The Sabbath: "Dominicum Servasti" --- A historical hoax?

Status
Not open for further replies.

biblelighthouse

Puritan Board Junior
Friends,

Dr. Edwards makes the following statement:

"Hence the fact that their persecutors, when they wished to know whether men were Christians, were accustomed to put to them this question, viz., `Dominicum servasti?' -`Hast thou kept the Lord's day?' If they had they were Christians. This was the badge of their Christianity, in distinction from Jews and pagans. And if they said they had, and would not recant, they must be put to death. And what, when they continued steadfast, was their answer? `Christianus sum; intermittere non possum;'-`I am a Christian; I cannot omit it.' It is a badge of my religion, and the man who assumes it must of course keep the Lord's day, because it is the will of his Lord; and should he abandon it, he would be an apostate from his religion."


I LOVE the above quote from Edwards.

But today I just ran across this article that annoyed me:

http://www.nisbett.com/sabbath/history/hos15.htm

Unfortunately, I don't know enough early church history to refute this article.

Does anyone on here know if we can convincingly demonstrate that the question, "Dominicum Servasti", was actually used in the first few hundred years of the church? Or is this really a hoax like the above article says?

Please help!

Thank you,
Joseph
 
Sounds intriguing. The article has a lot of footnotes. I'll have to review and consider. But off hand I would trust Edwards a lot more on this issue than a Seventh Day Adventist group. Presuppositional bias. ;)
 
Originally posted by VirginiaHuguenot
Sounds intriguing. The article has a lot of footnotes. I'll have to review and consider. But off hand I would trust Edwards a lot more on this issue than a Seventh Day Adventist group. Presuppositional bias. ;)

I completely agree with you. I trust Edwards much more than Saturday-Sabbatarians.

But the fact still remains that I don't know how to refute that particular article. That's why I'm asking for assistance.

Thanks again!
 
Funny this should come up. I'm having an argument with an SDA person on a secular message board at the moment.

These might help:

Tertullian (writing about 200 AD)
It follows, accordingly, that, in so far as the abolition of carnal circumcision and of the old law is demonstrated as having been consummated at its specific times, so also the observance of the Sabbath is demonstrated to have been temporary.

For the Jews say, that from the beginning God sanctified the seventh day, by resting on it from all His works which He made; and that thence it was, likewise, that Moses said to the People: "Remember the day of the sabbaths, to sanctify it: every servile work ye shall not do therein, except what pertaineth unto life."62 Whence we (Christians) understand that we still more ought to observe a sabbath from all "servile work"63 always, and not only every seventh day, but through all time. And through this arises the question for us, what sabbath God willed us to keep? For the Scriptures point to a sabbath eternal and a sabbath temporal. For Isaiah the prophet says, "Your sabbaths my soul hateth; " and in another place he says, "My sabbaths ye have profaned." Whence we discern that the temporal sabbath is human, and the eternal sabbath is accounted divine; concerning which He predicts through Isaiah: "And there shall be," He says, "month after month, and day after day, and sabbath after sabbath; and all flesh shall come to adore in Jerusalem, saith the Lord; " which we understand to have been fulfilled in the times of Christ, when "all flesh"-that is, every nation-"came to adore in Jerusalem" God the Father, through Jesus Christ His Son, as was predicted through the prophet: "Behold, proselytes through me shall go unto Thee." Thus, therefore, before this temporal sabbath, there was withal an eternal sabbath foreshown and foretold; just as before the carnal circumcision there was withal a spiritual circumcision foreshown. In short, let them teach us, as we have already premised, that Adam observed the sabbath; or that Abel, when offering to God a holy victim, pleased Him by a religious reverence for the sabbath; or that Enoch, when translated, had been a keeper of the sabbath; or that Noah the ark-builder observed, on account of the deluge, an immense sabbath; or that Abraham, in observance of the sabbath, offered Isaac his son; or that Melchizedek in his priesthood received the law of the sabbath.
But the Jews are sure to say, that ever since this precept was given through Moses, the observance has been binding. Manifest accordingly it is, that the precept was not eternal nor spiritual, but temporary, which would one day cease. In short, so true is it that it is not in the exemption from work of the sabbath-that is, of the seventh day-that the celebration of this solemnity is to consist, that Joshua the son of Nun, at the time that he was reducing the city Jericho by war. stated that he had received from God a precept to order the People that priests should carry the ark of the testament of God seven days, making the circuit of the city; and thus, when the seventh day's circuit had been performed, the walls of the city would spontaneously fall. Which was so done; and when the space of the seventh day was finished, just as was predicted, down fell the walls of the city. Whence it is manifestly shown, that in the number of the seven days there intervened a sabbath-day. For seven days, whencesoever they may have commenced, must necessarily include within them a sabbath-day; on which day not only must the priests have worked, but the city must have been made a prey by the edge of the sword by all the people of Israel. Nor is it doubtful that they "wrought servile work," when, in obedience to God's precept, they drave the preys of war. For in the times of the Maccabees, too, they did bravely in fighting on the sabbaths, and routed their foreign foes, and recalled the law of their fathers to the primitive style of life by fighting on the sabbaths. Nor should I think it was any other law which they thus vindicated, than the one in which they remembered the existence of the prescript touching "the day of the sabbaths."

Whence it is manifest that the force of such precepts was temporary, and respected the necessity of present circumstances; and that it was not with a view to its observance in perpetuity that God formerly gave them such a law.
Answer to the Jews, Chapter IV - on the net - http://ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-03/anf03-19.htm#P2021_691723 and in print - Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. 3, page 155

Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, writing in 110 AD to the church at Magesia states:

9:1 If then those who had walked in ancient practices attained unto newness of hope, no longer observing sabbaths but fashioning their lives after the Lord's day, on which our life also arose through Him and through His death which some men deny -- a
mystery whereby we attained unto belief, and for this cause we endure patiently, that we may be found disciples of Jesus Christ our only teacher. (Ignatius, Magnesians 9:1)

It should be noted that Ignatius was a disciple of John....the apostle. 'Lord's day' was the day commonly observed... the day 'our hope arose' - Christ.

Justin Martyr, writing 40 years later noted:
"And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration." (First apology of Justin, Weekly Worship of the Christians, Ch 68)


Justin, in A Dialogue with Trypho, A Jew (writing around 150 AD) made the following observation:

"Moreover, all those righteous men already mentioned [after mentioning Adam. Abel, Enoch, Lot, Noah, Melchizedek, and Abraham], though they kept no Sabbaths, were pleasing to God; and after them Abraham with all his descendants until Moses... And you [fleshly Jews] were commanded to keep Sabbaths, that you might retain the memorial of God. For His word makes this announcement, saying, "That you may know that I am God who redeemed you." (Dialogue With Trypho the Jew, 150-165 AD, Ante-Nicene Fathers , vol. 1, page 204)
 
Kerry, thank you for the quotes. I do appreciate them.


But the article I referenced does not directly dispute the Sunday Sabbath in the early church. Rather, it focuses on refuting the "Dominicum Servasti" story told by Edwards.


Does anyone know of some substantial proof, via early church quotes, that the Romans really did question Christians with the "Dominicum Servasti" question?

I am focusing on this particular point in this thread.

Thank you!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top