Appendix
The Sabbath Through the Centuries
First Century A.D.
"Then the spiritual seed of Abraham [Christians ] fled to Pella, on the other side of Jordan, where they found a safe place of refuge, and could serve their Master and keep His Sabbath." Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History Book 3, chapter 5. 1
Philo, the philosopher and historian, also affirms that this Sabbath was on the seventh day of the week, and was observed universally. Notes and Queries, Volume 4, p. 99. 1
Second Century A.D.
"The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and sermons.&ldots;They derived this practice from the apostles themselves, as appears by several scriptures to that purpose." D. T. H. Morer, Church of England, Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p.189. 1
"&ldots;The Sabbath was a strong tie which united them with the life of the whole people, and in keeping the Sabbath holy they followed not only the example but the command of Jesus." Geschichte des Sonntags, p. 13, 14. 1
"The Gentile Christians observed also the Sabbath." Gieseler's Church History, Volume 1, chapter 2, paragraph 30, 93. 1
Third Century A.D.
"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." The Anti-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, p. 413. From Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, a document of the third and fourth centuries. 1
Fourth Century A.D.
"The ancient Christians were very careful in the observation of Saturday, or the seventh day&ldots;It is plain that all the Oriental Churches, and the greatest part of the world, observed the Sabbath as a festival&ldots;Athanasius likewise tells us that they held religious assembles on the Sabbath, not because they were infected with Judaism, but to worship Jesus the Lord of the Sabbath, Epiphanius says the same." Antiquities of the Christian Church, Volume II, book XX, chapter 3, section 1, 66.1137,1138. 1
Fifth Century A.D.
"In 411 [Mingana, leader of the Eastern Churches] appointed a metropolitan director for China. These churches were sanctifying the seventh day." J.F. Coltheart, The Sabbath Through the Centuries, p. 11. 2
Sixth Century A.D.
"In this latter instance they [the Scottish church] 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 labors." W.T. Skene, Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, 1874, p. 96. 1
Seventh Century A.D.
"It seems to have been customary in the Celtic churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday&ldots;as a day of rest from labor. They obeyed the fourth commandment literally on the seventh day of the week." James C. Moffatt D.D., professor of Church History at Princeton, The Church in Scotland, p. 140. 1
Eighth Century A.D.
In India, China, Persia, etc., "Widespread and enduring was the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath among the believers of the Church of the East and the Saint Thomas Christians of India, who never were connected with Rome. It was also maintained among those bodies which broke off from Rome after the council of Chalcedon, namely the Abyssinians, the Jacobites, the Marionites and the Armenians." New Schaff Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, article "Nestorians." 2
Ninth Century A.D.
"Pope Nicholas I, in the ninth century, sent the ruling prince of Bulgaria a long document saying in it that one is to cease from work on Sunday, but not on the Sabbath. The head of the Greek Church, offended at the interference of the Papacy, declared the Pope excommunicated." B.G. Wilkinson, Ph.D., Truth Triumphant, p. 232. 2
Tenth Century A.D.
"The Nestorians eat no pork and keep the Sabbath. They believe neither in auricular confession nor purgatory." New Schaff Herzog Encyclopedia, article "Nestorians." 2
The Waldenses, of apostolic decent, also observed the seventh day as the Sabbath. They rested no other day. Luther's Fore-Runners, pp.7, 8. 1
Eleventh Century A.D.
"Margaret of Scotland in 1060 attempted to bring ruin to Columba's spiritual descendants by moving against those who observed the seventh-day Sabbath instead of Sunday." Reported by T.R. Barnett in Margaret of Scotland, Queen and Saint, p. 97. 2
Twelfth Century A.D.
France: "For twenty years Peter de Bruys stirred southern France. He especially emphasized a day of worship that was recognized at that time among the Celtic churches of the British Isles, among the Paulicians, and in the great Church of the East, namely, that seventh day of the fourth commandment." J. F. Coltheart, The Sabbath of God Through the Centuries, p. 18. 1
Thirteenth Century A.D.
"The Paulicians, Petrobusians, Passaginians, Waldenses, Insabbatati were great Sabbath-keeping bodies of Europe down to 1250 A.D." Ibid., p. 19. 1
Fourteenth Century A.D.
"In 1320, two hundred years before Luther's theses, the Bohemian brethren constituted one-fourth of the population of Bohemia&ldots;Erasmus pointed out how strictly Bohemian Waldenses kept the seventh day Sabbath." Armitage, A History of the Baptists, p. 313; Robert Cox, The Literature of the Sabbath Question, Volume 2, pp. 201, 202. 1
Fifteenth Century A.D.
"Erasmus testifies that even as late as about 1500 these Bohemians not only kept the seventh day scrupulously, but were also called Sabbatarians." R. Cox, ibid. 1
Sixteenth Century A.D.
Abyssinia: "It is not, therefore, in imitation of the Jews, but in obedience to Christ and His holy apostles, that we observe the day [the Sabbath]." From an Abyssinian legate at the court of Lisbon, 1534, quoted in Geddes's Church History of Ethiopia, pp. 87, 88. 1
"The Sabbatarians teach that the outward Sabbath, i.e. Saturday, still must be observed. They say that Sunday is the Pope's invention." Refutation of Sabbath, by Wolfgang Capito, Published 1599. 1
"The observance of the Sabbath is a part of the moral law. It has been kept holy since the beginning of the world." Ref. Noted Swiss writer, R. Hospinian, 1592. 1
Seventeenth Century A.D.
"About 100 Sabbath keeping Churches, mostly independent, flourished in England in the 17th and 18th centuries." Dr. Brian W. Ball, The Seventh-day Men, Sabbatarians, and Sabbatarianism in England and Wales, 1600-1800, Clarendon Press, Oxford University 1994. [It must also be noted that the Sabbath was also kept in other parts of Europe and in America at this same time.] 2
"It will surely be far safer to observe the seventh day, according to express commandment of God, than on the authority of mere human conjuncture to adopt the first [day]." John Milton, Sabbath Literature 2, pp. 46-54. 1
Eighteenth Century A.D.
"Before Zinzendorf and the Moravians at Bethlehem [Pennsylvania] thus began the observance of the Sabbath and prospered, there was a small body of German Sabbath-keepers in Pennsylvania." Rupp's History of the Religious Denominations in the United States, pp. 109-123. 1
Count Zinzendorf said of himself in 1738: "That I have employed the Sabbath for rest for many years already&ldots;" Budingsche Sammlung, Section 8, p. 224. Leipzig, 1742. 1
"As a special instance it deserves to be noticed that he [Zinzendorf] is resolved with the church at Bethlehem to observe the seventh day as [a] rest day." Ibid. pp. 5, 1421,1422.1
Nineteenth Century A.D.
China: "The Taipings when asked why they observed the seventh-day Sabbath, replied that it was, first, because the Bible taught it, and second, because their ancestors observed it as a day of worship." A Critical History of Sabbath and the Sunday. J. F. Coltheart, The Sabbath of God through the Centuries, p. 27. 1
Twentieth Century A.D.
There were well over ten million Sabbath-keeping Christians worldwide among more than 25 denominations and hundreds of independent Sabbath-keeping congregations. Brian Jones, A Time for Joy, p. 21. 2
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