pronouncing at a signal the following prayer, which they mechanically learned: "Thee alone we acknowledge as God ; thee we confess as king ; to thee we call as our helper; from thee we have received victories; through thee we have conquered enemies. Thee wc thank for good received ; from thee we hope for good to come. Thee we all most humbly beseech to keep our Constantino and hia God-fearing sons through long life healthy and victorious."' Though this formula was held in a deistical generalness, yet the legal injunction of it lay clearly beyond the province of the civil power, trespassed on the rights of conscience, and unavoidably encouraged hypocrisy and empty formalism.
Later emperors declared the profanation of Sunday to be sacrilege, and prohibited also the collecting of taxes and private debts (368 and 386), and even theatrical and circus performances, on Sunday and the high festivals (380 and 425)." But this interdiction of public amusements, on which a council of Carthago (399 or 401) with reason insibted, was probably never rigidly enforced, and was repeatedly supplanted by the op posite practice, which gradually prevailed all over Europe.*
' Eus. VJt. Const, iv. 18-20. Comp. Sozom. i. 8. In our times military parados and theatrical exhibitions in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and other European cities are so frequent on no other day as on the Lord's day ! In France, political elections are usually held on the Sabbath !
'■* Eus. Vit. Const. 1. iv. c. 20. The formulary was prescribed in the Latin language, as Eusebius says in c. 19. He is speaking of the whole army (eomp. c. 18), and it may presumed that many of the soldiers were heathen.
* The second law against opening theatres on Sundays and festivals (a.d. 425) in the Cod. Theodos. 1. xv. tit. 7, 1. 5, says expressly: "Omni theatrorimi atquc circensium voluptate per universas uibes . . denegata, tota; Cin-istianorum ac fideliiim mentes Dei cultibus occupentur."
* As Chrysostom, at the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth, often complains that the theatre is better attended than the church ; so dovni to thii day the same is true in almost all the large cities on the continent of Europe. Only ill England and the United States, under the inlluoncc of Calvinism and Furitauiam arc the theatres closed on Sunday.