384: TUIliD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Sunday, but not the Sabbatli, "the first and chief cf days and a day of salvation," and commends Constantino for commanding that "all should assemble tugether every week, and keep that which is called the Lord's l)ay as a festival, to refresh even their bodies and to stir up their minds b}^ divine precepts and instruction." ' Athanasius spealts very highly of the Lord's Day, as the perpetual memorial of the resurrection, but assumes that the old Sabbath has deceased." Macarius, a presbyter of Upper Egypt (350), spiritualizes the Sabbath as a type and shadow of the true Sabbatli given by the Lord to the soul — the true and eternal Sabbath, which is freedom from sin.' Hilary represents the whole of this life as a preparation for the eternal Sabbath of the next. Epiphanius speaks of Sunday as an institution of the apostles, but falsely attributes the same origin to the observance of Wednesday and Friday as half fasts. Ambrose frequently mentions Sunday as an evangelical festival, and contrasts it w^ith the defunct legal Sabbath. Jerome makes the same distinction. He relates of the Egyptian coenobites that they " devote themselves on the Lord's Day to nothing but prayer and reading the Scri}>tures." But he mentions also without censure, that the pious Paula and her companions, after returning fi'oin church on Sundays, " applied themselves to their allotted works and made garment3 for themselves and others." Augustine likewise directly derives Sunday from tlie resurrection, and not from the fourth commandment. Fasting on that day of spiritual joy he regards, like Ambrose, as a grave scandal and heretical practice. The Apostolical Constitutions in this respect go even-^till fur
tertained rather lax views on the Sabbath law. It was left for Puritanism in England, at the close of Queen Elizabeth's reign, to bring out the perpetuity of the fourth commandrncat and the legal and general moral feature in the Christian Sabbath. The book of Dr. liownd, first, published in 1595, under the title, "The Doctrine of the Sabbath," produced an entire revolution on the subject in the Enghsh mind^ which is visible to this day in the strict observance of the Lord's Day in England, Scotland, the British Provinces, and the United States. Coiup. on Dr. Bownd'a book my Essay above quoted, p. 16 if., GilfiUan, p. 69 ff., and Hcssey, p. 276 ffi
' De Laud. Const, c. 9 and 17.
' In the treatise : De sabbatis et de circumcisione, which is among the doubtfu' worl' s of Athanastua.
• Horn. ae.
^ 75. niE CIVIL AND RKLIGIOUS SUNDAY. 385
ther, and declare: "He that fasts on the Lord's Day is guilty of sin." But they still prescribe the celebration of the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday in addition to the Christian Sunday. Chiysostom warns Christians against sabbatizing with the Jews, but earnestly commends tlie due celebration of the Lord's Day. Leo the Great, in a beautiful passage — the fincist of all the patristic ntterances on this subject — lauds the Lord's Day as the day of the primitive creation, of the Christian redemption, of the meeting of the risen Saviour with the assembled disciples, of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, of the principal Divine blessings bestowed upon the world.' But he likewise brings it in no connection with the fourth commandment, and with the other fathers leaves out of view the proper foundation of the day in the eternal moral law of God.
Besides Sunday, the Jewish Sabbath alao was distinguished in the Eastern church by the absence of fasting and by standing in prayer. The Western church, on the contrary, especially the Roman, in protest against Judaism, observed the seventh day of the week as a fast day, like Friday. This diiference between the two churches was permanently fixed by the fifty-fifth canon of the Trull an council of 692 : " Li Rome fasting is practised on all the Saturdays of Quadragesima [the forty days* fast before Easter]. This is contrary to the sixty-sixth apostolic canon, and must no longer be done. Whoever does it, if a clergyman, shall be deposed ; if a layman, excommuni cated."
' Leon. Epist. ix. ad Dioscurum Alex, episc. c. 1 (0pp. ed. Ballerlni, torn. L coL 630): "Dies resurrectionis Dominicae . . . qua? tantis divinarum dispositionum mysteriis est eoDsecrata, ut quicquid est a Domino insignius constitutum, in huiiM piei dignitate sit gestum. In hac mundus sumpsit exordium. In liac per resurrec* Houera Christi et mors interitiim, et vita accepit initium. In hac apostoli a Domino praedicandi omnibiis gentibus evangelii tubam sumunt, et inferendum universo mundo sacramentum regenefationis accipiunt. In hac, sicut beatus Joannes evangelists testatur (Joann. xx. 22), congregatis in unum discipulis, januis clausia, cum ad eo9 Dominus introisset, insufflavit, et dixit : ' Accipife Spiritum Sanctum ; quorum remiseriiis peccata, remitlunlur eis, et quorum detimteritis, deterda erunt.'' In hao den'que promissus a Domino apostolis Spiritus SaD**vU3 advenit: ut ccelesti quadam regula insinuatum et traditum noverimus, in :11a Aw c*-^branda nobis esse mystezia lacordotalium benedictionum, in qua collata sunt i~ai>-t cvina gratiarum."