The Church of Christ, founded in Judaea by Him who, after the flesh, was of the family of David, and advanced and guided in its earlier years by leaders of Jewish descent, could not fail to bear traces of its Hebrew origin. The attitude and trend of minds that had been long familiar with the religious polity of the Hebrews, and with the worship of the Temple and the Synagogue, showed themselves in the institutions and worship of the early Church. This truth is observable to some extent in the Church’s polity and scheme of government, and even more clearly in the methods and forms of its liturgical worship. It is not then to be wondered at that the same influences were at work in the ordering of the times and seasons, the fasts and festivals, of the Church’s year.

The Week and the Lord’s Day.

Most potent in affecting the whole daily life of Christendom in all ages was the passing on from Judaism of the Week of seven days. Inwoven, as it is, with the history of our lives, and taken very much as matter of course, as if it were something like a law of nature, the dominating influence and far reaching effects of this seven-day division of time are seldom fully realised.

The Week, known in the Roman world at the time of our Lord only in connexion with the obscure speculations of Eastern astrology, or as a feature, in its Sabbath, of the lives of the widely-spread Jewish settlers in the great cities of the Empire, had been from remote times accepted among various oriental peoples. It would be outside our province to enquire into its origin, though much can be said in favour of the view that it took its rise out of a rough division into four of the lunar month. But, so far as Christianity is concerned, it is enough to know that it was beyond all doubt taken over from the religion of the Hebrews.

It is not improbable that at the outset some of the Christian converts from Judaism may have continued to observe the Jewish Sabbath, the seventh or last day of the week: and that attempts were made to fasten its obligations upon Gentile converts is evident from St Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians (ii. 16). But it is certain that at an early date among Christians the first day of the week was marked by special religious observances. The testimony of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St Paul shows us the first day of the week as a time for the assembling of Christians for instruction and for worship, when ‘the breaking of bread’ formed part of the service, and when offerings for charitable and religious purposes might be laid up in store[2]. The name ‘the Lord’s day,’ applied to the first day of the week, may probably be traced to New Testament times. The occurrence of the expression in the Revelation of St John (i. 10) has been commonly regarded as a testimony to this application[3].

In the Epistle of Barnabas (tentatively assigned by Bishop Lightfoot to between A.D. 70 and 79, and by others to about A.D. 130-131) we find the passage (c. 15), ‘We keep the eighth day for rejoicing, in the which also Jesus rose from the dead.’ The date of the Teaching of the Apostles is still reckoned by some scholars as sub judice. But, if it is rightly assigned to the first century, its testimony may be cited here. In it is the following passage:—‘On the Lord’s own day (?at? ????a??? d? ??????) gather yourselves together and break bread, and give thanks, first confessing your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure’ (c. 14).

The next evidence, in point of time, is a passage in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians (cc. 8, 9, 10), in which the writer dissuades those to whom he wrote from observing sabbaths (???t? saat????te?) and urges them to live ‘according to the Lord’s day (?at? ????a???) on which our life also rose through Him.’ It is impossible to suppose that in early times the Lord’s day was held to be a day of rest. The work of the servant and labouring class had to be done; and it has been reasonably conjectured that the assemblies of Christians before dawn were to meet the necessities of the situation. Lastly, the passage from the Apology of Justin Martyr (Ap. i. 67) is too well known to be cited in full. He describes to the Emperor the character and procedure of the Christian assemblies on ‘the day of the sun,’ which we know from other sources to have been the first day of the week. Writings of the Apostles or of the Prophets were read: the President of the assembly instructed and exhorted: bread, and wine and water were consecrated and distributed to those present and sent by the Deacons to the absent: alms were collected and deposited with the President for the relief of widows and orphans, the sick and the poor, prisoners and strangers. Later than Justin we need not go, as the evidence from all quarters pours in abundantly to establish the universal observance of ‘the first day of the week,’ ‘Sunday,’ ‘the Lord’s day,’ as a day for worship and religious instruction[4].

The Sabbath (Saturday).

Lack of positive evidence prevents us from speaking with any certainty as to whether there was among Christians any recognised and approved observance of Saturday (the Sabbath) in the first, second and third centuries. There is no hint of such observance in early Christian literature; and there are passages which rather go to discountenance the notion[5].

Duchesne, whose opinion deservedly carries much weight, comes to the conclusion that the observance of Saturday in the fourth century was not a survival of an attempt of primitive times to effect a conciliation between Jewish and Christian practices, but an institution of comparatively late date[6]. Certainly one cannot speak confidently of the existence of Saturday as a day of religious observance among Christians before the fourth century.

Epiphanius[7], in the second half of the fourth century, speaks of synaxes being held in some places on the Sabbath; from which it may probably be inferred that it was not so in his time in Cyprus.

In the Canons of the Council of Laodicea (which can hardly be placed earlier than about the middle of the fourth century, and is probably later) we find it enjoined that ‘on the Sabbath the Gospels with other Scriptures shall be read’ (16); that ‘in Lent bread ought not to be offered, save only on the Sabbath and the Lord’s day’ (49); and that ‘in Lent the feasts of martyrs should not be kept, but that a commemoration of the holy martyrs should be made on Sabbaths and Lord’s days’ (50). Yet it was forbidden ‘to Judaize and be idle on the Sabbath,’ while, ‘if they can,’ Christians are directed to rest on the Lord’s day. The Apostolic Constitutions go further; and, under the names of St Peter and St Paul, it is enjoined that servants should work only five days in the week, and be free from labour on the Sabbath and the Lord’s day ‘with a view to the teaching of godliness’ (viii. 33). Uncertain as are the date and origin of the Constitutions they may be regarded as in some measure reflecting the general sentiment in the East in the fifth, or possibly the close of the fourth century[8]. From these testimonies it appears that the Sabbath was a day of special religious observance, and that in the East it partook of a festal character. Falling in with this way of regarding Saturday we find Canon 64 of the so-called Apostolic Canons (of uncertain date, but possibly early in the fifth century[9]) declaring, ‘If any cleric be found fasting on the Lord’s day, or on the Sabbath, except one only [that is, doubtless “the Great Sabbath,” or Easter Eve], let him be deprived, and, if he be a layman, let him be segregated[10].’ The Apostolic Constitutions emphasise the position of the Sabbath by the exhortation that Christians should ‘gather together especially on the Sabbath, and on the Lord’s day, the day of the Resurrection’ (ii. 59); and again, ‘Keep the Sabbath and the Lord’s day as feasts, for the one is the commemoration of the Creation, the other of the Resurrection’ (vii. 23³). We find also that one of the canons of Laodicea referred to above is in substance re-enacted at a much later date by the Council in Trullo (A.D. 692) in this form, that except on the Sabbath, the Lord’s day, and the Feast of the Annunciation, the Liturgy of the Pre-sanctified should be said on all days in Lent (c. 52).

In the city of Alexandria in the time of the historian Socrates the Eucharist was not celebrated on Saturday; but other parts of Egypt followed the general practice of the East. Socrates says that Rome agreed with Alexandria in this respect[11].

It is certain that very commonly, though not universally, in the East the Sabbath was regarded as possessing the features of a weekly festival (with a eucharistic celebration) second in importance only to the Lord’s day. And Gregory of Nyssa says, ‘If thou hast despised the Sabbath, with what face wilt thou dare to behold the Lord’s day.... They are sister days’ (de Castigatione, Migne, P.G. xlvi. 309).

In the West we find also that the Sabbath was a day of special religious observance; but there was a variety of local usage in regard to the mode of its observance. At Rome the Sabbath was a fast-day in the time of St Augustine[12]; and the same is true of some other places; but the majority of the Western Churches, like the East, did not so regard it. In North Africa there was a variety of practice, some places observed the day as a fast, others as a feast. At Milan the day was not treated as a fast; and St Ambrose, in reply to a question put by Augustine at the instance of his mother Monnica, stated that he regarded the matter as one of local discipline, and gave the sensible rule to do in such matters at Rome as the Romans do[13]. In the early part of the fourth century the Spanish Council of Elvira corrected the error that every Sabbath should be observed as a fast[14].

As to the origin of the Saturday fast we are left almost wholly to conjecture. It has been supposed by some to be an exhibition of antagonism to Judaism, which regarded the Sabbath as a festival; while others consider that it is a continuation of the Friday fast, as a kind of preparatory vigil of the Lord’s day. It is outside our scope to go into this question.

A relic of the ancient position of distinction occupied by Saturday may perhaps be found in the persistence of the name ‘Sabbatum’ in the Western service-books. Abstinence (from flesh) continued, ‘de mandate ecclesiae,’ on Saturdays in the Roman Church. For Roman Catholics in England it ceased in 1830 by authority of Pope Pius VIII.

This seems a convenient place for saying something as to the use of the word Feria in ecclesiastical language to designate an ordinary week-day. The names most commonly given to the days of the week in the service-books and other ecclesiastical records are ‘Dies Dominica’ (rarely ‘Dominicus’) for the Lord’s Day, or Sunday; ‘Feria II’ for Monday; ‘Feria III’ for Tuesday, and so on to Saturday which (with rare exceptions) is not Feria VII but ‘Sabbatum.’

Why the ordinary week-day is called ‘Feria,’ when in classical Latin ‘feriae’ was used for ‘days of rest,’ ‘holidays,’ ‘festivals,’ is a question that cannot be answered with any confidence. A conjecture which seems open to various objections, though it has found supporters, is as follows: all the days of Easter week were holidays, ‘feriatae’; and, this being the first week of the ecclesiastical year, the other weeks followed the mode of naming the days which had been used in regard to the first week. A fatal objection to this theory, for which the authority of St Jerome has been claimed, is that we find ‘feria’ used, as in Tertullian, for an ordinary week-day long before we have any reason to think that there was any ordinance for the observance of the whole of Easter week by a cessation from labour[15].

Another conjecture, presented however with too much confidence, is that put forward on the authority of Isidore of Seville[16] by the learned Henri de Valois (Valesius). He alleges that the ancient Christians, receiving, as they did, the week of seven days from the Jews, imitated the Jewish practice, which used the expression ‘the second of the Sabbath,’ ‘the third of the Sabbath,’ and so on for the days of the week: that ‘Feria’ means a day of rest, in effect the same as ‘Sabbath,’ and that in this way the ‘second Feria’ and ‘third Feria,’ etc., came to be used for the second and third days of the week[17].

The astrological names for the days of the week, as of the Sun, of the Moon, of Mars, of Mercury, etc., were generally avoided by Christians; but they are not wholly unknown in Christian writers, and sometimes appear even in Christian epitaphs.

In the ecclesiastical records of the Greeks the first day of the week is ‘the Lord’s day’; and the seventh, the Sabbath, as in the West. But Friday is Parasceve (pa?as?e??), a name which in the Latin Church is confined to one Friday in the year, the Friday of the Lord’s Passion, which day in the Eastern Church is known as ‘the Great Parasceve.’ With these exceptions the days of the week are ‘the second,’ ‘the third,’ ‘the fourth,’ etc., the word ‘day’ being understood.

It is worth recording that among the Portuguese the current names for the week-days are: segunda feira, terÇa feira, etc.