Rest Days; A Sociological Study 143 



early as the last century of the Republic, to judge from the notices of the 

 institution in classical writers. By the time of the Empire references to 

 it multiply. The Diaspora which spread abroad a knowledge of the 

 Jewish seven-day week introduced the Sabbath likewise. It is a curious 

 coincidence that the very time when the preaching of Christianity began 

 was also the period when the Jewish propaganda reached its height. In 

 the great commercial centers on the Mediterranean there were numerous 

 Jewish communities with pagan proselytes who adopted Jewish customs 

 including the observance of the Sabbath. Philo" bears witness to the 

 wide diffusion of the institution ; and Josephus,'* with pardonable exagger- 

 ation, could write that there was no city among the Greeks or the bar- 

 barians where the festival of the Sabbath was not celebrated. 



Although the Sabbath was abolished by Christ for his followers" itSi 

 observance by Jewish converts in Palestine did not immediately cease. 

 The Jewish seven-day week passed over to Christianity almost unchanged, 

 doubtless because the use of the planetary week with its names of pagan 

 deities could scarcely prove attractive. The days were reckoned in their 

 numerical order as second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth, the latter, how- 

 ever, being called more commonly, v irapaa-Kevi/i, the day of preparation 

 before the Sabbath. It is impossible to say definitely how far back the 

 practice of marking the first day of the week (17 KvpiaKT) ijfiipa, 'the Lord's 

 Day), by acts of worship, may be traced. Pliny the Younger, at the 

 opening of the second century, makes it probable that among the Chris- 

 tians of Bithynia and no doubt elsewhere in Asia Minor the day of religi- 

 ous worship was Sunday.'* Justin Martyr, writing about 150 A.D., has 

 very explicit statements about the celebration of Sunday as marking 

 the day when Christ arose from the dead." 



The original identity of Sabbath and full moon day throws much light 

 on the reasons which led to the choice of the first day of the week as the 

 day of the Resurrection. The early Christian church was divided into two 

 parties, one celebrating the day of resurrection annually on the four- 

 teenth of Nisan (corresponding to the seventh of April in the year 30 

 A.D. — the date of the crucifixion), the other instituting the weekly "Lord's 

 Day." The division was not healed until the Council of Nicea. An im- 

 portant part in this controversy was played by the phrase "the day after 

 the Sabbath," occurring in the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus (v. 11), 

 where directions are given for bringing the first fruits of harvest to the 



" Vita Mosis, ii. 4. 

 " Contra Apionem, ii. 39. 

 ''^ Mark, ii. 27; John, v. 17. 

 '"' Epistolae, x. 98. 



" ApoJogia prima, 67; Deissmann, "Lord's Day," Encyclopaedia Biblica, 

 iii. cols. 2813-16. 



143 



