Theology Category > Doctrinal Discussions

Who kept the Sabbath...?

<< < (2/2)

reddogs:
The Albigensian Crusade.....
The Cathars, Albigensians or Waldensians were persecuted after first being protected by Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, perhaps an Albigensian himself. Raymond was excommunicated by Pierre de Castelnau, legate of Innocent III in 1207. An equerry of the Count later killed de Castelnau. The Pope immediately deposed Raymond and he, frightened into submission, expelled the Albigensians from his dominions, doing public penance on 18 June 1209 before the Church of St Gilles. When the crusaders, who were assembled in the north of France, invaded Langeudoc, Raymond assisted the crusade and assisted in the siege of Beziers and Carcassone in 1209. Returning to Toulouse, he avoided his obligation and was excommunicated by the Council of Avignon. Raymond went to Rome and was received by Innocent III, but his estates were overrun by Simon de Montfort in his absence. In 1212 he held only Toulouse and Montauban. His brother-in-law Peter, king of Aragon, came to his aid, but was killed in the battle of Murat in 1213. In 1215 Simon de Montfort besieged Toulouse and Narbonne. Raymond did not resist, but accepted humiliating terms from the Papal legates. He was deprived of his estates and retired to England, later seeking Innocent III's favour at the Lateran Council of 1215. From exile in Aragon, Raymond VI reassembled his troops and took Toulouse on 7 November 1217, later defending it against Simon de Montfort, who was killed 25 June 1218 (C.E., Vol XII, art. Raymond VI, p. 670).
Raymond VII tried to fend off a new crusade, by offering obeisance to the assembly at Bourges in 1226, but a new crusade was decided upon. Louis VIII (ceded rights in the south by Amaury de Montfort) seized Avignon and occupied Langeudoc without resistance, but died on his return north at Montpensier on 8 November 1226. Blanche of Castille did not press the war against Raymond who then took several places from Imbert de Beaujeu, seneschal of the king of France. In 1228 new bands of crusaders began pillaging Toulouse. Soon Raymond lost nearly all of his strongholds and had to sue for peace from Blanche of Castille. After the conference of Meaux, Raymond returned to Paris and did public penance on 12 April 1229 in the Church of Notre Dame. He pledged to demolish the walls of Toulouse and gave his daughter Jeanne in marriage to Alphonse of Poitiers, brother of king Louis IX. He returned to Toulouse and keeping the promise extracted from him, he allowed the establishment of the Inquisition (Bréhier C.E., Vol XII, Raymond VII, ibid.). Thus the protection afforded the Sabbath-keeping Albigensians, or Waldensians, was forcibly removed. Every vagabond knight and opportunist in Europe was encouraged to entrain on Toulouse and the south of France. The district was attacked from all sides and when the allies could not be induced to do so, they were themselves harassed. The whole object of the crusade was to allow the Inquisition into the south of France and Spain, to exterminate the Sabbatati. With the effective removal of the only favourable overlord, the Unitarian and Sabbath-keeping faith was persecuted into virtual extinction, or into apostasy. These people committed no crimes. They were an asset to their overlord and virtuous towards their God. For that reason alone, they were hunted and destroyed. The Council of Toulouse of 1229 published canons against the Sabbatati

Canon 3 - The lords of the different districts shall have the villas, houses and woods diligently searched, and the hiding- places of the heretics destroyed.
Canon 14 - Lay members are not allowed to possess the books of either the Old or the New Testaments (Hefele 5, 931,962).

H. C. Lea was to speak against the Inquisition and its persecution of the Vaudois (History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, Vol. I, esp. p. 96). Thousands were tortured to death by the Inquisition, or killed in the crusades. It is alleged that:

While devastating the city of Biterre the soldiers asked the Catholic leaders how they should know who were heretics; Arnold, Abbot of Citeaux, answered: 'Slay them all, for the Lord knows who is His’ (p. 96).

It can be seen, that there was a more or less continuous tradition of Sabbath-keeping Subordinationism throughout southern Europe up until the thirteenth century. These bodies were named Paulicians, Petrobusians, Pasaginians (Passaginians), Waldensians, Sabbatati or Insabbatati. The Roman Inquisitor Reinerus Sacho writing c. 1230 held the sect of the Vaudois to be of great antiquity. Thus long preceding Waldo by centuries.
The Sabbatati were known also by the name Pasigini. In reference to the Sabbath-keeping Pasigini, Hahn was to say:

The spread of heresy at this time is almost incredible. From Bulgaria to the Ebro, from Northern France to the Tiber, everywhere we meet them. Whole countries are infested, like Hungary and southern France; they abound in many other countries; in Germany, in Italy, in the Netherlands and even in England they put their efforts (Gesch. der Ketzer, 1,13,14).

Bonacursus is also quoted against them thus:

Not a few, but many know what are the errors of those who are called Pasigini. ... First, they teach that we should obey the sabbath. Furthermore, to increase their error, they condemn and reject all the church Fathers, and the whole Roman Church (D'Archery, Spicilegium I, f, 211-214; Muratory Antiq. medævi. 5, f, 152, Hahn 3, 209).

The priests allegedly (Hahn) answered the charge to keep the fourth commandment, by declaring that the Sabbath symbolised the eternal rest of the saints.
Traces of Sabbath-keepers were found in the times of Gregory I, Gregory VII, and in the twelfth century in Lombardy (Strong's Cyclopædia 1, 680). This general application extends from Italy through Europe.

Robinson gives an account of some of the Waldenses of the Alps, who were called Sabbati, Sabbatati, Inzabbatati, but more frequently Inzabbatati. 'One says they were so named from the Hebrew word Sabbath because they kept the Saturday for the Lord's day’ (General History of the Baptist Denomination, Vol. II, p. 413).

In fact, it was because of the inability to stamp out the Subordinationist Sabbatati, that the crusades of the thirteenth century were implemented. In Spain the persecution is specifically directed at the Waldensian Sabbath-keepers.

Alphonse, king of Aragon, etc., to all archbishops, bishops, and to all others. ... We command you that heretics, to wit, Waldenses and Insabbathi, should be expelled away from the face of God and from all Catholics and ordered to depart from our kingdom (Marianæ, Præfatio in Lucam Tudenæm found in Macima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum, Vol. 25, p. 90).

After the crusades, and in spite of the Inquisition, the system was still extant.

Louis XII, King of France (1498-1515), being informed by the enemies of the Waldenses, inhabiting a part of the province of Provence, that several heinous crimes were laid to their account, sent the master of Requests, and a certain Doctor of the Sorbonne, to make inquiry into this matter. On their return they reported that they had visited all the parishes, but could not discover any traces of those crimes with which they were charged. On the contrary, they kept the sabbath day, observed the ordinances of baptism, according to the primitive church, instructed their children in the articles of the Christian faith, and the commandments of God. The King having heard the report of his commissioners, said with an oath said that they were better men than himself or his people (History of the Christian Church, Vol. II, pp. 71-72, third edition, London, 1818).

reddogs:
The extent and distribution of the sects termed Cathars and Albigensians.........
The groups extant at the time of the Waldensians, particularly in Southern France and Spain were termed, as we have seen, Cathars and Albigensians. Cathari, as they were termed, comes from the Greek katharos or pure. They were thus, literally, puritans. We see however, that the Waldensians are extant at the same time and place having the same doctrines. We are thus dealing with branches of the same faith. The term Cathari is ancient. The Novations of the third century were known as Cathari and the term was also used of the Manichaeans. Weber states:

Cathari was a general designation for the dualistic sects of the later Middle Ages. Numerous other names were in vogue to denote these heretics. Without speaking of the corrupted forms of 'Cazzari', 'Gazzari' in Italy, and 'Ketzer' in Germany, we find the following appellations: 'Piphli' 'Piphles' in Northern France and Flanders; 'Arians', 'Manicheans', and 'Patareni' owing to real or alleged doctrinal similarity; 'Tesserants', 'Textores' (Weavers), from the trade which many of the members followed. Sometimes they were erroneously styled 'Waldenses' by their contempories. From the demagogue Arnold of Brescia and the heretical bishop Robert de Sperone, they were called 'Arnoldistae' and 'Speronistae'. To their geographical distribution they owed the names of 'Cathari of Descenzano', or 'Albanenses' from Descenzano between Brescia and Verona, or from Alba in Piedmont, Albano or perhaps from the province of Albania; 'Bajolenses' or 'Bagnolenses' (from Bagnolo in Italy); 'Concorrezenses' (probably from the Concorrezo in Lombardy); 'Tolosani' (from Toulouse); and especially Albigenses from Albi. The designations 'Pauliciani', of which 'Publicani', 'Poplicani', were probably corruptions, and 'Bulgari', 'Bugri', 'Bougres', point to their probable Oriental origin (N. A. Weber C. E., art. Cathari, Vol. III, p. 435).

Weber seems to attempt to completely divorce the Waldenses from these sects and wrongly. He admits that:

Eastern Europe seems to have been in point of date, the first country in which Catharism manifested itself, and it certainly was the last to be freed from it. The Bogomili, who were representatives of the heresy in its milder dualistic form, perhaps existed as early as the tenth century and, at a later date, were found in large numbers in Bulgaria. Bosnia was another Catharist centre. Some recent writers make no distinction between the heretics found there and the Bogomili, whereas others rank them with the rigid Dualists. In the Western contemporary documents they are usually called 'Patareni', the designation then applied to the Cathari in Italy.

There is a readily identifiable pattern in the movement of these peoples. The source is easily identified as the Paulicians, who were settled in Thrace. The first settlements were thus Albania and Bulgaria. From there it spread into Bosnia. The Bulgars embraced Catharism which by definition enjoined the sanctity of marriage and was practiced as such by all puritan sects. The Bogomils appear to have developed a perverted form of the system, among the monastic orders and orthodox clergy. This system appears to have caused a serious controversy among the Bulgars and also in the Balkans. There is no doubt that all the groups were married and bore children over centuries, in all of the general areas in which they settled. To assert that they enforced celibacy is absurd.
The reason the Cathari were called Pauliani (or Paulician) was because they embraced those doctrines. The assertion that the epistles were relative is a supposition.
The sects were biblical literalists, as statements of their doctrines indicate. The reason that they were called Cazzari and Sabbatati is also not difficult to follow. The Khazars or Cazzars had been converted to Judaism c. 740. They occupied the area from the Crimea, eastwards past the Caspian to the Aral and the Oxus River. They extended north up the Volga to south of Bulgar and were overlords for the areas north of Bulgar and both east and west. They ruled north-west to the Ukraine. They kept the Sabbath and Holy Days and followed the food laws as the Paulicians seem to have done. The Khazars gave military aid to the Magyars in their invasion of Hungary. The Magyars appear to have been one of their allied tribes, in the establishment of their empire. The Khazar Jewish kingdom lasted from approx 700-1016. The Jewish fugitives fled to the Khazars from Greece in 723. The maps of their distribution and influence are found in Martin Gilbert Atlas of Jewish History, 3rd edition, Dorset Press, 1984, pages 25-26. These Khazars invited Rabbis into the kingdom and had correspondence with the Spanish Jews. They were identified by Koestler (The Thirteenth Tribe, Popular Library, New York, 1976) as the descendants of Ashkenaz the descendants of Gomer (Gen. 10:3). Ashkenazi means the people of Ashkenaz. Zvi Ankori's attempted refutation of Koestler in Genetic Diseases Of Ashkenazi Jews is unconvincing.
The Ashkenazi centre was the Pale of Settlement, which extended from the Crimea, north west to the Baltic (see Atlas of Jewish History, p. 43). The area can be seen as more or less a reorientation of Khazaria. This occurred from the Russian attacks, which commenced from 970. In 1016 a joint Russian-Byzantine expedition finally destroyed the Khazar kingdom. This ultimately weakened the area, relocated the Khazar Jews and opened the way for the Mongol invasions of 1215. This forced the Khazars even further west. There were Jewish movements out of the Crimea from 1016 (south to Constantinople, Trebizond and Alexandria and north-west to Kharkov and Chernigov) and in 1350 (to Kiev) and 1445 (to Lithuania). Persecutions in Hungary between 1349 and 1360 drove the Jews north to Tarnapol (see Atlas of Jewish History, pp. 45-46). Thus it is no surprise that some would have converted to a form of Christianity, which held the doctrines akin to Judaism and also had been persecuted with them, over a similar time scale. Some went into Russian Orthodoxy. Most remained Ashkenazi Jews and became absorbed into Judah. Although the Ashkenazi are still distinct to this day, being physiologically different to the Sephardic Jews of Spain, Britain and the east. The persecution of the Jews was severe in Europe generally, especially in Spain and also Portugal. This accorded by and large, with the persecution of the Puritans, under their different names.
The Bosnian Cathars
In the twelfth century Kulin, the ban or civil ruler of Bosnia, embraced Catharism with 10,000 of his subjects. The Catholics under Innocent III, Honorius III and Gregory IX, tried to exterminate them without success. Pope Nicholas IV (1288-92) sent Franciscans to Bosnia. The Hungarians were stated to have tried to suppress the Cathari in Bosnia, but the Cathari identified their religion with their independence. The Bosnian King Thomas was converted to Catholicism in the fifteenth century and issued severe edicts against his co-religionists. They were 40,000 in number. They left Bosnia for Herzegovina in 1446. The heresy disappeared after the Turks conquered the area. Several thousand became orthodox while many more became Muslim. That of itself indicates that the movement was Unitarian. Weber's comments (C.E., p. 437) regarding the enforced celibacy of the Cathari are scarcely to be credited. One cannot maintain a populace over centuries without breeding, as they were not free to proselytise. The practices found among the Bogomil monks, are scarcely indicative of the practices of a general populace, which does not practice monasticism and indeed condemns it. The remnant of these people are most likely to have gone north into Transylvania, where the Sabbatati emerged. The conversion of members of the Khazar Empire was accompanied also by the movement of the Puritan sects into Hungary, and into Trans-Carpathia/Romania. The sects in Hungary were called, in the German, Sabbatharier because they were Sabbath-keepers.
The history of these sects remained more or less intact until the end of the nineteenth century, when it was written by Dr. Samuel Kohn, Chief Rabbi of Budapest Hungary. The work is DIE SABBATHARIER IN SIEBENBURGEN Ihre Geshichte, Literatur, und Dogmatik, Budapest, Verlag von Singer & Wolfer, 1894; Leipzig, Verlag von Franz Wagner. The following extracts are from a paper compiled by the translator Gerhard O Marx concerning Beliefs and Practices of the Church of God in Transylvania during the period 1588-1623. Of the Christian groups in Transylvania during this period there were those who according to Kohn:

restored the original and true Christianity, in that they actually accepted and practised Jewish religious customs and statutes which the Old Testament prescribes and which original Christianity observed as binding and only later discarded (Kohn, p. 8).

Marx says that, according to Kohn, they were similar to the Ebionites and other Judaic-Christians of the first few centuries after Christ. The Sabbath-keepers of the Carpathians formed a loosely knit structure before 1588, when Andreas Eossi became their leader. The two main concentrations were in the towns of Szekely-Keresztur (today the Romanian town of Cristuru-Secuiesc) and Korospatak (today Bodoc). The main villages where the Sabatharier or Sabbath-keepers resided, toward the end of the sixteenth century, were the Hungarian residences of Nagy Solymos, Kis Solymos, Uj-Szekely, Szent-Demeter, Ernye, Ikland, Bozod, Bozod-Ujfalu, and the home residence of Andreas Eossi. Soon after Eossi's death in 1599 an apostasy set in.

... authors of some of the literature were Enok Alvinczi, Johannes Bokenyi, Thomas Pankotai, and Simon Pechi (Eossi's closest associate) (Marx, ibid.).

There was also a split of the Unitarian Church.

... it was in 1579 when the Unitarian church split into two parts: Sunday and Sabbath-keepers. The Unitarians ... differed from other Protestant sects in three main doctrines:
1. disbelief in the Trinity and were called Anti-Trinitarians;
2. disbelief in baptising children;
3.. disbelief in Christ's divinity.
The leading champion and defender of their faith was one Francis Davidis, who was also the founder of the Unitarian Church in Transylvania in 1566.
It was at Davidis' death in 1579 when the Unitarian church split ... Eossi accepted the Unitarian faith in 1567. Not satisfied that the Unitarians were teaching all the Biblical truths, he set out to study the Bible thoroughly. ... He enjoined the following doctrines upon his followers:
1.The Passover, Days of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, [trumpets omitted in error?] Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, the Last Great Day.
2.The Ten Commandments.
3.The Health Laws (no eating of blood, pig, strangled animals).
4.The Millennium to last 1000 years, & at the beginning of which Christ will return and regather Judah and Israel.
5.The use of God's sacred calendar.
6.Two different resurrections: one to eternal life at Christ's coming; the other to judgement at the end of 1000 years.
7.Saved by grace, but laws still need to be kept.
8.It is God who calls people into His truth. The world in general is blinded.
9 Christ was the greatest of the prophets, the most holy of all people, the "crucified Lord", "the Supreme Head and King of the real believers, the dearly beloved and holy Son of God." (Marx, ibid.)

On pages 62-67 of Kohn’s work the Old Sabbath Songbook is discussed.

The hymnal was written in Hungarian by Eossi, Enok Alvinczi, Johannes Bokenyi, Thomas Pankotai, & Simon Pechi. ... It consisted of 102 hymns: 44 for the Sabbath, 5 for the New Moon, 11 for Passover and Unleavened Bread, 6 for the Feast of Weeks, 6 for Tabernacles, 3 for New Year, 1 for Atonement, 26 for everyday purposes.

There is thus no doubt that the Church kept the Holy Days and also the New Moons.
By 1637 there were believed to be between 15,000 and 20,000 Sabbatarians in Transylvania. At the end of the seventeenth century, the Sabbatarians were still represented in at least eleven towns and villages in Transylvania.

In 1867 the Hungarian parliament gave complete religious freedom to all religious confessions, including the Jews. Many Sabbatarians now left their Christian churches and revealed themselves as Sabbath-keepers. Since their doctrines and way of thinking correspond very greatly to that of the Jews, most Sabbatarians went over to the Jews. Many took Jewish names (Marx, ibid.).

The likelihood of most going over is not likely as Kohn admits that as of his day (c. 1894):

The largest group of Sabbath-keepers in Transylvania today - and they number in the thousands - are situated in the areas of Oluj and Sibiu. The bishop of Cluj - Rumania's second largest city - keeps the Sabbath.

These people were present in Trans-Carpathia and Romania until this century, when they went under Communist domination and have emerged recently as two unrelated groups of Sabbath-keepers, one of which is keeping all other aspects, as they did centuries before. Thus the European Church, which might perhaps be termed the Thyatiran era, still lives as Christ promised to them at Revelation 2:25-26.

reddogs:
Sabbath-keeping was extant in England from the initial conversions. Britain was certainly introduced to Christianity very early and Tertullian of Carthage (a rhetorical writer) in "Against the Jews:"

"...boasts that 'parts of Britain inaccessible to the Romans were indeed conquered by Christ'. That was written about two hundred years after the birth of Christ (Edwards Christian England, Vol. I, p. 20).

The area of Glastonbury was kept under control of the British until Ine, King of the West Saxons (688-722), occupied it. He found a wooden Church there already revered as ancient. He gave extensive lands to its clergy and it survived until it was burnt down in 1184. The earliest Christian martyr recorded under the Romans in Britain is Alban. He seems to have been a Roman soldier, who sheltered a Christian priest escaping from Gaul and was baptised by him (Edwards, p. 21). Gildas and Bede tell us also, of the martyrs Aaron and Julius at Caerleon. Aaron's name suggests that he was a Jew (Edwards, ibid.).

There were five British Christians, including three bishops at the Council of Arles in 314. Eborius, bishop of York, Restitutus, bishop of London, Adelfius, bishop of Lincoln (but this is not certain since the scribe wrote Colonia Londoninensium rather than Colonia Lindensium), a priest and a deacon (Edwards, ibid.).

The emperor Constantine had been declared Augustus, or emperor at York on 25 July 306, on the death of Constantius, his father. Constantius had been sympathetic to the Christians in Gaul, who were Subordinationist Unitarian. Constantine had facilitated the Council at Nicæa in 325 and Athanasius records the British bishops there as agreeing with its decrees. Edwards considers that it is probable, that the Church in Britain remained a minority concentrated in the towns (p. 22). It is more probable, that the elements which were sympathetic to the Athanasian position, were so concentrated and in the abject minority. The remainder were Sabbath-keeping Subordinationists, who extended from Ireland to Scotland. It is worthy of note that Pelagius, the well-known theologian, was born in Britain about 380 and so the doctrinal links with the Churches in Gaul, is not accidental. He emphasised the freedom and ability of man to co-operate with the grace of God (Edwards, p. 23). This doctrine conflicted with the doctrine of Augustine of Hippo, on the complete sinfulness of man, who must rely totally on forgiveness and redeeming power, exemplified by the Augustinian prayer

"...Grant what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt (ibid.).

Rome fell in 410AD to the so-called barbarians. The Vandals, who came to occupy Rome, were in fact iconoclastic Unitarian Sabbath-keeping Christians, so-called Arians. Vandalism comes from the fact that the Vandals destroyed the graven images of the idolatrous Romans and were then subjected to a bad press by later historians. It is a matter of record, that their occupation of Rome was exemplary. Pelagius went to live in Africa, somewhat stupidly near Augustine his enemy. This later resulted in his excommunication and death in Palestine. His choice of locality perhaps indicates, that Pelagius was not in accord with the doctrines of his northern forebears, or perhaps did not like the cold. The assertion is made, that the Pelagian heresy is alleged by the contemporary chronicler Prosper to have been spread there by Agricola, a bishop's son. Bishop Germanus was summoned from Auxerre in Gaul in 429, and was accompanied by the neighbouring bishop Lupus of Troyes. It must be remembered, that Lupus of Troyes was a monk of Lérins. This was the centre from which Gaul was redirected to the Roman system. Thus we are dealing with Athanasian mystics, using the Roman force to overcome the British system, which is accused of Pelagianism. They did this allegedly not only in churches but at cross roads and in field and lanes (Edwards, ibid., p. 23). The preaching at cross roads was used, because the cross roads were seen by the Romans and the Europeans as being centres of the goddess Hecate, from which the significance of the cross is developed. It was for this reason that the Subordinationists, or Unitarians, were iconoclasts, particularly in relation to crosses. The bishops accompanied a military expedition against the Picts and the Saxons in the north. Germanus had been a dux or military commander, before his ordination. The Church and the bishops of Gaul under the Roman system took on a strange new shape as a power.

Britain was weakened by the movement of forces outside of Britain. In 383, the Spanish born Christian, general Magnus Maximus, married to the British girl Helena, took his troops to the mainland and declared himself emperor. From then on the defence was inadequate. In 407 another Constantine led his troops to the mainland to do the same. No Roman coins later than this date, have been found in Britain. Rome was then cut off in the great barbarian invasions of Gaul and Italy in 410. The British then invited the Saxons in. The Roman-British Church was only a very small part of Christian Britain and was confined to the Romanised and urbanised south and south-east from the Wash to Exeter, with the second area being from York, north-west to Carlisle and the Cumbrian coast or the western end of the military zone (Edwards, p. 25). The Celtic Church on the other hand was acknowledged to be the centrality of a fervent Christian faith (Edwards, p. 27). The Celts acknowledged the holiness of the Bible, taking it literally and obeying it wholeheartedly; even the food regulations in the Old Testament were received as the law of God. The Celts were organised as tribes, which seem to have been of mixed racial origins.

What united them was not an army and an administration with urban centres, as in the Roman civilization, but a strong common culture based on their shared faith (Edwards, p. 27).

Thus, it is easy to see why the Roman bishops had to go to the countryside, in order to argue against the so-called Pelagian heresy, if indeed that is what it was. It is hard to imagine a refined argument on the doctrine of grace and predestination taking place among pagans. Thus we are dealing with two Christianities extant in Britain, and with that of the British or Celts, the superior and the more biblical. It was only suppressed where the Romans could dominate.

Catholicism was not established in Britain, until the conversion of the Angles by Augustine of Canterbury. Ethelbert king of Kent, was converted to Catholicism at Pentecost 597 (according to Butler Lives of the Saints, ed. Walsh, concise edn., p. 158) and many (some 10,000) subjects were baptised at the pagan midwinter Christmas festival of 597. The Christians of Britain were up until that time, predominantly, if not exclusively, all Sabbath-keeping Subordinationist Unitarians, who kept the food laws and the Holy Days. They were not dominated by Rome until the Synod of Whitby in 663 at Hilda's Abbey, where they submitted under duress. Columba of Iona kept the Sabbath and foretold his death on the Sabbath, Saturday 9 June 597 (Butler Lives of the Saints, Vol. 1, art. St. Columba, p. 762). Butler says in his footnote, that the practice of calling the Lord's day the Sabbath did not commence until a thousand years later (Adamnan Life of Columba, Dublin, 1857, p. 230. This was also commented on by W. T. Skene in his work Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, 1874, p. 96).
The Catholic historian Bellesheim (History of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Vol. 1, p 86) comments regarding the Sabbath in Scotland.

"...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....."

James C. Moffatt (The Church in Scotland, p. 140) says that:

"...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 the week...."

Flick (The Rise of the Mediæval Church, p. 237) says that:

"...The Celts used a Latin Bible unlike the Vulgate (R.C.) and kept Saturday as a day of rest, with special religious services on Sunday...."

In Scotland until the tenth and eleventh century it was asserted that:

"...They worked on Sunday but kept Saturday in a Sabbatical manner ... These things Margaret abolished..." (Andrew Lang A History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation, Vol. I, p. 96; see also Celtic Scotland, Vol. 2, p. 350).

The Scots were Sabbath-keepers up until Queen Margaret, according to Turgot (Life of Saint Margaret, p. 49)

"...It was another custom of theirs to neglect the reverence due to the Lord's day, by devoting themselves to every kind of worldly business upon it, just as they did upon other days. That this was contrary to the law, she (Queen Margaret) proved to them as well by reason as by authority. 'Let us venerate the Lord's day,' said she, 'because of the resurrection of our Lord, which happened on that day, and let us no longer do servile works upon it; bearing in mind that upon this day we were redeemed from the slavery of the devil. The blessed Pope Gregory affirms the same.'..."

Skene also comments (Celtic Scotland, Vol. 2, p. 349) regarding Queen Margaret and her activities against Sabbath-keeping in Scotland:

"...Her next point was that they did not duly reverence the Lord's day, but in this latter instance they seemed to have followed a custom of which we find traces in the early Church of Ireland, by which they held Saturday to be the Sabbath on which they rested from all their labours...."

Lewis (Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America, Vol. 1, p. 29) says:

"...There is much evidence that the Sabbath prevailed in Wales universally until AD 1115, when the first Roman bishop was seated at St. David's. The old Welsh Sabbath-keeping churches did not then altogether bow the knee to Rome, but fled to their hiding places...."

Sabbath-keeping enjoyed a revival in Elizabethan England.

"...In the reign of Elizabeth, it occurred to many conscientious and independent thinkers (as it previously had done to some protestants in Bohemia) that the fourth commandment required of them the observance, not of the first, but of the specified 'seventh' day of the week..." (Chambers Cyclopædia, article Sabbath, Vol. 8, 1837, p. 498; quotation blurred).

James I of England, dismissed Chief Justice Coke in 1616, putting an end to the attempt to limit the power of the king via the courts. There were a series of persecutions of Protestants during this time. On the publication of the Book of Sports in 1618, a violent controversy broke out among English theologians, as to whether the Sabbath of the fourth commandment was in force and, secondly, on what ground the first day of the week was entitled to be observed, as the Sabbath (Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, art. Sabbatarians, p. 602). Mrs Traske, a teacher, was imprisoned in 1618, for fifteen or sixteen years, at Maiden Lane, a prison for those in disagreement with the Church of England. She had refused to teach on the Sabbath and would teach for only five days a week (Pagitt's Heresiography, p. 196).

Meanwhile, in mainland Europe, the battle for Catholic domination and control of the continent was in force. This war, commencing in 1620, was effectively a Catholic/Protestant conflict. The Hapsburgs sought to impose Catholic and Imperial control of Europe. In 1618 the Bohemians had rebelled against Ferdinand of Hapsburg, shortly to become German Emperor. The Bohemian crown was given to the Protestant Elector Palatine. This effectively precipitated the Thirty Years War. In 1620 the Hapsburgs regained control of Bohemia and Sabbath persecution resumed.

In 1628, despite English attempts to stop him Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIII's chief minister, took the French-Protestant stronghold La Rochelle and destroyed the power of the Huguenots.
In 1639 Scots Covenenters, uncompromising Protestants, rebelled against Charles I, who was attempting to impose a new prayer book on them (McEvedy World History Factfinder, Century, London, 1984, p. 88).
In 1642 the Civil War began between King and Parliament. From this time onwards, the religious divisions saw the emergence of Unitarian theology in people such as Milton, Isaac Newton and others. Cromwell became the symbol of those opposed to Catholic domination and persecution.
In 1647, Charles I queried the Parliamentary Commissioners and asserted that Sunday worship proceeds directly from the authority of the Church.

"...For it will not be found in Scripture where Saturday is no longer to be kept, or turned into the Sunday wherefore it must be the Church's authority that changed the one and instituted the other...." (R. Cox Sabbath Laws, p. 333).

The assumption here is, that to reject the papacy necessarily involves the changes that rest entirely on the Councils of the Church for authority, such as Sunday worship. The logic places Protestantism on a dangerous footing. Milton identified this logic and said:

"...It will surely be far safer to observe the seventh, according to express commandment of God, than on the authority of mere human conjecture to adopt the first..." (Sab. Lit. 2, 46-54).

In 1648, the treaty of Westphalia brought the Thirty Years War in Europe to an end. After the Thirty Years War, hostilities continued between the French and the Spanish. The riot in Paris marked the beginning of the long period of civil disorder, known as the Fronde. Also, in 1648, George Fox founded the Society of Friends (termed Quakers first from 1650).

At about this time Dr. Peter Chamberlain, physician to King James and Queen Anne and King Charles I and Queen Katherine, was baptised (according to his monument: cf. Telegraph Print, Napier as per SDA notation to document of Sabbath references of unknown publication, p. 25).
In 1649, Charles I was executed, England declared a Commonwealth and Cromwell crushed the Irish rebels at Drogheda.

Religious tolerance for Sabbath-keepers during this period was much greater, however, the restoration of Charles II, in 1660, after promising an amnesty and religious toleration (McEvedy, ibid.) saw Sabbath-keeping again in disfavour. Thomas Bampfield, Speaker in one of Cromwell's parliaments, wrote on behalf of seventh day Sabbath observance and was imprisoned in Ilchester jail (Calamy 2, 260). According to Stennet's letters, 1668 and 1670, there were about nine or ten churches that keep the Sabbath, besides many scattered disciples, who have been eminently preserved (R. Cox Sabbath Laws, ibid., Vol. I, p. 268).

By and large, from this period, Sabbath-keeping incurred an almost enforced migration to America. According to Jas. Bailey, Stephen Mumford, the first Sabbath-keeper in America came from London in 1664 (J. Bailey History of the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference, pp. 237-238). In 1671 the Seventh Day Baptists had broken from the Baptist Church in order to keep Sabbath (see Bailey History, pp. 9-10). However, the Pilgrim Fathers were from a Sabbath-keeping tradition (cf. the paper The Dutch Connection of the Pilgrim Fathers (No. 264))......."Note: There were some important quotes that were obtained from an indeterminate SDA paper which had some incomplete citations. Some were extremely old or rare. Two were difficult to decipher. The quotations were authenticated where possible. One was corrected and another supplemented. The scholarship is regretted but the notations are considered important)....excerpted from 7th Day Sabbath : General Distribution (History) of the Sabbath-keeping Churches.  For further study go to http://www.sabbathtruth.com/history/sabbath_history1.asp


So we see how it came all the way from Creation and was passed on by the Seventh Day Baptist to the Adventist Movement.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page