The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1871-04-09
The Lords Day not the s.sb..h.

That the Lords day is not tho Sabbath,
says the Catholic Advocate, but, its success
sor, a separate, though kindred institution,
resting on distinct christian grounds, is
evident from the dissimilar nature of the
leading idea by which the observance of
the two days is characterized. The essen
tial feature in the Mosaic Sabbath is rest !;
in the Lords day, it is prayer. The law. of
Moses does not prescribe prayer or the
reading of the Scriptures on the Sabbath,
and in fact this higher and more religious
observance of the day came into existence
only later, when the worship of the syna.
gogue had become general. Christ himself
repeatedly attacks the narrow and materi-
al significance which the Jews give to the
Sabbath plainly foreshadowing that the
holiday of the Christian religion was to be
of n more spiritual aud elevated nature.
The Thalmudists, carrying out the domi-
nant idea of the Mosaic Sabbath, declare
that on that day it is unlawful to tie or I'M
tie q knot, to sew two stitches, to write
two lines, to put ont the fire, and going
still further they affirm that it is forbidden
to take an emetic on the Sabbath, to pare
or bite off ones finger nails, to pluck out
the hair of the head or beard.
This reminds us of the time when the
Puritans of New England enacted such
laws as the following:
I" No one shall run on the Sabbath day,
or walk in his garden, or elsewhere, ex-
cept reverently to and from meeting. No
one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds,
sweep house, cut hair or shave, on the
Sabbath day. No woman shall kiss her
child on the Sabbath day"
The Pnritanic and Protestant idea of the
Sabbath is evidently of Jewish and not of
Christian origin.
Even servile work on the Lords day was
not forbidden during the first three centu-
ries of the Christian era.
nY,fv oh 81
intimation is given in the New Testament,
relates to public worship and not to rest
from labor of any kind.
Tertullian, indeed, mentions in an Incl
dental way, that Christians rest from work
on Sunday, but the other writer's of the arst
prayer on the Lords day. PIiny the
Younger, in his letters to the Emperor
Trajan, does not speak of rest from labor.
ia describing the manner in which the
Christians keep the Sunday. We meet
with no positive laws concerning the OBJ
servance of the Lords day until the fourth
century: The Synod Of Laodicea, "a. d.
36l) forbids Christians to work on Sunday.
Constantine promulgated a law suspending
judicial proceedings and servile work on
that day. Valentinian confirmed this law
and added clause prohibiting the collec-
ton of debts on Sunday. The history of
the observance of the Lords day, there
idea in its celebration is that of prayer and
religious worship, and consequent and sub
servient to this is the idea of rest from
labor.
The early Christians assembled on Sun
day to assist at the sacrifice of the Mass, as
Catholics do now, and this was then, as it
still is in the Church, the great and domi-
nant feature in the observance of the
Lords day.
Professionalism, rejecting the great Sacri-
hce of the New Law, which gave to the
Lords day it's peculiar and Christian signi-
canoe, was logically led to identify the day
OF the Lord Jesus with the old Jewish Sab
bath.
Even Protestants are beginning to I'M
derstand, however, that the Sunday is not
the Sabbath. The distinction between the
two days is very we'll expressed by the late
F. w. Robertson, an Episcopalian, in his
sermon "On the Religious Non observance
of the Sabbath"
No one, believe, who would read St.
Paurs own writings, with unprecedented
mind, could fail Co come to the conclusion
that he considered the Sabbath abrogated
by Christianity. Not merely modified in
it's stringency, but totally repealed, =
for the Lords day sprung, not out of q
Saturday to Sunday, but rather out of the
idea of making the week an imitation of
the life of Christ. With the early Chris
tians, the great conception was that of fol-
lowing their crucifed and risen Lord they
set, as it were, the clock of time to the
epochs of history. Friday represented the
death, in which all Christians daily die
and Sunday the Resurrection, in which all
Christians daily rise to higher life. Care
fully distinguish this, the true historical
view of the origin of the Lords day, from
q mere transference of Jewish Sabbath
from one day to another. For St. Paul's
teaching is distinct and clear, that the Sab
bath is annulled and to urge the. observ-
ance of the day as Indispensable to saliva.
ton was, according to him, to Judaize-tt
turn again to the weak and be ggarly ele
ments, whereunto they desired to be il
bondage.
And also by Lecky, european Morals
Vol. IL, p. 25s):
"The celebration of the first day of tn
week, in commemoration of the resurrec
ton, and as period of religious exercises
dates from the earliest age of the church
The Christian festival was carefully dis
tinguished from the Jewish Sabbath, witt
which it never appears to be conf0ande,
till the close of the sixteenth century bu
some Jewish converts who considered th
Jewish law to be still in force, Observes
both days. In general, however, tn