This blog will briefly show you MATERIAL EVIDENCE in the form of a CREDIBLE WITNESS from ancient history regarding THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. We ran across this quote during our studies of the City of Ephesus while investigating Acts 18-20. My point in this blog is to show you two things:
- The EARLY CHRISTIANS obeyed THE SABBATH, and
- The SABBATH was (and still is) SATURDAY, not Sunday.
The AUTHORITY that we’ll consult is a guy named POLYCRATES (130-196 AD). He is one of the ‘Church Fathers’. The below quote is taken from the website Early Christian Writings dot com:
As for us, then, we scrupulously observe the exact day, neither adding nor taking away. For in Asia great luminaries have gone to their rest, who shall rise again in the day of the coming of the Lord, when He cometh with glory from heaven and shall raise again all the saints. I speak of Philip, one of the twelve apostles, who is laid to rest at Hierapolis; and his two daughters, who arrived at old age unmarried; his other daughter also, who passed her life under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and reposes at Ephesus; John, moreover, who reclined on the Lord’s bosom, and who became a priest wearing the mitre, and a witness and a teacher-he rests at Ephesus. Then there is Polycarp, both bishop and martyr at Smyrna; and Thraseas from Eumenia, both bishop and martyr, who rests at Smyrna. Why should I speak of Sagaris, bishop and martyr, who rests at Laodicea? of the blessed Papirius, moreover? and of Melito the eunuch, who performed all his actions under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and lies at Sardis, awaiting the visitation from heaven, when he shall rise again from the dead? These all kept the passover on the fourteenth. day of the month, in accordance with the Gospel, without ever deviating from it, but keeping to the rule of faith.
Moreover I also, Polycrates, who am the least of you all, in accordance with the tradition of my relatives, some of whom I have succeeded-seven of my relatives were bishops, and I am the eighth, and my relatives always observed the day when the people put away the leaven-I myself, brethren, I say, who am sixty-five years old in the Lord, and have fallen in with the brethren in all parts of the world, and have read through all Holy Scripture, am not frightened at the things which are said to terrify us. For those who are greater than I have said, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” …
I might also have made mention of the bishops associated with me, whom it was your own desire to have called together by me, and I called them together: whose names, if I were to write them down, would amount to a great number. These bishops, on coming to see me, unworthy as I am, signified their united approval of the letter, knowing that I wore these grey hairs not in vain, but have always regulated my conduct in obedience to the Lord Jesus.
First off, it’s important to understand that a CONTROVERSY raged about SABBATH involving Polycrates. This controversy was known as the QUARTODECIMAN CONTROVERSY, and involved the TIMING of ‘Easter’. The debate concerned THE DAY OF THE WEEK when Easter should be ‘celebrated’ as a religious observance (holiday). The Eastern ‘churches’ (Jerusalem and Asia Minor) disagreed with the Western ‘church’ (Rome’s state religion, aka, the Holy Roman Catholic Church of today). It’s important to note that this debate was NOT over WHETHER OR NOT to observe SATURDAY SABBATH. It centered on PASSOVER vs. EASTER, the SABBATH in this case being the HOLY DAY OF OBSERVANCE. Note: In the OT, the word for the Holy Day observance is Sabbath-of-Sabbaths. In other words, it’s a ‘weightier’ Sabbath than the weekly Sabbath. The reason is because it’s one of the annual Holy Day sabbaths, not just the recurring weekly Sabbath.
In other words, someone in the Roman government bureaucracy had cooked up an EVIL SCHEME to CHANGE the Apostolic tradition of Sabbath observance by indirectly attacking it through focusing on changing the Holy Day Sabbaths. They used the typical, traditional method of CONFLATING and CONFUSING the issue with a NON-RELEVANT subject, which they used to infiltrate the opposition and dismantle their SOCIAL COHESIVENESS. Then they used that result to unravel and undo all related social practices, such as SATURDAY SABBATH OBSERVANCE. Today we call this MARXIST SUBTERFUGE (or Alinsky radicalism based on Bernaysian brainwashing). This is typical behavior of evil government officials and bureaucrats (and attorneys!) who have a SORDID AGENDA (usually based on COMMERCE AGREEMENTS with ‘the idle rich’). Now, I’m not going to get into the details of the Quartodeciman Controversy in this blog. You can read about it yourself, see the details for yourself, and draw your own conclusions, by looking it up on the Internet. Plenty of people have discussed it. Don’t you love the Internet?! Suffice to say that THE GOVERNMENT’S POSITION BECAME THE WORLD’S POSITION. Surprising??
So how in the world did the government get the upper hand over the traditionalists? Simple: They ELIMINATED THE COMPETITION. Yup, that’s right, they used VIOLENCE, as usual. This time, instead of committing murder, they BANISHED Polycrates from Asia Minor. How convenient! Let’s remember that violence is what governments do. It’s their ‘MO’. Violence is the sole purpose for their existence. As Frederick Bastiat says, GOVERNMENT IS ORGANIZED VIOLENCE. But note this: Government violence is supposed to be used against BAD people to support GOOD people, not vice versa, duh! So when government violence becomes a WEAPON OF INTRIGUE, used by OUTSIDERS or INFILTRATORS, you KNOW something’s radically wrong.
In case you haven’t noticed, violence is quite a convenient method of making people change when they don’t want to change of their own free will (for whatever reasons). It’s also a very convenient method of CHANGING WHOLE SOCIETIES, as we see today. And like I said in a previous blog, the American Protestant churches are masters of SOCIAL VIOLENCE, which they utilize to coerce change into individuals. But note that they don’t use PHYSICAL violence. No. Instead they use a form of SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL violence. Let’s call it SOFT violence! They basically GIVE YOU THE COLD SHOULDER if you don’t behave the way they want you to behave. They’ll even EXPEL you from the congregation. And if you have a lot of EMOTIONAL attachments to some of the people in that group, you’ll SUFFER emotionally. They make you an OUTCAST from their society. Pretty slick PSY-OP, eh? Been there, done that. And mark this: The change they want you to make never has anything to do with SIN (violating God’s law and harming someone). It has to do with SOCIAL PREFERENCES and stupid ideologies (‘theology’). Not only do they NOT care about God’s law, but they also OPENLY TEACH disobedience to it. How sad!
So when you read what Polycrates says above, you can get a better idea of the magnitude of his statement due to the POLITICAL CONTEXT involved. Basically, the situation boiled down to Polycrates vs. Rome. And as you saw, Polycrates wasn’t going to change, ‘come hell or high water’. His reason? HE WAS LIVING BY A LONG STANDING TRADITION OF APOSTOLIC TRUTH THAT WAS HANDED DOWN BY JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF.
One more noteworthy historical fact concerns the Ephesian church. Do some reading on the history and politics of Ephesus, and then think about the possible reasons WHY Ephesus was such an important ‘church’ during that era (I talk about this a bit in another blog). One fact you can be certain of is, the Apostle John AND the Apostle Paul authorized the practices of the church at Ephesus. Remember who FOUNDED that church? Yup, that’s right, it was the Apostle PAUL, “the apostle to the gentiles”. Why is this so important? It’s the KEY to seeing that ROME is LYING about the Sabbath TRUTH. And the fact that TWO Apostles, one for Jews (John) and the other for Gentiles (Paul) AGREED on the traditional Sabbath observance, proves beyond all doubt that they didn’t do it to ‘please the Jews’ (like the Roman Emperors did), nor for any other reason except to OBEY JESUS’ COMMANDMENTS. So we see that BOTH these Apostles maintained the “Mosaic Sabbath” tradition at Ephesus.
So there you have it. Polycrates preserved the APOSTOLIC TRADITION of SABBATH OBSERVANCE. And he REFUSED to abandon his observance even though the GOVERNMENT was trying to ‘convince’ him to obey the dictates of it’s evil bureaucracy, while abandoning obedience to Jesus Christ’s commandments. Do you see anything like that happening today in America? Well, if you do, then let Polycrates be your ROLE MODEL to motivate you to NOT SUCCUMB to the government’s shoving their evil changes down your throat. ‘Just say no’ by making Polycrates’, from ancient history, your ROLE MODEL. During America’s founding era, this type of behavior was known as CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. But I just call it “OBEYING GOD RATHER THAN MEN”! (Acts 5:29)
See you in the next blog!
Reality Bible 