What Important Question Does the Papacy Ask Protestants?
Protestants have repeatedly asked the papacy, “How could you dare to change God’s law?”
But the question posed to Protestants by the Catholic Church is even more penetrating.
Here it is officially:
“You will tell me that Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath, but that the Christian Sabbath has been changed to Sunday. Changed! But by whom? Who has authority to change an express commandment of Almighty God? When God has spoken and said, ‘Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day,’ who shall dare to say, ‘Nay, thou mayest work and do all manner of worldly business on the seventh day; but thou shalt keep holy the first day in its stead?’
This is a most important question, which I know not how you can answer.
You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and the Bible only; and yet in so important a matter as the observance of one day in seven as a holy day, you go against the plain letter of the Bible, and put another day in the place of that day which the Bible has commanded.
The command to keep holy the seventh day is one of the Ten Commandments; you believe that the other nine are still binding. Who gave you authority to tamper with the fourth? If you are consistent with your own principles, if you really follow the Bible and the Bible only, you ought to be able to produce some portion of the New Testament in which this fourth commandment is expressly altered.”
— Library of Christian Doctrine: Why Don’t You Keep Holy the Sabbath-Day? (London: Burns and Oates, Ltd.), pp. 3–4
The Catholic Church explicitly claims the authority to make this change:
“There is but one church on the face of the earth which has the power, or claims power, to make laws binding on the conscience, binding before God, binding under penalty of hell-fire. For instance, the institution of Sunday… It was the holy Catholic Church that changed the day of rest from Saturday, the seventh day, to Sunday, the first day of the week.”
— T. Enright, C.S.S.R., lecture, 1893
“Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act. And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters.”
— C. F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons, 1895
Catholic doctrine and historical writings confirm the authority of the Pope and tradition over Scripture in this matter:
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“Tradition, not Scripture, is the rock on which the church of Jesus Christ is built.” — Adrien Nampon, Catholic Doctrine as Defined by the Council of Trent, p. 157
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“The Pope is of so great authority and power that he can modify, explain, or interpret even divine law.” — Lucius Ferraris, Prompta Bibliotheca, art. Papa, II, Vol. VI, p. 29
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“The leader of the Catholic church… is considered the man on earth who ‘takes the place’ of the Second Person of the omnipotent God of the Trinity.” — John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, p. 3, 1994
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“…pastoral intuition suggested… the Christianization of the notion of Sunday… to draw the faithful away from the seduction of cults which worshiped the sun, and to direct the celebration of the day to Christ, humanity’s true ‘sun’.” — John Paul II, Dies Domini, 1998
Historical context also explains the connection to pagan tradition:
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“The Sun was a foremost god with heathen-dom… There is, in truth, something royal, kingly about the sun, making it a fit emblem of Jesus, the Sun of Justice… the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder, became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus.” — William Gildea, The Catholic World, March 1894, p. 809
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“The retention of the old pagan name of Dies Solis… was owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment… recommended by Constantine… as the ‘venerable’ day of the sun.” — Arthur P. Stanley, History of the Eastern Church, p. 184
Catholic theologians explain that God delegated authority to the Church to establish holy days:
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“Some theologians have held that God… directly determined Sunday… But this theory is entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His church the power to set aside whatever day… she would deem suitable as holy days. The church chose Sunday… and added other days as holy days.” — Vincent J. Kelly, Forbidden Sunday and Feast-Day Occupations, 1943, p. 2
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“The Pope has power to change times, to abrogate laws, and to dispense with all things, even the precepts of Christ… and has often exercised it, to dispense with the command of Christ.” — Decretal, de Tranlatic Episcop
Catholic educational materials and writers affirm Sunday as a Catholic institution, not a biblical one:
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“If we consulted the Bible only, we should still have to keep holy the Sabbath Day… instead of Sunday.” — Rev. John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies, 1936
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“Sunday is a Catholic institution… From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer… to the first day of the week.” — Catholic Press, Aug. 25, 1900
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“The Sabbath was Saturday, not Sunday… The word Sunday does not come anywhere in the Bible, so, without knowing it, [Protestants] are obeying the authority of the Catholic Church.” — Canon Cafferata, The Catechism Explained, p. 89
Protestants are confronted with a choice:
“Reason and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday, or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible.” — John Cardinal Gibbons, The Catholic Mirror, Dec. 23, 1893
The question is ultimately one of obedience: God’s law or human tradition?
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Daniel 7:25 — “And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws.”
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Revelation 22:14–15 — “Blessed are they that do his commandments… For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.”
The Bible clearly teaches that the Sabbath is Saturday, and there is no scriptural support for Sunday observance. The Catholic Church admits it changed the day. The question for each reader is: will you follow the God of the Bible or the traditions of men?
SABBATH OBSERVANCE
A short time ago, this staid city of London experienced a tempest in a teapot over Sabbath observance. It was proposed to allow children to use the municipal swimming pool during the sweltering weather we were then having. Immediately, there was a ministerial chorus of protest. One Reverend Boanerges valiantly declared that they would not rest until they had routed “the hosts of hell.” Presumably, he envisioned infernal armies lined up behind His Worship the Mayor and others in their impious assault on the sanctity of “the Sabbath.”
Imagine the consternation in the ministerial association and the jubilation amongst the hosts of hell when they read in the London Free Press of this supposed attack on their citadel of sabbatarianism:
“That Sabbath observance in the strict sense of the law of Israel, whether on the traditional or any seventh day, is no concern of the Christian,” was the assertion of Rev. J. Marion Smith, of Emmanuel Baptist Church, Toronto, in his evening sermon at the Talbot Street Baptist Church.
This appeared under a two-column heading: “Sabbath Observance Not Any Part of Man’s Duty as a Christian!” True, Mr. Smith was speaking on the subject, “Can a Saved Man Be Lost?” That is quite a big subject in itself, but we shall take first his pronouncement on the Sabbath, which evidently struck the reporter and city editor as the more sensational, if not the more important, part of the sermon. The report of the Free Press continues:
“Quoting St. Paul, he declares that making any point of the old Mosaic law a test of righteousness is to accept the full burden of the rules, rituals, and customs enjoined by Moses. ‘In Toronto, for instance,’ he said, ‘there are many who make a great point of Sabbath observance. I do not consider it any part of my duty as a Christian to observe the Sabbath. When Christ came the old law was fulfilled and done away with. Christ was the only being, as a human, who could and did observe the whole law. Of course, as a Christian I observe certain rules of conduct and habit. But that is a matter of personal purity.’ “
It will be noted that the last paragraph purports to quote the very words of the preacher.
To the Toronto Star, Rev. Mr. Smith gave an explanatory interview which, though it may tend to allay Sabbatarian indignation, does not claim he was misreported; indeed, he further emphasizes that the Jewish Sabbath and Christian Sunday are quite distinct and separate institutions. We quote from The Star:
“The Jewish Sabbath is not Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Christians are all wrong in speaking of the Sabbath as Sunday,” said Mr. Smith. “The Sabbath is not binding upon a Christian as a means of justification from sin,” he went on. “The keeping of Sunday, the Lord’s Day, is quite a different matter, and springs not from any obligation to the Jewish Law, but is the ready response from the heart of the Christian who observes Sunday as a day set aside for worship and rest. This observance is one of the highest privileges of mankind, and it is only reasonable that one-seventh of a man’s time should be devoted to special worship and spiritual refreshment.”
To further mollify critics, he added in conclusion:
“One of the greatest blessings of Canada had been due to the strict observance of the Lord’s Day. To throw Sunday wide open would be to paralyze much good that is now accomplished and to throw unlimited temptation before the young life of our boys and girls.”
The ministers of London who criticized Mr. Smith’s sermon left the real crux of the question untouched. This is not surprising, for on Protestant principles, there is no possible explanation of the substitution of the Christian Sunday for the Jewish Sabbath, this plain abrogation of the express commandment of God as recorded in the Bible.
Protestants reject Divine Tradition, the Unwritten Word, which Catholics accept as of equal authority with the Written Word, the Bible. The Divine authority given by Christ to the Church to teach in His name, to bind and loose, Protestants deny. For them—and it is their boast—the Bible alone has Divine authority.
Now, in the matter of Sabbath observance, the Protestant rule of faith is utterly unable to explain the substitution of the Christian Sunday for the Jewish Saturday. The Bible still teaches that the Sabbath, or Saturday, should be kept holy. There is no authority in the New Testament for substituting Sunday for Saturday. It stands in the Bible as one of the Ten Commandments of God. There is no authority for abrogating this commandment or transferring its observance to another day of the week.
For Catholics, it is not the slightest difficulty. “All power is given Me in heaven and on earth; as the Father sent Me so I also send you,” said our Divine Lord in giving His commission to the Apostles. “He that heareth you heareth Me.” We have, in the authoritative voice of the Church, the voice of Christ Himself. The Church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance from Saturday to Sunday is proof positive of that fact. Deny the authority of the Church, and there is no adequate explanation or justification for the substitution of Sunday for Saturday in the Third—Protestant Fourth—Commandment of God.
As Rev. Mr. Smith rightly points out: “The Jewish Sabbath is not Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Christians are all wrong in speaking of the Sabbath as Sunday.” Christians who make the Bible the sole rule of faith are “Bible Christians”; and the Bible is silent on Sunday observance—it speaks only of Sabbath observance. The Lord’s Day—Dies Dominica—is the term used in the Missal and the Breviary. In the Bible, there is only one reference in Apocalypse 1:10 and references in Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2 to “the first day of the week,” but none indicates that the first day is to take the place of the seventh. That is the crux of the whole question: what authority does the Bible give for the change? This difficulty, Mr. Smith and his critics, though pious and verbose, have all sedulously evaded.
It materially affects the proper observance of the Lord’s Day.
In the first centuries, the obligation of rest from work remained somewhat indefinite. The Council of Laodicea, at the end of the fourth century, prescribed that on the Lord’s Day the faithful were to abstain from work as far as possible. At the beginning of the sixth century, St. Cesarius and others inclined to apply the law of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday, but the Council of Orleans in 538 reprobated this tendency as Jewish and non-Christian.
Thus, by the same Divine authority by which it replaced the Jewish Sabbath with the Christian Sunday, the Catholic Church legislated on how the Lord’s Day should be observed.
Due to the exaggerated importance given the Bible after the Reformation and the influence of Puritanism, the Lord’s Day in England—and especially in Scotland—took on all the rigor of the Jewish Sabbath. That heritage, though somewhat softened, still persists. A game of ball, where participants and spectators enjoy rest and recreation in the open air, is considered “desecration of the Sabbath.” The swimming pool controversy is another example.
We would not be misunderstood. Much of the Sabbatarians’ insistence on a day of rest for all workers is admirable. But their confusion of the Lord’s Day with the Jewish Sabbath—against which Rev. Mr. Smith so vigorously protests—finds no sympathy among Catholics, who receive the Lord’s Day itself, as well as its mode of observance, from the Church, not from the Bible.
It might serve a good purpose if the Sabbatarians would meditate on Mark 2:23-28:
“And it came to pass again, as the Lord walked through the cornfields on the sabbath, that his disciples began to go forward and pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said to Him: Behold, why do they on the sabbath-day that which is not lawful? And He said to them: Have you never read what David did, when he had need, and was hungry himself, and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God under Abiathar the high-priest and did eat the loaves of proposition which was not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave to them who were with him? And He said unto them: The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.”
That is the great principle forgotten under the damnosa hereditas of Puritanical sabbatarianism. Our Divine Lord observed the Sabbath, but by word and deed he opposed the absurd rigorism that made man the slave of the day.
The train of thought and discussion set in motion by Rev. Mr. Smith, if followed to its logical conclusion, should serve a very good and practical purpose.
THE CATHOLIC RECORD
Publisher & Proprietor: Thomas Coffey, LL.D.
Editors: Rev. James T. Foley, D.D., and Thomas Coffey, LL.D.
Associate Editor: H. F. Mackintosh
Manager: Robert M. Burns
The Catholic Record has been approved and recommended by:
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Archbishops Falconio and Sbaretti, late Apostolic Delegates to Canada
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The Archbishops of Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, and St. Boniface
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The Bishops of London, Hamilton, Peterborough, and Ogdensburg, N.Y.
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Clergy throughout the Dominion
Anyone wishing to obtain a photocopy of the original newspaper article from microfilm archives can inquire online at the London Ontario Canada Public Library or call 519-661-4600.
Even a Pope Said Catholic Doctrine Is Superior to Scripture
… Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for, seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church, it is clearly impossible that any teaching can by legitimate means be extracted from the former, which shall in any respect be at variance with the latter. Hence it follows that all interpretation is foolish and false which either makes the sacred writers disagree one with another, or is opposed to the doctrine of the Church.
— Providentissimus Deus, Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, November 18, 1893
As we know, the Sacred Scriptures are the written testimony of the divine Word, the canonical memorial that testifies to the event of Revelation. The Word of God therefore precedes and exceeds the Bible. Our faith is not only centered on a book but on a history of salvation and, above all, on a Person: Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh.
Because the horizon of the divine Word embraces and extends beyond Scripture, understanding it adequately requires the constant presence of the Holy Spirit, who “will guide you into all the truth” (Jn 16:13). We must align ourselves with the great Tradition which, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the Magisterium, recognized the canonical writings as a word God addressed to His People, continually meditating on them and discovering their inexhaustible riches.
It follows that the exegete must perceive the Word of God present in the biblical texts and fit them into the Church’s faith. Interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures cannot be only an individual scientific effort; it must always be confronted, inserted, and authenticated by the living Tradition of the Church.
— Pope Francis to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, April 12, 2013
