244 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATS. 



Athanasius: His testimony misapplied. 



1. "According to Coleman (^Christian AntiquiiieSy p. 430), 

 ^Athanasius, in the beginning of the third [properly/owr^^] 

 Century (a. d. 325), expressly declared that the Lord changed 

 the Sabbath into the Lord's day/ '' (p. 166.) If my friend, 

 instead of depending on hearsay evidence <^as inadmissible in 

 logical as in legal investigation), had brought his wiiness into 

 court, he would have found that his testimony has been per- 

 verted and misapplied. It will perhaps occasion surprise to 

 some to learn that Athanasius, in the passage alluded to, is 

 actually attempting to show ich?/ the fourth commandment is 

 not obligatory. Referring to the very customary observance 

 of the Jewish Sabbath (which relic of the Synagogue lingered 

 for centuries in the Church), he explains : " We assemble on 

 the Sabbath day, not that we are infected with Judaism (for 

 we have never embraced its pseudo-sabbaths), but we assemble 

 thus on this day to worship Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath. 

 Formerly, indeed, the Sabbath was properly honored by those 

 of old, hut the Lord displaced the Sahhath hy the Lord's day.^ 

 Nor do we contemn the Sabbath by our authority merely, but 

 the Prophet himself rejects it, saying : ^ Your new moons and 

 your Sabbaths my soul hateth.' As long, indeed, as those 

 things were performed, which were proper by the institutiou 

 of the law, or rather as long as the Master had not come, the 

 sway of the tutor maintained its authority ; but when the 

 Master came, the tutor was supplanted, as at the rising of the 

 sun the lantern is extinguished." (Opera : Tom. i., Homilia 

 de Semente.')'\ That Athanasius did not in this passage design 



adopted by the eastern churches and the disciples of St. John, that 

 "this must needs be a demonstration that the day of the resurrection 

 was not holy by divine or apostolical institution." [Duct. Duh. B. u. 

 chap. ii. rule 6, sec. 55.) 



* MsteAjjxe h Kv^iO( T«v rev erat^etTcv h/J.t^a.v, ti; Kujiax»)» : literally : 

 " The Lord changed the Sabbath day into the Lord^s day." 



f I believe that throughout the voluminous writings of this Father, 

 the term " Sabbath" is never applied to the fii'st day of the week, but 



