Sabbath-keeping Among Early Believers

It can be shown, perhaps to the surprise of some who believe otherwise, that New Testament believers observed the Sabbath, though with a new meaning and in a new manner. While several significant proofs of this assertion lie within the Bible, much evidence lies in manuscripts external to the Bible.

SAUL AND THE SYNAGOGUE.

Prior to his conversion, Saul developed a fierce reputation as a suppressor of Christianity. After the martyrdom of Stephen, Paul went searching for Christians in the synagogues of Damascus "that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem" (Acts 9:1,2; 22:19). It is difficult to imagine why Saul would search Jewish synagogues on the Sabbath if most or all Christians were meeting for worship on the first day of week.

THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.

Another indication of Sabbath-keeping is found in Christ's unique warning regarding the destruction of Jerusalem: "Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath" (Matt 24:20). The fact that the Sabbath is here mentioned not polemically, but incidentally as a factor unfavorable to a flight of Christians from Jerusalem, implies on the one hand that Christ did not foresee its substitution with another day of worship, and on the other hand that, as stated by A. W. Argyle, "the Sabbath was still observed by Jewish Christians when Matthew wrote." (THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, Grand Rapids, 1963)

TEST FOR CHRISTIANS IN THE SYNAGOGUE.

It is impossible to determine for how long Christians continued to attend Sabbath services at the synagogue. We know that some of them still attended synagogue services by the end of the first century, because at that time rabbinical authorities introduced a test to detect their presence in the synagogue. The test consisted of a curse: "Shemoneh Esreh," that was incorporated in the daily prayer and was to be pronounced against the Christians by any participant in the synagogue service (Bacchiocchi, FROM SABBATH TO SUNDAY, pp. 157-159). *Four chapters available for reading online by clicking on the orange link above.*

The function of the curse was to bar the Christians' presence and/or participation in the synagogue services. So, obviously Christians still attended Sabbath services at the synagogues until at least the end of the first century.

THE NAZARENES.

A significant evidence of the practice of Sabbath-keeping among primitive Palestinian Christians is provided by the testimony of Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis (c. 315-403), regarding the Jewish Christian sect of the Nazarenes. The Bishop, a native of Palestine, explains that the Nazarenes were the direct descendants of the Christian community of Jerusalem which migrated to Pella prior to the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem (Epiphanius, ADVERSUS HAERESES 29, 7, PATROLOGIA GRAECA 42, 402).

In spite of Epiphanius' attempt to treat the Nazarenes as "heretics" because "they practiced the customs and doctrines prescribed by the Jewish law," nothing heretical about them appears in the rather extensive account he gives of their beliefs. The basic difference between Nazarenes and the "true Christians" is, according to Epiphanius, the fact that the former "fulfill till now such Jewish rites as the circumcision and the Sabbath." The latter practices hardly qualify the Nazarenes as "heretics" since these practices were held by the primitive Jerusalem Church.

The fact that the Nazarenes, who represent the direct descendants of the Jerusalem Church, retained Sabbath-keeping as one of their distinguishing characteristics until at least the fourth century shows convincingly that the Jerusalem Church observed the Sabbath during the apostolic age. This fact discredits any attempt to make the Jerusalem church the pioneer of Sunday-keeping.