Acts 20 - Introduction

Excursus A.

On the Observance of the First Day of the Week by the Early Christians.

Neander well remarks: ‘Since the sufferings of Christ appeared as the central point of all religious experience and life, since His resurrection was considered as the foundation of all Christian joy and hope, it was natural that the communion of the Church should have specially distinguished the day with which the memory of that event had connected itself.' Let us with great brevity trace the ‘story' of the sacred Christian day. On the first day of the week our Lord rose from the dead, and in the course of the day, we know, appeared on five different occasions to His followers to Mary Magdalene, to the other women, to the two disciples on their road to Emmaus, to St. Peter separately, to the apostles collectively. After eight days, that is, according to the ordinary way of reckoning, on the first day of the week, He appeared to the eleven. We possess no account of His having appeared in the interval; not improbably this was done specially to render that day memorable to the apostles. In that year of the ‘resurrection,' the day of Pentecost fell on the first day of the week, ‘when,' as we read, ‘they were all with one-accord in one place.' Thus, on the day already known as the day of the Lord's resurrection, the disciples received from heaven their baptism of fire, and became in a new strange way indeed the Lord's anointed. The first day of the week thus doubly became the birthday of the religion of Jesus Christ. About a quarter of a century later occurred the scene related in this 20th chapter of the ‘Acts.' It would seem that at this period the ‘ first day ' had become the ordinary and stated day of Christian assembling. It was evidently the usual day for the brethren of Troas to meet together to ‘break bread' in commemoration of their Master, and to receive religious instruction. St. Paul's words, written only a few months before this scene at Troas, from Ephesus to the Corinthian Church, in the same undesigned way refers to the first day of the week being well known as the day for the practice of special religious duties: ‘Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come' (1 Corinthians 16:1-2).

Many years later, St. John in his ‘Revelation,' Acts 1:10, writes of himself as being ‘in the Spirit on the Lord's day.' By this name he could not have intended to speak of the ‘Sabbath,' for the word ‘Sabbath' was then universally used by Jews and Christians for the seventh day. He could only have been thinking of the one solemn day of the week, hallowed by the glorious memories of the first Easter and Pentecost, and which the reverent followers of Jesus had called after their Master. This name, as we shall see from the writings of the next century, became the common and usual designation of the Christian holy day. Passing from the inspired books to the writings of men who lived in the generation succeeding that of the apostles and their immediate disciples, we read in the Epistle of Barnabas (not the friend of Paul, but a teacher of Alexandria, who wrote in the first half of the second century), ‘We celebrated the eighth day, i.e. the first day of the week, with joy, on which Jesus rose from the dead.' Justin Marty who flourished in the same period about A.D. 140, tells us that ‘on the day called Sunday was an assembly of all who lived either in cities or in rural districts, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the apostles are read.' He describes further the various details of the acts of these religious assemblies, their prayers, the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, and the collection of alms, and then gives us the reasons which induced Christians to meet together on the Sunday. The first is a singular one: ‘Because it is the first day of the seven on which God dispelled the darkness and the original state of things and formed the world;' the second was, ‘Because Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead upon it.' A few years later, in a fragment of a letter of Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, to Soter, Bishop of Rome (A.D. 170), occur these words: ‘Today was the Lord's day and kept holy, and we read your letter, from the reading of which from time to time we shall be able to derive admonition, as we do from the former one written to us by the hand of Clement.' Melito, Bishop of Sardis, a contemporary of Bishop Dionysius of Corinth, among other works which have long since been lost, is stated by Eusebius to have written a treatise on ‘the Lord's day.' A very little later, about A.D. 180, Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons in Gaul, alludes clearly and distinctly to the universal observance of the Lord's day. Clement of Alexandria, A.D. 196, speaks of the Lord's day as a well-known and customary festival Tertullian of Carthage, about A.D. 200, speaks often of the Lord's day in such terms as, ‘We consider it wrong to fast on the Lord's day,' ‘Sunday we give to joy.' In one passage he distinctly refers to the cessation from business on the part of the Christians on the Lord's day. Origen, the great Alexandrian master, A.D. 230, says, ‘It is one of the marks of the perfect Christian to keep the Lord's day.' Other passages, in which mention is casually made of the solemn observance of the first day of the week by the Christians, usually under the name of the ‘Lord's day,' occur in the writings of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, A.D. 250; Commodian, A.D. 270, and others (these are quoted at length in the learned and exhaustive history of ‘the Lord's day,' by Archdeacon Hessey, Bampton Lectures; ‘Sunday,' 1860. See Lecture 2, and the notes at the end of the volume).

We have here adduced testimony dating from the days immediately succeeding the resurrection, A.D. 32 down to A.D. 270, shortly after which date Christianity became the recognised faith of the Roman world, and its practices of world-wide notoriety that the first day of the week was chosen and adopted by the early Christians, acting upon the direction of the apostles, as the special day on which the solemn weekly assemblies were to meet, the Holy Communion celebrated, and public instruction in the religion of the Lord Jesus given. At first the old Hebrew Sabbath was kept by the Jewish Christians with the old legal strictness; but as the Christian faith spread among Gentile nations, silently the old Sabbath observances seem to have been with common consent dispensed with, and in Gentile lands the sacred associations which surrounded the seventh day were transferred to the first day, which among all Christians was generally termed, in memory of the great event which happened on it, ‘the Lord's day.' But while the sacred character of the seventh day was thus transferred to the first day of the week, the burdensome restrictions which made the keeping of the old Hebrew Sabbath so difficult and painful to the stranger proselyte were laid aside for ever.

The teaching and the practice of the Christian Church in all ages has strictly maintained, if not the letter, most certainly the spirit of the Sinai charge of the Eternal, ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.'

The following little table will show how the above-cited evidence for the practice of the primitive Christian Church in the matter of the ‘Lord's day' was drawn from all the principal centres of early Christianity:

Writer Date (A.D.) City Country St. Paul 57 Greece, Asia Minor St. John 90 Ephesus Asia Minor Barnabas 140 Alexandria Egypt Justin Martyr 140 Rome and Ephesus Italy, Asia Minor Dionysius 170 Corinth Greece Melito 170 Sardis Asia Minor Irenaeus 180 Lyons Gaul Clement 190 Alexandria Egypt Tertullian 200 Carthage North Africa Origen 230 Alexandria Egypt Cyprian 250 Carthage North Africa Excursus B.

Words of the Lord Jesus not quoted in the Four Gospels.

The saying of the Lord Jesus, quoted by St. Paul in the 35th verse of this 20th chapter, as we remarked, does not occur in the Gospels. It is one of the few ‘sayings' of the Holy One which is preserved outside the ‘memoirs' of the four.

The origin of the Gospels will always remain uncertain. We shall never know what determined the evangelists to select the sayings and teachings they have embodied in their four writings. They were, we know, guided by the Holy Spirit in their selection and rejection. St. John, in the close of his Gospel, alludes to many unwritten words and acts of his Master (Acts 21:25). It appears strange at first that so few of these have come down to us. The best explanation we can give, is to assume that the inspired four were directed by the ‘Holy Spirit' to make an unerring choice of what was necessary for the teaching of the world; and when that choice had been made, the memory of the rest (partly, perhaps, from disuse) gradually faded away, and the next generation scarcely retained any record of word spoken or deed done by the Lord beyond those embodied in the narratives of the ‘four.' The apostles' preaching in the first days was based on those acts and words of their Master which seemed to these inspired men to possess the fullest significance for the exhibition of His Divine life. The apostles (certainly the greater number of them) remained in Jerusalem long enough in close communion to shape a common narrative. The Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke were the result, then, of this apostolic preaching. St. John wrote later, and gave rather his own memories of his Lord than the united experiences of the Twelve. This is the opinion of Professor Westcott in his most able Introduction to the Study of the Gospels (chap, 3), and thoroughly commends itself to the minds of all thoughtful and devout students of the Holy Word. Now, outside the inspired memories of the Gospels, we possess the record of some twenty sayings of Jesus Christ which have floated down to us. They come from many centres in the East and West, from Rome, from centres like Alexandria, Ephesus, Smyrna, Cæsarea, and are preserved by the most famous and trustworthy of the oldest fathers of the Church. We may, I think, look on them as fragments containing some true and original memories of our Lord's teaching, although, as has been well said in the case of not a few of them, ‘whatever nucleus of truth there was at first, has been encrusted over with mystic or fantastic imagination.'

The following collection is taken from Professor Westcott. It may be looked upon as containing all the original traditionary sayings of the Master, preserved in the most trustworthy authorities of the early Church (see Appendix C. of Dr. Westcott's Introduction to the Gospels):

1. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, Itis more blessed to give then to receive (Acts 20:35; comp. Luke 6:30).

2. On the same day, having seen one working on the Sabbath, He said to him, O man, if indeed thou knowest what thou doest, thou art blessed; but if thou knowest not thou art cursed, and art a transgessor of the law (in Cod. D after Luke 6:4).

3. But ye seek to increase from little, and from greater to be less (Cod. D). It seems to be a genuine fragment.

4. The Son of God says, Let us resist all iniquity, and hold it in hatred (Barn. Ephesians 4).

5. Thus He (Christ) saith, They who wish to see Me, and to lay hold on My kingdom, must receive me by affliction and suffering (Barn. Ep. 7).

6. Show yourselves tried money-changers (Orig. in Joann. 19). This is the most commonly-quoted of all apocryphal sayings, and seems to be genuine.

7. He that wonders shall reign; and he that reigns shall rest (Ex. Ev. Hebr. ap. Clem. Al. Strom,). Look with wonder at that which is before you (Ap. Clem. Al. Strom, ii. 9, 45).

8. Icame to put an end to sacrifices, and unless ye cease from sacrificing(Gods) anger will not cease from you (Ev. Ebion. ap. Epiph. Har. xxx. 16).

9. Jesus said to His disciples, Ask great things, and the small shall be added unto you; and ask heavenly things, and the earthly shall be added unto you (Orig. de Oral, 2).

10. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, In whatsoever I may find you, in this will I also judge you (Clem. Al. Juisdives 40). Such as I may find thee, I will judge thee, saith the Lord (Nilus. ap. Anast. Sin. quest. 3).

11. The Saviour Himself says, He who is near Me is near the fire; he who is far from Me is far from the kingdom (Orig. Horn, in Jerem. iiip. 778; Didymus in Psalms 88:8).

12. The Lord says in the Gospel, If ye kept not that which is small, who will give you that which is great? For I say unto you, That he that is faithful in very little, is faithful also in much (Clem. Rom. Ep. ii. 8).

13. The Lord says, Keep the flesh pure and the soul unspotted, that we may receive eternal life, perhaps that ye may receive eternal life (Clem. Rom. Cop. ii. 8).

14. The Lord Himself, having been asked by some one, When His kingdom will come? saith, When the two shall be one, and that which is without as that which is within, and the male with the female, neither male nor female (Clem. Rom. Ep. ii. 12).

15. Jesus says, For those that are sick I was sick, and for these that hunger I suffered hunger, and for those that thirst I suffered thirst (Orig. in Matt. torn. Matthew 13:2).

16. In the Hebrew Gospel we find the Lord saving to His disciples, Never be joyful except when ye shall look on your brother in love (Hieron. in Ephesians 5:3).

17. When the Lord came to Peter and the apostles (after His resurrection), He said to them, Take hold, handle me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit. And straightway they touched

Him and believed, being convinced by His flesh and by His Spirit (Ignat. ad Smyrn. Iii.).

18. Christ said, Good must needs come, but blessed is he through whom it comes (Clem. Horn. xii. 29).

19. It was not through unwillingness to impart His blessings that the Lord announced in some Gospel or other: My mystery.is for Me, and for the sons of My house. We remember our Lord and Master, how He said to us: Keep My mysteries for Me, and for the sons of My house (Clem. Alex. Strom, v. 10-64).

20. Iwill select to myself these things: very, very excellent are those whom My Father, who is in heaven, has given to Me (Eusebius, Theophania, iv. 13).

21. The Lord taught of those days (of His future kingdom on earth), and said: The days will come in which vines shall spring up, each having ten thousand stocks, and on each stock ten thousand branches, and on each branch ten thousand shoots, and on each shoot ten thousand bunches, and on each bunch ten thousand grapes, and each grape when pressed shall give five-and-twenty measures of wine. And when any saint shall have seized one bunch, another shall cry, I am a better bunch; take me; through me bless the Lord. Likewise also (He said), that a grain of wheat shall produce ten thousand ears of corn, and each grain ten pounds of fine pure flour; and so all other fruits and seeds and each herb according to its proper nature; and that all animals, using for food what is received from the earth, shall live in peace and concord with one another, subject to men with all subjection. And he (Papias) added, saying, Now these things are credible to them which believe. And when Judas the traitor believed not, and asked: How then shall such productions proceed from the Lord? the Lord said, They shall see who shall come to these times (Papias, cf. Iren. v. 5, 33, 53).