Andrews University

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

THE ROLE OF ONTOLOGY IN THE ABANDONMENT OF THE SABBATH IN

THE WRITINGS OF THE CHURCH FATHERS

A Research Paper

Presented for Consideration by

The Adventist Theological Society

By

Karl Tsatalbasidis

February 1, 2011

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS..........................................ii

ChapterI. INTRODUCTION...............................................1

Background to the Problem...............................1Problem.................................................3Purpose.................................................3Methodology.............................................4

II. THE ROLE OF ONTOLOGY.......................................5

The Influence of Hellenism..............................5Parmenides............................................5Plato.................................................6

III. CHURCH FATHERS, THE SABBATH AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY........9

Introduction............................................9Tertullian............................................9Barnabas.............................................14Clement of Alexandria................................16Augustine............................................19

Summary................................................21

IV. CONCLUSION................................................23

BIBLIOGRAPHY...................................................26

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ANF The Ante-Nicene Fathers

NPNF Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First

Series

SDABC Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary

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CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

Background to the Problem

As the memorial of creation, the Sabbath helps us to

safeguard the distinction between God and the creation.

Also as the culmination of the week of creation in Gen 1,

the Seventh-day Sabbath is inextricably linked with time.1

A phenomenological reading of the Hebrew Scriptures, which

by definition brackets out the influence of other

philosophical systems in general and of Greek philosophy in

particular, indicates that temporality is the ground from

which God and His relationship between the cosmos and

humanity are understood. Yet according to Greek philosophy

eternity, which is timeless, is considered the ground.

Unlike the day, the month or the year, which are based on 1See SDABC 1:51 “A careful study of the Hebrew manuscripts reveals that in every instance in which yom [day] is accompanied by a definite number used as an adjective, a dayof 24 hours is indicated.”

1

the observation of the earth, the moon and the sun, the

weekly cycle, and by implication the Sabbath, finds its

origin in Scripture.2

On the whole, scholarship does not contest the origin,

validity and observance of the Sabbath throughout the time

period when the Hebrew Scriptures were written. However,

when it comes to the New Testament the validity of the

Sabbath as a day of worship is greatly contested since many

scholars believe that the shift from Sabbath to Sunday

occurred on account of the teachings of Christ and His

disciples.3

There are several reasons given for the shift from 2Sigve K. Tonstad, The Lost Meaning of the Seventh Day (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2009), 26-27.3Samuele Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to Sunday: A Historical Investigation of the Rise of Sunday Observance in Early Christianity (Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University Press, 1977), 74, 91, 102; F.F. Bruce, Commentary on the Book of Acts (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman's, 1954), 407-408; Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship (London: SCM Press, 1953), 10, 88; Jean Daniélou, The Bible and Liturgy (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1956), 243;Paul K. Jewett, The Lord's Day; a Theological Guide to the Christian Day of Worship (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman's, 1971), 57; Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1911), 384; Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians : A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman's, 2000), 1321.

2

Sabbath to Sunday, embracing anti-Jewish sentiment,

theological, and biblical rationales as causes for the

shift. In addition, there is also debate about when the

shift took place. In light of this, church fathers such as

Tertullian, Barnabas, Clement of Alexandria and Augustine

all speak of the Sabbath, yet as a building that is no

longer connected to its foundation, their writings reveal

that the Sabbath has been wrenched from its connection with

the seventh day.

While previous studies have focused on anti-Jewish

sentiment and sun worship as causes for the shift to

Sunday,4 comparatively little has been done to explore the

impact of Greek metaphysics on the shift from Sabbath to

Sunday.5 In addition, there has not been a comparative

analysis between the Greek metaphysical framework, including

its impact on hermeneutics, and the writings of the

aforementioned church fathers so that a determination can be4Bacchiocchi, 213-269. 5Fernando Canale, Basic Elements of Christian Theology: Scripture ReplacingTradition (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Lithotech, 2005), 50; Tonstad, 315-328. These two authors are an exception, yet neither provides a comparative analysis between Greek metaphysics and the church fathers.

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made as to the influence of Greek metaphysics on their

conclusions about the Sabbath.

Problem

According to some scholars, the change from Sabbath to

Sunday came as a result of i) the teachings of Jesus and the

apostles, ii) anti-Jewish sentiment, and iii) sun worship.

Moreover it may be assumed that the church fathers mentioned

earlier simply built their understanding of the Sabbath, how

it should be observed and its relationship to Sunday upon

the foundation already laid down by Christ and His apostles

and upon anti-Jewish sentiment.

However the following statements from the church

fathers, which will be studied in greater detail later, seem

to point to Greek metaphysics as the motivation for the

shift. For instance, according to Tertullian, the Seventh-

day is temporary and human and is referred to in the

Scriptures as “your Sabbaths” whereas the eternal Sabbath is

referred to as “My Sabbaths.” Tertullian also stated that

Jesus kept the Sabbath on the one hand while on the other

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hand he abolished it. Furthermore, Augustine concluded that

creation did not take place in six literal days but rather

it took place instantaneously.

Hence, in light of some the church fathers’ statements,

was the theological motivation for how they viewed the

Sabbath and its relationship to Sunday based upon the

teachings of Christ and His apostles, anti-Jewish sentiment

and sun worship or upon Greek metaphysics?

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to analyze how the Greek

philosophical view of ontology affected the early church’s

understanding of the Sabbath commandment.

Methodology

The second chapter will begin by looking at ontology

and how Greek philosophers from Parmenides to Plato have

interpreted it. After defining and interpreting ontology,

it will also be important to see how ontology is related to

cosmology since the Sabbath itself is inextricably linked to

time.

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The third chapter will examine certain statements by

Tertullian, Barnabas, Clement of Alexandria, and Augustine

in light of the Greek metaphysical framework in order to

examine the extent to which these church fathers were

theologically motivated by Greek thought.

The fourth and final chapter will provide the

conclusion to the study.

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CHAPTER TWO

The Role of Ontology

The Influence of Hellenism

Hellenism had already posed a formidable philosophical

challenge around the time when Christianity came into

existence. Greek concepts constituted the air which people

breathed and the ground upon which they walked. They also

formed the conceptual framework in which they did their

thinking.6 The most influential philosopher who made the

greatest impact on early Christianity was Plato. John

Dillon outlines how his two-tiered cosmology was not only

preserved and modified, but also how leading Christian

theologians appropriated it.7

Parmenides

Notwithstanding, Plato had assumed and built upon a

6Tonstad, 316.7John M. Dillon, The Middle Platonists 80 B.C. To A.D. 220, Rev ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996).

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very powerful idea that began with the Milesian philosopher

Parmenides. It was Parmenides who first began to clearly

articulate about ontology, which is concerned with the

proper understanding of reality. Parmenides (540-470 B.C.)

“seems to be the first philosopher to examine the nature of

being.”8 “Parmenides begins with what he takes to be a self-

evident truth: IT IS. This is not an empirical claim – not

one derived from observation – rather it is a truth of

Reason. It cannot be denied without self-contradiction. If

you say, “IT IS NOT” (i.e., nothing exists), then you’ve

proved that “IT IS”; for if nothing exists, it’s not

nothing, rather it is something.”9

Being or reality has been interpreted by Parmenides as

timelessness. However, although the word “timelessness”

does not seem to appear in Parmenides writings, “there is

evidence that ultimate being is timeless.”10 In

philosophical and theological discussion the idea of

8Norman R. Gulley, Systematic Theology: Prolegomena (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2003), 4.9Donald Palmer, Looking at Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1994), 25.10Gulley, 4.

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timelessness takes on a technical meaning: it “is the

conception that reality in general and God in particular are

essentially and necessarily voided of, and incompatible

with, time and space. Consequently, a timeless conception

of reality necessarily eliminates from the realm of genuine

reality anything that may be considered as historical or

analogical to what we call history.”11

Plato

Parmenides’ idea of being had a profound effect on both

Plato and Aristotle who built their systems on that concept.

As a matter of fact, Plato’s two-world theory is a

development of Parmenides’ idea of being. Plato “decided

that reality as a whole is made up of two tiers or worlds,

one heavenly and the other earthly. Realities in the

heavenly world are uncreated, and therefore timeless and

eternal, whereas realities in the earthly world are created,

and are therefore temporal and transient. The relationship

between the heavenly and earthly tiers is one of

11Fernando Canale, Back to Revelation - Inspiration (New York: University Press of America, 2001), 37.

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duplication.”12 In other words, things in the earthly tier

are merely a duplication of what exists in the heavenly

timeless tier. Everything within the earthly tier is

limited, transitory, subject to decay, evil and sinful where

as the heavenly tier is eternal, timeless, pure and good.

Plato’s influence has been so enormous that “the

eminent British-American philosopher Alfred North Whitehead

once said that the history of philosophy is merely a series

of footnotes to Plato.”13 As we shall see this influence

shaped Judaism as well as Christianity.

Through a process that took several centuries, Plato’s

two-world’s theory came to shape how Christian theology

understood nature and supernature. The two-world’s

interpretation influenced not only Christianity, but also

Judaism. Jewish theologian Philo of Alexandria adopted this

view and used it as a hermeneutical tool to interpret the

Old Testament and to develop his own teachings. By the time

of Augustine, Christian theology had claimed for itself the 12Fernando Canale, The Cognitive Principle of Christian Theology (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Lithotech, 2005), 91.13Palmer, 67.

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basic outline of Plato’s cosmology.14

At this point, it should be noted that the acceptance

of these theories formulates an overall system which then

sets the groundwork for reinterpreting everything else

including the Sabbath. Since the Sabbath is associated with

time, which is viewed as part of the earthly tier, it can no

longer be the ground upon which worship is based since the

earthly tier is grounded in, and duplicates the heavenly

tier. Also, since time and timelessness cannot co-exist in

the heavenly tier and since the earthly duplicates the

heavenly eternal timeless tier, the end result is that the

Sabbath has been replaced as the ground for worship by

Plato’s two-world’s theory.

According to Tonstad, this Platonic framework is so far

reaching that it “becomes part of the fabric of Christianity

to the extent that not until the twentieth century, if then,

would theologians appreciate the Church’s accommodation of

Platonism as an irreconcilable difference.”15 Furthermore,

“with respect to the Sabbath, Hellenism does not only 14Canale, The Cognitive Principle of Christian Theology, 92.15Tonstad, 322.

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represent a challenge but also, at least in the non-Jewish

context, an irreconcilable difference.”16

This framework forms the basic understanding of some of

the statements of the church fathers regarding the Sabbath,

its validity, its observance and the justification for

Sunday. A comprehensive overview of the church fathers

would go well beyond the scope of this paper; hence this

study will look at some of their statements with this Greek

philosophical framework in mind.

16Ibid., 316.

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CHAPTER THREE

Church Fathers, the Sabbath and Greek Philosophy

Introduction

The Sabbath has always been the ground upon which

worship is based because it helps to keep in mind the great

distinction between the Creator and the creation. Within

such a system there is no qualitative difference between

eternity and time. However, the interpretation of ontology

as timeless poses a very serious threat to the grounding

role of the Sabbath precisely because of the unbridgeable

chasm between eternity and time. In this Platonic system

time is the reduplication of eternity, and the result is

that the Sabbath loses its grounding role.

Before analyzing the specific statements of the church

fathers mentioned above, an examination of their attitude

toward philosophy will prove helpful in ascertaining how far

reaching the effects of Greek philosophy proved to be, even

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to those who rejected it for use in apologetics.

Tertullian

The church fathers in this study do not always share

the same attitude about the relationship between philosophy

and theology. Tertullian (145-220) was a brilliant lawyer

who along with Augustine had a great influence on the Latin

Church.17 Tertullian was actually “appalled at the extent

to which some of his contemporaries were using Greek

philosophies such as Platonism and Stoicism to explain

Christian ideas to pagan audiences.”18 In his Prescription

Against Heretics, he rhetorically asks, “What indeed has Athens

to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the

Academy and the Church?”19

Nevertheless, in spite of his negative attitude about

the use of Greek concepts in apologetics, he ends up

assuming them in his description of the Trinity against

Praxeas, which proved to be one of his most important

17ANF 3:3 18Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform (Downer's Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press Academic, 1999), 54.19ANF 3:269

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theological contributions.20 In his discussion about the

Sabbath, Tertullian distinguishes between the seventh-day

Sabbath, which he interprets as temporal and the eternal

Sabbath, which is interpreted as divine. The Sabbath issue

and its relation to Greek philosophy can easily be seen in

Tertullian’s distinction between the eternal versus the

temporal Sabbath. He states,

We (Christians) understand that we still more ought to observe a Sabbath from all “servile work” always, and notonly every seventh day, but through all time. And throughthis arises the question for us, what Sabbath God willed us to keep? For the Scriptures point to a Sabbath eternaland a Sabbath temporal. For Isaiah the prophet says, “YourSabbaths my soul hateth;” and in another place he says,

“My Sabbaths ye have profaned.”21 Whence we discern that the temporal Sabbath is human, and the eternal Sabbath isaccounted divine…. Thus, therefore, before this temporal Sabbath, there was withal an eternal Sabbath foreshown

20ANF 3:633-634; Olson, 95. Olson states, “After all his fussing against philosophical speculation in theology, Tertullian ended up assuming a very Greek philosophical notion of divine being—very much like Clement of Alexandria’s! In fact, their basic concepts of God’s natureas simple, immutable and impassible are strikingly similar and derived more from Greek culture and philosophical theology than from Hebrew or apostolic teachings about God. [Thus] some of Tertullian’s assumptions and arguments seem to have been based more on Greek philosophy than on divine revelation.” Pg 97-9821This is not said by Isaiah; it is found in substance in Ezek 22:8

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and foretold; just as before the carnal circumcision there was withal a spiritual circumcision foreshown…. Manifest accordingly it is, that the precept was not

eternal nor spiritual, but temporary,22 which would one daycease…. Whence it is manifest that the force of such precepts was temporary, and respected the necessity of present circumstances; and that it was not with a view toits observance in perpetuity that God formerly gave them such a law.23

When viewed under the influence of Plato’s two-world’s

theory there is a difference between the eternal and the

temporal in Tertullian’s observation about the Sabbath.

“Plato…used the word aion [eternity] in the technical

philosophical sense of timelessness.”24 Thus the divine

Sabbath, referred to as “my Sabbaths” is regarded as eternal

and spiritual which is interpreted in a timeless sense while

the seventh-day Sabbath under the same philosophical system

is viewed as i) temporal, because it would one day cease and

was not perpetual and ii) as belonging to the Jews because

it’s “your Sabbaths.”

This philosophical system blinded Tertullian from

22Or, “temporal.”23ANF 3:155, 156 24Canale, Basic Elements of Christian Theology: Scripture Replacing Tradition,58.

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distinguishing between the perpetuity of the seventh-day

Sabbath and the ceremonial Sabbaths in Lev 23:37-38 as the

basis for the Scriptures that spoke of “my Sabbaths” and

“your Sabbaths.” The same system also leads Tertullian to

justify his division between the human and divine Sabbath by

looking to circumcision which according to even the Old

Testament Scriptures pointed forward to a spiritual

circumcision of the heart (Deut 30:6) that would fulfilled

by the death of Christ on the cross (Col 2:11). While this

works for circumcision, there is no place that one can point

to in the Bible to justify the kind of distinction between

the eternal and temporal Sabbath that Tertullian has

referred to under the influence of Greek philosophy. The

Sabbath that God instituted at creation, which is kept

today, and the Sabbaths that will be kept in eternity assume

the biblical notion of time and not the Greek notion of

timelessness. The acceptance Plato’s system always leads to

an ontological separation between the heavenly and the

earthly, and between eternity and time. This

presuppositional structure is what is revealed in

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Tertullian’s sharp distinction between the eternal and the

temporal Sabbath.

Under this same system, the impact on the ethical

aspects of Sabbath keeping is clear. The human seventh-day

Sabbath need not be kept according to a day because it’s

temporary. Thus, the necessity of present circumstances is

a determining factor regarding how one keeps the “human”

Sabbath.

Perhaps Plato’s two-world’s theory may also explain why

Tertullian on the one hand states that Jesus did not rescind

the Sabbath but rather kept it while on the other hand he

states that God did destroy the very institution He set up.

He says, “thus Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath: He

kept the law thereof, and both in the former case did a work

which was beneficial to the life of His disciples, for He

indulged them with the relief of food when they were hungry,

and in the present instance cured the withered hand; in each

case intimating by facts, “I came not to destroy, the law,

but to fulfill it.””25 This seems clear, but the same man

25ANF 3:363-364

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also said this:

Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years” —the

Sabbaths, I suppose, and “the preparations,” and the fasts,

and the “high days.” For the cessation of even these, no less than of circumcision, was appointed by the Creator’s

decrees, who had said by Isaiah, “Your new moons, and your

Sabbaths, and your high days I cannot bear; your fasting,

and feasts, and ceremonies my soul hateth; ” also by Amos, “I hate, I despise your feast-days, and I will not smell in

your solemn assemblies; ” and again by Hosea, “I will cause to cease all her mirth, and her feast-days, and her

Sabbaths, and her new moons, and all her solemn assemblies.”

The institutions which He set up Himself, you ask, did He

then destroy? Yes, rather than any other.26

J.N. Andrews may be correct by stating, “Tertullian was

26ANF 3:436

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a double minded man.”27 However if one analyzes these

statements within the prevailing Platonic system described

earlier, then there’s a strange kind of harmony because as

was stated before, there is a heavenly Sabbath understood on

timeless principles which would be the one that Jesus kept,

while the earthly temporal Sabbath is the one that He

destroyed. Furthermore, when Tertullian stated that Jesus

did not rescind the Sabbath, he did not state that His

reason for doing so was that the Sabbath was grounded in the

biblical notion of time but rather Jesus kept the “eternal,

heavenly” Sabbath by relieving the hungry and curing those

who had diseases. His emphasis seems more on what Jesus did

rather than on the day that He did it, which would make

sense if one has adopted Platonic philosophy as the main

hermeneutical system.

In as much as the Sabbath is also inextricably linked

with liturgical practices, the severing of the Sabbath from

the seventh-day also led to such liturgical changes as the

27J.N. Andrews, History of the Sabbath and First Day of the Week, 3rd, revised ed. (Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald, 1887), 308-309.

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celebration of Sunday as a day of festivity. One of those

changes was that kneeling was prohibited on the Lord’s day.

Tertullian states, “We count fasting or kneeling in worship

on the Lord’s day to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same

privilege also from Easter to Whitsunday.”28 Peter of

Alexandria also says something similar. “But the Lord’s day

we celebrate as a day of joy, because on it He rose again,

on which day we have received it for a custom not even to

bow the knee.”29

In addition to this, Sunday was also to be regarded as

a day of festivity. Tertullian states, “we make Sunday a

day of festivity. What then? Do you do less than this?”30

Regarding this question, J.N. Andrews states, “His language

is very extraordinary when it is considered that he was

addressing heathen. It seems that Sunday as a Christian

festival was so similar to the festival which these heathen

observed that he challenged them to show wherein the

Christians went further than did these heathen whom he here

28ANF 3:94 29ANF 6:278 30ANF 3:123

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addressed.”31 Besides Tertullian, Andrews mentions, The

Epistle of Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria,

Origin, Cyprian, Peter of Alexandria, and the writer of the

Syriac Documents concerning Edessa as stating the festive

nature of the Lord’s day.32

Barnabas

In contrast to Tertullian’s attitude about the use of

philosophy in apologetics, the Epistle of Barnabas written in

Alexandria around 100 AD33 represents the first document of

the young Alexandrine school of theology which has been

characterized by Neo-Platonism. Furthermore, the epistle’s

allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament is based

upon the Jewish Alexandrine philosopher Philo,34 who stated

that a six day creation, or creation in a space of time at

all, is really quite foolish.35

31Andrews, 289.32Ibid., 284-295.33ANF 1:133 34Justo González, From the Beginnings to the Council of Chalcedon, A History of Christian Thought, vol. 1 (Nashville, TN: Abindgon Press, 1987), 94. 35H.A. Wolfson, Philo; Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948), 1:120.

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In the following paragraph, when the words “pure” and

“sanctify” are viewed from the same Platonic

presuppositions, the negative implications for Sabbath

observance become clear. In actuality, “the author’s main

objective in the 15th chapter of the epistle was to void the

Sabbath.”36

Moreover, He says, “Thou shalt sanctify it [the Sabbath] with pure hands and a pure heart.” If, therefore, anyone can now sanctify the day which God hath sanctified,

except he is pure in heart in all things, we are deceived. Behold, therefore: certainly then one properly resting sanctifies it, when we ourselves, having received the promise, wickedness no longer existing, and all things having been made new by the Lord, shall be able to work

righteousness. Then we shall be able to sanctify it, having been first sanctified ourselves. Further, He says to them, “Your new moons and your Sabbath I cannot

endure.” Ye perceive how He speaks: Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to Me, but that is which I have made, [namely this,] when, giving rest to all things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth daywith joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again

from the dead. And when He had manifested Himself, He ascended into the heavens.37

36William H. Shea, "The Sabbath in the Epistle of Barnabas,"Andrews University Seminary Studies 4 (1966): 172. 37ANF 1:146-147

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When viewed from Plato’s two-world’s theory, purity and

holiness are characteristics that are not compatible with

the present age in which we live because purity and holiness

exist in the timeless tier while we exist in the temporal

tier. It’s clear that it is only at the second coming of

Christ that we are going to be made pure and holy because

then we will have entered into the timeless realm. The

writer of the epistle assumes that there is a divine Sabbath

and an earthly Sabbath and anyone attempting to keep the

earthly temporal Sabbath is doing something that God will

not accept. First, the seventh-day Sabbath is earthly and

temporal, and second we are sinful and unholy and we must

wait until we enter into eternity so that we can become

sanctified and thus keep the divine Sabbath.38

Thus Greek philosophy’s timeless ontology affects not

only the Sabbath in this epistle but it also has an effect

on our interpretations of purity and holiness which are

inextricably linked with the doctrine of man. By this time

38S. Lowy, "The Confutation of Judaism in the Epistle of Barnabas," in Early Christianity and Judaism, ed. Everett Ferguson(New York: Garland Publishing, 1993), 323.

24

Clement of Rome had already declared that Peter and Paul had

entered into glory,39 which means that the immortality of

the soul was assumed. This doctrine declares that while the

soul is immaterial and timeless, the body is temporal,

sinful and subject to decay. Thus the only way that the

Sabbath can be kept is by the soul being released from the

body either at death or at the Second Coming of Jesus.

Clement of Alexandria

Clement “was originally a pagan philosopher. The date

of his birth is unknown. It is also uncertain whether

Alexandria or Athens was his birthplace…. He is supposed to

have died about A.D. 220.”40 If Tertullian represented those who decried the “spoiling of the Egyptians” by using Greek

philosophy in order to explain the gospel, then Clement

represents those who “saw the best of Greek thought, such as

the philosophies of Socrates and Plato, as preparation for

the gospel and as a useful tool in the hands of skillful

39ANF 1:6 40ANF 2:166-167

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Christian thinkers.”41

In the following passage, Clement links the Lord’s day

to Plato.

And the Lord’s day Plato prophetically speaks of in the tenth book of the Republic, in these words: “And when sevendays have passed to each of them in the meadow, on the

eighth they are to set out and arrive in four days.” By the meadow is to be understood the fixed sphere, as beinga mild and genial spot, and the locality of the pious; and by the seven days each motion of the seven planets, and the whole practical art which speeds to the end of rest. But after the wandering orbs the journey leads to heaven, that is, to the eighth motion and day. And he says that souls are gone on the fourth day, pointing out the passage through the four elements. But the seventh day is recognized as sacred, not by the Hebrews only, butalso by the Greeks; according to which the whole world ofall animals and plants revolve.42

J.N. Andrews' analysis of this passage demonstrates how

Greek philosophical concepts governed the early church

fathers’ understanding of not only the Sabbath but also of

the Lord’s day by stating that these were not literal days.

Though Clement says that Plato speaks of the Lord’s day, it is certain that he does not understand him to speak ofliteral days nor of a literal meadow. On the contrary, he interprets the meadow to represent “the fixed sphere, as being a mild and genial spot, and the locality of the pious;” which must refer to the future inheritance. The

41Olson, 84.42ANF 2:469

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seven days are not so many literal days, but they represent “each motion of the seven planets, and the whole practical art which speeds to the end of rest.” This seems to represent the present period of labor whichis to end in the rest of the saints; for he adds: “but after the wandering orbs [represented by Plato’s seven days] the journey leads to heaven, that is, to the eighth motion and day.” The seven days, therefore, do here represent the period of the Christian’s pilgrimage, and the eighth day of which Clement here speaks is not Sunday, but heaven itself! Here is the first instance of“Lord’s day” as a name for the eighth day, but this eighth day is a mystical one and means, heaven!”43

Once the Platonic system is adopted, the interpreter

begins with the heavenly tier because everything is grounded

there. With this understanding in mind it becomes easier to

grasp how the church fathers like Clement can place a

mystical construction upon passages that should be

interpreted in a literal sense because meaning does not

arise from the earthly, the literal or the temporal but

rather from the eternal, the mystical and the spiritual.

Clement also believed that the Lord’s day should be

kept by abstaining from evil practices rather than meeting

on a specific day and at a specific place. “He, in

fulfillment of the precept, according to the Gospel, keeps

43Andrews, 221.

27

the Lord’s day, when he abandons an evil disposition, and assumes that of the Gnostic, glorifying the Lord’s

resurrection in himself.”44 The acceptance of Platonic

presuppositions has replaced the Sabbath as the ground of

worship by switching to the Lord’s day. However as J.N.

Andrews points out, the Lord’s day at this time does not

point to any one day of the week.

From this statement [referring to Clement] we learn, not merely his idea of fasting, but also that of celebrating the Lord’s day, and glorifying the resurrection of Christ. This, according to Clement, does not consist in paying special honors to Sunday, but in abandoning an evil disposition, and in assuming that of the Gnostic, a Christian sect to which he belonged. Now it is plain that this kind of Lord’s day observance pertains to no one day of the week, but embraces the entire life of the Christian. Clement’s Lord’s day was not a literal, but amystical day, embracing, according to this, his second use of the term, the entire regenerate life of the Christian; and according to his first use of the term, embracing also the future life in heaven.45

Furthermore, worship need not occur at any specific

place or time. Regarding Gnostic worship Clement says that

they do not worship “on special days, as some others, but

doing this continually in our whole life, and in every way.

44ANF 2:545 45Andrews, 222.

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Certainly the elect race justified by the precept says,

“Seven times a day have I praised Thee.” Whence not in a

specified place, or selected temple, or at certain festivals

and on appointed days, but during his whole life.”46 Later

on Sunday was recognized as the Lord’s day but it was not

kept like the Sabbath.

Augustine

Augustine of Hippo (354-430) is without a doubt, one of

the greatest Christian thinkers of all time. According to

Justo González, “Augustine is the end of one era as well as

the beginning of another. He is the last of the ancient

Christian writers, and the forerunner of medieval theology.

The main currents of ancient theology converged in him, and

from him flow the rivers, not only of medieval

scholasticism, but also of sixteenth-century Protestant

theology.”47 His relationship with philosophy is more like 46ANF 2:532 47Justo González, From Augustine to the Eve of the Reformation, A History of Christian Thought, vol. 2 (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1987), 15.

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that of Clement rather than Tertullian. He freely drew on

Platonic thought in his argumentation against Manichaeism.48

The quotation below delineates his view of creation.

And I looked attentively to find whether seven or eight times Thou sawest that Thy works were good, when they were pleasing unto Thee; but in Thy seeing I found no times, by which I might understand that thou sawest so often what Thou madest. And I said, “O Lord,! Is not thisThy Scripture true, since Thou art true, and being Truth hast set it forth? Why, then, dost Thou say unto me that in thy seeing there are no times, while this Thy Scripture telleth me that what Thou madest each day, Thousawest to be good; and when I counted them I found how often?” Unto these things Thou repliest unto me, for Thouart my God, and with strong voice tellest unto Thy servant in his inner ear, bursting through my deafness, and crying, “O man, that which My Scripture saith, I say;and yet doth that speak in time; but time has no reference to My Word, because My Word existeth in equal eternity with Myself. Thus those things which ye see through My Spirit, I see, just as those things which ye speak through My Spirit, I speak. And so when ye see those things in time, I see them not in time; as when ye speak them in time, I speak them not in time.”49

For Augustine it’s clear that creation did not take

place in seven literal days, where God did something on the

first day and then proceeded to go on from there. This is

clear in Canale’s analysis of Augustine’s theology:

“Augustine was convinced that God cannot act in the future-

48Olson, 263.49NPNF 1:205

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present-past sequence of time as Scripture presents all

divine activities. Instead he followed Parmenides, Plato,

and Aristotle’s imaginative construction of a God whose

reality is necessarily timeless and spaceless.”50 With this

in mind we can look at how Augustine understood the creation

Sabbath.

O Lord God, grant Thy peace unto us, for Thou hast supplied us with all things,—the peace of rest, the peaceof the Sabbath, which hath no evening. For all this most beautiful order of things, “very good” (all their coursesbeing finished), is to pass away, for in them there was morning and evening. But the seventh day is without any evening, nor hath it any setting, because Thou hast sanctified it to an everlasting continuance that that which Thou didst after Thy works, which were very good, resting on the seventh day, although in unbroken rest Thou madest them that the voice of Thy Book may speak beforehand unto us, that we also after our works (therefore very good, because Thou hast given them unto us) may repose in Thee also in the Sabbath of eternal life.51

When the Platonic system is in control, it acts as a

hermeneutical guide, which means that according to Augustine

the creation Sabbath does not refer to a day, since it “hath

no evening.” It only has meaning within the context of

50Canale, Basic Elements of Christian Theology: Scripture Replacing Tradition, 49.51NPNF 1:207

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“eternal life,” which is understood to be in harmony with

timeless concepts. Furthermore, Augustine states that the

seventh day Sabbath should not be kept by any Christian,52

and elsewhere he states that it should be observed

spiritually by abstaining from sin.53 This system was also

assumed by Thomas Aquinas, and became the hermeneutical key

that led him to make a distinction between the moral and the

ceremonial aspects of the Sabbath.

Aquinas states that “the precept of the Sabbath

observance is moral in one respect, in so far as it commands

man to give some time to the things of God, according to Ps.

45:11: “Be still and see that I am God.” In this respect it

is placed among the precepts of the Decalogue: but not as to

the fixing of the time, in which respect it is a ceremonial

precept.”54 Thus for Augustine and Aquinas, the Sabbath is

not grounded in the day but in the Platonic understanding of

reality which then becomes the hermeneutical key for

52NPNF 5:136 53NPNF 7:136 54Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans., The Fathers of theEnglish Dominican Province, 3 vols. (New York: Benziger Brothers, Inc., 1947), 1:1039.

32

dividing the moral from the ceremonial aspect of the

Sabbath. This division becomes non-existent when the

Sabbath is grounded upon time.

Summary

It should be kept in mind that the purpose of this

chapter was to demonstrate the cause and effect results of

Plato’s two-worlds theory regarding how the early church

fathers viewed the Sabbath, the Lord’s day, and the changes

that occurred in liturgical practices. Since the heavenly

tier of Plato’s theory is timeless, eternal, good and pure,

it becomes the overarching system which guides the early

church fathers to ultimately abandon the seventh-day Sabbath

which according to that system belonged to the earthly,

temporal, sinful tier.

This system also guided them to accept the eighth day

which was also known as the Lord’s day. It should be kept

in mind however that this day was originally kept not by the

observance of a specific day, in a specific location but it

was to be kept as abstaining from sin throughout a person’s

33

entire life. Furthermore the absence of kneeling and

fasting on the Lord’s day was also connected to the

resurrection and to the heathen festivals.

In Canale’s assessment, the introduction of Greek

philosophical concepts that were assumed by the early church

fathers had a role to play in the change from Sabbath to

Sunday.

As Christians began to see God and heaven as spiritual, non-temporal realities, historical realities slowly lost their relevance for the community of faith. By the beginning of the fourth century, Christian theologians viewed divine, human and heavenly realities not as material or temporal, but as immaterial and spiritual. Temporal changes did not affect spiritual ones. This view of reality clearly paved the way for changing the day of worship and rejecting Jewish Christians from the community of faith. Thus when Constantine faced the factthat religion was dividing his empire, he found no theological barrier preventing him from changing the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday.55

55Canale, Basic Elements of Christian Theology: Scripture Replacing Tradition, 50.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Conclusion

Regarding the impact of Greek metaphysics on the loss

of the Sabbath, Tonstad states:

It is in the context of the swirling current of Hellenistic influences that the Sabbath is lost. The stream of this influence is subterranean in the sense that it is easier to make the case for the reality of profound change than to describe its nature. We are leftto map out the course of the stream on the basis of whereit appears from the surface to where it emerges again in broad daylight. Looking at the subject from the vantage point of portfolios of meaning, the seventh day does not fit into the Platonic negative perception of the materialworld.56

The primary cause for the loss of the Sabbath is the

timeless interpretation of ontology within Plato’s two-

tiered cosmology which made up the conceptual framework

from which the church fathers constructed their theology.

As with other doctrines, this framework had a profound

effect on the conclusions of the church fathers on the

Sabbath.56Tonstad, 323-324.

35

Tertullian does not state the effect of the Greek

philosophical framework on his clear distinction between the

eternal, timeless Sabbath and the human temporal Sabbath

because he is clearly opposed to using that kind of

framework in defending the gospel. Nevertheless, his

conclusions can only be explained by assuming the very

framework he is trying to get others to abandon since that

kind of distinction between the eternal Sabbath and the

temporal Sabbath is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures.

The Greek framework also helps to explain why Tertullian

stated that Jesus kept the Sabbath on the one hand, while on

the other hand God destroyed it as an institution. In this

context Jesus kept the Sabbath relieving the hungry and

healing the diseased, not necessarily by resting between

sunset Friday to sunset Saturday.

Barnabas concludes that since keeping the Sabbath holy

requires us to be holy, no one in this present age can

actually keep the Sabbath holy because purity of heart and

sanctification ultimately occur in the world made new. As a

result we can only keep the Sabbath in eternity but as for

36

now we ought to keep the eighth day. Thus Barnabas

maintains the distinction between the timeless Sabbath and

the temporal Sabbath.

According to Clement, neither the Sabbath nor the

Lord’s day should be understood as literal days.

Furthermore when it comes to liturgical practices, the

Lord’s day should be divorced from worshipping at specified

times and places. Rather, it should be observed throughout

a person’s whole life. In addition, those who truly observe

the Lord’s day are those who abandon an evil disposition.

Augustine’s distinction between eternity and time

ultimately leads him to conclude that the creation week did

not occur in six days followed by the seventh day. Rather

creation was a timeless act since God’s word only has

reference to eternity and not to time, thereby nullifying

the Sabbath commandment. Furthermore, since time is

considered to be the reduplication of eternity, the Sabbath

as a twenty-four hour time period can no longer be

considered as the ultimate ground of reality and worship

because that ground is provided by the timeless

37

interpretation of reality.

Thus, the Sabbath is i) divorced of its link with time,

ii) no longer obligatory and relevant as a day of worship

from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday, and iii) is merely

associated with ethical issues and not ontological issues.

These underlying philosophical presuppositions provided the

Church Fathers in this study with the theological

justification for the shift from Sabbath to Sunday. Since

the issue of Sabbath and Sunday is inextricably linked with

ontology, the shift should not be viewed simply as a change

of days but rather as a major theological change, which

affects not only the doctrine of the Sabbath but also

anthropology and cosmology.

38

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