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The Sabbath in the Church History

First Century (1-100 AD) (from extra-Biblical sources)

Christian observance of the Sabbath from the first century:

  • About the period from Apostles' time until the council of Laodicea (364)

From the apostles' time until the council of Laodicea, which was about the year 364, the holy observation of the Jews’ Sabbath continued, as may be proved out of many authors: yea, notwithstanding the decree of the council against it.

Source: John Ley, Sunday a Sabbath or: A Preparative Discourse for Discussion of Sabbatary Doubts (London, 1641), p. 163.
Information about the author: John Ley (1583 - 1662) was an English clergyman and member of the Westminster Assembly. The Westminster Assembly of Divines was a council of theologians (or "divines") and members of the English Parliament appointed to restructure the Church of England which met from 1643 to 1653.
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Second Century (101-200 AD)

Christians observed the Sabbath during the second century.

The Primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and sermons. And it is not be doubted but they derived this practice from the Apostles themeselves, as appears by several scriptures to the purpose.

Source: Dr. Thomas Morer, A Discourse in Six Dialogues on the Lord’s Day (London, 1701), p. 189.
Information about the author: Dr. Thomas Morer (1651-1715) was a cleric in the Church of England.
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While the Jewish Christians of Palestine retained the entire Mosaic law, and consequently the Jewish festivals, the Gentile Christians observed also the Sabbath and the passover ... with reference to the last scenes of Jesus’ life, but without Jewish superstitions ... In addition to these, Sunday, as the day of Christ’s resurrection ... was devoted to religious services.

Source: John C. L. Gieseler, A Text-book of Church History, Vol. 1 (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1857), p. 93
Information about the author: Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler (1792 - 1854) was a Protestant German church historian. In 1831 he accepted a call to the University of Göttingen where he lectured on church history, the history of dogma, and dogmatic theology.
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The primitive Christians did keep the Sabbath of the Jews; ... therefore the Christians, for a long time together, did keep their convections upon the Sabbath ... and this continued till the time of the Laodicean council ... At first, they kept both days [both Saturday and Sunday]

Source: The Whole Works of the Right Reverend Jeremy Taylor, Vol. XII, ed. Right Reverend Reginals Heber (London, 1839) p. 416.
Information about the author: Right Reverend Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) was a bishop in the Church of England. He is sometimes known as the "Shakespeare of Divines" for his poetic style of expression, and he is frequently cited as one of the greatest prose writers in the English language.
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Third Century (201-300)

Thou shalt observe the Sabbath, on account of Him who ceased from His work of creation, but ceased not from His work of providence: it is a rest for meditation of the law, not for idleness of the hands.

Source: Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book 2, Section 4, XXXVI, in: The Anti-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1913), p. 413.
Digital Edition: Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book 2, Section 4, XXXVI, in: The Anti-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, ed. Philip Schaff (Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Grand Rapids, Michigan, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07.pdf, accessed 10 April 2018), p. 923.
Information about the Source: Constitutions of the Holy Apostles is a Christian collection of documents from third and fourth centuries.
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Fourth Century (301-400 AD)

In the fourth century, Christianity became a legal religion, the persecutions of the Christians stopped, by the Edict of Milan (313 AD). It was the emperor Constantine I who issued the Edict of Milan. The Edict of Milan gave Christianity a legal status, but did not make Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire under the emperor Theodosius I in 380 AD by the Edict of Thessalonica.

But before the Edict of Milan, there was a synod pertaining to the observance of Sabbath.

As to fasting every Sabbath: Resolved, that the error be corrected of fasting every Sabbath.

The Edict of Milan is popularly thought to concern only Christianity, and even to make Christianity the official religion of the Empire. But Christianity was not yet the official religion of the Empire. Indeed, the Edict expressly grants religious liberty not only to Christians, who had been the object of special persecution, but goes even further and grants liberty to all religions. Constantine was much concerned not to offend pagan subjects of the Empire. For this reason, Constantine enforced Sunday law as a civil law in the honor of the sun god Sol Invictus, who was the official sun god of the later Roman Empire and a patron of soldiers.

  • Enforcing the Sunday civil law throughout the Roman Empire

Constantine styles the Lord’s day Dies Solis [day of the sun], a name which could not offend the ears of his pagan subjects.

Source: Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 1, Chap. 20, Part 1, footnote 8 of Chapter 20, in: Great Books of the Western World, Volume 37, ed. Mortimer J. Adler (Encyclopædia Britannica, Chicago, 1996), p. 759.
Digital Edition: Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Grand Rapids, Michigan, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/gibbon/decline.pdf, accessed 10 April 2018), Volume 2, Chapter 20, Part 1, footnote 634, p. 724.
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  • The Council of Laodicea (about 363-364)

In 321 the Roman emperor Constantine decreed Sunday to be a legal holiday and forbade all trade and work other than necessary agricultural labour. Later emperors extended the prohibition to include public amusements in the theatre and circus. Church councils of the period were more concerned to enforce the obligation of Sunday worship, the earliest being the Spanish Council of Elvira (c. 300), but a synod of Laodicea (c. 381) enjoined Christians not to "Judaize" but to work on the sabbath and rest, if possible, on the Lord’s Day.

Source: Massey H. Shepherd, "Church Year" (section "Sunday" in chapter "History of the church year") in: Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., https://www.britannica.com/topic/church-year, accessed 10 April 2018)

The Emperor Theodosius I has issued a law in 386 AD where no person could demand payment of either a public or private debt on Sunday.

  • Sunday law of the year 386

We have already said, that the emperor Constantine, in a law enacted previous to the year 321, commanded the suspension of all suits and courts of justice on Sunday. ... By a law of the year 386, those older changes effected by the emperor Constantine were more rigorously enforced, and, in general, civil transactions of every kind on Sunday were strictly forbidden. Whoever transgressed was to be considered, in fact, as guilty of sacrilege, (as a sacrilegus.)

Source: Dr. Augustus Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, Vol. 2, Crocker & Brewster, Boston, 1848, p. 300
Information about the author: Dr. Augustus Neander (1789 - 1850) was a German theologian and church historian. Johann August Wilhelm Neander belonged to a Jewish family and originally bore the name of David Mendel. He changed his name to Neander when he became a Christian in 1806. A German Lutheran, he studied with Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) in Berlin, but soon switched his interest from speculative theology to church history.
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The popes tried to get rid of the Saturday Sabbath by ordering people to fast on Saturdays. They knew that the churches generally would not give it up willingly, and as yet the popes did not have the power to force them to do it. But if the Sabbath was made a day of fasting, the children would soon tire of it, and after a few generations the majority would gladly give up the gloomy fast day. This effort continued from about A. D. 391 to 692, and even then it was hard for the Sunday to get the mastery over the Sabbath.

  • Fasting and the Sabbath

Innocentius did ordaine the Saturday or Sabbath to be always fasted .... It was by him intended for a binding law. [Most of the churches refused, however, to obey him.] Now as the African and the Western Churches were severally devoted either to the Church of Rome, or other Churches in the East, so did they follow in this matter of the Sabbath’s fast, the practice of those parts to which they did most adhere. Millaine (Milan) though near to Rome, followed the practice of the East: which shews how little power the Popes then had, even within Italy itself. Paulinus tells us also of S. Ambrose, that he did never use to dine ... but on the Sabbath, the Lord’s day, and on the Anniversaries of the Saints and Martyrs. Yet so, that when he was at Rome, he used to do as they there did, submitting to the orders of the Church in the which he was. Whence that so celebrated speech of his ... "at Rome he did; at Millaine he did not fast the Sabbath." Nay, which is more, Saint Augustine tells us that many times in Africa, one and the selfsame Church, at least the several Churches in the selfsame Province, had some that dined upon the Sabbath and some that fasted. And in this difference it stood a long time together, till in the end the Roman Church obtained the cause, and Saturday became a fast almost through all the parts of the Western world. I say the Western world, and of that alone, The Eastern Churches being so far from the altering their ancient custom that in the sixth Council of Constantinople, Anno 692, they did admonish those of Rome to forbear fasting on that day upon pain of censures.

Source: Dr. Peter Heylin, History of the Sabbath (London, 1636), Part 2, ch. 2, section 3, pp. 43-44
Digital Edition: Dr. Peter Heylin, History of the Sabbath (digital edition at media.sabda.org, http://media.sabda.org/alkitab-8/LIBRARY/HEY_HOSB.PDF, accessed 15 April 2018), Book 2, ch. 2, section 3, p. 183-184
Information about the author: Dr. Peter Heylin or Heylyn (1599 - 1662) was an English ecclesiastic and author of many polemical, historical, political and theological tracts.
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  • The practice of the Eastern Churches

it was the practice generally of the Eastern Churches, and of some Churches of the west. For in the Church of Millaine, which as before I said, in some certain things followed the Churches of the East; it seems the Saturday was held in a far esteem, and joined together with the Sunday. ... Which plainly shows that in the practice of those Churches they were both regarded, both alike observed. Gregory Nyssen speaks more home and unto the purpose. Some of the people had neglected to come unto the Church upon the Saturday, and on the Sunday he thus chides and rebukes them for it. "With what face, saith the Father, wilt thou look upon the Lord’s day, which hast dishonored the Sabbath, knowest thou not that these days are sisters, and that who ever doth despise the one, doth affront the other?" ... In the mean time, we may remember how Saturday is by S. Basil, made one of those four times, whereon the Christians of those parts did assemble weekly to receive the Sacrament, as before we noted. And finally it is said by Epiphanius that howsoever it was not so in the Isle of Cyprus, which it seems held more correspondence with the Church of Rome and Alexandria, than those of Asia; Yet in some places, they used to celebrate the holy Sacrament, and "hold their public meetings on the Sabbath day." Not that the Eastern Churches, or any of the rest which observed that day, were inclined to Judaism; but that they came together on the Sabbath day, to worship Jesus Christ the Lord of the Sabbath.

Source: Dr. Peter Heylin, History of the Sabbath (London:1636), Part 2, Chapter 3, section 5, pp. 73-74
Digital Edition: Dr. Peter Heylin, History of the Sabbath (digital edition at media.sabda.org, http://media.sabda.org/alkitab-8/LIBRARY/HEY_HOSB.PDF, accessed 15 April 2018), Book 2, ch 3, para. 5, p. 204-205.

  • The Abyssinian Church

The Abyssinian Church remained Sabbath-keeping and in Ethiopia the Jesuits tried to get the Abyssinians to accept Roman Catholicism. The Abyssinian legate at the court of Lisbon denied they kept Sabbath in imitation of the Jews, but rather in obedience to Christ and the Apostles.

An Account of the Habassin Religion, and Customs, composed by Zaga Zaba, the King of Ethiopia’s Ambassador; and written with his own Hand at Lisbon.
... [we] are bound by the Institution of the Apostles to observe two days, to wit, the Sabbath, and Lord’s day, on which it is not lawful for us to do any work, no not the least, on the Sabbath-Day, because God would have it called the Holy of Holies, so the not celebrating thereof with great honour and devotion, seems to be plainly contrary to God’s Will and Precept, who will suffer Heaven and Earth to pass away sooner than his Word; and that especially, since Christ came not to dissolve the Law, but to fulfill it. It is not therefore in imitation of the Jews, but in obedience to Christ, and his holy Apostles, that we observe that Day,

Source: Michael Geddes, Church History of Ethiopia (London, 1696), pp. 81, 87-88
Information about the author: Michael Geddes LL.D. (1650?-1713) was a Scottish clergyman of the Church of England and historian.
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Fifth Century (401-500 AD)

Two most important historical testimonies of two early Church historians who lived in the fifth century: Socrates Scholasticus and Sozomen.

For although almost all churches throughout the World celebrated the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath of every week, yet the Christians and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, refuse to do this. ([As a footnote in the same page:] That is, upon the Saturday. It should be observed, that Sunday is never called "the sabbath" (το σαββατον) by the ancient Fathers and historians, but "the Lord’s day".)

Source: Socrates Scholasticus, The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates, Surnamed Scholasticus, Or the Advocate, transl. Anonymous (Henry G. Bohn, London, 1853), Book 5, ch. 22, p. 289.
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  • The historical testimony of Sozomen (400-450)

The people of Constantinople, and of several other cities, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the next day; which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria.

Source: Sozomen, The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen (Henry G. Bohn, London, 1855), Book 17, ch. 19, p. 344.
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Other historical authorities

The primitive church observed both the Jewish and the Christian Sabbath. ... The early Christian converts, whether pagan or Jewish, seem not to have been conscious when or where or how the ancient economy was abrogated, and the gospel dispensation introduced. But, in process of time, the one was gradually discontinued and fulfilled in the other. The observance of the Lord’s day as the first day of the week was at first introduced as a separate institution. Both this and the Jewish Sabbath were kept for some time; then the Christian began to take precedence of the Jewish Sabbath; finally, the latter passed wholly over into the former, which now took the place of the ancient Sabbath of the Israelites. But their Sabbath, the last day of the week, was strictly kept in connection with that of the first day, for a long time after the overthrow of the temple and its worship. Down even to the fifth century the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Christian church, but with a rigour and solemnity gradually diminishing until it was wholly discontinued. No historical record, sacred or profane, has informed us of the first celebration of the Lord’s day, the first day of the week, as the Christian Sabbath.

Source: Lyman Coleman, Ancient Christianity Exemplified in the Life of the Primitive Christians (Lippincott, Grambo & Co, Philadelphia, 1852), ch. 26, sec. 2, p. 527-28.
Information about the author: Lyman Coleman (1796 - 1882) was an American scholar and author.
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When the church became predominantly Gentile, Sunday remained as the customary day of worship. Assemblies for the Eucharist were common on Saturday, however, as well as on Sunday in the Eastern churches into the 5th century, and Eastern canons forbade the practice, customary in the Roman church, of fasting on the sabbath.

Source: Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., https://www.britannica.com/topic/church-year, accessed 10 April 2018), art. "Church Year" (section "Sunday" in chapter "History of the church year")

Sixth Century (501-600 AD)

Christianity in the British Isles from the first century till the sixth century

  • Early origins of Christianity in the British Isles

We know from several sources that Christianity entered the British Isles already in the apostolic period (the first century). "That the light of Christianity daawned upon these islands in the course of the first century, is a matter of historical certainty" [Richard Hart, Ecclesiastical Records of England, Ireland, and Scotland from the Fifth Century till the Reformation (Cambridge, 1846), p. vii]. Tertulian, in the second century, writes that "the Britons—inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ" [Tertullian, Answer to the Jews, ch. 7]. Before the church in the British Isles was forced under the papal yoke, it was noted for its institutions of learning. Richard Hart says about the British Isles, "That learning and piety flourished in these islands during the period of their independence is capable of the most satisfactory proof, and Ireland in particular was so universally celebrated, that students flocked thither from all parts of the world" [Richard Hart, Ecclesiastical Records, p. viii].

  • Spread of Christianity in Ireland

The one major exception to Roman uniformity was the Irish Church, which developed fairly independently of Rome for centuries. ... Of particular importance were the monks in Ireland, who contributed greatly both to monasticism and to the development of a unique form of Christianity there. ... Although many people assume that Patrick (c. 390-461) brought Christianity to Ireland, archeological discoveries show that there was a small Christian presence in Ireland before his time. There is literature that tells of an early bishop named Palladius and also of other early missionaries. Christianity really began to take hold, though, only when Patrick began a full-scale effort to convert the Irish.

Source: Michael Molloy, The Christian Experience (Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2017), p. 177
Review of the book: Review by Steven Shisley, who is adjunct professor of religion at California Lutheran University.

  • The Original Irish/Celtic Church was not Roman Catholic

To those who have heard of Patrick only as a Catholic saint, it may be a surprise to learn that he was not a Roman Catholic at all, but that he was a member of the original Celtic church. There is no historical evidence for Patrick’s being a Roman Catholic saint. Catholics claim that Pope Celestine commissioned Patrick as a Roman Catholic missionary to Ireland. However, there is strong evidence that Patrick had no Roman commission in Ireland.

Without a Roman commission, Prosper [who lived in the fifth century] could not record Patrick’s labors in Ireland, as he registered the mission of Palladius, and the authority of the pope who sent him. As Patrick’s churches in Ireland, like their brethren in Britain, repudiated the supremacy of the popes, all knowledge of the conversion of Ireland through his ministry must be suppressed [by Rome, at all cost].

Source: William Cathcart, The Ancient British and Irish Churches: Including the Life and Labors of St. Patrick (Charles H. Banes, Philadelphia, 1894), p. 85.
Information about the author: William Cathcart was a president of the American Baptist Historical Society in 1876.
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The Celts permitted their priests to marry, the Romans forbade it. The Celts used a different mode of baptism from that of the Romans, namely, single instead of trine immersion. The calendar for all movable festivals was not the same. The Celts held their own councils and enacted their own law’s, independent of Rome. The Celts used a Latin Bible unlike the Vulgate, and kept Saturday as a day of rest, with special religious services on Sunday.

Source: Alexander Clarence Flick, The Rise of Medieval Church (The Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1909), pp. 237.
Information about the author: Alexander Clarence Flick (1869-1942) was a historian and university professor. He taught history and political science at Syracuse University from 1899 to 1923, before becoming the New York State historian and Director of Archives from 1923 to 1939. A specialist in European history, he also wrote on New York history, the American Revolution and church history.
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We seem to see here an allusion to the custom, observed in the early monastic Church of Ireland, of keeping the day of rest on Saturday, or the Sabbath.

Source: Alphons Bellesheim, History of the Catholic Church in Scotland, trans. D. Oswald Hunter Blair, Vol.1 (William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh, 1887), p. 86.
Information about the author: Christian Peter "Alphons" Maria Joseph Bellesheim (December 16, 1839 Monschau, Germany - February 5, 1912 Aachen, Germany) was a church historian.
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Seventh Century (601-700)

Professor James C. Moffatt, D.D., Professor of Church History at Princeton, says:

It seems to have been customary in the Celtic churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a day of rest from labour ... they obeyed the fourth commandment literally upon the seventh day of week.

Source: James C. Moffatt, The Church in Scotland (Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia, 1882), p. 140.
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Eight Century (701-800 AD)

  • China - A.D.781

In A.D. 781 the famous China Monument was inscribed in marble to tell of the growth of Christianity in China at that time. The inscription, consisting of 763 words, was unearthed in 1625 near the city of Changan and now stands in the "Forest of Tablets," Changan. The following extract from the stone shows that the Sabbath was observed:

On the seventh day we offer sacrifices, after having purified our hearts, and received absolution for our sins. This religion, so perfect and so excellent, is difficult to name, but it enlightens darkness by its brilliant precepts.

Source: M. L'Abbé Huc, Christianity in China, Vol. I (London, 1857) pp. 51.
Information about the author: Évariste Régis Huc, or the Abbé Huc, (1813-1860) was a French missionary Catholic priest and traveller, famous for his accounts of China, Tartary and Tibet, in his book A Journey Through the Chinese Empire.
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Tenth Century (901-1000)

  • Church Of The East - Kurdistan

[Kurdish Nestorians] eat no pork and keep the Sabbath. They believe in neither auricular confession nor purgatory and permits priests to marry.

Source: Schaff-Herzog, The New Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. 8, ed. Samuel Macauley Jackson (Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1953), art. "Nestorians," section 7 on Kurdish Nestorians, p. 122.
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  • Scotland

They worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a Sabbatical manner.

Source: Andrew Lang, A history of Scotland from the Roman Occupation, Vol. I (William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh, 1900), p.96.
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  • Waldenses

And because they observed no other day of rest but the Sabbath days, they called them Insabathas, as much as to say, as they observed no Sabbath. [original spelling]

Jean-Paul Perrin, Luther’s Fore-Runners (London, 1624), p. 8.
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Eleventh Century (1001-1100)

Scotland may have been one of the last places where the transition from Saturday to Sunday observance occurred. Margaret of Wessex (c. 1045 - 16 November 1093) vigorously opposed the practice of Sabbath-keeping in Scotland.

Her [Margaret of Wessex] next point was that they did not duly reverence the Lord’s day, but in this latter instance they seem to have followed a custom of which we find traces in the early Monastic Church of Ireland, by which they held Saturday to be the Sabbath on which they rested from all their labours, and on Sunday, on the Lord’s day, they celebrated the resurrection by the service in church. ... There was no want of veneration on Sunday, though they held that Saturday was properly the Sabbath on which they abstained from work.

Source: William F. Skene, Celtic Scotland: A History of Ancient Alban, Vol. II (Edinburgh, 1877), p. 349-50. About the author: William Forbes Skene (7 June 1809 - 29 August 1892), was a Scottish historian and antiquary.
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In this matter the Scots had perhaps kept up the traditional usage of the ancient Irish Church which observed Saturday instead of Sunday as the day of rest.

Source: T. Rattcliffe Barnett, Margaret of Scotland: Queen and Saint (Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, 1926), p. 97

Twelfth Century and onwards (Seventh-day Baptists)

BAPTISTS, SEVENTH-DAY, a denomination of Baptists who keep the seventh day of the week instead of the first as the Sabbath. In England they assumed, soon after the Reformation, the name of Sabbatarians; but in 1818 this term was rejected by the general conference in America, and the term Seventh-day Baptists adopted. They believe that the first day was not generally used in the Christian Church as Sabbath before the reign of Constantine.

Trace of seventh-day keepers are found in the times of Gregory I, Gregory VII, and in the twelfth century in Lombardy. In Germany they appeared late in the fifteenth, and in England in the sixteenth century. In 1595, a work advancing their views was published in England by one Nicholas Bound, D.D., and seceral of their members suffered imprisonment. They assumed a denominational organization in 1650.

Source: Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Vol 1, ed. cClintock & Strong (Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, 1891), art. "BAPTISTS, SEVENTH-DAY," p. 660.
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The Seventh-day Baptists should not be confused with the Seventh-day Adventists. For the difference between the Seventh-day Baptists and the Seventh-day Adventists, please consult the Comparison Sheet "A Comparison of Seventh Day Baptists with Seventh-Day Adventists"

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