Proctor, Richard A.: The Great Pyramid: observatory, tomb, and temple (New York, 1883)

THE HISTORY OF SUN DA Y. 293

We do not find in any writer during the first
five centuries of the Christian era, or in any eccle-
siastical or civil public document, the slightest hint
of a transfer of the obligations indicated in the
Fourth Commandment from the Sabbath-day to
the Sunday. Both days were observed as days of
worship and as days of rest. The author of the
' Constitutions ' says that Peter and Paul ordered
that servants should work on five days in the week,
and rest on the Sabbath in memory of the Creation,
and on the Lord's day in memory of the Resurrec-
tion. The Council of Laodicea (363 A.D.) orders
Christians to work on the Sabbath, giving preference
to the Lord's day, and if possible resting on it ; but
they are to be accursed if they keep it in the Jewish
fashion. And Augustine, Bishop of Hippo Regius,
so far from taking the Fourth Commandment as
the basis of Sunday observance, says that to fast on
Sunday as on the Sabbath ' is a grave scandal.'

Even regarded apart from its imagined relation
to the Fourth Commandment, Sunday during the
first centuries of the Christian era was not observed
as Sunday now is. It was originally a day to be
observed only by those who wished to observe it.
It was to be observed, if at all, as a day of gladness.
Tertullian condemned as unlawful not only Sunday
fasting, but the use of a kneeling posture in Sunday