i 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fast or law clays together ; yea, tbey sometimes divided one and the 

 same day in this manner : 



" In rnodo fastus erat, mxine nefastus erut. 



" The afternoon was term, the morning holy day. Nor were all 

 their fasti applied to judicature, but some of them to other meetings 

 and consultations of the commonwealth ; so that, being divided into 

 three sorts, which they called fastos proprie, fastos endotercisos, and 

 fastos comitiales, containing together one hundred and eighty-four 

 days, through all the months of the year there remained not properly 

 to the pra?tor, as judicial triverbial days, above twenty-eight." — 

 (Works, from original MS., in Bodleian Library, book ii, p. 74.) 



Church historians have been obliged to recognize the purely hea- 

 then character of this legislation. Schaff says : " But the Sunday law 

 of Constantine must not be overrated. He enjoined the observance, 

 or rather forbade the public desecration, of Sunday, not under the 

 name of Sabbatum or Dies Domini, but under its old astrological and 

 heathen title, Dies Solis, familiar to all his subjects, so that the law 

 was as applicable to the worshipers of Hercules, Apollo, and Mithras, 

 as to the Christians. There is no reference whatever in his law either 

 to the fourth commandment or to the resurrection of Christ." — 

 (" Church History," vol. iii, p. 380.) 



Milman says : " The rescript, indeed, for the religious observance 

 of the Sunday, which enjoined the suspension of all public business 

 and private labor, except that of agriculture, was enacted, according 

 to the apparent terms of the decree, for the whole Roman Empire. 

 Yet, unless we had direct proof that the decree set forth the Christian 

 reason for the sanctity of the day, it may be doubted whether the act 

 would not be received by the greater part of the empire as merely 

 adding one more festival to the fasti of the empire, as proceeding en- 

 tirely from the will of the emperor, or even grounded on his authority 

 as supreme pontiff, by which he had the plenary power of appointing 

 holy-days. In fact, as we have before observed, the day of the sun 

 would be willingly hallowed by almost all the pagan world, especially 

 that part which had admitted any tendency toward the Oriental 

 theology."— (" History of Christianity," vol. ii, pp. 396, 397.) 



No other legislation concerning Sunday appears for the next sixty- 

 five years. Meanwhile, the Church was becoming paganized, the pa- 

 pacy was developing, the empire was tottering, and all things were 

 getting ready for the dark ages. From the close of the fourth cent- 

 ury to the close of the fifth the legislation was enlarged, including 

 scores of other days, most of them pagan festivals, christened by new 

 names, and but slightly modified in the manner of their observance. 

 As church and state became more thoroughly united, the pagan idea 

 that the civil law ought to regulate religious actions and religious be- 

 lief was so fully developed that the state determined not only what 

 men should do, but what men should believe. Civil law practically 



