Messianic History

[visionary]

Another leader in the Celtic church deserves to be mentioned, Columba, who was born in Ireland, A. D. 521. Animated by the zeal and missionary spirit he found in the schools established by Patrick, Columba continued the work of his predecessor, and selecting twelve fellow workers, he established a missionary center on the island of Iona. This early Celtic church sent its missionaries not only among the heathen Picts of their own country, but also into the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. This Sabbath-keeping church (as did their Waldensian brethren) kept the torch of truth burning during the long, dark night of papal supremacy, till finally they were conquered by Rome in the twelfth century. Professor Andrew Lang says of them: "They worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a Sabbatical manner"–"A History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation," Vol. I, p. 96. New Yorkodd, Mead, and Co., 1900.

 

[Yahudim]

Hi Vis, nice read. -Tal

 

[visionary]

"The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and sermons... They derived this practice from the Apostles themselves, as appears by several scriptures to that purpose." D. T H. Morer (Church of England) Dialogues on the Lord's Day, London, 1701.

 

[visionary]

"As early as 225 A.D. there existed large Sabbath-keeping bishoprics or conferences of the Church of the East stretching from Palestine to India." Mingana, Early Spread of Christianity.

 

[visionary]

"In the church of Milan (Italy) it seems that the Saturday was held in a fair esteem. Not that the Eastern churches or any of the rest which observed that day, were inclined to Judaism; but that they came together on the Sabbath day to worship Jesus the Lord of the Sabbath." Dr. Peter Heylyn, History of the Sabbath, London, 1636.

 

[visionary]

Persia 335-375 A.D. "They [the Christians] despise our sun-god. Did not Zoroaster, the sainted founder of our divine beliefs, institute Sunday one thousand years ago in honor of the sun and supplant the Sabbath of the Old Testament? Yet these Christians have divine services on Saturday." O'Leary, The Syriac Church and Fathers.

 

[visionary]

"For more than 17 centuries the Abyssinian Church continued to sanctify Saturday as the holy day of the 4th commandment." Ambrose de Morbius.

 

[visionary]

"Down even to the fifth century the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Christian church." Lyman Coleman, Ancient Christianity Exemplified , p. 526.

 

[visionary]

"In 411 [Mingana, leader of the Eastern Churches] appointed a metropolitan director for China. These churches were sanctifying the seventh day." J. F. Colthart, The Sabbath Through The Centuries, p. 11.

 

[visionary]

On Columba of lona: "Having continued his labors in Scotland thirty-four years, he clearly and openly foretold his death, and on Saturday, June ninth, said to his disciple Diermit: 'This is the day called the Sabbath, that is, the rest day, and such it will truly be to me; for it will put an end to my labors."' Butler's Lives of the Saints, article on "St. Columba."

 

[visionary]

From Gregory I, Pope of Rome 590-604: "Roman citizens: It has come to me that certain men of perverse spirit have disserninated among you things depraved and opposed to the holy faith, so that they forbid anything to be done on the day of the Sabbath. What shall I call them except preachers of anti-christ?"

 

[visionary]

India, China, Persia, etc. "Widespread and enduring was the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath among the believers of the Church of the East and the St. Thomas Christians of India, who never were connected with Rome. It was also maintained among those bodies which broke off from Rome after the Council of Chalcedon, namely the Abyssinians, the Jacobites, the Marionites, and the Armenians." New Schaff Hertog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, article "Nestorians."

 

[visionary]

"On the seventh day we offer sacrifices, after having purified our hearts, and receive absolution for our sins. This religion, so perfect and so excellent, is difficult to name, but it enlightens darkness by its brilliant precepts." China, 781 A.D. The China Monument

 

[visionary]

"The Nestorians eat no pork and keep the Sabbath. They believe neither in auricular confession nor purgatory." New Schaff Hertog Encyclopedia, article, "Nestorians."

 

[visionary]

"Margaret of Scotland in 1060 attempted to bring ruin to Columba's spiritual descendants by moving against those who observed the seventh-day Sabbath instead of Sunday." Reported by T. R. Barnett in Margaret of Scotland; Queen and Saint, p. 97.

 

[visionary]

Concerning the separation of the Greek Church from the Latin Church in 1054: "The observance of the Saturday, is, as everyone knows, the subject of bitter dispute between the Greeks and the Latins." J.M. Neale, A History of the Holy Eastern Church, voL 1, p. 731.

 

[visionary]

France: "For twenty years Peter de Bruys stirred southern France. He especially emphasized a day of worship that was recognized at that time among the Celtic churches of the British Isles, among the Paulicians, and in the great Church of the east, namely, that seventh day of the fourth commandment." Coltheart; p. 18

 

[visionary]

"The Paulicians, Petrobusians, Passaginians, Waldenses, Insabbatati were great Sabbath-keeping bodies of Europe down to 1250." Coltheart, p. 19.

 

[visionary]

"In 1310, two hundred years before Luther's theses, the Bohemian brethren constituted one-fourth of the population of Bohemia, and were in touch with the Waldenses who abounded in Austria, Lombardy, Bohemia, north Germany, Thuringia, Brandenburg, and Moravia. Erasmus pointed out how strictly Bohemian Waldenses kept the seventh day Sabbath." Robert Cox, The Literature of the Sabbath Question, vol.2, pp. 201, 202.

 

[visionary]

"Erasmus testifies that even as late as about 1500 these Bohemians not only kept the seventh day scrupulously, but were also called Sabbatarians." R. Cox. op. cit.