The Lord's Day From Neither
Catholics Nor Pagans:
An Answer to Seventh-day Adventism on this Subject
By D. M. Canright
CHAPTER 9:
THE LORD'S DAY AT THE COUNCILS OF NICE, A.D. 325, AND LAODICEA, A.D. 364
This world-renowned council was held at Nice in Grecian territory near Constantinople, A.D. 325. It was the first general council of the Christian Church. Dean Stanley, in his "History of the Eastern Church," devotes one hundred pages to this council. On page 99 he says it was Eastern, held in the center of the Eastern Church. Its decrees were accepted by all Christendom "as a final settlement of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity" (page 102). It was a democratic assembly; no Pope ruled over it (page 107). In calling the council, the Bishop of Rome was not consulted, nor did he or any bishop from Italy attend. Only two presbyters came to represent Rome and only five or six bishops from all the West. There were three hundred and eighteen bishops present. All these were from the Eastern Greek Churches, except the six as above. It was emphatically an Eastern Greek council, held in Greek territory, and conducted in the Greek language. The "Encyclopedia Britannica," Article "Nice," says: "The West was but feebly represented. Two presbyters as deputies of the Roman Bishop, Sylvester, were present. Thus an immense majority of the Synod hailed from the East."
McClintock and Strong's "Encyclopedia" says: "Most of the Eastern provinces were strongly represented." Bean Stanley names bishops present "from far up the Nile," from "the interior of Asia," one from Armenia, and one from far-off India.
The "Catholic Encyclopedia" says: "Most of the bishops present were Greeks." It finds only five Western bishops present. Eusebius in his "Life of Constantine," Chapter VII, names the many countries from whence they came, as "Syrians and Cilicians, Phoenicians and Arabians, delegates from Palestine, and others from Egypt, Thebians and Libyans, with those who came from the region of Mesopotamia. A Persian bishop too was present at this conference, nor was even a Scythian found wanting to the number. Pontus, Galatia, and Pamphylia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Phrygia, furnished the most distinguished prelates, while those who dwelt in the remotest districts of Thrace and Macedonia, of Achaia and Epirus were notwithstanding present. Even from Spain one came. It will be noticed that this list agrees with the countries named in Acts ii. on Pentecost. Bishops now came from all those countries. Neither Rome nor Italy was even mentioned by Eusebius. As this was a general council of Christendom at that date, 325, it shows how little influence the Roman Church had at that time.
At that date there were one thousand Greek bishops, representing three million Christians in the East. Doctor Schaff estimates that there were from twelve to fifteen hundred of the lower clergy in that council besides the three hundred and eighteen bishops, or eighteen hundred in all. Of these only six were from the West. The twentieth Article unanimously adopted by that council reads thus: "As some kneel on the Lord's Day and on the days of the Pentecost, the holy synod has decreed that for the observance of a general rule, all should offer their prayers to God standing."
This, it will be seen, simply recognizes the Lord's Day as a well-known Christian day of worship familiar to all that great Eastern council. There was no discussion over it, no opposition to it. Here were eighteen hundred bishops and clergy nearly all from the Eastern Churches. Did any one of them object that they kept the Sabbath instead of the Lord's Day? No, not a hint of it. All were agreed on the day. And this was over a hundred years before the Papacy was born and only four years after Constantine's Sunday law of A.D. 321.
Did any of those eighteen hundred ministers of the old established Greek Churches object that the Lord's Day was a new and pagan day which had recently been imposed upon them? Could all Christendom be so quickly and easily changed in so important a matter as that and not a single delegate raise an objection? The simple fact that this great council, so soon after the days of the apostles, should unanimously, without a question, endorse the Lord's Day is proof positive that the observance of the Lord's Day had long been the established custom of the entire Church. The Bishop of Jerusalem, the first Church of all, was there, and voted with the rest. What was said about keeping the Sabbath? Not a word. It is not even mentioned in any way. This shows that it had been dropped very long before this.
An editorial in the Advent Review and Herald, February 26, 1914, quotes the following: "I find that three hundred and twenty-five years after Christianity was born, a council of human beings, called the Council of Nice, convened by a human being named Constantine the Great, instituted the first day Sabbath to displace the seventh day Sabbath." The editor endorses this language thus: "The position which the writer of the letter takes is impregnable and the arguments unanswerable."
So according to the Review, the editor, and this writer, the first day as the Sabbath was "instituted " here and by this great council! But as we have seen, this was an Eastern council, not a Western one; a Greek council, not a Roman one. Out of three hundred and eighteen bishops present, only six were from the West, or Roman territory, only two presbyters from Rome or Italy. The Churches of Rome, Italy, and the West were of so little account in that great council that Eusebius in his lengthy account of it does not even mention Rome nor Italy! So, then, if the editor and his writer are correct, the Lord's Day was instituted by the Eastern Greek Church, not by the Roman Church, nor by the Pope, nor by the Papacy, for neither had any influence in this council. Their own argument upsets their claim that Rome changed the day.
But, as noted above, this Greek council at Nice, A.D. 325, in no way " instituted " the first day Sabbath to displace the seventh day Sabbath. There is not the slightest hint of such a thing. That is purely an Advent invention, a fair illustration of their groundless assumptions. The Sabbath is not even mentioned. It simply recognized the Lord's Day as a well-known, previously existing institution, and only regulated the attitude in prayer on that day. The change of the day is not even mentioned. It is by such unwarranted statements that the Jewish Sabbath can be defended.
Here, then, were in this august body the most learned and devoted Christian delegates just out from the fires of martyrdom, representing over three million Eastern Greek Christians in Churches founded by the apostles only a short time before. All were unanimous in keeping the Lord's Day. Had the pagans from the then far-off Roman countries brought a pagan day to these devout Greek Churches, and had over three million Greek Christians all immediately given up the old Sabbath and readily accepted this new pagan Roman day without argument or protest? And Adventists ask us to believe all that or be lost!
Now listen to the following from the last edition, 1912, of the "Advent History of the Sabbath": "Both Gnosticism and the council set aside the Sabbath of Jehovah. . . . The emperor and the council showed such aversion to the Sabbath of the Lord" (pages 394, 395).
It makes one sad to read such contradiction of the plainest facts of history. Neither the emperor nor the council so much as mentioned the Sabbath in any way. How then did they show aversion to the Sabbath? Such unwarranted assertions are frequently to be found all through their "History of the Sabbath" and other books.
The Council of Laodicea, A.D. 364
Over twenty years ago in a widely-circulated article the present writer affirmed that outside of Catholic catechisms, Adventists could produce no proof that the Popes, the Papacy, or the Roman Church changed the Sabbath. Elder J. H. Waggoner, one of their ablest authors, was appointed to the task. Every facility was afforded him. The libraries of America and Europe were searched. As the best he could do he selected the Council of Laodicea, A.D. 364, as the place and time when and where the Sabbath was changed by the Pope. The twenty-ninth canon of that council reads thus: "Christians ought not to Judaize and to rest in the Sabbath, but to work in that day; but preferring the Lord's Day, should rest, if possible, as Christians. Wherefore if they shall be found to Judaize, let them be accursed from Christ."
On this Elder Waggoner says: "Now, if any one can imagine what would be changing the Sabbath, if this is not, I would be extremely happy to learn what it could be." "Now I claim that I have completely met his demand; I have shown the time, the place, and the power that changed the Sabbath." ("Replies to Canright," pp. 141, 161) He claims that this was "a Catholic council," and that "historians early and late have made much mention" of this council. Now let us examine his position.
1. If the Sabbath was changed to Sunday by the Pope right here, as he affirms, then certainly it was not changed before nor after nor at any other place. So if this fails their whole cause is lost. Let the reader mark the importance of this face.
2. He admits what every scholar knows, that till after the time of Constantine the Bishop of Rome had no "authority whatever above the other bishops" and so could not have changed the Sabbath before that time. He says: It was Constantine himself that laid the foundation of the Papacy." ("Replies to Canright," p. 148) Surely the Papacy did not exist before its foundation was laid.
3. He admits, as already shown, that Constantine did nothing to change the Sabbath.
4. But we have abundantly proved in preceding pages that all Christians long before this date were unanimous in observing the Lord's Day. This one simple fact proves the utter absurdity of the claim that the Sabbath was changed at Laodicea, A.D. 364, or by the Papacy at any time.
5. In the year 324, or just forty years before the Council of Laodicea, Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, Palestine, wrote his celebrated history of Christianity. He had every possible opportunity to know what Christians did throughout the world. He says: "And all things whatsoever that it was the duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's Day as more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath." (Sabbath Manual, p. 127)
That is the way the Sabbath and Sunday stood in the Church forty years before Laodicea. They did not keep the Sabbath, but did keep the Lord's Day, had transferred all things to it. How much truth, then, can there be in the position that the Sabbath was changed to Sunday by the Pope forty years later?
But let us look at the real facts about the council at Laodicea. Seventh-Day Adventists claim two things, viz.; that the Sabbath was changed by the Roman Church, and that it was done by the authority of the Pope. Then they select the Council of Laodicea as the place and time. But,
1. Laodicea is not Rome. It is situated in Asia Minor over 1,000 miles east of Rome. It was in Asia, not in Europe. It was an Eastern, not a Western town, an Oriental, not a Latin city.
2. It was a Greek, not a Roman city.
3. The Pope of Rome did not attend this council at Laodicea, A.D. 364. Does Waggoner claim that he did? No, for he knew he did not.
4. The Pope did not attend, nor did he send a legate or a delegate or any one to represent him. In fact, neither the Roman Church nor the Pope had anything to do with the council in any way, shape, or manner. It was held without even their knowledge or consent.
5. At this early date, A.D. 364, the Popes, or rather Bishops of Rome, had no authority over other bishops. It was two hundred years later before they were invested with authority over even the Western Churches. Neither the Pope, nor the Papacy ever had any authority whatever over the Eastern Churches where this little council was held. (See Bower's " History of the Popes," or any church history.) Speaking of Sylvester, who was Bishop of Rome A.D. 314 to 336, only twenty-eight years before this council at Laodicea, Elder Waggoner says: "The Bishop of Rome had not then yet attained to any authority whatever above the other bishops." (Replies to Canright, p. 143) This is true. Did they in the next twenty-eight years gain authority to change the keeping of the Sabbath from one day to another throughout the whole world? Preposterous!
6. Liberius was Bishop of Rome at the time of this council at Laodicea. He was degraded from his office, banished, and treated with the utmost contempt. Bower says that in order to end his exile, Liberius "wrote in a most submissive and cringing style to the Eastern bishops." (History of the Popes, Vol. I, p. 64.) And this was the Pope who changed the Sabbath at a council of these same Eastern bishops, 1,000 miles away, which he never attended!
7. The Council of Laodicea was only a local council, a small, unimportant affair and not a general council at all. Elder Waggoner magnifies it into a great " Catholic [general] council," a claim which is utterly false. The general councils are: 1. That at Nice, A.D. 325. 2. That at Constantinople, A.D. 381. 3. That at Ephesus, A.D. 431, etc. (See Chapter VIII of this work, p. 188. See also the list in Johnson's "Cyclopedia," or any ecclesiastical history.) Bower in his extensive work, the "History of the Popes," gives an account of all the general councils, the important local councils, and all with which Rome or the Popes had to do, but does not even mention this one at Laodicea. He mentions many councils held about that time, but not this one. He says: " Several other councils were held from the year 363 to 368, of which we have no particular account." (Vol. I. p. 79.)
8. I have searched through a number of cyclopedias and church histories and can find no mention at all of the council at Laodicea in most of them, and only a few lines in any. Doctor Schaff, in his "History of the Church," gives an extended account of all the general councils, but makes no mention of Laodicea. Rev. W. Armstrong, a scholar of Canton, Pa., says: "This council is not even mentioned by Mosheim, Milner, Euter, Reeves, Socrates, Sozomen, nor by four other historians on my table." McClintock and Strong's "Cyclopedia" says of this council: "Thirty-two bishops were present from different provinces in Asia." All bishops of the Eastern Church, not one from the Roman Church! And yet this was the time and place when and where, according to Adventists’ views, the Roman Church and the Pope changed the Sabbath! At that date there were about two thousand bishops and eight million Christians scattered all over the world.
9. Now think of it: this little local council of thirty-two bishops revolutionizes the whole world on the keeping of the Sabbath immediately without opposition!
10. The fact is that this council simply regulated in this locality an already long established institution, the Lord's Day, just the same as council after council did afterwards. If this changed the Sabbath to Sunday, then it has been changed a hundred times since! Sabbatarians point to these different regulations as so many acts in changing the Sabbath, when they have not the remotest relation to such a thing any more than have the resolutions with regard to keeping Sunday which are passed year by year now in all our religious assemblies. Elder E. J. Waggoner makes this truthful statement: "The decrees of councils have not as a general thing been arbitrary laws telling what must be, so much so as they have been the formulation of the opinions and practices largely prevalent at the time. . . . Infallibility had been attributed to the Pope hundreds of years before it became a dogma of the Church." (Fathers of the Catholic Church, p. 333) Exactly, and just so the Lord's Day had been kept by the Church hundreds of years before the Council of Laodicea mentioned it.
11. The Church of Laodicea where this council was held was raised up by Paul himself (Col. iv. 13, 16; 1 Tim. 6., close of the epistle). It was one of the seven Churches to which John wrote (Rev. 3:14). Hence it is certain it was well instructed and grounded in the doctrines of the apostles. Between Paul and this council, that is A.D. 270, Anatolius was Bishop of Laodicea. He wrote: "Our regard for the Lord's resurrection, which took place on the Lord's Day, will lead us to celebrate it on the same principle " (Canon 16). Here we have that Church keeping Sunday one hundred years before this council.
12. Finally, if the Council of Laodicea changed the Sabbath, as Adventists say, then it was changed by the Greek Church instead of the Roman Church; changed by the Eastern Churches over which Rome had no authority; changed before the Papacy was established, by a small local council which neither the Pope nor any of his servants attended. The absurdity of this claim is manifest without further argument.
But what did that council do about the Sabbath anyway? It says Christians should not Judaize by keeping the Sabbath, but should keep the Lord's Day. What occasioned this reproof? Eusebius, the first church historian, writing forty years before, has this in Chapter XXVII: The Heresy of the Ebionites: "They also observe the Sabbath and other discipline of the Jews, just like them, but on the other hand, they also celebrate the Lord's Day very much like us, in commemoration of the Resurrection."
In his "History of the Church," Eusebius gives the doctrines and practices of the great Christian Church at that time, which then numbered five million. But there was a little heretical sect called Ebionites. What was their error? Wherein did they differ from the universal Church? They insisted on keeping the Jewish Sabbath together with the Lord's Day. So then, forty years before Laodicea, keeping the seventh day was branded by all the Church as a heresy, just the same as it is now. It was practiced only by a few, and this council condemned it. The Eastern Greek Church was the one that here put down the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, that is, if this was the time and place when it was done. What, then, becomes of the assertion that the change of the Sabbath was made by the Pope, the Papacy, or the Roman Church?
Now when Elder Waggoner rested his case on the Council of Laodicea as the time and place when and where the Sabbath was changed, did he not fail and fail utterly? As seen above, that was a council of Eastern bishops, a Greek council, which neither the Pope nor any one to represent him attended. Neither the Pope, nor the Papacy, nor the Roman Church had the remotest thing to do with it. As well claim that Russia established our Fourth of July. In Waggoner's failure, the denomination failed, for he was chosen to defend them on this vital point.
Next: Chapter 10—THE PAPACY AND THE LORD'S DAY.
Adventists' assertions - The Papacy wholly a Western institution - No authority for centuries after Christ - Testimony of encyclopedias - Of Adventists themselves - Lord's Day kept centuries before the Papacy was founded - Had no influence in the East - No Papacy in the East - Admission of Adventists - Eastern Church opposed to Rome - The Spirit of the Papacy.