Lord’s Day
Lord’s Day
1. Origin.-Before the apostolic period had wholly passed away the first day of the week had become, or was well on the way to become, the stated weekly holy-day of the Christian Church, bearing the distinctive designation the Lords Day ( ). It is evident that this day was regarded as of special importance from the beginning, and was placed alongside of the Sabbath in the esteem of Jewish Christians. In the course of time it became a substitute for the Sabbath itself. How this was brought about cannot be exactly stated. We cannot point to any definite act of institution, any such impressive story and legislative sanction as the Pentateuch supplies with reference to the Jewish Sabbath. No authority of the Lord Himself can be cited for it; there is no Jesus said to correspond to God spake all these words, saying (Exo 20:1), or the Lord spake unto Moses, saying (Lev 19:1-3).
The materials afforded us by the NT are scanty indeed. Two things, however, are clear.-(a) In the brief Resurrection stories, as found in all the Gospels, conspicuous emphasis is laid on the first day of the week as the day on which Jesus rose from the dead. See Mar 16:2, Luk 24:1, Joh 20:1 ( ), Mat 28:1 ( ), the fragment Mar 16:9-20 ( ), Joh 20:19 ( ). Joh 20:26, with its after eight days (the octave), is specially interesting, for it has the faint suggestion of a custom-germ, or reflects the early-established practice of a weekly meeting on that day. Th. Zahn calls attention to the particularity with which John notes the days connected with the Passion and Resurrection, and explains it as due to the Christian week-scheme already fully established among the churches of Asia Minor, with which the Fourth Gospel was so closely associated (Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, no. 5, p. 178).-(b) Early in the 2nd cent. the first day of the week appears as distinctively the sacred day of Christianity under the name of the Lords Day.
The connexion between (a) and (b) cannot be fortuitous. The tradition that the Lord rose again on the first day of the week naturally invested that day with special interest. Jesus Resurrection from the first figured as a dominating fact concerning Him in early faith and evangelism. What wonder that that day should come to be regarded as par excellence the Lords Day?
Those who deny the reality of the Resurrection as a unique event are hard pressed to account for the undeniable primitive association of the day with that occurrence. What is there convincing in the following suggestions? It is quite possible that the Christian Sunday was originally fixed-perhaps before the womens story was generally known-in some other way, e.g. by the events of the Day of Pentecost, or by the first appearance of the risen Christ in Galilee, or by the selection of the first available time after the Jewish Sabbath, and that the connexion of it with the date of the Resurrection was an afterthought (J. M. Thompson, Miracles in the NT, London, 1911, p. 164). Later on the same author seems to treat the appearance also as a fictitious afterthought grafted on to a Christian time-scheme of amazingly early development: Both the appearances take place on Sunday (John 20). This is another indication of the ecclesiastical and eucharistic atmosphere in which the Resurrection stories grew up (p. 199; cf. A. Loisy, Autour dun petit livre, Paris, 1903, p. 242f.).
The NT itself is not without evidence that this institution began its growth in apostolic times. The passages are few but familiar. In Act 20:7 the first day of the week is associated with a Christian assembly for religious purposes ( ). If a use of this kind had not already begun, what propriety or moment would there be in stating what day of the week it was? Again, at an earlier point in St. Pauls career we find him urging the Christians at Corinth to make weekly contributions towards the fund for the relief of the impoverished church at Jerusalem, and to do it on the first day of the week (1Co 16:2). It has been pointed out, not unreasonably, that this contribution is not represented as an offering to be collected at some meeting for worship (Deissmann, article Lords Day in Encyclopaedia Biblica ), that, rather, the expression simply points to setting aside such a gift at home, and so the passage yields no positive evidence for the observance of the day as in later times. When, however, it is suggested, as an alternative explanation, that the first day of the week is named because probably this or the day before was the pay-day for working folk at Corinth, we need some definite evidence for this which is not forthcoming. And when, as Zahn observes (op. cit. p. 177), we find that in the 2nd cent. there was a wide-spread custom of laying charitable gifts for the poor on the church dish in connexion with public worship, it is difficult not to connect this with St. Pauls words here. May not his action in this particular instance, indeed, have directly led to the institution of a collection for the poor on the Lords Day, and especially in association with the breaking of bread? It may be added that, as St. Paul urges this course so that no collections be made when I come, and as the whole work is described in v. 1 as a collection (), it is most natural to infer that there was not only a setting apart of gifts, but also a paying into a local fund week by week. This strengthens the view that 1Co 16:2 incidentally gives evidence of early movements towards the setting up of the Lords Day as an institution, especially when taken along with Act 20:7; for when could the contributions of the people be better collected in readiness for the Apostle than at their meetings on the special day of worship?
It is fair also to suggest (with Hessey, Sunday, p. 43) that the assembling spoken of in Heb 10:25 must have taken place at stated times and that the time is most likely to have been the first day of the week.
The mention of in Rev 1:10 calls for special notice, as this is the only instance in the NT of the use of the expression that subsequently became so established and familiar. But does it bear in this place the same significance as it came to possess and possesses still? Some have argued that what is meant is not the Lords Day as we understand it, but the Day of the Lord in the sense in which the OT prophets employ the term, and as it figures in the eschatological outlook of the NT (e.g. 1Th 5:2). Hort (Apoc. of St. John, I.-III., London, 1908, ad loc.) inclines to this view, thinking it suits the context better, and seeing no reason for mentioning the day on which the seer had his vision. He suggests as a possible rendering: I became in the Spirit and so in the Day of the Lord. It is not surprising that he only ventures on this with some doubt. Deissmann (loc. cit.) also favours this view, identifying the Lords Day here with the day of Jahweh, the day of judgment-in the Septuagint (as also in St. Paul and elsewhere). But here we have an important point telling for the ordinary view. Neither in the Septuagint nor in the NT (nor in other early Christian writings) have we any instance of (if not here) used as = the Day of the Lord. The term with this meaning is () . If the two expressions were equivalent and interchangeable, how strange that the latter should occur so regularly and the former be found in but one solitary instance!
On the other hand, we have an undisputed early example of the use of (in noteworthy abbreviation) as = Sunday in Didache, xiv. 1 ( ; cf. Act 20:7). The expression thus could not have been a new term c. [Note: . circa, about.] a.d. 100, since alone is used as = Lords Day, and particularly in the striking collocation . The relevance of this is unaffected even if Turner is right in regarding the Didahe as simply a rchauff of a purely Jewish manual, and the curious phrase the Lords day of the Lord as only the Christian substitute for the Jewish Sabbath of the Lord (Studies in Early Church History, Oxford, 1912, p. 8). Cf. also Ignatius, ad Magn. ix. 1 living in the observance of the Lords Day ( ). No difficulty in point of time emerges concerning the use of in Rev., which is reasonably assigned to the reign of Domitian. And it is not used here as a newly-coined term. How much earlier than the time of Domitian it came into use none can say.
It is true we find the simple early name first day or eighth day continuing in use long after emerges. Note particularly the eighth day, which is also the first, used by Justin Martyr (Dial. xli., Apol. i. 67) and still later writers. But evidently there was in Lords Day an inherent suitability and felicity which caused it to outlive these primitive designations and become the permanent and characteristic Christian name of the day. It passed into Western use, not only figuring as dies dominica in the liturgical scheme of the week, but establishing itself in ordinary modern nomenclature (e.g. in French dimanche and Italian domenica).
2. The epithet and its use.-We can hardly wonder that at one time was regarded as a word coined by the apostles themselves (Winer-Moulton, Grammar of NT Greek9, Edinburgh, 1882, p. 296). In Wilke-Grimms Clavis Novi Testamenti3, Leipzig, 1888, it is described as vox solum biblica et ecclesiastica, and in Thayer Grimms Gr.-Eng. Lexicon of the NT, tr. Thayer 4, Edinburgh, 1892, this is reproduced, save that solum is passed over. However, the papyri and inscriptions discovered more recently in Egypt and in Asia Minor abundantly prove that the word was in current use in the whole of the Greek-speaking world; e.g. (= Imperial treasury) occurs in a government decree issued in a.d. 68, being a designation of the Emperor (cf. similar use of Lat. dominicus). For other examples see Deissmann, Bible Studies, Eng. translation , Edinburgh, 1901, p. 217f.
But from the fact that early Christians did not coin the term , but found it ready to hand in the vocabulary of the day, it does not necessarily follow that they used it as the pagan world used it. They set it in a new connexion. In their use of it they gave it a specific and distinctive character. Thus we find it used in specific association (which became permanent) with the Supper ( , 1Co 11:20), with the Day (as here), with the Sayings of Jesus ( , Papias), with the House, the domus ecclesiae ( ).
In this connexion the following note from OED [Note: ED Oxford English Dictionary.] , s.v. Church, may be of use: The parallelism of Gr. , church, , Sunday (in 11th cent. also church), L. dominicum, church, dominica, dies dominica, Sunday, Irish domhnach, church and Sunday, is instructive.
Deissmann (loc. cit.) dissents from the view advanced by Holtzmann and others that our particular term ( or ) is formed after the analogy of . He prefers (though, indeed, with a certain amount of caution) to regard this Christian mode of naming the first day of the week as analogous to the custom of the pagan world in Egypt and Asia Minor whereby the first day of each month was called (= Imperial). Thus the Christian weekly Lords Day was the direct counterpart of a monthly Emperors Day. This, to say the least, is not self-evident; and Deissmann may well hesitate, as he does, to maintain that the Christians thus consciously copied the pagan use. We need not, indeed, argue a direct analogy to in particular. Perhaps we may more reasonably regard both these expressions and others given above as being independent but co-ordinate examples of the application of the epithet . There could be no question from the first as to the it had reference to. Nor, again, need we suppose that Christians, in thus speaking of Jesus, were directly influenced by the use of or as designating a deity or an emperor in the time of the Roman Empire. They had a sufficient precedent for this in the Jewish use of Adni for God. At the same time the parallelism in such use among Jews, Christians, and pagans is a matter of some interest.
3. The relation of the Lords Day to the Jewish Sabbath.-As shown by the few passages already noticed, the first day of the week evidently began from the earliest times to have a special value in the eyes of Christians. But, whatever the significance and use of that day, the day itself was not confounded with the Jewish Sabbath. Nor is there any sign that in apostolic times there was any thought of superseding the latter by the Lords Day.
Lide de transporter au dimanche la solennit du sabbat, avec toutes ses exigences, est une ide trangre au christianisme primitif (Duchesne, Origines du culte chrtien4, p. 46). Similarly Zahn (op. cit. p. 188f.) points out that no one belonging to the circle of Jewish Christians would think of relaxing one of Moses commandments; and, even if already in apostolic times Sunday came to be observed, none could think that the Sabbath commandment would be fulfilled through a Sabbath-like observance of another day instead of the observance of the Sabbath itself.
For a considerable time the two existed side by side. The Jewish Christian who met with his fellow-Christians on the Lords Day still observed the Sabbath of his fathers. Nothing in the use of the first day of the week as a day for Christian reunions could have been intended as hostile to the old Jewish institution. Clear evidence as to the two-fold observance of both the days is furnished by Ignatius (ad Magn. ix. [longer recension]), who exhorts Christians to keep the Sabbath, but no longer after the Jewish manner. And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lords Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days, Similarly in the Apost. Const. ii. 59: Assemble yourselves together every day, morning and evening, singing psalms and praying in the Lords House ( ) but principally on the Sabbath day; and on the day of our Lords Resurrection, which is the Lords Day, meet more diligently, etc. We have an interesting memorial of this primitive double observance in the Lat. and Gr. liturgical names for Sunday (dies dominica, ) and Saturday (sabbatum, ), the whole liturgical scheme of the week having come down from early times when Christiana discarded the use of day-names associated with pagan gods.
It is true that Justin Martyr in a well-known passage (Apology, i. 67) uses the name Sunday ( ); but the expression the day called the day at the sun clearly indicates that whilst Christians might use the ordinary name in intercourse with non-Christians they did not use it among themselves. Similarly in the same chapter Justin uses day of Saturn (Saturday) instead of Sabbath. Zahn (op. cit. p. 357) marks this as the only instance he knows of in which a Christian writer uses the term Sunday in pre-Constantine times (see also Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics , article Festivals and Fasts [Christian]).
As Duchesne (op. cit. p. 396) and others have pointed out, the observance of Sunday is one of a number of elements which Christianity had in common with the religion of Mithras. In Mithraism this was directly connected with the worship of the sun. It was inevitable that some should argue from this a vital connexion between the two religions. This was the case in primitive times. Tertullian (Apol. xvi.) vigorously repudiates the charge that Christians worshipped the sun as their god.
In the course of time, the distinction between church and synagogue growing wider, the Sabbath inevitably became less and less important and eventually fell into complete neglect among Christians, whilst the Lords Day survived as their special sacred day of the week. (No institution of like kind was known in paganism.) It must be remembered that St. Paul was opposed to the introduction of OT festivals (including the Sabbath) into the churches he founded among the Gentiles, declaring that by the adoption of them the Gentile believer forfeited the benefits of the gospel, since he chose to rest his salvation upon rites instead of upon Christ (Col 2:16; cf. Gal 4:10, Rom 14:5 f.) (G. P. Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 1877, new ed., 1886, p. 561; cf. Zahn, p. 189). We may reasonably conclude, indeed, that St. Paul himself, being one of the strong (Rom 14:5 f.), shared the view of those who esteemed every day alike, and that all days were alike sacred in his eyes, whether Sabbaths, Lords Days, or others.
But the observance of the Lords Day must have been a very different thing from that of the Jewish Sabbath. The commemoration of the Resurrection of Christ alone would make a great difference. Whether or not the apostles saw what the issue would be when the first day of the week began to be thus observed (in however simple a way), they must have given the growing custom their approval and welcomed the association of acts of joyful worship and almsgiving with the day. St. Paul could have been no exception in this respect; but apparently he did not foresee that the Christian first day might in time assume those very features of the Jewish seventh day Sabbath which made him deprecate the introduction of this ancient institution among Gentile Christians (see also article Sabbath).
4. Primitive modes of observing the Lords Day.-The fact that for Christians the one raison dtre of the Lords Day was the commemoration of the Lords Resurrection made it a weekly festival to be kept with gladness.
Somewhat later on, it is true, other associations were claimed for it as of to enhance the dignity of the day. E.g. a connexion with the first day of Creation and ever, with the Ascension was assumed; though these were trifling compared with some mediaeval developments. Between the 11th and the 15th centuries we meet with a wide-spread fiction of a Letter from Heaven inculcating Sunday observance, wherein the largest claims are made for the day: how that on it the angels were created, the ark rested on Ararat, the Exodus took place, also the Baptism of Jesus, His great miracles. His Ascensions, and the Charism of Pentecost (see An English Miscellany, in honour of Dr. Furnivall, Oxford, 1901).
(a) We are frequently reminded by early Christian writers that it was the primitive custom to stand for prayer on that day instead of kneeling as on other days. Tertullian, amongst others, dilates on this (de Orat. xxiii.). Canon 20 of the Council of Nicaea plainly reflects a very old custom, as it enjoins that seeing there are some who kneel on Sunday and in the days of Pentecost men should offer their prayers to God standing.
(b) Cessation from all work does not appear to have been required in primitive times as an element in the observance of the day. So long as there were meetings for religious worship, Christians were not expected to cease from manual labour. But so far as Jewish Christians were concerned, if they observed Sabbath in such a way, they would hardly he likely to observe the day immediately following in the same way as well. For the rest it may be questioned whether social conditions made it practicable. We can hardly argue back to apostolic times from customs obtaining in society nominally Christian under nominally Christian government. Old Roman laws in pre-Christian times provided for the suspension of business (particularly in the law courts) on all feriae or festivals. It was the Emperor Constantine who at length ordered that the same rule should apply to the Lords Day, thus bestowing honour on the day as a fixed weekly festival (see Bingham, Antiquities of the Christian Church, bk. xx. ch. ii). It is noticeable that in Ignatius (ad Magn. ix. [see above]) Christians are exhorted to keep Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the Law; and abstention from work in expressly discountenanced, while rest from labour is not demanded for the observance of the Lords Day. Later on the practice of using Sunday as a day of rest from work came into vogue; and then it served as a sign distinguishing Christian from Jew.
Considerable light on this point is incidentally gained from the 29th Canon or the Council of Laodicea (4th cent.)-light as to what had long been the practice of Christians who clung to Jewish antecedents, and as to the conditions then prevailing. It reads; That Christians must not act as Jews by refraining tram work on the Sabbath, but must rather work on that day, and, if they can, as Christiana they must cease work on the Lords Day, so giving it the greater honour.
(c) The assemblies connected with the Lords Day were two; the vigil in the night between Saturday and Sunday, and the celebration of the Liturgy on Sunday morning. One reason for meeting at such times was most probably the need for precaution in times of persecution and difficulty. An interesting account of Sunday worship of Christians at Jerusalem in the 4th cent. is to be found in a letter written by a Gallic lady who went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The document, written in the vulgar Latin, is given by Duchesne in his Origines du culte chrtien, Appendix 5. No doubt the picture reflects in the main a usage which had existed from much earlier times. A crowd of people (all who could possibly be there) gathers at the church doors before cock-crow when the doors are first opened, then streams into the church, which is lit up by a large number of lamps (luminaria infinita). (Not that such zest in church attendance was universal in the early centuries. In a Homily on the Lords Day by Eusebius of Alexandria [5th cent.?] the slackness of people in coming to church is humorously treated and rebuked.) The worship includes inter alia the recitation of three psalms, responses, prayers, and the reading of the gospel story of the Resurrection. Justin Martyrs account of worship on the Lords Day is also well known (Apol. i. 65-67), while-to go still further back to the very fringe of the Apostolic Age-we have Plinys famous letter to Trajan wherein he describes Christians meeting early in the morning to sing hymns to Christ and (v.l. [Note: .l. varia lectio, variant reading.] as) God, and joining in a sacramental act and a common meal. This took place, he says, stato die, and no doubt that fixed day was the first day of the week.
(d) Very possibly the sacramental meal (breaking of bread) was the earliest distinctive feature in the Christian observance of the Lords Day, the other exercises of prayer, reading, etc., being added later. To the sacramental meal of apostolic times, understood as a foretaste and assurance of the Messianic banquet in the coming Parousia, there was soon prefixed a religious exercise-modelled perhaps on the common worship of the Synagogue-which implied just those preparatory acts of penance, purification, and desirous stretching out towards the Infinite, which precede in the experience of the growing soul the establishment of communion with the Spiritual World (E. Underhill, The Mystic Way, London, 1913, p. 335).
5. Modern names for Lords Day.-The varying names by which the day has been known in later times reflect the confusion which has attended the history of the Lords Day as a Christian institution.
(a) To speak of the day as the Sabbath (even the expression Christian Sabbath is only admissible on the ground of analogy) is to use a modus loquendi that primitive Christians could never have used. Their distinction between Sabbath and Lords Day was as clear as between the first and the seventh day. It arises from the mistaken identification of the weekly festival of the Resurrection of Christ with the Sabbath of the Jews and of the Fourth Commandment in the Decalogue. The sanctions for the observance of the Lords Day were wrongly sought in OT prescriptions (see Richard Baxters treatise on The Divine appointment of the Lords Day proved, etc., in Works, ed. Orme, London, 1830, xiii. 363ff.).
Less than ever is it of service now to appeal to the Fourth Commandment as an authority in urging the due maintenance of the Lords Day; though, indeed, the Mosaic institution has its full value as a venerable exemplification of the naturally wise provision for a weekly release from daily business and toil. Christians must rely on other sanctions, and chiefly the definite association of the day with the Resurrection of our Lord, the true instinct by which with great spontaneity the first little Christian communities set the day apart, the continuous usage of the Church, the provision for the function of worship. Others who may be uninfluenced by specific religious considerations, and for whom the very term Lords Day may have no significance, may yet very well recognize the value of the underlying natural principle of the day of rest.
(b) Again, the persistence, or survival, of the pre-Christian and pagan designation Sunday is a matter of interest, especially since, being tacitly denuded of its ancient associations with sun-worship, it has come to be invested to the Christian mind with all the meaning attached to Lords Day, and used interchangeably with that name. We have seen how careful primitive Christians were to distinguish between the pagan name and that which they took fox their own particular use. But the old nomenclature held its ground in the civil calendar notwithstanding the spread of Christianity. When Constantine (a.d. 321) publicly honoured the Lords Day by enacting that it should be kept as a day of rest, he spoke of it as dies venerabilis soils. In the latter part of the 4th cent., in one of the laws of Valentinian II., there occurs the phrase: On Sunday, which our forefathers usually and rightly called the Lords Day (Dominicum)-a further evidence as to the triumph of the ancient name. It is curious to see Lords Day referred to as an old name that had fallen into abeyance (see Bingham, op. cit. xx. ii. 1).
An interesting subject of inquiry presents itself in the fact that among the Teutonic nations of Western Christendom this old pagan name, day of the sun, has established itself in the calendar, whilst the modern Latin nations employ as the universal name the early Christian term dies dominica in various forms. (The futile attempt of the Quakers to supersede both forms and revert to NT simplicity by using the colourless expression first day is a matter of history.) In the light of this divergence Zahns plea for the day as alike valuable for Christians and non-Christians has point only when addressed to the Teutonic peoples. The weekly festival, he urges, should be upheld as a Lords Day only, of course, for those who call upon the risen Jesus as their Lord, but as a Sunday for all men, a day when Gods sun shines benignantly upon the earth (op. cit. ad fin.).
Literature.-Article Lords Day in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) (N. J. D. White), Encyclopaedia Biblica (Deissmann), Smith-Cheethams Dict. of Christian Antiquities (A. Barry), article Festivals and Fasts (Christian) in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (J. G. Carleton), article Sonntagsfeier in Realencyklopdie fr protestantische Theologie und Kirche 3 (Zckler); Bingham, Antiquities of the Christian Church, Oxford, 1855, bks. xx., xxi.; Duchesne, Origines du culte chrtien4, Paris. 1909 (Eng. translation , Christian Worship4, London, 1912), also Early History of the Christian Church, vol. i., Eng. translation from 4th ed., do. 1909; J. A. Hessey, Bampton Lecture on Sunday, London, 1860; Th. Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der altes Kirche2, Leipzig 1898, no. 5: Geschichte des Sonntags vornehmlich in der alten Kirche.
J. S. Clemens.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
LORD’S DAY
See SABBATH.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
Lord’s Day
Special name for the first day of the week in the New Testament. This day was chosen to honor the day on which Our Lord rose from the dead. On this day the faithful are obliged to hear Mass and rest from all servile works.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Lords Day
The expression so rendered in the Authorized English Version ( ) occurs only once in the New Testament, viz., in Rev 1:10, and is there unaccompanied by any other words tending to explain its meaning. It is, however, well known that the same phrase was, in after ages of the Christian Church, used to signify the first day of the week, on which the resurrection of Christ was commemorated. Hence it has been inferred that the same name was given to that day during the time of the apostles, and was in the present instance used by St. John in this sense, as referring to an institution well known, and therefore requiring no explanation. This interpretation, however, has of late been somewhat questioned. It will be proper here, therefore, to discuss this point, as well as the early notices of this Christian observance. leaving the general subject to be treated under SABBATH. The broader topic of the hebdomadal division of time will be discussed under the head of WEEK.
I. Interpretation of the Phrase “Lord’s Day” in the Passage in question. The general consent both of Christian antiquity and of modern divines has referred it to the weekly festival of our Lord’s resurrection, and identified it with “the first day of the week,” on which he rose, with the patristical “eighth day,” or “day which is both the first and the eighth” in fact, with , the “Solis dies,” or “Sunday” of every age of the Church. On the other hand, the following different explanations have been proposed.
1. Some have supposed St. John to be speaking, in the passage above referred to, of the Sabbath, because that institution is called in Isa 58:13, by the Almighty himself, “My holy day.” To this it is replied; If St. John had intended to specify the Sabbath, he would surely have used that word, which was by no means obsolete, or even obsolescent, at the time of his composing the book of the Revelation. It is added, that if an apostle had set the example of confounding the seventh and the first days of the week, it would have been strange indeed that every ecclesiastical writer for the first five centuries should have avoided any approach to such confusion. ‘hey do avoid it; for, as is never used by them for the first day, so is never used by them for the seventh day. SEE SABBATH.
2. A second opinion is, that St. John intended by the “Lord’s day” that on which the Lord’s resurrection was annually celebrated, or, as we now term it, Easter day. On this it need only be observed, that though it was never questioned that the weekly celebration of that event should take place on the first day of the hebdomadal cycle, it was for a long time doubted on what day in the annual cycle it should be celebrated. Two schools, at least, existed on this point until considerably after the death of St. John. It therefore seems unlikely that, in a book intended for the whole Church, he would have employed a method of dating which was far from generally agreed upon. It is to he added that no patristical authority can be quoted, either for the interpretation contended for in this opinion, or for the employment of to denote Easter day. SEE EASTER.
3. Another theory is, that by “the Lord’s day” St. John intended “the day of judgment,” to which a large portion of the book of Revelation may be conceived to refer. Thus, “I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day” ( ) would imply that he was rapt, in spiritual vision, to the date of that “great and terrible day,” just as St. Paul represents himself as caught up locally into Paradise. Now, not to dispute the interpretation of the passage from which the illustration is drawn (2Co 12:4), the abettors of this view seem to have put out of sight the following considerations. In the preceding sentence St. John had mentioned the place in which he was writing Patmos and the causes which had brought him thither. It is but natural that he should further particularize the circumstances under which his mysterious work was composed, by stating the exact day on which the revelations were communicated to him, and the employment, spiritual musing, in which he was then engaged. To suppose a mixture of the metaphorical and the literal would be strangely out of keeping. Though it be conceded that the day of judgment is in the New Testament spoken of as , the employment of the adjectival form constitutes a remarkable difference, which was observed and maintained ever afterwards (comp. 1Co 1:8; 1Co 1:14; 1Co 5:5 : 1Th 5:2; 2Th 2:2; Luk 17:24, 2Pe 3:10). There is also a critical objection to this interpretation, for is not = diem gere (comp. Rev 4:2). This third theory, then, which is sanctioned by the name of Augusti, must be abandoned.
4. As a less definite modification of this last view we may mention, finally, that others have regarded the phrase in question as meaning simply “the day of the Lord,” the substantive being merely exchanged for the adjective, as in 1Co 11:20 : , “the Lord’s Supper,” which would make it merely synonymous with the generally expected temporal appearance of Christ on earth: , ‘”the day of the Lord” (1Th 5:2). Such a use of the adjective became extremely common in the following ages, as we have repeatedly in the fathers the corresponding expressions Dominicae crucis, “the Lord’s cross;” Dominicae nativitatis, “the Lord’s nativity” (Tertullian, De Idol. page 5); (Eusebius, Histor. Ecc 3:9). According to their view, the passage would mean, “In the spirit I was present at the day of the Lord,” the word “day” being used for any signal manifestation (possibly in allusion to Joe 2:31), as in Joh 8:56 : “Abraham rejoiced to see my day.” The peculiar use of the word , as referring to a period of ascendency, appears remarkably in 1Co 4:3, where is rendered “man’s judgment.” Nevertheless, this interpretation, besides the objection of its vagueness as a date, is clogged with all the difficulties that attach to the preceding one.
All other conjectures upon this point may be permitted to confute themselves, but the following cavil is too curious to be omitted. In Scripture the first day of the week is called , in post- scriptural writers it is called as well; therefore the book of Revelation is not to be ascribed to an apostle, or, in other words, is not part of Scripture. The logic of this argument is only surpassed by its boldness. It says, in effect, because post-scriptural writers have these two designations for the first day of the week, therefore scriptural writers must be confined to one of them. It were surely more reasonable to suppose that the adoption by post-scriptural writers of a phrase so pre-eminently Christian as to denote the first day of the week, and a day so especially marked, can be traceable to nothing else than an apostle’s use of that phrase in the same meaning.
II. Early Notices of this Christian Observance. Supposing, then, that of St. John is the Lord’s day, as now applied to the first day of the modern week, we have to inquire here, What do we gather from holy Scripture concerning that institution? How is it spoken of by early writers up to the time of Constantine? What change, if any, was brought upon it by the celebrated edict of that emperor, whom some have declared to have been its originator?
1. Scripture says very little concerning it, but that little seems to indicate that the divinely-inspired apostles, by their practice and by their precepts, marked the first day of the week as a day for meeting together to break bread, for communicating and receiving instruction, for laying up offerings in store for charitable purposes, for occupation in holy thought and prayer. The first day of the week so devoted seems also to have been the day of the Lord’s resurrection, and therefore to have been especially likely to be chosen for such purposes by those who “preached Jesus and the resurrection.”
The Lord rose on the first day of the week ( ‘/), and appeared, on the very day of his rising, to his followers on five distinct occasions to Mary Magdalene, to the other women, to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, to St. Peter separately, to ten apostles collected together. After eight days ( ), that is, according to the ordinary reckoning, on the first day of the next week, he appeared to the eleven (Joh 20:26). He does not seem to have appeared in the interval it may be to render that day especially noticeable by the apostles, or it may be for other reasons. But, however this question be settled, on the day of Pentecost, which in that year fell on the first day of the week (see Bramhall, Disc. of the Sabbath and Lord’s Day, in Works, 5:51, Oxford edition), “they were all with one accord in one place,” had spiritual gifts conferred on them, and in their turn began to communicate those gifts, as accompaniments of instruction, to others. At Troas (Act 20:7), many years after the occurrence at Pentecost, when Christianity had begun to assume something like a settled form, St. Luke records the following circumstances: St. Paul and his companions arrived there, and “abode seven days, and upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them.” From the statement that “Paul continued his speech till midnight,” it has been inferred by some that the assembly commenced after sunset on the Sabbath, at which hour the first day of the week had commenced, according to the Jewish reckoning (Jahn’s Bibl. Antiq. 398), which would hardly agree with the idea of a commemoration of the resurrection. But further, the words of this passage, ‘/ , … . have been by some considered to imply that such a weekly observance was then the established custom; yet it is obvious that the mode of expression would be just as applicable if they had been in the practice of assembling daily. Still the whole aim of the narrative favors the reference to what is now known as Sunday. In 1Co 16:1-2, St. Paul writes thus: “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches in Galatia, even so do ye: Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him. that there be no gatherings when I come.” This direction, it is true, is not connected with any mention of public worship or assemblies on that day. But this has naturally been inferred; and the regulation has been supposed to have a reference to the tenets of the Jewish converts, who considered it unlawful to touch money on the Sabbath (Vitringa, De Synagog, translat. by Bernard, pages 75-167). In consideration for them, therefore, the apostle directs the collection to be made on the following day, on which secular business was lawful; or, as Cocceius observes, they regarded the day “non ut festum, sed ut ” (not as a feast, but as a working day; Vitringa, page 77). Again, the phrase is generally understood to be, according to the Jewish mode of naming the days of the week, the common expression for the first day. Yet it has been differently construed by some, who render it ” upon one of the days of the week” (Tracts for the Times, 2:1, 16). In Heb 10:25, the correspondents of the writer are desired “not to forsake the assembling of themselves together, as the manner of some is, but to exhort one another,” an injunction which seems to imply that a regular day for such assembling existed, and was well known; for otherwise no rebuke would lie. Lastly, in the passage given above, St. John describes himself as being in the Spirit “on the Lord’s day.”
Taken separately, perhaps, and even all together, these passages seem scarcely adequate to prove that the dedication of the first day of the week to the purposes above mentioned was a matter of apostolic institution, or even of apostolic practice. But, it may be observed, that it is, as any rate, an extraordinary coincidence, that almost as soon as we emerge from Scripture we find the same day mentioned in a similar manner, and directly associated with the Lord’s resurrection; and it is an extraordinary fact that we never find its dedication questioned or argued about, but accepted as something equally apostolic with confirmation, with infant baptism, with ordination, or at least spoken of in the same way. As to direct support from holy Scripture, it is noticeable that those other ordinances which are usually considered scriptural, and in support of which Scripture is usually cited, are dependent, so far as mere quotation is concerned, upon fewer texts than the Lord’s day is. Stating the case at the very lowest, the Lord’s day has at least “probable insinuations in Scripture” (Bp. Sanderson), and so is superior to any other holy day, whether of hebdomadal celebration, as Friday in memory of the crucifixion, or of annual celebration, as Easter day in memory of the resurrection itself. These other days may be, and are, defensible on other grounds, but they do not possess anything like a scriptural authority for their observance. If we are inclined still to press for more pertinent scriptural proof, and more frequent mention of the institution, for such we suppose it to be, in the writings of the apostles, we must recollect how little is said of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and how vast a difference is naturally to be expected to exist between a sketch of the manners and habits of their age, which the authors of the holy Scriptures did not write, and hints as to life and conduct, and regulation of known practices, which they did write.
2. On quitting the canonical writings we turn naturally to Clement of Rome. He does not, however, directly mention “the Lord’s day,” but in 1 Corinthians 1:40, he says, , and he speaks of , at which the Christian should be made.
Ignatius, the disciple of St. John (ad. Magn. c. 9), contrasts Judaism and Christianity, and, as an exemplification of the contrast, opposes to living according to the Lord’s life ( ).
The epistle ascribed to St. Barnabas, which, though certainly not written by that apostle, was in existence in the earlier part of the 2d century, has (c. 15) the following words: “We celebrate the eighth day with joy, on which, too, Jesus rose from the dead.”
A pagan document now comes into view. It is the well-known letter of Pliny to Trajan, written (about A.D. 100) while he presided over Pontus and Bithynia. “The Christians (says he) affirm the whole of their guilt or error to be that they were accustomed to meet together on a stated day (stato die), before it was light, and to sing hymns to Christ as a god, and to bind themselves by a sacrnamentun, not for any wicked purpose, but never to commit fraud, theft, or adultery; never to break their word, or to refuse, when called upon, to deliver up any trust; after which it was their custom to separate, and to assemble again to take a meal, but a general one, and without guilty purpose” (Epist. 10:97).
A thoroughly Christian authority, Justin Martyr, who flourished A.D. 140, stands next on the list. He writes thus: “On the day called Sunday ( ) is an assembly of all who live either in the cities or in the rural districts, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read.” Then he goes on to describe the particulars of the religious acts which are entered upon at this assembly. They consist of prayer, of the celebration of the holy Eucharist, and of collection of alms. He afterwards assigns the reasons which Christians had for meeting on Sunday. These are, “because it is the First Day, on which God dispelled the darkness () and the original state of things ( ), and formed the world, and because Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead upon it” (Apol. 1:67). In another work (Dial. c. Tryph.) he makes circumcision furnish a type of Sunday. “The command to circumcise infants on the eighth day was a type of the true circumcision by which we are circumcised from error and wickedness through our Lord Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead on the first day of the week ( ‘/ ); therefore it remains the chief and first of days.” As for , he uses that with exclusive reference to the Jewish law. He carefully distinguishes Saturday ( ), the day after which our Lord was crucified, from Sunday ( ), upon which he rose from the dead. If any surprise is felt at Justin’s employment of the heathen designations for the seventh and first days of the week, it may be accounted for thus. Before the death of Hadrian, A.D. 138, the hebdomadal division (which Dion Cassius, writing in the 3d century, derives, together with its nomenclature, from Egypt) had, in matters of common life, almost universally superseded in Greece, and even in Italy, the national divisions of the lunar month. Justin Martyr, writing to and for heathen, as well as to and for Jews, employs it, therefore, with a certainty of being understood.
The strange heretic, Bardesanes, who, however, delighted to consider himself a sort of Christian, has the following words in his book on “Fate,” or on “the Laws of the Countries,” which he addressed to the emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus: “What, then, shall we say respecting the new race of ourselves who are Christians, whom in every country and in every region the Messiah established at his coming; for, lo! wherever we be, all of us are called by the one name of the Messiah, Christians; and upon one day, which is the first of the week, we assemble ourselves together, and on the appointed days we abstain from food” (Cureton’s Translation).
Two very short notices stand next on our list, but they are important from their casual and unstudied character. Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, A.D. 170, in a letter to the Church of Rome, a fragment of which is preserved by Eusebius (Eccles. Hist. 4:23), says, , . And Melito, bishop of Sardis, his contemporary, is stated to have composed, among other works, a treatise on the Lord’s day ( ).
The next writer who may be quoted is Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, A.D. 178. He asserts that the Sabbath is abolished; but his evidence to the existence of the Lord’s day is clear and distinct (De Orat. 23; De Idol. 14). It is spoken of in one of the best-known of his Fragments (see Beaven’s Irenaeus, page 202). But a record in Eusebius (5:23, 2) of the part which he took in the Quarta-Deciman controversy shows that in his time it was an institution beyond dispute. The point in question was this: Should Easter be celebrated in connection with the Jewish Passover, on whatever day of the week that might happen to fall, with the churches of Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia, or on the Lord’s day, with the rest of the Christian world? The churches of Gaul, then under the superintendence of Irenaeus, agreed upon a synodical epistle to Victor, bishop of Rome, in which occurred words somewhat to this effect: “The mystery of the Lord’s resurrection may not be celebrated on any other day than the Lord’s day, and on this alone should we observe the breaking off of the paschal fast.” This confirms what was said above, that while, even towards the end of the 2d century, tradition varied as to the yearly celebration of Christ’s resurrection, the weekly celebration of it was one upon which no diversity existed, or was even hinted at.
Clement of Alexandria, A.D. 194, comes next. One does not expect anything very definite from a writer of so mystical a tendency, but he has some things quite to our purpose. In his Strom. (4:3) he speaks of , , , . . .,words which bishop Kaye interprets as contrasting the seventh day of the Law with the eighth day of the Gospel. As the same learned prelate observes, “When Clement says that the Gnostic, or transcendental Christian, does not pray in any fixed place, or on any stated days, but throughout his whole life, he gives us to understand that Christians in general did meet together in fixed places and at appointed times for prayer.” But we are not left to mere inference on this important point, for Clement speaks of the Lord’s day as a well-known and customary festival (Strom. 7), and in one place gives a mystical interpretation of the name (Strom. 5).
Tertullian, whose date is assignable to the close of the 2d century, may, in spite of his conversion to Montanism, be quoted as a witness to facts. He terms the first day of the week sometimes Sunday (Dies Solis), sometimes Dies Dominicus. He speaks of it as a day of joy (“Diem Solis laetitile indugemus,” Apol. c. 16), and asserts that it is wrong to fast upon it, or to pray standing during its continuance (“Die Dominico jejunium nefas dueimons, vel de geniculis adorare,” De Cor. c. 3). Even business is to be put off, lest we give place to the devil (“Differentes etiam negotia, ne quem Diabolo locum demus,” De Orat. c. 13).
Origen contends that the Lord’s day had its superiority to the Sabbath indicated by manna having been given on it to the Israelites, while it was withheld on the Sabbath. It is one of the marks of the perfect Christian to keep the Lord’s day.
Minucius Felix (A.D. 210) makes the heathen interlocutor, in his dialogue called Octavius, assert that the Christians come together to a repast “on a solemn day” (solenni die).
Cyprian and his colleagues, in a synodical letter (A.D. 253), make the Jewish circumcision on the eighth day prefigure the newness of life of the Christian, to which Christ’s resurrection introduces him, and point to the Lord’s day, which is at once the eighth and the first.
Commodian (circ. A.D. 290) mentions the Lord’s day. Victorinus (A.D. 290) contrasts it, in a very remarkable passage, with the Parasceve and the Sabbath.
Lastly, Peter, bishop of Alexandria (A.D. 300), says of it, “We keep the Lord’s day as a day of joy, because of him who rose thereon.”
The results of our examination of the principal writers of the two centuries after the death of St. John may be thus summed up. The Lord’s day (a name which has now come out more prominently, and is connected more explicitly with our Lord’s resurrection than before) existed during these two centuries as a part and parcel of apostolical, and so of scriptural Christianity. It was never defended, for it was never impugned, or, at least, only impugned as other things received from the apostles were. It was never confounded with the Sabbath, but carefully distinguished from it (though we have not quoted nearly all the passages by which this point might be proved). It was not an institution of severe sabbatical character, but a day of joy () and cheerfulness (), rather encouraging than forbidding relaxation. Religiously regarded, it was a day of solemn meeting for the holy Eucharist, for united prayer, for instruction, for almsgiving; and though, being an institution under the law of liberty, work does not appear to have been formally interdicted, or rest formally enjoined, Tertullian seems to indicate that the character of the day was opposed to worldly business. Finally, whatever analogy may be supposed to exist between the Lord’s day and the Sabbath, in no passage that has come down to us is the fourth commandment appealed to as the ground of the obligation to observe the Lord’s day. Ecclesiastical writers reiterate again and again, in the strictest sense of the words, “Let no man, therefore, judge you in respect of an holiday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days” (Col 2:16). Nor, again, is it referred to any sabbatical foundation anterior to the promulgation of the Mosaic economy. On the contrary, those before the Mosaic aera are constantly assumed to have had neither knowledge nor observance of the Sabbath. As little is it anywhere asserted that the Lord’s day is merely an ecclesiastical institution, dependent on the post-apostolic Church for its origin, and by consequence capable of being done away, should a time ever arrive when it appears to be no longer needed.
If these facts be allowed to speak for themselves, they indicate that the Lord’s day is a purely Christian institution, sanctioned by apostolic practice, mentioned in apostolic writings, and so possessed of whatever divine authority all apostolic ordinances and doctrines (which were not obviously temporary, or were not abrogated by the apostles themselves) can be supposed to possess.
3. But, on whatever grounds “the Lord’s day” may be supposed to rest, it is a great and indisputable fact that four years before the (Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, it was recognised by Constantine, in his celebrated edict. as “the venerable Day of the Sun.” The terms of the document are these:
“Imperator Constantinus Aug. Helpidio. “Omnes judices urbanaeque plebes et cunctarutm artium officia venerabili Die Solis quiescant. Ruri tamen positi agrorum culturae liberni licenterque inserviant, quonian frequenter evenit ut non aptius alio die frumenta sulcis aut vineae scrobibus mandentur, ne occasione momenti pereat commoditas coelesti provisione concessa.” Dat. Non. Mart. Crispo II et Constantino II Coss.
Some have endeavored to explain away this document by alleging, 1st. That “Solis Dies” is not the Christian name of the Lord’s day, and that Constantine did not therefore intend to acknowledge it as a Christian institution. 2d. That, before his conversion, Constantine had professed himself to be especially under the guardianship of the sun, and that, at the very best, he intended to make a religious compromise between sunworshippers, properly so called, and the worshippers of the “Sun of Righteousness,” i.e., Christians. 3dly. That Constantine’s edict was purely a calendarial one, and intended to reduce the number of public holidays, “Dies Nefasti” or “Feriati,” which had, so long ago as the date of the “Actiones Verrinae,” become a serious impediment to the transaction of business; and that this was to be effected by choosing a day which, while it would be accepted by the paganism then in fashion, would, of course, be agreeable to the Christians. 4thly. That Constantine then instituted Sunday for the first time as a religious day for Christians. The fourth of these statements is absolutely refuted, both by the quotations made above from writers of the 2d and 3d centuries, and by the terms of the edict itself. It is evident that Constantine, accepting as facts the existence of the “Solis Dies,” and the reverence paid to it by some one or other, does nothing more than make that reverence practically universal. It is “venerabilis” already. It is probable that this most natural interpretation would never have been disturbed had not Sozomen asserted, without warrant from either the Justinian or the Theodosian Code, that Constantine did for the sixth day of the week what the codes assert that he did for the first (Eccles. Hist. 1:8; comp. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 4:18).
The three other statements concern themselves rather with what Constantine meant than with what he did. But with such considerations we have little or nothing to do. He may have purposely selected an ambiguous appellation. He may have bean only half a Christian, wavering between allegiance to Christ and allegiance to Mithras. He may have affected a religious syncretism. He may have wished his people to adopt such syncretism. He may have feared to offend the pagans. He may have hesitated to avow too openly his inward leanings to Christianity. He may have considered that community of religious days might lead by-and-by to community of religious thought and feeling. He may have had in view the rectification of the calendar. But all this is nothing to the purpose. It is a fact, that in the year A.D. 321, in a public edict, which was to apply to Christians as well as to pagans, he put especial honor upon a day already honored by the former judiciously calling it by a name which Christians had long employed without scruple, and to which, as it was in ordinary use, the pagans could scarcely object. What he did for it was to insist that worldly business, whether by the functionaries of the law or by private citizens, should be intermitted during its continuance. An exception, indeed, was made in favor of the rural districts, avowedly from the necessity of the case, covertly, perhaps, to prevent those districts where paganism (as the word pagus would intimate) still prevailed extensively from feeling aggrieved by a sudden and stringent change. It need only be added here that the readiness with which Christians acquiesced in the interdiction of business on the Lord’s day affords no small presumption that they had long considered it to be a day of rest, and that, so far as circumstances admitted, they had made it so long before.
Were any other testimony wanting to the existence of Sunday as a day of Christian worship at this period, it might be supplied by the Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325. The fathers there and then assembled make no doubt of the obligation of that day do not ordain it do not defend it. They assume it as an existing fact, and only notice it incidentally in order to regulate an indifferent matter the posture of Christian worshippers upon it (Conc. Nic. canon 20).
Chrysostom (A.D. 360) concludes one of his Homilies by dismissing his audience to their respective ordinary occupations. The Council of Laodicea (A.D. 364), however, enjoined Christians to rest () on the Lord’s day. To the same effect is an injunction in the forgery called the Apostolical Constitutions (7:24), and various other enactments from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1100, though by no means extending to the prohibition of all secular business.
See Pearson, On the Creed, 2:341, edit. Oxf.; Jortin, Remarks on Eccles. Hist. 3:236; Baxter, On the Divine Appointment of the Lord’s Day, page 41, ed. 1671; Hessey, Bampton Lecture for 1860; Gilfillan, The Sabbath, page 8. SEE SUNDAY.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Lord’s day
only once, in Rev. 1:10, was in the early Christian ages used to denote the first day of the week, which commemorated the Lord’s resurrection. There is every reason to conclude that John thus used the name. (See SABBATH)
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Lord’s Day
The Christian sabbath, called so in Rev 1:10, the earliest mention of the term. But the consecration of the day to worship, to almsgiving (but not to earning), and to the Lord’s supper, is implied in Act 20:7; 1Co 16:1-2. The Lord singled it out as the day of His repeated appearances after His resurrection (Joh 20:19; Joh 20:26), and the evangelists’ special mention of this day as the day of those reappearances implies their recognition of its sanctity. The designation corresponds to “the Lord’s supper” (1Co 11:20): Ignatius (ad Magnes. ix) and Irenaeus (Quaest. ad Orthod. 115, in Justin Martyr); and Justin Martyr, A.D. 140 (Apol. ii. 98), writes: “on Sunday we hold our joint meeting, for the first day is that on which God, having removed darkness, made the world, and Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead.
On the day before Saturday they crucified Him; on the day after Saturday, Sunday, having appeared to His apostles He taught.” Pliny writes in his famous letter to Trajan (x. 97), “the Christians (in Bithynia) on a fixed day before dawn meet and sing a hymn to Christ as God.” Tertullian (de Coron. iii), “on the Lord’s day we deem it wrong to fast.” Melito, bishop of Sardis (second century), wrote a book on the Lord’s day (Eusebius iv. 26). The reference in Rom 14:5-6 is to days of Jewish observance. The words “he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it” are not in the Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Vaticanus manuscripts, and the Vulgate. “The day of the Lord” (namely, of His second advent: 1Co 1:8; 1Co 5:5; 2Co 1:14; 1Th 5:2; 2Pe 3:10) is distinct from “the Lord’s (an adjective, eej kuriakee) day,” which in the ancient church designated Sunday.
The visions of the seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven vials, naturally begin on the first day of the seven, the birthday of the church whose future they set forth (Wordsworth). In A.D. 321 Constantine expressed the feeling of all his Christian subjects by enjoining that “all judges, and the civic population, and workshops of artisans should rest on the venerable day of the Sun.” The council of Nicea (A.D. 325) assume the universal acceptance of the obligation of the Lord’s day, and only direct as to the posture of worshippers on it. Christ’s rising from the dead on the first day, to bring in the new creation, is the ground of transference of the sabbath from the seventh day.
If the former creation out of chaos was rightly marked by the seventh day, much more the more momentous (Isa 65:17) new creation, out of moral chaos (Jer 4:22-23), by the first day. The seventh day sabbath was the gloomy, silent one of Jesus’ resting in the grave; the first day sabbath is the joyful one of the once “rejected stone becoming head of the corner.” “This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will be glad and rejoice in it” (Psa 118:22-24). If a seventh day sabbath marked Israel’s emancipation from Egypt (Deu 5:15), much more (compare Jer 16:14-15) should the first day sabbath mark ushering in of the world’s redemption from Satan by Jesus. (See SABBATH.)
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
LORD’S DAY
Christians in the early churches met together often (Act 2:46; Heb 10:25). Although the frequency of meetings varied from place to place, the common practice seems to have been that all the Christians in a church met together at least on the first day of each week (Act 20:7; 1Co 11:20; 1Co 16:2). By the end of the first century, Christians commonly referred to the first day of the week as the Lords day, probably because it was the day on which Jesus rose from the dead as the triumphant Lord (Joh 20:1; Joh 20:19; cf. Act 2:36; Rom 1:4; Php 2:9-11). (Concerning the difference between the Lords day and the Jewish Sabbath see SABBATH.)
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Lord’s Day
LORD’S DAY.See Calendar (the Christian).
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Lord’s Day
LORDS DAY
1. Name and origin.The title used by St. John (Rev 1:10), probably to describe the day upon which the Christian Church in Apostolic days assembled for worship. The Acts of the Apostles shows us the disciples of Christ immediately after Pentecost as a closely united body, of one heart and soul, supported by daily gatherings together and the Eucharist (Act 4:32; Act 2:42; Act 2:46). Their new faith did not at first lead them to cut themselves off from their old Jewish worship, for their belief in Jesus as Messiah seemed to them to add to and fulfil, rather than to abolish, the religion of their childhood. This worship of Christians with their Jewish fellow-countrymen secured the continuation of the Church of God from one dispensation to another; while their exclusively Christian Eucharists consolidated the Church and enabled it to discover itself.
The daity worship of the Christian Church would no doubt soon prove impracticable, and a weekly gathering become customary. For this weekly gathering the Sabbath was unsuitable, as being then observed in a spirit radically different from the joy and liberty of the new faith; doubtless also the restrictions as to length of a Sabbath days journey would prove a bar to the gathering together of the little body. Of the other six days none so naturally suggested itself as the first. To it our Lord had granted a certain approval; for on it He rose from the grave and appeared to His disciples, and on the following Sunday repeated His visitation; while, if Pentecost that year fell on the first day of the week (which it did if the chronology of St. John be followed), it received a final seal as the special day of grace.
That this day was actually chosen is seen in the NT (Act 20:7, 1Co 16:2). And mention of it is found in the literature immediately following the Apostolic writings.
Not the least interesting evidence is found in a report to the Emperor Trajan written by Pliny, a heathen magistrate, not long after the death of St. John, which mentions that the custom of the Christians was to meet together early in the morning on a certain fixed day and sing hymns to Christ as a god, and bind themselves by a sacramentum to commit no crime. Ignatius, the earliest of post-Apostolic Christian writers, also speaks of it, telling the Magnesians to lead a life comformable to the Lords Day.
And from then to now a continuous stream of evidence shows that the Church has faithfully observed the custom ever since.
The title by which early Christian writers usually called the festival was the Lords Day; but before long the Church felt no difficulty in adopting the heathen title of Sunday, realizing that as on that day light was created, and the Sun of Righteousness arose on it, there was to them a peculiar fitness in the name.
The most valuable evidence as to the method by which the early Church observed the day is found in Justin Martyrs Apotogy (i. 67, a.d. 120), where we read that on the day called Sunday the Christians met together, out of both city and country, and held a religious service at which first the writings of Apostles and Prophets were read; then the president preached; after which common prayers were said; and when these were ended, bread and wine were brought to the president, who uttered prayers and thanksgivings, to which the people said, Amen; all present then participated in the Eucharist, the deacons carrying it to the absent. Thus it is clear that the early Church continued the Apostolic custom (Act 20:7) of celebrating the Lords Supper every Lords Daya custom so wide-spread as to enable Chrysostom to call Sunday dies panis, or the day of bread.
2. Relation to the Sabbath.The relation of the Lords Day to the Sabbath is best defined as one of close affinity rather than of identity. The Sabbath was originally instituted as a provision for deep physical and spiritual needs of human nature. It sprang from the love of God for man, providing by religious sanction for the definite setting apart of the seventh day as a time for rest from labour and for communion with God. Our Lord found the original institution almost hidden beneath a mass of traditional regulations. Thus his action towards the Sabbath as He found it, was to bring men back to its first ideal. This He did by showing that their tradition told how David broke the letter of its regulation and yet was guiltless (Luk 6:3); how charity and common sense led men to break their own rules (Luk 13:15); how the Sabbath was granted to man as a blessing and not laid on him as a burden (Mar 2:27); and how He as Son of Man, fulfilling ideal manhood, was its Lord (Mar 2:28); but while our Lord thus purified the Sabbath, there is no proof that He abolished it. He foreknew its ultimate abolition, as He foreknew the ultimate destruction of the Temple; and He cleansed it as He cleansed the Temple.
We can best see Christs will regarding the Sabbath and the Lords Day in what actually happened. For what happened had its rise in Apostolic times, and has been adopted by the Church universal ever since, and is thus assuredly His will as wrought by the Spirit. The Acts shows us that the Christians who were originally Jews observed both the Sabbath and the Christian Lords Day (Act 21:20 f.); and this double observance lasted among them at least until the destruction of the Temple. The Jewish members of the Church were soon outnumbered by the Gentile, and these latter would feel in no way drawn to continuing the observance of the Jewish Sabbath as well as their own Lords Day; and this the more so that they had received the gospel under the wider teaching of St. Paul, who had emphasized the danger of an undue observance of days, and had spoken of the Sabbath as a shadow of the things to come (i.e. the Christian dispensation; cf. Col 2:16 f., Gal 4:9-11, Rom 14:5 f.). But if the Gentile Christian did not observe the Jewish Sabbath, yet he could not be ignorant of its deeper meaning, for he saw the Sabbath observed by his Jewish neighbours, and read in the OT of its institution and uses; and thus imperceptibly the essential principles of the Sabbath would pass into the Christian idea of their own sacred day of rest and worship. Christs intention, then, seems to have been to allow the Sabbath to die slowly, but by His Spirit to teach the Church to perpetuate for mankind in her Lords Day all that was of eternal moment in the Sabbath. Thus was avoided the danger of pouring the new wine of Christian truth and liberty into the old bottles of Jewish traditional observances.
Charles T. P. Grierson.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Lord’s Day
( , he kuriake hemera):
1. Linguistic:
Formerly it was supposed that the adjective kuriakos (translated the Lord’s) was a purely Christian word, but recent discoveries have proved that it was in fairly common use in the Roman Empire before Christian influence had been felt. In secular use it signified imperial, belonging to the lord – the emperor – and so its adoption by Christianity in the sense belonging to the Lord – to Christ – was perfectly easy. Indeed, there is reason to suppose that in the days of Domitian, when the issue had been sharply defined as Who is Lord? Caesar or Christ? the use of the adjective by the church was a part of the protest against Caesar-worship (see LORD). And it is even possible that the full phrase, the Lord’s day, was coined as a contrast to the phrase, the Augustean day ( , he sebaste hemera), a term that seems to have been used in some parts of the Empire to denote days especially dedicated in honor of Caesar-worship.
2. Post-Apostolic:
Lord’s day in the New Testament occurs only in Rev 1:10, but in the post-apostolic literature we have the following references: Ignatius, Ad Mag., ix.1, No longer keeping the Sabbath but living according to the Lord’s day, on which also our Light arose; Ev. Pet., verse 35, The Lord’s day began to dawn (compare Mat 28:1); verse 50, early on the Lord’s day (compare Luk 24:1); Barn 15 9, We keep the eighth day with gladness, on which Jesus arose from the dead. I.e. Sunday, as the day of Christ’s resurrection, was kept as a Christian feast and called the Lord’s day, a title fixed so definitely as to be introduced by the author of Ev. Pet. into phrases from the canonical Gospels. Its appropriateness in Rev 1:10 is obvious, as John received his vision of the exalted Lord when all Christians had their minds directed toward His entrance into glory through the resurrection.
3. In the New Testament:
This first day of the week appears again in Act 20:7 as the day on which the worship of the breaking of bread took place, and the impression given by the context is that Paul and his companions prolonged their visit to Troas so as to join in the service. Again, 1Co 16:2 contains the command, Upon the first day of the week let each one of you lay by him in store, where the force of the form of the imperative used (the present for repeated action) would be better represented in English by lay by on the successive Sundays. Worship is here not explicitly mentioned (the Greek of by him is the usual phrase for at home), but that the appropriateness of the day for Christian acts involves an appropriateness for Christian worship is not to be doubted. Indeed, since the seven-day week was unknown to Greek thought, some regular observance of a hebdomadal cycle must have been settled at Corinth before Paul could write his command. Finally, the phrase, first day in the week is found elsewhere in the New Testament only in Mat 28:1; Mar 16:2; Luk 24:1; Joh 20:1, Joh 20:19. The word in all passages for first is poor Greek (, ma, one, for , prote, a Hebraism), and the coincidence of the form of the phrase in Act 20:7 and 1Co 16:2 with the form used by all four evangelists for the Resurrection Day ‘is certainly not accidental; it was the fixed Christian base, just as Lord’s day was to the writer of Ev. Pet.
4. Origin:
The hebdomadal observance of Sunday points back of Corinth to Jewish-Christian soil, but it is impossible to say when the custom first began. Not, apparently, in the earliest days, for Act 2:46 represents the special worship as daily. But this could not have continued very long, for waning of the first enthusiasm, necessity of pursuing ordinary avocations, and increasing numbers of converts must soon have made general daily gatherings impracticable. A choice of a special day must have become necessary, and this day would, of course, have been Sunday. Doubtless, however, certain individuals and communities continued the daily gatherings to a much later date, and the appearance of Sunday as the one distinctive day for worship was almost certainly gradual.
5. Sunday and the Sabbath:
Sunday, however, was sharply distinguished from the Sabbath. One was the day on which worship was offered in a specifically Christian form, the other was a day of ritual rest to be observed by all who were subject? the Law of Moses through circumcision (Gal 5:3; compare Act 21:20). Uncircumcised Gentiles, however, were free from any obligation of Sabbath observance, and it is quite certain that in apostolic times no renewal of any Sabbath rules or transfer of them to Sunday was made for Gentileconverts. No observance of a particular day of rest is contained among the necessary things of Act 15:28, Act 15:29, nor is any such precept found among all the varied moral directions given in the whole epistolary literature. Quite on the contrary, the observance of a given day as a matter of Divine obligation is denounced by Paul as a forsaking of Christ (Gal 4:10), and Sabbath-keeping is condemned explicitly in Col 2:16. As a matter of individual devotion, to be sure, a man might do as he pleased (Rom 14:5, Rom 14:6), but no general rule as necessary for salvation could be compatible with the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. Evidently, then, the fact that the Christian worship was held on Sunday did not sanctify Sunday any more than (say) a regular Wednesday service among us sanctifies Wednesday, noting especially that the apostolic service was held in the evening. For it was felt that Christian enthusiasm would raise every day to the highest religious plane, the decay of that enthusiasm through the long delay of the Parousia not being contemplated.
6. Later History:
The delay occurred, however, and for human beings in the ordinary routine of life there are necessary, not only set periods of worship, but set periods of relaxation from routine to make worship profitable. And the Christian fundamental doctrine of mercy demands that Christianity, where she has the power, shall give to men relief from the drain of continuous toil.
The formulation of general rules to carry these principles into effect, however, belongs to a period outside New Testament times, and so does not come within the scope of this Encyclopedia. It is enough to say that the ecclesiastical rules for Sunday were felt to be quite distinct from the laws for Sabbath observance, and that Alcuin (733?-804) is the first to hold that the church had transferred the Sabbath rules as a whole to Sunday. This principle is still maintained in Roman Catholic theology, but at the Reformation was rejected uncompromisingly by both Lutherans (Augsb. Conf., II, 7) and Calvinists (Helvet. Conf., XXIV, 1-2) in favor of a literally apostolic freedom (Calvin even proposed to adopt Thursday in place of Sunday). The appearance of the opposite extreme of a genuinely legalistic Sabbatarianism in the thoroughly Evangelical Scotch and English Puritanism is an anomaly that is explained by reaction from the extreme laxity of the surroundings.
7. Practical:
Sunday was fixed as the day for Christian worship by general apostolic practice, and the academic possibility of an alteration hardly seems worth discussing. If a literal apostolicity is to be insisted upon, however, the breaking of bread must be made part of the Sunday service. Rest from labor for the sake of worship, public and private, is intensely desirable, since the regaining of the general apostolic enthusiasm seems unattainable, but the New Testament leaves us quite free as to details. Rest from labor to secure physical and mental renewal rests on a still different basis, and the working out of details involves a knowledge of sociological and industrial conditions, as well as a knowledge of religious principles. It is the task of the pastor to combine the various principles and to apply them to the particular conditions of his people in their locality, in accordance with the rules that his own church has indubitably the right to lay down – very special attention being given, however, to the highly important matter of the peculiar problem offered by children. In all cases the general principles underlying the rules should be made clear, so that they will not appear as arbitrary legalism, and it is probably best not to use the term Sabbath for Sunday. Under certain conditions great freedom may be desirable, and such is certainly not inconsistent with our liberty in Christ. But experience, and not least of all the experience of the first churches of the Reformation, has abundantly shown that much general laxness in Sunday rules invariably results disastrously. See further, ETHICS OF JESUS, I., 3., (1).
Literature.
For the linguistic matters, Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 1910, 361-66. Hessey’s Sunday (ed 1880) (Bampton Lectures, 1860) contains a good summary of the history of the problems. Zockler’s Sonntagsfeier, PRE, edition 3, XVIII, 1906, 521-29 is the best general survey. In Sch-Herz this article (Sunday) is harmed by abbreviation, but an exhaustive bibliography is added.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Lord’s Day
The expression so rendered in the Authorized English Version occurs only once in the New Testament, viz. in Rev 1:10, and is there unaccompanied by any other words tending to explain its meaning. It is, however, well known that the same phrase was, in after ages of the Christian church, used to signify the first day of the week, on which the resurrection of Christ was commemorated. Hence it has been inferred that the same name was given to that day during the time of the Apostles, and was in the present instance used by St. John in this sense, as referring to an institution well known, and therefore requiring no explanation [see article SABBATH].
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Lord’s Day
See Sabbath
Sabbath
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Lord’s Day
See SABBATH.