The Seventh Day Sabbath Part 1: A Shift From Shabbath to Sunday

When understanding the sabbath day, we must start with gaining an understanding that Sunday, the day held in high regard as a day of almost universal rest, is in fact not the seventh day sabbath. But instead, there was a shift from Saturday, the seventh day of the week to that in which most know today, Sunday the first day of the week. And we start with various sources to help one understand that this is the case, while shedding a little light as to how this came to be.

Below is a list of various sources I compiled from books, newspapers, speeches and websites to give you not an exhaustive list but rather a condensed and consolidated one so you may receive the knowledge from the “horses mouth” so to speak. That the sabbath was changed from Saturday to Sunday by man.

“Take which you will, either the Fathers or the moderns, and we shall find no Lord’s Day instituted by any Apostolic mandate no Sabbath set on foot by them upon the first day of the week.”

Dr. Peter Heylyn of the Church of England wrote. History of the Sabbath, Part 2, Chapter I, page 410.

“Prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the Catholic Church alone. The Catholic Church says, by my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week. And lo! The entire civilized world bows down in reverent obedience to the command of the Holy Catholic Church”

Thomas Enright, CSSR, President, Redemptorist College [Roman Catholic], Kansas City, MO, Feb. 18, 1884

“Not to mention other examples, is not every Christian obliged to sanctify Sunday and to abstain on that day from unnecessary servile work? Is not the observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties? But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.”

The Faith of Our Fathers, Chapter VIII. The Church And The Bible. Pg 97 James Cardinal Gibbons December 7, 2008

“The Third Commandment

What is the Third Commandment?

• The Third Commandment is: Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.

Which is the Sabbath day?

• Saturday is the Sabbath day.

Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

• We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.

Why did the Catholic Church substitute Sunday for Saturday?

• The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday, because Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday, and the Holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles on a Sunday.

By what authority did the Church substitute Sunday for Saturday?

• The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday by the plenitude of that divine power which Jesus Christ bestowed upon her.

What does the Third Commandment command?

• The Third Commandment commands us to sanctify Sunday as the Lord's Day.

What does the Third Commandment forbid?

• The Third Commandment forbids

1) The omission of prayer and divine worship;

2) All unnecessary servile work;

3) Whatever hinders the keeping of the Lord's Day holy.

Is the desecration of the Lord's Day a grievous matter?

• The desecration of the Lord's Day is a grievous matter in itself, though it admits of light matter.”

The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, pg 50 1937 by Father Peter Geiermann

“The Catholic Church, … by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday” (The Catholic Mirror, official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893).

“Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her; —she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.”

—Rev. Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism; New York in 1857, page 174

“The authority of the [Roman Catholic] Church could, therefore, not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures, because the Church had changed the Sabbath into Sunday, not by the command of Christ, but by its own authority.”

J. H. Holtzman, Canon and Tradition, published in Ludwigsburg, Germany in 1859, p. 263. Archbishop of Reg-

gio’s address in the 17th session of the Council of Trent, Jan. 18, 1562, in Mansi SC, Vol. 33, cols. 529, 530. The

Archbishop of Reggio (Gaspar [Ricciulli] de Fosso) made this speech at the last opening session of Trent (17th

Session) reconvened under a new pope (Pius IV) on 18 January 1562.

“Sunday is our (the Vatican’s) mark of authority… The church is above the Bible, and this transference of sabbath (from Saturday) observance is proof of that fact.”

Catholic Record of London, Canada, Saturday, September 1, 1923 Volume XLV.

"On the Venerable Day of the Sun ("venerabili die Solis" - the sacred day of the Sun) let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed…"

The First Sunday Law of Constantine 1, in "Codex Justinianus," lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; trans. in Phillip Schaff "History of the Christian Church," Vol. 3, p. 380

... you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.

—The Faith of Our Fathers, by James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, 88th edition, page 89. Originally published in 1876, republished and Copyright 1980 by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., pages 72-73.

"I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone who can prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the Catholic Church alone. The Bible says, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' The Catholic Church says: 'No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week.' And lo! - the entire civilized world bows down in a reverent obedience to the command of the Catholic Church."

T Enright, C.S.S.R., in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, Feb. 18, 1884

"Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles. ...From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first."

Catholic Press, Sydney, Australia, August 25, 1900.

"Sunday is founded, not on Scripture, but on tradition, and is distinctly a Catholic institution. As there is no Scripture for the transfer of the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week, Protestants ought to keep their Sabbath on Saturday and thus leave Catholics in full possession of Sunday."

Catholic Record, September 17, 1893.

I pray those sources were helpful and you will find outlets that have a more exhaustive list to continue your studies but you get the picture.