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Another Look at ‘Lord's Day’ In the Early Church and in Rev. i. 10
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
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page 174 note 1 ‘A Note on the Word KYPIAKH in Rev. i. 10’, in New Test. Stud. XII (1963), 70–5.Google Scholar
page 174 note 2 Ibid. pp. 70–2.
page 174 note 3 Ibid. pp. 70, 72. Dugmore's presentation ‘Lord's Day and Easter’ was published in the Oscar Cullmann Festschrift volume, Neotestamentica et Patristica (’Supplements to Novum Testamentum’, vol. VI; Leiden, 1962), pp. 272–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 174 note 4 These various points are presented by Dugmore, , op. cit. pp. 274–8.Google Scholar
page 175 note 1 The Boethusians and Essenes interpreted the ‘morrow after the sabbath’ in Lev. xxiii. 11, 15 as the day after the weekly Sabbath—and thus always a Sunday—whereas the Pharisees interpreted that ‘morrow after the sabbath’ as the day after the Nisan 15 Passover Sabbath, regardless of the day of the week. The Boethusians and Essenes used a 364-day solar calendar which stabilized the monthly dates as well as the days of the week for the festivals, and in actuality seem to have celebrated their day of the first-fruits wave-sheaf a week apart; but much more significant for us than either of these considerations is the fact that there were within Judaism traditions which placed the annual offering of the first-fruits wave-sheaf consistently on a Sunday. See Goudoever, J. van, Biblical Calendars (2nd rev. ed.; Leiden, 1961), pp. 19, 20Google Scholar, 25, 26, 29. See also the excellent discussion by Hilgert, Earle, ‘The Jubilees Calendar and the Origin of Sunday Observance’, in Andrews University Seminary Studies (hereafter cited as AUSS), 1 (1963), 44–51.Google Scholar
page 175 note 2 See n. 4 below.
page 175 note 3 The seventh day Sabbath would seem to afford the best analogy, but could hardly in the earliest instance have been an influence in this direction inasmuch as the early Christian community did not regard the weekly Sunday as a substitute for the Sabbath nor replace Sabbath with Sunday. Dugmore states ( op. cit. p. 279Google Scholar): ‘As a matter of historical fact the Sabbath did not disappears as a day of Christian worship until the late fourth or early fifth century.’
page 175 note 4 I Cor. v. 7 and xv. 20.
page 175 note 5 Geraty, Lawrence T., ‘The Pascha and the Origin of Sunday Observance’, in AUSS, III (1965), 87Google Scholar, has pointed this out. Cf. also Taylor, Vincent, The Person of Christ in New Testament Teaching (London, 1963), p. 144.Google Scholar
page 175 note 6 Stott, , op. cit. pp. 72–5.Google Scholar
page 175 note 7 Dugmore, , op. cit. pp. 274, 275.Google Scholar
page 175 note 8 See Geraty, , op. cit. pp. 85–93Google Scholar, for an excellent discussion of this. Interesting also are some comments by Goudoever, Van, op. cit. pp. 167, 170Google Scholar: ‘The Lord's Day being the weekly Sabbath borrows its character from the yearly Sunday, the beginning of the fifty days.’ ‘The weekly Sunday of the Resurrection appears to get its character from the annual Sunday, scil. the beginning of the fifty days.’ It is not to be supposed, however, that Geraty and Van Goudoever share exactly the same position. (It should be added that the weekly Sunday development was by addition to, rather than substitution for, the annual Sunday.)
page 176 note 1 It seems very likely that certain segments of early Christianity adopted the Sunday-Easter chronology from the pattern followed by the Boethusians and/or Essenes, whereas other early Christians (particularly Asian Christians) adopted the Pharisaic mode of reckoning. Rordorf, Willy, ‘Zum Unsprung des Osterfestes am Sonntag’, in Theol. Zeit. XVIII (1962), 168–70Google Scholar, has already argued well the antiquity of the Sunday-Easter. See also my ‘John as Quartodeciman: A Re-appraisal’, in four. Bibl. Lit. LXXXIV (1965), 251–8.Google Scholar
page 176 note 2 Cullmann, , Early Christian Worship (‘Studies in Biblical Theology’, no. 10; Chicago, 1953), p. 11.Google Scholar
page 176 note 3 As I have shown in op. cit. p. 253Google Scholar, the picture we secure from Eusebius for c. A.D. 190 (when the conflict erupted at the time of Victor of Rome) is Quartodeciman practice limited to Asian Christians (whether in Asia or Rome), with the rest of Christendom apparently adhering to the Sunday-Easter observance. Places whose bishops or councils are listed by Eusebius as favouring the Sunday-Easter include the following: Rome, Gaul, and Corinth in the West; and Palestine, Pontus, Osrhoene, Ptolemais, Tyre, and Alexandria in the East. Such geographically widespread observance of the Sunday-Easter as early as this would tend to confirm the antiquity of the practice. As I have also indicated, Ibid. pp. 253, 254, it is of interest to compare the places mentioned by Eusebius as adhering to the Sunday-Easter observance with areas where we know that Pauline and/or Petrine influence (in contrast to Johannine) was prominent. Such a comparison would make it appear that there is more fact than fiction in the statement by Sozomen (fl. c. 440) that the Sunday-Easter observance in Rome was handed down from Peter and Paul (see his Eccl. Hut. VII. 19Google Scholar).
page 176 note 4 Particularly with Martyr, Justin, I Apol. LXVII.Google Scholar Cf. Dugmore, , op. cit. p. 273.Google Scholar See also Geraty, , op. Cit. pp. 85–93Google Scholar, for a penetrating analysis of the probable developments, and especially pp. 93–5 for a critique of Willy Rordorf's thesis that there was from the first a dual Sunday observance—both annual and weekly—stemming from separate roots.
page 176 note 5 Stott, , op. cit. p. 72.Google Scholar
page 177 note 1 Goudoever, Van, op. cit. pp. 169, 71Google Scholar, 172.
page 177 note 2 Cf. Cullmann, Oscar, Die Christologie des neuen Testaments (Tübingen, 1957), p. 213Google Scholar: ‘Ma Christi Auferstehung sei die Endzeit schon eingeleitet.’
page 177 note 3 Stott, , op. Cit. p. 72.Google Scholar
page 177 note 4 See n. 8, p. 175 above.
page 177 note 5 Dugmore, , op. cit. pp. 275–80.Google Scholar
page 177 note 6 Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus, VII (in ANF, I, 569, 570Google Scholar).
page 177 note 7 The editors Of ANF maKe a Similar Observation: ‘The “Sunday” here referred to must be Easter Sunday.‘ See vol. I, p. 569 n. 9.
page 178 note 1 Stott, , op. cit. p. 72.Google Scholar
page 178 note 2 Guy, , “‘The Lord's Day” in the Letter of Ignatius to the Magnesians’, in AUSS, II (1964), 13, 14Google Scholar: and Kraft, , ‘Some Notes on Sabbath Observance in Early Christianity’, in AUSS, III (1965), 27, 28.Google Scholar See also Dugmore, , op. cit. pp. 279, 280.Google Scholar
page 178 note 3 The passage, as given in Eng. transl. in ANF, I, 62, 63Google Scholar, reads as follows: ‘Let us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner, and rejoice in days of idleness… But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not eating things prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and plaudits which have no sense in them. And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days [of the week].’ (By this time the weekly Christian Sunday was widely observed.)
page 178 note 4 The whole section in Magnesians VIII and IX must be read for the full impact of the statement.
page 178 note 5 The present writer feels that a full-scale study of what the term ‘sabbatizing’ meant to the early Christians is a major desideratum for discussion of this problem. It seems that untold confusion arises from an over-simplified view of this term.
page 179 note 1 Kraft, , op. cit. p. 27.Google Scholar
page 179 note 2 Guy, , op. cit. p. 7.Google Scholar The reading is that of Codex Mediceus Laurentius, which ‘is the parent, either directly or indirectly, of the other three’ Greek MSS containing this passage (in the authentic ‘middle’ recension).
page 179 note 3 Ibid. pp. 12, 15, 16.
page 179 note 4 Ibid. p. 16.
page 179 note 5 This consideration, it should be mentioned, leads us to an added query regarding the interpretation of Ignatius’ statement mentioned earlier. If ‘Lord's Day’ is what Ignatius intended, what did he mean by the use of this term? Though his own background appears to have been in a Sunday-Easter tradition, he was now addressing a church in a Quartodeciman region.
page 179 note 6 Eccl. Hist. IV. 26. 2.Google Scholar
page 180 note 1 See James, M. R., The Apocryphal New Testament (corrected ed.; Oxford, 1953), pp. 491, 485.Google Scholar
page 180 note 2 Eng. transl. is that of ANF, VIII, 560, 561.Google Scholar
page 180 note 3 On the early period see my article ‘Some Notes on the Sabbath Fast in Early Christianity’, in AUSS, III (1965), 167–74Google Scholar; and for later developments see Odom, R. L., ‘The Sabbath in the Great Schism of A.D. 1054’, in AUSS, I (1963), 74–80.Google Scholar Pertinent references for the early church include Augustine, , Ep. 36Google Scholar (To Casulanus), pars. 27, 32; Ep. 54Google Scholar (To Januarius), par. 3; Ep. 82 (To Jerome), par. 14; and also Cassian, John, Institutes, III. 9, 10Google Scholar; et al. On one Sabbath only—the anniversary of the Sabbath during which Christ was in the tomb—did Christians in general fast.
page 180 note 4 It is, of course, possible that Quartodeciman Christians could have borrowed from other Christians a weekly Sunday celebration without adopting the Sunday-Easter.