The following quotations are presented to give historic evidence that the apostolic church of the first few centuries kept the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week and that this custom was received from the apostles.

"The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps, at the end of the second century a false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have considered labouring on Sunday as a sin ..."

" The Jewish Christian Churches, (i.e., Churches consisting of Jewish converts,) although they received the festival of Sunday, retained also that of the Sabbath; and from them the custom spread abroad in the Oriental Church, of distinguishing this day, as well as the Sunday, by not fasting and by praying in an erect posture; in the Western Churches, particularly the Roman, where opposition to Judaism was the prevailing tendency, this very opposition produced the custom of celebrating the Saturday in particular as a fast day."

Source: August Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and Church, trans. by Henry John Rose (Philadelphia: James, M. Campbell & Co., 1843), p. 186. (FRS No. 31.) as quoted in: SDA Bible Students' Source Book, Volume 9, Review and Herald Publishing Ass. Washington, D.C. 1962, Article 1591.

2. "Rev. Joseph Bingham, M. A., says: "The ancient Christians were very careful in the observation of Saturday, or the seventh day, which was the ancient Jewish Sabbath. Some observed it as a fast, others as a festival; but all unanimously agreed in keeping it as a more solemn day of religious worship and adoration. In the Eastern church it was called the Great Sabbath, between Good Friday and Easterday...From hence it is plain, that all the Oriental churches, and the greatest part of the world, observed the Sabbath as a festival...Athanasius likewise tells us, that they held religious assemblies on the Sabbath, not because they were infected with Judaism, but to worship Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, Epiphanus says the same. " - Antiquities of the Christian Church, Vol. II, Book XX, chap. 3, Sec. 1, pp. 1137, 1138. London:1852. As quoted in "Facts of Faith", by Christian Edwardson, Southern Publishing Assoc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1942, p. 84, 85.

3. Dr. T.H. Morer (a Church of England divine) says: "The primitive Christian.-, had a great veneration for the Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and sermons. And it is not to be doubted but they derived this practice from the apostles themselves, as appears by several scriptures to that purpose. " - "Dialogues on the Lord's Day, " p. 189. London: 1701. As quoted in "Facts of Faith", p. 85.

4. John Ley, in "Sunday a Sabbath", page 163, London: 1640, says: "From the apostles' time until the council of Laodicea, which was about the year 364, the holy observation of the Jews' Sabbath continued, as may be proved out of many authors; yea, notwithstanding the decree of the council against it. " As quoted in "Facts of Faith, p. 117.

5. Sir William Domville: "Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the Sabbatical edict of Constantine in AD 321. " "History of Sabbath", page 345.

6. Bishop A. Grimelund, of Norway, says: "Now, summing up what history teaches regarding the origin of Sunday and the development of the doctrine about Sunday, then this is the sum: It is not the apostles, not the early Christians, not the councils of the ancient church which have imprinted the name and stamp of the Sabbath upon the Sunday, but it is the Church of the Middle Ages and its scholastic teachers." "Sondagens Historie" (The History of Sunday), p.37. Christiania: 1886. As quoted in "Facts of Faith, " p. 108.

7. "For although almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries (the Lord's Supper) on the sabbath, (Note 22: i.e. Saturday. Sunday is never called 'the Sabbath' by the ancient Fathers and historians. . . . ) of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, have ceased to do this. The Egyptians in the neighborhood of Alexandria, and the inhabitants of Thebais, hold their religious assemblies on the sabbath, but do not participate of the mysteries in the manner usual among Christians in general of or in the evening .... they partake of the mysteries.

Source: Socrates Cholasticus (5th century), Ecclesiastical History, bk. 5, chap. 22, trans. in NPNF, 2d series, Vol. 2, p. 132. (FRS No. 118.)

As quoted in: Seventh-day Adventist Bible Students' Source Book, Vol. 9, Article 1456.

Contrary to what many people think Sunday keeping was not established in the church by command of Jesus or example of the apostles. During the second and third centuries an anti-semetic attitude gave rise to Sunday being regarded as a festive day. This day was later fixed in the experience of many professing Christians by decrees of Roman emperors and church councils.

1. Constantine's Sunday Law: "On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sawing or for vineplanting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them for the second time (A.D. 321). ). Source: Codex Justiniansus, lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; trans. in Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol 3 (5th ed.; New York: Scribner, 1902), p. 380, note 1. Quoted in Seventh-day Adventist Bible Students' Source Book, Article 1642.

2. "Constantine's decree marked the beginning of a long, though intermittent series of imperial decrees in support of Sunday rest." Source: Vincent J. Kelly, Forbidden Sunday and Feast-Day Occupations, p. 29. Quoted: lbid, Art. 1648.

3. "This legislation by Constantine probably bore no relation to Christianity; it appears, on the contrary, that the emperor, in his capacity of Pontifex Maximus, was only adding the day of the Sun, the worship of which was then firmly established in the Roman Empire, to the other ferial days of the sacred calendar .... "What began, however, as a pagan ordinance, ended as a Christian regulation; and a long series of imperial decrees, during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, enjoined with increasing stringency abstinence from labour on Sunday. " Source: Hutton Webster, Rest Days, pp 122,123,270. Copyright 1916 by The Macmillan Company. New York. Quoted: Ibid, Art. 1649.

First pagan ordinance - then a Christian regulation.

4. Council of Laodicea: "Christians shall not judaize and be idle on Saturday (Greek: 'sabbaton', the Sabbath) but shall work on that day; but the Lord's day they shall especially honour, and, as being Christians, shall, of possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ."

Source: Council of Laodicea, can. 29, trans. in Charles Joseph Hefele, A History of the Christian Councils, Vol 2, trans. and ed. by H. N. Oxenham (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1896), p.316. Quoted: Ibid, Art. 1435.

5. Decree of Pope Gregory: "The emperors after Constantine made Sunday observance more stringent but in no case was their legislation based on the Old Testament ... At the Third Synod of Aureliani (Orleans) in 538 rural work was forbidden but the restriction against preparing meals and similar work on Sunday was regarded as a superstition. After Justinian's death in 565 various epistolae decretales were passed by the popes about Sunday. One of Gregory (590-604) forbade men "to yoke oxen or to perform any other work, except for approved reasons, " while another of Gregory II (715-731) said: "We decree that all Sundays be observed from vespers to vespers and that all unlawful work be abstained from."

Source: Walter Woodburn Hyde, Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire, p. 261. Copyright 1946 by University of Pennsylvania Press,

Philadelphia. Quoted: Ibid., Article 1650.

6. Council of Friaul, Italy 791 A.D. (Canon 13). "We command all Christians to observe the Lord's day to be held not in honour of the past Sabbath, but on account of that holy night of the first of the week called the Lord's day. " Burnside, 8th Century.

7. Council of Liftinae, Belgium, A.D. 745 (attended by Pope Boniface). "The third allocution of this council warns against the observance of the Sabbath, referring to the decree of the council of Laodicea." Ibid.

8. Council of Toulouse 1229. Canons against Sabbath-keepers: Canon 3. "The Lords of the different districts shall have the villas, houses and woods diligently searched, and the hiding places of the heretics destroyed." Louis IX in 1229 decreed to clear southern France from heretics as the Sabbath-keepers were called.

9. Church council Bergen, Aug. 22, 1435. "But now it has been determined at the public Parliament for these two districts, Bergen and Stavanger, that whoever is found keeping Saturday holy shall be fined ten marks in money. So now ye know what ye have to go by."

"If therefore the commandment continued to be in force, then without doubt, were the Jews and the Adventists right, when they say that if we will obey God's command, we must keep Saturday holy. There cannot be the least doubt about this. Every attempt to explain away this fact will and must fail. " Facts of Faith, pp.178, 188.

10. Ethiopia: "The Ethiopians received the Eastern form of doctrine in the fourth century. The Sabbath had not then been discarded as the day of rest, though the Sunday festival was observed. In the seventh century the rise of the Saracen power cut Abyssinia off from the knowledge of the world. Gibbon says: "Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the Ethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world, by whom they were forgotten. " (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 47, par. 37). And when discovered by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, they were found making the seventh day, as well as Sunday, a day of rest, not having known of its being set fully aside in the course of apostasy. Gibbon relates haw the Jesuits never rested until they persuaded the Abyssinian king (A.D. 1604) to submit to the pope, and to prohibit Sabbath observance." Seventh-day Adventist Bible Students' Source Book, Art. 1463, Editors' Note.

11. India, Goa: "The famous Jesuit, Francis Xavier, called for the inquisition, which was set up in Goa, India in 1560 to check the 'Jewish wickedness" (Sabbath keeping). Burnside 16th century.