Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome, issued the following edict in A.D. 321:
"Let all the judges and town
people, and the occupation of all trades, rest on the venerable day of
the sun, but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at
full liberty, attend to the business of agriculture; because it often
happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines;
lest the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities
granted by heaven." This law applied only to the Roman Empire. At that
date there were numerous Christian Churches outside of the Roman
jurisdiction, all keeping Sunday. (See
Chapters 6 and
7.)
This law in no way could
affect them. Then where did they get the Lord's Day if this law first
introduced it? Adventists claim that this was a pagan law because it
does not use a Christian term, as Lord's Day, or Christian Sabbath. The
answer is easy: Christians needed no law to compel them to keep the day,
for they all kept it already as a Christian duty. But the pagans kept
no weekly day. Hence the law was directed to them, and, of course, used
pagan terms for that day, "the day of the sun." That is the manifest
explanation of why the pagan name was used. Gibbon says: "Constantine
styles the Lord's Day Dies Solis, a name which could not offend the ears
of his pagan subjects." (
History of Rome, Chap. 20, Note 8.)
Doctor Schaff says: "So long
as Christianity was not recognized and protected by the state, the
observance of Sunday was purely religious, a strictly voluntary
service." (
History of the Church, Vol. III, p. 379)
"Constantine is the founder, in part at least, of the civil observance
of Sunday." Before this law all Christians had voluntarily kept the
Lord's Day as a religious duty. Now the civil law required pagans to
respect the Christian rest day. That is the simple truth and the whole
of it.
Doctor Schaff, page 380,
continues: "Christians and pagans had been accustomed to festival rests;
Constantine made these rests to synchronize, and gave the preference to
Sunday, on which day Christians from the beginning celebrated the
resurrection of their Lord and Saviour. This, and no more, was implied
in the famous enactment of 321."
The pagan festivals were only
yearly, not weekly. Now they were required to keep a weekly rest day on
Sunday so as to harmonize with Christians. Adventists now voluntarily
kept Saturday as a sacred duty though the civil law does not demand it.
Just so Christians voluntarily kept the Lord's Day as a religious duty,
though there was no civil law requiring it. Now the civil law required
pagans also to respect the Christian's day, the day which was then
observed by the emperor and all his household.
As to the reliability of
Doctor Schaff as a historian, Elder J. H. Waggoner says: "Doctor Schaff
is justly esteemed as a man of extensive learning, and whose testimony
regarding facts no one will call in question." (
Replies to Canright,
p. 132) Good and true. Doctor Schaff says Christians from the
beginning voluntarily kept the resurrection day and Constantine made a
civil law requiring the pagans to make their festival days harmonize
with the established Christian day. The pagans had to conform to the
Christian day, not Christians to the pagan day.
As we have abundantly proved in
Chapter 5,
the pagan Romans had no weekly festivals. These festivals were all
yearly, like our Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, etc. But the Christian’s
day was weekly, every Sunday. Constantine made these to synchronize.
How? "By giving the preference to Sunday," the Christian's day. This is
plain enough.
Notice carefully one clause in
the decree, viz.: "Those in the country" were to have full liberty to
attend to the business of agriculture. Doctor Schaff gives the reason
thus: "He expressly exempted the country districts where paganism still
prevailed." (Church History, 3d period, Par. 75, p. 379). This is true,
and it shows that the pagans did not keep Sunday nor did they wish to.
Hence, where they were greatly in the majority, they were exempted from
obeying this law. But in the cities where Christians largely were, there
secular business had to cease. This law was made to protect Christians
and the Christian's day, not pagans nor a pagan day. Because
Constantine, while yet a pagan with other pagans, reverenced Apollo, the
sun-god, Adventists argue that he reverenced Sunday as a sacred day.
But this argument is fallacious. Sunday was simply the astrological name
of the day, named from the planet, the sun. It had no religious
significance whatever, no connection with the worship of Apollo. He was
not worshipped on Sunday more than any other weekday. That argument is
founded on the jingle of words, but not on facts. (
See Chapter 5)
The father and mother of
Constantine were both Christians, and he venerated them both greatly.
His mother was the sainted Helena, one of the most devout Christians of
the early centuries. Her influence over her son was always great.
Constantine himself thus states the reasons which led him to trust in
his father's God, the God of the Christians. "My father revered the
Christian God, and uniformly prospered, while the emperors, who
worshipped the heathen gods, died a miserable death; therefore, that I
may enjoy a happy life and reign, I will imitate the example of my
father, and join myself to the cause of the Christians who are growing
daily, while the heathen are diminishing." (Schaff, 3d period, Vol. I,
Sect. 2, pp. 19, 20). He reasoned thus when made emperor in A.D. 306.
Of him Ridpath says: "He perceived the conclusion of the great syllogism
in the logic of events. He saw that destiny was about to write Finis at
the bottom of the last page of paganism. So, for policy, the emperor
began to favor the Christians." (
History of the World, Vol. I, Chap. liii , pp. 881, 882)
In the year A.D. 312, while on
his march towards Rome with his army to meet his enemy, the Emperor
Maxentius, he saw, or at least pretended to see, in the heavens, the
sign of the cross with the words, "By this conquer." He then adopted
that as the banner for his army under which it ever after marched, and
always to victory. Here he openly professed conversion to the Christian
religion. He immediately issued an edict in favor of the Christians. It
has been lost. The "Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia," Article "Constantine,"
says: "By the second (Milan 313) he granted them not only free religious
worship and their recognition by the state, but also reparation of
previously incurred losses. ... A series of edicts of 315, 316, 319 and
323 completed the revolution." By these edicts paganism was overthrown
and finally outlawed from 323. (See the life of Constantine in any
history or encyclopedia.)
Adventists unfairly try to
place his conversion after his Sunday law in A.D. 321. Thus Mrs. White
says: "The first public measure enforcing Sunday observance was the law
enacted by Constantine two years before his profession of Christianity."
(
Great Controversy, edition of 1884, Chap. 30, p. 391). This
statement alone destroys her claim to inspiration, for it is nine years
too late, made with the evident intent to prove his law was pagan. Elder
J. H. Waggoner, after naming the decree of 321, says: "At the time when
these decrees were issued he had made no profession of Christianity." (
Replies to Canright,"
p. 29). It is astonishing that a man should put in print a statement so
entirely untrue. Nothing is more clearly stated in history than that
Constantine openly professed conversion to Christianity nine years
before his Sunday edict was issued. (See
The Life of Constantine
by Eusebius.) For years before this he himself and all his household
had piously observed the Lord's Day. (See Eusebius, as above.)
The "New Schaff-Herzog
Encyclopedia," Article "Constantine," says: "The impression produced by
this apparition (the vision of the cross) found its consummation in a
dream by night. It is certain from the sources that the decisive
conversion of Constantine to Christianity is to be fixed at the outset
of the campaign, or in the spring of 312; also that this conversion
rested not upon a single experience, the apparition or the dream, but
that preparatory experience cooperated with it. ... Where in passages in
Eusebius and elsewhere he speaks of the one religion and belief in one
God, he means historical Christianity, and bids, not the Christians, but
the pagans, to this doctrine, and in this light alone did his Christian
and pagan contemporaries understand him."
Here is the clear testimony of
an unbiased authority gathered from all the facts in the case which
places the professed conversion of the emperor in A.D. 312, just where
all reliable historians do. It was nine years before his Sunday law.
Dean Stanley (History of the Eastern Church, Lecture 6, pp. 201, 202)
places the conversion of Constantine at the same date, 312, right after
his vision of the cross. He says: "That some such change, effected by
some such means, took place at this crisis, is confirmed not only by the
fact of Constantine's adoption of the Christian faith immediately
afterwards, but by the specific introduction of the standard of the
cross into the army."
Gibbon in his "History of
Rome," Vol. XI, Chap. XX, p. 184, says: "About five months after the
conquest of Italy, the emperor made (A.D. 313) a solemn and authentic
declaration of his sentiments by the celebrated edict of Milan which
restored peace to the Catholic Church."
From this time on he joined
himself with Christians, did all he safely could for them and against
paganism till in 323 he outlawed paganism entirely. The "Encyclopedia
Britannica," Article "Constantine," says: "Rome was naturally the
stronghold of paganism to which the great majority of the Senate clung
with great devotion. Constantine did not wish to do open violence to
this sentiment, and therefore resolved to found a new capital."
Stanley relates how the
emperor refused to take part in a popular pagan procession in Rome. He
openly ridiculed it. Says Stanley, "The Roman people were furious. A
riot broke out in the streets." His statue was stoned. This is good
proof of his hatred of paganism. His opposition to paganism was his
reason for forsaking Rome. He caused his sons to receive a Christian
education. Motives of political expediency, however, caused him to
delay the full recognition of Christianity as the religion of the state
until he became sole ruler of the empire.
Adventists are guilty of
misconstruing the plainest intent of that law. They assert that this law
compelled pagans and Christians alike to cease work on Sunday, except
in the country where both were allowed to work. Then they emphasize the
fact that this was the first law ever enacted forbidding work on Sunday.
Thus Elder Waggoner says: " It has been fully proved that the decree of
Constantine was the first authority for Sunday rest." (
Replies to Canright,
p. 136) Yes, certainly, but to whom did this law apply? To pagans. It
was the first civil law by the state after its head had become
Christian.
Again Waggoner says: " In the
country it permitted all to labor, both pagans and Christians." (Replies
to Canright, p. 150) On this it is fair to quote: " A half truth is
as bad as a lie." Does that law in any way mention Christians? No.
Waggoner assumes that it does, and by this false assumption concludes
the Christians worked Sunday, when there is not a hint of such a thing
in that law. Our law now permits people to do many things which no
Christian will do. At that time Christians reverenced the Lord's Day
regardless of what the civil law permitted.
Because the law permitted
farmers to work Sunday, Adventists assert that Christians worked on
Sunday up till that time. They have no proof of this. (See this work,
Chapter 6.)
For three hundred years it had been a sacred day with Christians. They
kept it voluntarily, as Doctor Schaff states above, hence the law in no
way applied to them, but it did require pagans, especially in cities
where Christians mostly were, to cease work on that day.
Constantine, his mother
Helena, all his children, his household, his servants, and he himself
devoutly observed the Lord's Day at the time this edict was issued, 321.
Adventists try to ignore all this to carry their theory that this was a
pagan law requiring Christians to reverence a pagan day. It is a bad
cause that requires such reasoning.
Another Seventh-Day advocate,
Rev. A. H. Lewis, D.D., says: "This edict makes no reference to the day
as a Sabbath, as the Lord's Day, or as any way connected with
Christianity. Neither is it an edict addressed to Christians." (
Sabbath and Sunday,
p. 142) This is a good confession and states the truth exactly. That
law was for pagans who had never rested Sundays. This law required them
to do what they had never done before-cease work on Sunday. Christians
required no such law, for they kept the day as a religious duty without
any civil law requiring it. It would have been absurd and useless for
Constantine to issue an edict forbidding Christians to work on the
Lord's Day when for three hundred years that had been a part of their
sacred faith. The very argument Sabbatarians make to prove that this law
was addressed to pagans, in pagan terms, is good proof that Christians
needed no such law.
They kept Sunday voluntarily.
Look at the absurdity of the Adventist theory: The pagans were keeping
Sunday; Christians were not, but instead were keeping Saturday.
Constantine wished all to keep the same day. To whom then would he have
addressed this law? To Christians, of course, requiring them to change
their day. But he did no such thing; for there was no occasion for it.
Elder J. H. Waggoner makes
this confession: "Constantine did nothing whatever that can be construed
into changing the Sabbath. In his decrees he said not one word either
for or against keeping the Sabbath of the Bible. To this he did not
refer in any way." (
Replies to Canright, pp. 149, 150) Of
course not, for his law was addressed only to pagans who kept neither
Saturday nor Sunday. But after his professed conversion in 312, did he
not keep pagans in high offices? Did he not order sacrifices to be made
to pagan gods? Did he not order some pagan rites to be performed for
himself? Yes. Why? Out of policy. He had to do so to avoid a rebellion
of his pagan subjects who were yet numerous and powerful. He had to bide
his time as all wise rulers and reformers do. He could not change the
religion and customs of a whole empire in a day. He used common sense,
as Lincoln did in abolishing slavery. Lincoln delayed it years after
radicals denounced him for his half measures and delay. Now all justify
the course he took. Constantine pursued the same wise course in
abolishing paganism.
So Adventists denounce him as
half pagan because he did not play the fool and fanatic and try to do
immediately what was impossible. When he first became emperor pagans
were in the majority and filled all important offices. He had these to
reckon with till he could gradually change all this. By this course he
avoided an opposition which would have defeated him. Then he
accomplished the religious revolution in a remarkably short time,-ten
years. Neither before nor since has the world ever witnessed so
tremendous a revolution in so short a period, and his conversion to
Christianity did it.
I have before me the "Life of
Constantine," by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, Palestine. He was often
with the emperor, in his palace, at his table, in church, in church
councils, etc. He related how the emperor, as rapidly as possible,
favored Christians and put down paganism, closed their temples, forbade
their worship, and wrote and preached against idols.
But Constantine, long after he
professed Christianity, retained the heathen title and office of
"Pontifix Maximus," or Supreme Pontiff of paganism. Yes, because that
still gave him authority to regulate that worship, and he used it to
gradually curtail one thing after another in that religion till, in 323,
he suppressed it entirely. In this he followed a successful policy,
that is all.
In the preceding pages we have
clearly proved that Christians had kept Sunday as a sacred day
centuries before the time of Constantine. Eusebius, who lived with
Constantine, repeatedly says that all Christians were keeping Sunday at
that time, and before. We have proved positively, back a few pages, that
the pagan Romans did not rest on Sunday, and hence had no Sunday rest
day to give to Christians.
Nothing can be more reasonable
and simple than the fact that when Constantine professed Christianity
he should, as soon as possible, make a law to protect the Christian rest
day, the same as Christian rulers have done ever since. That is just
what he did do, and that is the whole of it. Whether he was a really
converted man, or a mere professor from policy, has no bearing on the
question. He professed to be a Christian, and all his edicts were issued
to favor them, the Sunday law with the rest.
That the law was enacted
specially to protect the Lord's Day for Christian worship is distinctly
stated by Eusebius in his "Life of Constantine," Chapter XVIII. Eusebius
lived right there where this law was made and when it was made. He was
closely associated with Constantine, and has stated clearly why that law
was given. Would he not know better than some partisan Adventist
sixteen centuries later? Hear Eusebius: "He [Constantine] ordained, too,
that one day should be regarded as a special occasion for prayer; I
mean that which is truly the first and chief of all, the Day of our Lord
and Saviour. The entire care of his household was entrusted to deacons
and other ministers consecrated to the service of God, and distinguished
for gravity of life and every other virtue; while his trusty
body-guard, strong in affection and fidelity to his person, found in
their emperor an instructor in the practice of piety, and, like him,
held the Lord's salutary day in honor, and performed on that day the
devotions which he loved.
The same observance was
recommended by this blessed prince to all classes of his subjects; his
earnest desire being gradually to lead all mankind to the worship of
God. Accordingly he enjoined on all the subjects of the Roman Empire to
observe the Lord's Day as a day of rest."
Notice that all the servants
in Constantine's household were Christians, and all kept the Lord's Day
with the emperor. He commanded all his subjects to rest that day so that
Christians could be free to attend worship on the Lord's Day.
Many Christians were slaves to
pagan masters, and could not rest unless their owners did. This law
compelled these pagan masters to cease work on that day. Then their
slaves could keep the Lord's Day.
Constantine considered himself
called of God to care for the Church in external things as the bishops
were to care for the internal matters. He said: "You are bishops whose
jurisdiction is within the Church. I also am a bishop, ordained by God
to overlook whatever is external to the Church." (Eusebius, "Life of
Constantine,” Chap. xxiv)
That was why he made his
Sunday law—it was to help the Church. Then there is another reliable
witness to the fact that Constantine's Sunday law was to protect the
Lord's Day, not a pagan day. The historian Sozomen was born in
Palestine, the home of the apostles, only about sixty years after the
death of Constantine. He was a noted lawyer in Constantinople, the home
of Constantine; hence, was familiar with all the laws of the emperor,
and knew their object. Of that Sunday law he says: "He also enjoined the
observance of the day termed the Lord's Day, which the Jews call the
first day of the week. He honored the Lord's Day, because on it Christ
arose from the dead." (
Eccl. Hist., Chap. ix, p. 22.)
This witness by such an
authority living right there should be, and is, decisive. That law was
to protect the Lord's Day because Christ arose that day, not because it
was a pagan festival day.
Every candid man must see this. This entirely explodes the Adventists' theory that it was a pagan law enjoining a pagan day.
Elder A. T. Jones was once the
editor of their church paper, and the best posted historian Seventh-Day
Adventists ever had. In his recent book, "The Reformation," published
in 1913, he not only admits, but truthfully argues, that Constantine's
Sunday law was issued at the request of Christians to help the Church.
He says: "The Sunday institution and all that was attached to it was
wholly of the Church. And when from the federated Church the State
accepted and embodied in the law this exclusively church institution,
this, in the very fact of the doing of it, was the union of the Church
and the State." "It was only in the furtherance of the grand scheme of
the bishops and their church-combine to establish the State as 'the
Kingdom of God '" (page 315).
Here we have the real truth
about that Sunday law. It was issued by a professedly Christian emperor,
to favor the Christian Church by protecting their Christian day of
worship long held sacred by them. It is readily agreed that the zeal of
Constantine to help the Church was unwise and detrimental in its
results; but the fact remains just the same.
The edict of Constantine was
the very first law ever made by any one prohibiting secular business on
Sunday. All historians agree in this. This very fact overthrows the
Adventists' claim that the day, as a rest day, originated with the
pagans.
Consider now: If these pagan
Romans had been keeping Sunday as a sacred day of worship why did they
never before have a law forbidding work on that day? Did all these
heathens, for ages, cease their work that day voluntarily without any
law requiring it? Even in Christian lands, with strict laws against
Sunday business, it is difficult to get people to observe the day. Were
the heathens more religious than Christians? The Roman emperor was
always the head of the pagan religion, the same as the Pope is the head
of the Catholic Church. His edict was law to them. He was "Pontifix
Maximus," which authorized him to regulate the pagan worship. If it was
part of the pagan religion to regard the day as sacred, why is it that
the first law prohibiting work on Sunday was never issued till the Roman
emperor professed Christianity? I have asked Adventists this question
and they make only an evasive answer. The simple fact is this: Up till
the time of Constantine Christians were terribly persecuted and were in
the minority, and so could make no civil law forbidding work on Sunday,
the day they all kept, as we have seen.
The pagans did not observe
Sunday, but worked that day, the same as on all other days. Hence, they
wanted no law to prohibit the work they were all accustomed to do that
day. A Sunday law was just what the pagans did not want; hence, he, by
his authority as emperor, issued an edict requiring his pagan subjects
to rest on Sunday, the same as Christians did and had done for three
hundred years. That law was made to favor Christians, not pagans. That
this law was made at the request of Christians is admitted by
Adventists.
Again Elder Jones, in the
Battle Creek Journal,
December 11, 1888, says: "It is demonstrated that the first Sunday law
that ever was enacted was at the request of the Church; it was in behalf
of the Church, and it was expressly to help the Church."
This truthful admission
overthrows the claim that this law was a pagan law to protect a pagan
day. It was exactly the opposite-a law to compel pagans to cease work on
the day which Christians kept as a sacred day. Put with this the
admission of Waggoner above quoted, viz., that "the idea of the rest
from worldly labor in its worship was entirely new to pagans." So it
was, but Christians had kept the day for centuries. With whom, then,
"originated " the custom of resting from work on Sunday and keeping it
as a sacred day of worship?
It had its origin with Christians, not with pagan
