The First Day of the Week - sabbaton

http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=2022

According to R.C.H. Lenski, since “[t]he Jews had no names for the weekdays,” they “designated them with reference to their Sabbath” (1943, p. 1148). Thus, mia ton sabbaton means “the first (day) with reference to the Sabbath,” i.e., the first (day) following the Sabbath (Lenski, p. 1148), or, as we would say in 21st century English, “the first day of the week.”

After spending years examining Jewish writings in the Babylonian Talmud, Hebraist John Lightfoot wrote A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, in which he expounded upon the Hebrew method of counting the days of the week. He noted: “The Jews reckon the days of the week thus; One day (or the first day) of the sabbath: two (or the second day) of the sabbath;” etc. (1859, 2:375, emp. in orig.). Lightfoot then quoted from two different Talmud tractates. Maccoth alludes to those who testify on “the first of the sabbath” about an individual who stole an ox. Judgment was then passed the following day—“on the second day of the sabbath” (Lightfoot, 2:375, emp. in orig.; Maccoth, Chapter 1). Bava Kama describes ten enactments ordained by a man named Ezra, including the public reading of the law “on the second and fifth days of the sabbath,” and the washing of clothes “on the fifth day of the sabbath” (Lightfoot, 2:375; Bava Kama, Chapter 7). In Michael Rodkinson’s 1918 translation of Maccoth and Bava Kama, he accurately translated “the second day of the sabbath” as Monday, “the fifth day of the sabbath” as Thursday, and “the first of the sabbath” as Sunday.

by	Eric Lyons, M.Min.

The Lord’s Day; The Weekly Easter; The Day of Light

The Lord’s Day; The Weekly Easter; The Day of Light

By The Rev. Charles E. Hocking, Ret.

https://stjamesclergy.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/the-lords-day-the-weekly-easter-the-day-of-light/

The Lord’s Day; The Weekly Easter; The Day of Light

Posted on October 14, 2014 by stjamesblog

By The Rev. Charles E. Hocking, Ret.

Yes, that’s right, this blog is about Sunday and these three legitimate and descriptive labels for our weekly holy day. If you were raised in the Episcopal Church as I was through Church School, Men and Boys Choir, Acolyte Duties, and Young Peoples Fellowship (high school youth group), you were taught that Sunday was The Sabbath. On the first Sunday of the month at St. Andrew’s Church in Meriden, Connecticut, we had Holy Communion and, in “The Decalogue”, when The Rector read “Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day,” we all responded, “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” And not one of us, not man, woman or child, intended to “keep this law” as fully described in the very small print, which the Rector never read to the congregation.

The small print is a quote from Exodus 20: 8-11, which begins, “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no manner of work”, (not you, your son, your daughter, your slaves, your cattle, nor the stranger visiting your town). “For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it.”

You do not have to be a biblical scholar to recognize that the 4th Commandment is about Saturday, not Sunday. The calendars of the Orthodox Churches in the East designate all Saturdays as The Sabbath. It was only in the Western Church, in Europe, that the error was intentionally made. In the Dark Ages very few outside of the monasteries could read or write, so the task of preparing people for Baptism or Confirmation fell to the monks. With the help of visual aids such as church windows and statuary, they told the Gospel Story and required the candidates to memorize the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Apostles’ Creed. When teaching the Ten Commandments, they said that the Fourth commandment, “Thou shalt keep Holy the Sabbath-day” meant they were required to attend Mass every Sunday. Wrong, but easy to remember.

The error continued for centuries, into and after the Reformation. In England, following the Civil War, under Cromwell, The Calvinist Puritans took Sunday “Sabbath” to its logical conclusion: everyone must “rest”, do no work or play on Sunday. The English working people rose up in protest. They worked long hours six days a week, and, after service on Sunday, they played their sports, ran races, danced, eat and had their only time for recreation. The restoration of the monarchy and the restoration of playtime went hand in hand.

But of course, the Puritans were not deterred. Beginning in New England, the “Blue Laws” required businesses to close on Sundays, including theaters, movies and amusement parks. Living in New York City in the 1960s, I discovered that city law required Gentiles to close on Sunday and Jewish merchants to close on Saturday. One Jewish shop keeper I knew was open seven days a week, and, when I asked how he did it, he said he paid the fine every week – part of the cost of doing business.

All this because the monks in the Dark Ages made it easy to remember the Fourth Commandment: “You are required to attend Mass on Sunday.”

So growing up, I was taught that Sunday was the Sabbath Day, and I believed it until I had my first seminary class in Liturgies with The Rev. Dr. H. Boone Porter, who made it clear that Sunday, every Sunday, was the most important holy day in the Church Year except for Easter and Pentecost. Sunday is The Lord’s Day, The Weekly Easter, The Day of Light, not the Sabbath. Read your Bible. Saturday is the Sabbath. The Fourth Commandment is a Jewish cultic law and rigorously obeyed by all practicing Jews from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday.

Christian congregations differ from Rotarian’s, as The Rev. Jay Sidebotham said in the Grapevine article in mid-September, “to the degree that it is confronted by and attempts to form its life in response to the Word of God….” So True! But, I would add that we Christians are who we are, the corporate Body of Christ, most truly, when we gather on Sunday to offer to “Almighty God, our Heavenly Father” The Great Thanksgiving. As baptized members of The Church, the Body of Christ in this place, “we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice unto thee, …” (Rite I). Or, “We celebrate the memorial of our redemption, O Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, …” (Rite II).

And, what is it that we gather on Sunday, the first day, to offer to Almighty God in The Holy Eucharist (our holy Thanksgiving)? We gather to thank God for His three mighty acts associated in Scripture with the first day: 1. Creation: “Let there be light.”, God the Father; 2. The Resurrection of Jesus, the incarnate Son of God at the 1st light of dawn on Easter; and 3. the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church on Pentecost, when the light of fire burned over the heads of the Apostles.

Sunday is Trinitarian. Sunday is the Day of Light. Sunday is the Weekly Easter, Sunday is the Lord’s Day. On Sunday we hear God’s Word to know Him and His will for us, we worship Him in The Great Thanksgiving, and we are fed the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ, the gift of Himself (His Body) and His Life (His Blood), and asking, “Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord…”

Saturday is The Sabbath of God. For Christians, it represents a principle to take seriously – to stay healthy, we need a day of rest, a day of change from work, a day of recreation, in order to return to work creatively and refreshed.

For further reading: The Day of Light by H. B. Porter. Published by Seabury Press, 1960 and The Pastoral Press, 1987.

The Rev. Charles Hocking is a retired priest living in the Wilmington area. When he is not writing or contemplating the intricacies of liturgy and church history, Charles enjoys reading and spending time with his wife, his children, and grandchildren. 

THAT EVERY CHRISTIAN OUGHT TO FREQUENT THE CHURCH DILIGENTLY BOTH MORNING AND EVENING.

LIX. When thou instructest the people, O bishop, command and exhort them to come constantly to church morning and evening every day, and by no means to forsake it on any account, but to assemble together continually; neither to diminish the Church by withdrawing themselves, and causing the body of Christ to be without its member. For it is not only spoken concerning the priests, but let every one of the laity hearken to it as concerning himself, considering that it is said by the Lord: “He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.”2839 Do not you therefore scatter yourselves abroad, who are the members of Christ, by not assembling together, since you have Christ your head, according to His promise, present, and communicating to you.2840 Be not careless of yourselves, 423neither deprive your Saviour of His own members, neither divide His body nor disperse His members, neither prefer the occasions of this life to the word of God; but assemble yourselves together every day, morning and evening, singing psalms and praying in the Lord’s house: in the morning saying the sixty-second Psalm, and in the evening the hundred and fortieth, but principally on the Sabbath-day. And on the day of our Lord’s resurrection, which is the Lord’s day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that made the universe by Jesus, and sent Him to us, and condescended to let Him suffer, and raised Him from the dead. Otherwise what apology will he make to God who does not assemble on that day to hear the saving word concerning the resurrection, on which we pray thrice standing in memory of Him who arose in three days, in which is performed the reading of the prophets, the preaching of the Gospel, the oblation of the sacrifice, the gift of the holy food?  

ANF07. Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, Homily

The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians

Estimated Range of Dating: 105-115 A.D.

The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians

Shorter and Longer Versions

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-magnesians-longer.html

Chapter IX.-Let Us Live with Christ.

If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death-whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master-how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead.

If, then, those who were conversant with the ancient Scriptures came to newness of hope, expecting the coming of Christ, as the Lord teaches us when He says, "If ye had believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me;" and again, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it, and was glad; for before Abraham was, I am; " how shall we be able to live without Him? The prophets were His servants, and foresaw Him by the Spirit, and waited for Him as their Teacher, and expected Him as their Lord and Saviour, saying, "He will come and save us." Let us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner, and rejoice in days of idleness; for "he that does not work, let him not eat." For say the [holy] oracles, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread." But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not eating things prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and plaudits which have no sense in them. And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days [of the week]. Looking forward to this, the prophet declared, "To the end, for the eighth day," on which our life both sprang up again, and the victory over death was obtained in Christ, whom the children of perdition, the enemies of the Saviour, deny, "whose god is their belly, who mind earthly things," who are "lovers of pleasure, and not lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." These make merchandise of Christ, corrupting His word, and giving up Jesus to sale: they are corrupters of women, and covetous of other men's possessions, swallowing up wealth insatiably; from whom may ye be delivered by the mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Around 110 AD, St. Ignatius of Antioch used kyriake in a passage of his letter to the Magnesians. Ambiguity arises due to textual variants. The only extant Greek manuscript of the letter, the Codex Mediceo-Laurentianus, reads, "If, then, those who had walked in ancient practices attained unto newness of hope, no longer observing Sabbath, but living according to the Lord’s life ..." (kata kyriaken zoen zontes). A medieval Latin translation indicates an original textual reading of kata kyriaken zontes: "no longer observing Sabbath, but living according to the Lord's [Day]".

(The expanded Pseudo-Ignatian version of Magnesians, from the middle of the third century, rewrites this passage to make "Lord's Day" a clear reference to Sunday. Pseudo-Ignatius saw believers "no longer observing the [Jewish] Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day", and amplified this point as follows: "Let us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner, and rejoice in days of idleness .... But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not eating things prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and plaudits which have no sense in them. And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days."^[5] This is typical^{[citation needed]} of early church fathers who saw weekly observance of seventh-day Sabbath followed the next day by Lord's Day assembly.)

Canon LI.

The nativities of Martyrs are not to be celebrated in Lent, but commemorations of the holy Martyrs are to be made on the Sabbaths and Lord’s days.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon LI.

Commemorations of Martyrs shall only be held on Lord’s days and Sabbaths.

By this canon all Saints-days are forbidden to be observed in Lent on the days on which they fall, but must be transferred to a Sabbath or else to the Sunday, when they can be kept with the festival service of the full liturgy and not with the penitential incompleteness of the Mass of the Presanctified. Compare canon xlix. of this Synod, and canon lij. of the Quinisext Council.

Balsamon.

The whole of Lent is a time of grief for our sins, and the memories of the Saints are not kept except on the Sabbaths.

Van Espen remarks how in old calendars there are but few Saints-days in those months in which Lent ordinarily falls, and that the multitude of days now kept by the Roman ordo are mostly of modern introduction.

Canon VIII.

Canon VIII.

That Hebrews ought not to be received unless they have been converted
in sincerity of heart.

Since certain, erring in the superstitions of the Hebrews, have thought
to mock at Christ our God, and feigning to be converted to the religion
of Christ do deny him, and in private and secretly keep the Sabbath and
observe other Jewish customs, we decree that such persons be not
received to communion, nor to prayers, nor into the Church; but let
them be openly Hebrews according to their religion, and let them not
bring their children to baptism, nor purchase or possess a slave. But
if any of them, out of a sincere heart and in faith, is converted and
makes profession with his whole heart, setting at naught their customs
and observances, and so that others may be convinced and converted,
such an one is to be received and baptized, and his children likewise;
and let them be taught to take care to hold aloof from the ordinances
of the Hebrews. But if they will not do this, let them in no wise be
received.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon VIII.

Hebrews must not be received unless they are manifestly converted with
sincerity of heart.

Hefele.

The Greek commentators Balsamon and Zonaras understood the words "nor
to baptize their children" to mean, "these seeming Christians may not
baptize their own children,'" because they only seem to be Christians.
But parents were never allowed to baptize their own children, and the
true sense of the words in question comes out clearly from the second
half of the canon.
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