Titus much on the Sabbath undCr the " old dispensation." We have still to consider it in relation to the Christian church, and to trace the progress of opinion and practice in regard to the observance of etc first day of the week, which in this country is fre quently styled the Sabbath, or, more definitely, the Christian Sabbath.
It is hardly necessary to observe, that all the discourses of Jesus were addressed to Jewish hearers, subject, like himself to the Mosaic law. That he is nowhere recorded to have enjoined the observance of the Sabbath has by some been thought signifi cant, but seems to have been natural enough in a case where Ouse he addressed, so far from neglecting the duty, were superstitiously scrupulous iii its performance. What his hearers needed and received was the lesson that, the Sabbath having been intended for human benefit, the duty of observing it ought to give way before the higher duty of effecting that purpose, when the two were in conflict; and that trivial acts demanding no exertion were not to be confounded with that real and exhausting labor which was the thing truly forbidden. (Matt. xii. 1-14; Mark ii. 23-28; iii. 1-6; Luke vi. 6-11: cf. Hosea vi. 6; Peal. 1. 8-14; li. 16, 17; Is. i. 10-17; Jer. vi. 19, 20; vii. 21-23; 1 Sam. xxi. 6.) Some have thought tkat by making clay on a Sabbath to anoint the eyes of a blind man, and by ordering an invalid, when cured, to carry home his bed on another Sabbath, be designed to intimate, if not the present abolition of the Sabbath, at least its approaching end. But others look noon the former of these acts as much too trivial to be confounded with "servile work," and the latter as an exceptional case within the scope of the principle above stated. On no occasion does he appear to have sanctioned the performance of real work on the seventh day, unless it was demanded by some higher duty than that of bodily rest.
. Por several years after the death of Jesus the church included none but Jews, and by these the Sabbath and other Mosiae rites continued to he observed as before. It was not till Peter's visit to the centurian Cornelius (41 A.D.) that the gospel began to be preached to the Gentiles; and when the apostles and elders met at Jerusalem to consider what was to be done with the Gentile brethren, it was decided that no Mosaic burden should be laid upon them beyond abstinence from certain practices, of which working on the Sabbath is not one (Acts xv. 23-29). Nevertheless, the Judaizing party continued in various places to demand more or less conformity to the law on the part of he Gen tile converts. This party was strenuously withstood by Paul (q.v.), in whose epistles
the dispute is a subject that frequently recurs. From his letters to the churches of Rome, Galatia, and Colosse, which contained both Jews and Gentiles, we leant that, while the Jews wished the Gentiles to observe the Sabbaths prescribed in the law, the Gentiles were prone to treat the observance of Jewish ceremonies with contempt. Upou both parties the apostle enjoins mutual forbearance and respect; forbidding the Jew, who esteemed one day above another, to disturb the Gentile, who esteemed every day - alike, and ordering the Gentile to refrain from contemning the observances conscien tiously performed by his weaker brother the Jew (Rem. xiv.; Col. ii. 11-17). - That he never taught the Jewish Christians to abandon the observance of the law, but, on the contrary, continued to the end to observe it himself—as appears from Acts xxv. 8, xxviii. 17; Philip, iii. 6—are facts of which different explanations have been given by theologians; some thinking that the law continued binding on the Jews, whether Chris tians or not, so long as the temple stood; while most are of opinion that conformity to the rooted notions and habits of that people was tolerated for a time, in order that the diffusion of the gospel might not be impeded among them. In the eastern churches, where the proportion of Jews was greater than in the west, the Sabbath continued to be observed till the 5th e., when we lose sight of the Ebionites (q.v.) a sect of Judaizers such as Paul withstood—and of the more moderate Ebionitie Nazarenes, who, though they conceived it to be their own, duty to circumcise, keep the Sabbath, etc., had no desire to impose the peculiarities of Judaism on the Gentile Christians. Down to the present time, however, Sabbath-keeping and various other Jewish rites continue to ba practiced along with Christian observances by the Christians of Abyssinia, whose ances tors, it is probable, derived them,either (as a tradition among them indicates) from mis sionaries of the Alexandrian church, of which many members were Jews, or front expatriated Hebrews who settled in Abyssinia at some much earlier date. In other countries, also, many of the Gentile Christians seem to have anciently observed the Sab bath, if not by resting the whole day from work, at least by attending ou it the religious meetings of their sabbatizing Jewish brethren.