one on the Sabbath, but he by evil arts heals on the Sabbath the lame, and the hunchbacked, the blind, the palsied, the leper and the demoniac." Chap. II "For what reason do they, the Jews, wish to put Jesus to death, and they said that they are angry because he heals on the Sabbath day. Pilate said for a good work do they wish to put him to death. They said to him: Yea, Lord". Anti-Nicene Christian Library, Edin. Ed. Vol. XVI p. 181. The Christian accepted the teaching of Christ as authoritive on the question continued to observe the Sabbath as taught by Christ. So the bitter controversary went on and on to the 13th century, and not a word was said on either side accusing each other of keep. ing the wrong day. Tertullian, A, D. 200, speaks of the Sabbath and Sunday as being one and the same day. (See extract on p. 498) In A. D. 321 we have have the first Sunday law by Constantine. (See p. 503) It is quite true what Eusebius speaks of the Lord's day, "As the first and chief of all the days of our Lord and Saviour that day the name of which is connected with light and life". (See p. 750). Eusebius, an Assyrio-Catholic, speaks of the popular planetary day, a day which included the whole of the following night, i. e. day and night, and this night Dominica nocte, the night the Assyrio-Catholic celebrated the feast of Creation. "And God said let there be light; and there was light." Genesis 1, 3-5. Eusebius is exultant over the fact that Saturn had been dethroned by Constantine as the first and chief of the weekly cycle, and the Dominica nocte had taken its place. Eusebius, however, uses the words Sabbath and Lord's day interchangeably, for having used the pagan style, i. e. day and night, he is compelled to explain that Constantine's Sunday law embraced a part at least of the day before the Sunday. His language is, "he enjoined on all his subjects of the Roman empire to observe the Lord's day (i. e. Sabbath) as a day of rest and also to honor the day which precedes the Sabbath". This day was not Friday as we have pointed out on p. 718, but was Saturday eve, the prepa. artion for the Sabbath; and if Eusebius had adopted the style as re. commended by Pope Sylvester, i. e. night and day, the word Sabbath would have included the day before the Sabbath, i. e, from Saturday 3 P. M. Constantine's law was not the die solis of the planetary week which the Romans had but recently adopted. But the die solis"the venerable day" of his victorious army the Barbarians, the Celts the Germans and the Britious; and their day like the Hebrew, commenced with the eve, or in the language of Eusebius, "the day be fore"; and this explains Constantine's Sunday law, which took in the eve; and this and the laws that follow were in favor of the seventh day and not of the first. This is clear from the following facts: The first Sunday law A. D. 321 is designated by the Emperor, "the venerable day". In July of the same year the Emperor styles it "the day of the Sun, honored for its own sacredness". In A. D. 386 on "the day of the Sun", properly called the Lord's day by our ancestors. In A. D. 389 we have a revival of the pagan custom, of celebrating the first of January for rest; also the Natal days of Rome and Constantinople; and "the days of the sun as they follow each other in order, the Emperor's birthday or first day they saw auspicious light". In A. D. 399 we have ⚫ Lord's day which derives its name from the respect due to it". In A. D. 409 we have the Sabbath referred to thus: "On the Sabbath day and other days, during which the Jews pay respect to their own mode of worship; we enjoin that no one shall do any thing or ought to be sued in any way" (See my remarks on p. 514). We give the Latin text as follows: A. D. 409. "Impp. Honorius et Theodosius, A. A. Jovio, P. P.: "De Sabbati ac reliquis sub tempore, quo Judæi cultus sui rever entiam servant, neminem aut facere aliquid, aut ulla ex parte conveniri debere precipimus, ita tamen ut nec detur licentia eodem die Christianos orthodoxos convenire, ne Christiani forte ex interpellatio ne Judæarum ab afficialibus, præfatis diebus, aliquam sustineat molestiam cum fiscalibus commodis, et litigiis privatorum constet reiquos dies posse sufficere. Dat. VIII. Kal. Aug. Ravennæ." In the same year and at the same place (Raveneæ) we have “the debtors brought out of prison on all the Lord's days"; and in another law of the same year we have "the Lord's day commonly called the day of the Sun". The Sunday laws that follow bear the title of Lord's day, until we come to the year A. D. 425, when we have the change. "On the Lord's day which is the first of the whole week". The change is due to the Astrological belief at that time. The number of dated inscriptions in the Catacombs giving name of the places and hour that such persons were born and died, etc. prove this; see p. 876-7. However, the day continued to be reckoned from the eve as formerly, and as continued in Rome and Italy down to our own time; notwithstanding the Assyrio-Catholic style of commencing the day with midnight. From A. D, 321 to A. D. 425 all the Sunday laws referred to the Seventh day of the week, the Sabbath day of the Jews, and the Lord's day of the Christians. This is further evidenced by the fact that in A. D. 400 Chrysostom in his Homilies calls the Lord's day the sev. enth, and tells us that it was customary to meet on the "third day, which custom gave rise to naming the day "Middle" i. e. the midweek service in the church, and that day is still observed by us, and servives in our Wednesday evening prayer meeting and preaching service. We now come to A. D. 439. Sozomen B. 1 C. 8. "But the day called the Lord's day which the Jews first named the seventh, but the Greeks dedicate to the sun." Can language be more emphatic in testifying to the fact that both Jews, Christians and Greeks kept the same day, but designated it differently (see my remarks on p. 748). If there is any doubt in the mind of the reader about the Jews keeping the same day as the Christians, carefully read "The Sabbath designated the Lord's day in the Church's Councils, pp. 776 to 798. Let us take the history of the Jews in England, for example. There is not a single reference as far as I know from which we can infer that the Jews kept a different day from the Christians, up to the time of their expulsion by King Edward in A. D. 1290. Bede is the first to mention the Jews in the Easter controversy. Echbright, Archbishop of York, in his "Ecclesiastical Constitutions," A. D. 740, "Forbids Christians being present at any Jewish feast." Vol. 1, p. 218. Johnson's Laws and Canons of the Church of England. Again in A. D. 1268 Henry III in Council made several laws affecting the Jews: "No Jew could reside in the kingdom but as the King's serf." "Service was to be performed in the synagogue in a low tone, so as not to offend the ears of Christians." Milman in describing the distress of the Jews says: "Such was the distress caused by this inexorable mandate [act of Henry of Winchester] that even the rival bankers the Caorsini, and the Friars themselves were moved to commiseration, though some complained that the wild outcries raised in the synagogue on this doleful occasion disturbed the devotions of the Christians in the neighboring churches." (Hist. of Jews, p. 466-7.) It does not appear from this that the Jews had a different day from the Christians for worship. In all the laws passed affecting the Jews there is not a single instance where the Jews are forbidden to keep their Sabbath and observe the Christian Sabbath instead. We have a public debate promoted by William Rufus between the Bishops and Rabbins; but we do not hear of any discussion as to which was the right day to be observed as the Sabbath, i. e. Saturday-Sabbath or Sunday-Sabbath, although both days at that time were designated the Sabbath in England. Neither do we hear that the King profanely swore by the face of St. Luke that if the Rabbins proved that if the Saturday-Sabbath was the right day that the King would abrogite all the laws that referred to the Sunday-Sabbath and exalt the Sabbath of Saturday as the true Sabbath to be observed. On the other hand, every reference that is made to the Sunday-Sabbath stamps that day as being the seventh day-the holy day, and identifies that day with the seventh day of the Fourth Commandment, e. g. The Sabbath mentioned in the Epistle of Abraham Ibn. Ezra (see p. 976-7) forever settles the question and says that Sunday is the Jew's Sabbath. I invite the attention of the Jews to this. We herewith give the translation from the Hebrew by Joseph Jacobs a graduate of Cambridge (Dec. A. D. 1158)—Introduction to Abraham's 1bn. Ezra's Sabbath Epistle. Kerem Chemed (Heb.) iv 158. 'Twas in the year 4919 [A. D. 1158] at midnight on Sabbath eve, the 14th of Tebeth [Dec. 7] that I, Abraham Ibn. Ezra, a Spaniard, was in one of the cities of the Island called the "corner of the earth" [Angleterre], for it is the last of the seven devisions of the inhabited earth. And I was sleeping, and my sleep was pleasant unto me. And I looked in my dream, and behold, beside me stood one with the appearance of a man and a sealed letter in his hand. And he addressed me and said, "Take this letter which the Sabbath sends thee," And I bowed down and worshiped the Lord and blessed the Lord which had given it to us, which had honored me with this honor. And I laid hold of it with my two hands, and my hands dropped with myrrh, And I read it, and in the beginning it was as honey for sweetness. But when I read the concluding lines my heart waxed warm within me, and my soul almost departed, so that I asked him that stood by me, "What is my trespass? What is my sin? For from the day that I knew the Lord which created us, and learnt his commandments, I have always loved the Sabbath, and before she came I used to go out to meet her, and when she departed I used to speed her with gladness and with singing. Who among her servants has been so faithful as I? Wherefore then she has sent me this letter," and this is it: I am the Sabbath, the crown of the law of the chosen ones, the fourth among the Ten words, And between the Lord and His Sons I am the perpetual sign of the covenant for all generations. In me God completed all His works, and so it is written in the beginning of the books (Gen. ii 2) And of old manna did not fall on the Sabbath day, that I might be a proof to the generations. I delight the living on earth, and give repose to the multi- I am the joy of men and women, old and young rejoice in me. And all the beasts repose that are in the service of man, And all who are wise both sanctify and conclude the feast with wine those who indulge in it as well as abstainers. [The beginning and end of the Sabbath is celebrated by tasting a cup of wine.] On all days they find the gate of wisdom, On my day the hun- I am honored by not doing thine own way, nor "clutching But in thine old age an unwritten transgression has been To compose letters in the way of truth and send them to all sides?" And the messenger of the Sabbath answered and spoke to me, "She has been told what thy pupils brought yesterday to thy house books of commentaries of the law, and there it is written to profane the Sabbath eve; do thou gird up thy loins for the honor of the Sabbath, to wage the battle of the law with the enemies of the Sabbath, and do not treat any man with partiality." (Lev. xix 15) And I awoke and my anger was kindled within me, and my spirit was very heavy, and I arose and warmed the fire in me and put on my garments and I washed my hands and brought the books into the light of the moon [We can tell that Dec. 7th at 1158 was a full moon because it was the 14th of the Heb. lunar month] and there was written an explanation of Gen. i, "And the evening and the |