Sabbath
a sacred day of rest (the word being derived from shabath, Hebrew, to rest), the institution of which is first mentioned in Gen. ii. 2-3: "And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it; because from all his work which God had created and made."-"Revised Version."
The prevailing interpretation of these verses is that the Sabbath was instituted at the creation for mankind in general, may therefore be expected in all nations. Prior to the giving of the law from Mount Sinai, the Sabbath is mentioned in connection with the descent of manna (Exod. xvi.
SABELLIANISM 5, 22-30). The keeping holy of the Sabbath is enjoined in the fourth commandment in Exod rested after the creation (Exod. xx. 8- Exodus ment in Exodus, because of God's having 11); in Deuteronomy because of the de- Egypt (Deut. v. 12-15). Two lambs inliverance of the Hebrew bondsmen from (Num. xxviii. 3-4, 9). Isaiah (lvi. 2, stead of one were offered when it came lviii. 13) strongly advocated its observance. in the other books, Sabbath means the Always in the Gospels, and, as a rule, seventh day of the week. By this time its observance had become very rigid and and Jesus Himself was constantly denounced by the Pharisees and others as a Sabbath -breaker (Matt. xii. 1-2; Mark iii. 2-3). In self-defense he laid down this principle : "The Sabbath Sabbath; therefore the Son of Man is was made for man , and not man for the Lord also of the Sabbath" (Matt . xii. 8, with Mark ii. 28). history, the Christian fathers in general For the first three centuries of Church drew a distinction between the Sabbath the former as Jewish and obsolete, and and the Sunday or Lord's day, regarding the latter as a divinely instituted day, Christ's resurrection. But from the days joyous in its character as commemorating of the first and ambiguous edict of Constantine on the subject: "Let all judges, inhabitants of the cities, and artificers, rest on the venerable Sun- day [dies solis]. But husbandmen may artificers, rest on the venerable Sunday [dies solis]. freely and at their pleasure apply to the But husbandmen may business of agriculture," there was an increasing tendency to transfer to the Sunday, and , in a less degree, to saints' days and minor festivals the restrictions of the Jewish Sabbath. The third Council of Orleans (A. D. 538) strove century we find legends of miraculous to check this tendency, but in the same Sunday. The idea of the "Christian Sabjudgments on those who worked on the bath" seems to be enunciated for the first Reformers generally were opposed to Sabbatarian views, which, however, more or less modified, found a place in Protestant churches generally, period. and reached their height in the Puritan