Sabbath (Heb. shabbath, from shabath, 'to rest, cease, or leave off'; Gr. sabbaton), the seventh day of the week, set aside, in the Old Testament, as a period of cessation from work. When it was instituted is not known. Many have contended that from its moral and religious importance it must have been instituted at the Creation, and made binding on Adam in paradise and all his posterity. There is certainly no evidence in the Pentateuch of its having been kept in patriarchal times. The celebration of the seventh day is first mentioned after the Exodus from Egypt; though the circumstances connected with the gathering of quails recorded in Ex. xvi. 23 is sometimes held to presuppose the solemnisation of the Sabbath before the Sinaitic legislation (Ex. xx.); and the formula 'Remember' with which the commandment begins has been interpreted as implying that it was known before, and only required to be emphatically recalled to memory. The reason given for the observance in Ex. xx. 11 cannot be taken as deciding the point; for the reason appended to the fourth commandment in Deut. v. 15 is wholly different.
The weekly division of time was of course in no way peculiar to the Jews, nor was the religious solemnisation of the seventh day. As we learn from Sayce (Ancient Empires of the East), 'in Babylonia and Assyria the week of seven days was an Accadian or Babylonian invention, the days of the week being dedicated to the moon, sun, and five planets. The 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days of the lunar month were kept like the Jewish Sabbath, and were actually so named in Assyrian. They were termed dies nefasti in Accadian, rendered "days of completion (of labour)" in Assyrian; the Assyrian Sabattu or "Sabbath" itself being further defined as meaning "completion of work" and "a day of rest for the soul." In those days it was forbidden, at all events in the Accadian period, to cook food, to change one's dress or wear white robes, to offer sacrifice, to ride in a chariot, to legislate, to practise augury, or even to use medicine.'
But it was the Jewish Sabbath that left its mark on the religious history of the world. Even on the traditional view of the date and origin of the several parts of the Pentateuch and the Old Testament, it seems obvious that, whatever may have been the date of its institution, the laws and customs regulating its observance grew greatly in detail and in strictness. But if the Deuteronomic and priestly legislation (see BIBLE, PENTATEUCH) be regarded as much later than the Jehovist documents, the gradual development in stringency of the Sabbath ordinances becomes still more patent. Wellhausen and his school hold that new moon and Sabbaths were originally lunar festivals, regulated by the phases of the moon; and that, although there is little about the new moon in the Pentateuch, it originally stood on a somewhat similar footing with the Sabbaths, and was celebrated in the same manner (see Amos, viii. 5; 2 Kings, iv. 22, 23)—viz. with such rest from labour as was the natural accompaniment of a festival, a festival, too, originally marked even by mirth (Hosea, ii. 13). The new-moon feast was probably allowed to fall into desuetude as being so constantly associated with idolatrous and unholy rites by the heathen. The Jehovist and the Deuteronomist in dealing with the Sabbath have chiefly agricultural labour in their eye: the masters who can rest when they will are not commanded to rest themselves, but to let their servants and cattle rest. But in the priestly legislation the Sabbath is less of a festival and more of an ascetic observance, rest being inculcated in and for itself, not as relief and refreshment from toil, but as a kind of offering to God; a pious duty of self-restraint and self-repression as incumbent on master as on man. To go out of the camp to gather manna or wood is a transgression: it is Sabbath-breaking to kindle a fire or cook food (Ex. xxxv. 2, 3; xvi. 23). Jeremiah is the earliest of the prophets to insist on stricter Sabbath-keeping, followed by Ezekiel and the Deutero-Isaiah. During the Captivity the Sabbath was wholly separated from the sacrificial service of the festival, and increased in significance as a holy rest-day, becoming along with circumcision the mark of the Jew as distinguished from the Gentile. The builders of the second temple had a severe struggle to secure the strict sanctification of the seventh day; but as the pharisaical party increased in power the day became more and more burdensome—the rest of the week was but a preparation for the Sabbath, so that man seemed to be made for the Sabbath. When Jerusalem was stormed by Ptolemy I. the inhabitants would not stir in self-defence; those who had fled to escape the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes allowed themselves to be butchered wholesale rather than resist on the holy day. Both Pompey and Titus seem to have made arrangements for attacking Jerusalem, relying on the strict observance of the day by the Jews. There are, however, cases during the Maccabean period of Jewish armies not merely defending themselves, but making fierce attacks. The Mishna enumerates thirty-nine principal works which are forbidden on Sabbath; and to each of them are attached several minor ones which might lead to Sabbath-breaking. The 'Sabbath-day's journey'—the prohibition of walking more than the 2000 yards supposed to represent the distance between the ark and the end of the camp—seems to belong to Roman times. The Essenes were specially strict in their Sabbath-keeping.
On Sabbath the faithful assembled in the synagogue in every town and hamlet within and without Palestine, especially after the exile. Parts of the Pentateuch and of the Prophets were read, translated into the vernacular, and expounded. Special prayers were said and sung, and the rest of the day was devoted to pious meditation, study of the law, and serene joyfulness. For even in the later Jewish period the Sabbath was still distinctly a festival, 'a day of joy and delight.' Certain bodily indulgences were inculcated: fasting, mourning, and self-mortification were expressly prohibited. The day was to be honoured by wearing of finer garments, by taking of three meals of the best cheer available (though not of warm viands), accompanied with wine. The Karaites alone abstained from all fire and light for twenty-four hours. It should be added that by the Jews the Sabbath is reckoned from Friday evening to Saturday evening.
The analogy of the weekly Sabbath helped doubtless to mould the observance of a Sabbatical Year, which was apparently kept with strictness after the exile, though unknown to the early legislation. It was indeed enjoined that Hebrew slaves should be set free in the seventh year (Ex. xxi. 2-6), and that the seventh-year's crop should be left for the poor (Ex. xxiii. 10). But there is no hint that the seventh years coincided for any two persons or places: still less, that one Sabbatical-year was held by the whole nation at the same time once in seven years. But after the Exile a periodic time was fairly established, the fields were left absolutely fallow, and no crops sown or harvested, to the severe suffering of many in evil times.
Christ and the apostles nowhere enjoin the observance of the Sabbath, but did themselves observe it, though acting on the principle that the 'Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath,' and that 'the Son of man was lord also of the Sabbath.' Christ came into collision with the Pharisaic worshippers of the letter, and was more than once in danger of His life as a Sabbath-breaker. Even after the death of Christ there is no formal abrogation of the Sabbath: the apostles seem still themselves to have kept it in the Jewish manner. But its observance was not merely not enjoined on Christian proselytes: Paul most energetically insists that Gentile Christians should hold themselves absolutely free to observe it or not as seemed best. There were, however, Judaisers in the Christian church, whom Paul resisted; and the Ebionites (q.v.) insisted on the keeping of the Sabbath.
Nor is there anywhere in the New Testament any express statement that the first day of the week was to be kept in place of the seventh, or that the Lord's day represented or was in any way the Sabbath; though at a very early date Christians met for worship on the day on which Christ rose from the dead. The only mention of a Christian Sabbath in the New Testament is Heb. iv. 9: 'There remaineth therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God' (New Translation), where obviously the reference is not to any one day of seven. A large body of Christians maintain that with the death of Christ the seventh-day Sabbath ceased for Christians, and that (apart from what Jewish Christians might have felt it their duty to do in the way of keeping the seventh day) the first day or Christian Sabbath naturally and inevitably took its place. Without citing any explicit authority for the substitution, they insist that the fourth commandment was a perpetual obligation as regards keeping holy one day in seven, and that the early Christian church could have no difficulty or hesitation in accepting at once the guidance of Providence in transferring the religious significance of the Sabbath of the law to the Sabbath of the new covenant; and that the Christian Sabbath has ever since continued, and to the end of the world will continue, obligatory on all Christians, all that was essentially moral and religious in the Jewish observances being applicable to the first day.
It must certainly be admitted that the earliest Christian writers do not identify the Sabbath and the Lord's day; none of the Fathers before the 4th century ground the duty of observing Sunday on the fourth commandment, or on the precept or example of Jesus or the apostles, or on an ante-Mosaic law promulgated at the Creation. Justin Martyr speaks of the regular assemblies of Christians on Sunday, 'because it is the first day in which God changed darkness and matter and made the world. On the same day also Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead.' He makes no mention of abstinence from labour as part of the observance of the day. But whatever may have been the opinion and practice of these early Christians in regard to cessation from labour on the Sunday, unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the sabbatical observance of that day is known to have been ordained, is the edict of Constantine, 321 A.D., of which the following is a translation: 'Let all judges, inhabitants of the cities, and artificers rest on the venerable day of the sun. But in the country husbandmen may freely and lawfully apply to the business of agriculture; since it often happens that the sowing of corn and planting of vines cannot be so advantageously performed on any other day; lest, by neglecting the opportunity, they should lose the benefits which the divine bounty bestows on us.' Before this time, such of the Christian writers as had endeavoured, by a mystical style of interpretation, to turn the Mosaic ceremonies to account as sources of moral and religious instruction had, probably in imitation of Philo, spiritualised the law of the Sabbath to the effect of representing it as a mystical prohibition to the Christian of evil works during all the days of his life, and a prefiguration of the spiritual repose and enjoyment which is his portion both in this world and in the next. But, in addition to this significance, there now began to be discovered in the Old Testament foreshadowings of the new Sunday-Sabbath; and the decrees of synods became more stringent. The Emperor Theodosius forbade business and public spectacles; Leo III. forbade legal processes and all labour. The Frank kings enforced Sunday observance by severe statutes. In England Ina of Essex forbade all servile work, and Alfred all labour, traffic, and legal processes. Canute was a supporter of Sunday observance; and some of the Norman kings were more strenuous, statutes of Edward III., Richard II., and Edward IV. specially dealing with the subject.
In Scotland the first record of effort by the authorities for the sanctification of the Lord's day is in the life of St Margaret. That saintly and most influential promoter of the stricter Roman usages had in Scotland to contend with great regardlessness of the Sunday, the Culdees (whom strangely enough Presbyterians were wont to claim as their spiritual ancestors) championing a lax Sunday keeping. 'It was another custom of theirs to neglect the reverence due to the Lord's day, by devoting themselves to every kind of business upon it just as they do on other days. That this was contrary to the law she proved to them by reason as well as by authority. Let us venerate the Lord's day because of the resurrection of the Lord, which happened that day, and let us no longer do servile works upon it.' She further quoted St Gregory's arguments in favour of keeping holy the day, and proved so unanswerable that thenceforward no one ventured to carry burdens or compel another to do so. How long the influence of St Margaret continued we do not know. Her descendant, James IV., seems to have paid more attention to the fourth commandment than to some of the others; Pedro de Ayala records of him that he 'fears God and observes all the precepts of the church. He does not eat meat on Wednesdays or Fridays. He would not ride on Sundays for any consideration, not even to mass.' But in Scotland, as a rule, the pre-reformation Sunday was in no sense strict; markets and fairs were commonly held on that day. Courts of law sat; archery was practised even in the kirk-yard; and Robin Hood and Little John plays were special Sunday spectacles.
The continental Reformers, while insisting on the value of the Sunday as a day of rest and worship, favoured the 'Dominical' as distinguished from the 'Puritan' view of the Sunday. Luther denied that Sunday should be kept because Moses commanded it; Zwingli is even more explicit; the second Helvetic Confession (1566) denies that keeping one day in seven is a moral duty, or that the observance of Sunday is founded on the fourth commandment, or that the Christian people might not choose any other day than the first; Calvin supports the freer view; and Beza expressly says that 'a Judaical rest from all kinds of work is not to be observed.' Nowhere except in English-speaking countries is the name Sabbath connected with the Sunday; when the word is regularly used for the name of a day of the week, as in Italian (Sabato), it simply means Saturday; the word for Sunday being with the Romance-speaking peoples derived from the Latin dies dominica ('Lord's day')—Domenica, Dimanche, &c. Orthodox German pastors take their households to miscellaneous concerts on Sunday evenings, and would consider hesitation to do so as a remnant of mere Jewish prejudice.
The English reformers—Cranmer, Hooper, Frith, Tyndale—it may generally be said, took a view distinctly unlike that of the Puritans. In Scotland also the less strict opinion at first prevailed. Knox's Confession and the Geneva Catechism, in use till the Westminster Confession was adopted, do not insist even on Sunday observances, and the word Sabbath is not used. Knox wrote letters and entertained guests to dinner on Sunday; plays (religious subjects) were performed on Sundays with the sanction of kirk-sessions as late as 1574. Church acts were immediately passed against holding markets on Sunday (a custom which obtained, in some places at least, as late as 1581), or producing the play of Robin Hood, and drinking in taverns in time of sermon. The Sunday is called Saboth-day soon after the Reformation; and the national legislation against all working or trading on Sunday dates from the Act of 1579. But it is contended, on good grounds, that the stricter view of Sabbath observance is of Puritan origin, and was introduced into Scotland from England. Some Puritans called the Lord's day 'the Sabbath' long before the end of the 16th century; but the first full statement of the 'high' doctrine of the Christian Sabbath was the Sabbathum Veteris et Novi Testamenti: or the True Doctrine of the Sabbath, by Dr Nicolas Bownde or Bound (1st ed. 1593; enlarged ed. 1606). The observance of the Sunday now became a keenly debated point between Puritans and High Churchmen—the first question of doctrine on which they directly differed. The Book of Sports (see SPORTS, BOOK OF) was long an apple of discord between Puritans and the other party; in the Long Parliament the Puritans triumphed, and the Westminster Assembly incorporated the Puritan view. It is certainly after the date of Bownde that the kirk-session records of Scotland are filled with proceedings against Sabbath-breakers for all manner of work, indoor and outdoor (shaving being especially noted), walking or 'vaging' in the streets and fields, being absent from public worship, &c., as well as for drinking or really disorderly and disquieting conduct. Sabbath-breaking was one of the charges on which the bishops were deposed by the Covenanting General Assembly of 1633. Scotland has since then been specially the classical land of Sabbath observance, though the early legislation of Massachusetts and Connecticut (where it was ordained that Sunday should be counted from sunset on Saturday) was even more puritanically rigorous. But in Scotland, as in England and America, the tendency is towards giving greater freedom to the individual conscience. Still, great numbers of devout Christians regret this tendency, and press for greater strictness of observance, and seek legislative support. In Scotland public-houses have been strictly kept closed since 1853; in Ireland, with exception of the great towns, since 1878; and in Wales since 1881; but English Sunday Closing Acts have always been negatived. In Scotland especially there is frequent agitation against Sunday trains, Sunday postal deliveries, the opening of museums, libraries, or botanic gardens, and Sunday cycling; and disasters such as that of the Tay Bridge (1879) have by some been treated publicly as God's judgment on Sabbath-breaking. The Sabbath Alliance was founded in 1847 for promoting the stricter observance of Sunday. On the other hand, the Sunday Society was founded in 1875, under the auspices of Dean Stanley and others, to secure the opening of museums and galleries on Sunday. The Grosvenor Gallery was opened on Sunday in 1878; the same year the Manchester and some others were opened on Sunday for the first time. The question as to Sunday trains, long fiercely debated in America, was compromised by allowing the running of the through mails, while, as in England, local trains do not usually run.
The law of England on Sunday observance begins with acts of Charles I. (1625 and 1627), but is mainly based on the Act 29 Car. II. chap. 7, dating from 1676, which forbids all labour, business, or work done in the course of a man's calling on the Lord's day, works of necessity and mercy being excepted. It does not apply to coach-hirers, or drivers, or farmers. A baker baking bread transgresses the statute, but not one who bakes his customers' Sunday dinners. Contracts entered into on Sunday are not void if they are not within the regular business of the contracting parties; a tradesman may draw or accept a bill of exchange on Sunday, and a professional man may sell his horse. By an act of Geo. III. any house of amusement to which persons are admitted on a Sunday on paying money, or by tickets already paid for, is a disorderly house—the test being whether the thing is done for gain. In some respects English Sunday laws are more explicit than those of Scotland. Special licensing laws regulate hotels and public-houses. There are also laws against killing game, using dogs or nets for sporting purposes, or fishing for salmon otherwise than with rod or line; the Factory Acts and Pawnbroking Acts exclude Sunday labour (Jews being excepted). Local regulations deal with theatres, museums, galleries, &c.
In Scotland a law of 1579 prohibits hand-labouring, working, gaming and playing; there was another act in 1661. And these statutes, often confirmed, have recently been held to be still valid. In some respects the law of Scotland is stricter; all salmon-fishing is forbidden. But in the main the legislation is the same. Diligence cannot be executed on Sunday, save in case of persons in meditatione fugæ; contracts signed on that day are not necessarily void.
In America the law generally follows that of England, though some states have special regulations about Sunday travelling. There are rules in force for preserving order and quiet on that day; by municipal regulations or general statute places of amusement and houses for the sale of intoxicants are usually kept shut.
In sharp opposition to the bulk of Puritan testimony is the contention of the devout people formerly known as 'Sabbatarians,' still represented by the Seventh-day Baptists in America, and a section of the Tunkers there. The English Sabbatarians of the 17th century (represented by Theophilus Brabourne) strenuously contended that the Sabbath was divinely instituted at the close of the work of creation, and remains binding on all mankind till the end of the world; the seventh day of the week alone is the Scriptural Sabbath: as there is absolutely no warrant in Scripture for changing from the seventh day of the week to the first, this change is mere will-worship, and a most unjustifiable encroachment of man's imagination on God's law. From the time of the Apostles, they hold, there never wanted down to the Reformation sincere Christians who, in the face of obloquy and persecution, continued to observe the fourth commandment. In the Abyssinian Church the Sabbath has not been supplanted by the Sunday, both days being kept; support is also claimed from the practice of the Armenians and Nestorians. Immediately after the Protestant Reformation were founded small societies testifying to the truth. In the later part of the 16th century and earlier part of the 17th there were at least eleven churches of Seventh-day Baptists in England, now dwindled to one or two. In America there are some flourishing churches of Seventh-day Baptists in sixteen states of the Union, with a membership of 10,000, two colleges, and an extensive literary propaganda.
The literature of the Sabbath controversy is exceedingly voluminous, as may best be seen by consulting Robert Cox, The Literature of the Sabbath Question (2 vols. 1865). See also, on the Puritan side, Holden's Christian Sabbath (1825); Gilfillan's Sabbath (1861); Four Prize Essays (Sabbath Alliance, 1886); and on the Dominical side, Hengstenberg's The Lord's Day (Eng. trans. 1853); Hessey's Sunday (Bampton Lectures for 1860); Zahn, Geschichte des Sabbaths (1878); Gairdner and Spedding, Studies in English History (1881); Crafts, The Sabbath for Man (New York, 1885). For the Seventh-day Baptists, see Lewis, Sabbath and Sunday (new ed. 1886); Andrews, History of the Sabbath (1873); and Bailey's History of the Seventh-Day Baptist General Conference.