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The Christian practice of worshipping on Sunday may have had its origins in the first century, but it would be many more centuries before Sunday became a “Sabbath” for Christians. In the earliest centuries of Christianity, Christians were divided on the Sabbath.[1] Some early Christians believed that they should continue to worship on Saturday with their fellow (non-Christian) Jews, as Jesus and the earliest disciples had done (see Luke 4:16; Luke 23:56; Acts 13:14–15, 44; 17:2). Other Christians believed that they should not worship on Saturday. For them, the Sabbath was a part of the law of Moses that had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ (see Colossians 2:16–17; compare Romans 14:5; Galatians 4:10–11). Some of these Christians insisted that the biblical Sabbath rest was a foreshadowing of a greater heavenly rest (see Colossians 2:16–17; Hebrews 4:4–11) or of a continual rest from sin in this life (see below). Christian understanding of the Sabbath and of a day set apart for worship was, therefore, bound up with how Christians understood their own relationship to Judaism.[2]

Christian practices of worship on the Sabbath (Saturday) and on the Lord’s day (Sunday) varied across the Roman Empire and across time.[3] The story of the Christian development of worship on Sunday can be told through the words of two Christians from the second century—Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr—and a few more from the fourth and fifth centuries—John Chrysostom and the authors of the Apostolic Constitutions (an ancient church handbook of instruction). These ancient Christian authors ultimately represent only those practices that they themselves were familiar with and their own personal biases regarding proper Christian worship. Nevertheless, through their words we can gain insights into how Christians came to prefer Sunday as the official day for worship and how beliefs developed regarding what should and should not be done on that day.

A Saturday or a Sunday Sabbath?

Ignatius of Antioch

Christian beliefs and practices surrounding the Sabbath were influenced by Christianity’s relationships with Judaism. We find an example of this as early as the start of the second century in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, bishop of the church in Syria.[4] Around AD 110, Ignatius was arrested by Roman authorities—he said that he was bound in chains for his belief in Christ.[5] Under a ten-person military guard, Ignatius was taken to Rome, where he expected to be tortured and killed by wild beasts in an amphitheater.[6] As the convoy traveled toward Rome, they were delayed in the city of Smyrna on the east coast of modern-day Turkey. Ignatius took advantage of the opportunity to write letters to Christians who had supported him on this difficult journey.[7] One of these letters was written to a church about sixty miles south of Smyrna, in the city of Magnesia on the Meander river.[8] Ignatius expressed his gratitude that the bishop of the church and some of the elders had visited him.[9] He counseled the church members in Magnesia to trust their leaders.[10] Then, he offered the following warning:

Do not be deceived by false opinions or old fables that are of no use. For if we are living according to Judaism presently, then we admit that we have not received God’s gracious gift. . . . It is outlandish to proclaim Jesus Christ and practice Judaism.[11]

It is not clear what prompted Ignatius’s invective against Christians believing or worshipping like Jews.[12] Perhaps the bishop of Magnesia had said something that concerned Ignatius. Perhaps Ignatius had recently encountered other Christians whose practices were too Jewish for his liking. Whatever the case, it is clear Ignatius thought that Christians ought to distinguish themselves from Jews. Yet he only provided a single hint regarding how a Christian might set herself or himself apart: by “no longer keeping the Sabbath [Saturday] but living according to the Lord’s day [Sunday].”[13] It is difficult to say how many Christians in this period gathered with each other to worship the Lord on the Sabbath (Saturday), or how many Christians gathered in a synagogue with Jews to worship together on that day.[14] But these practices must have been common enough to warrant Ignatius’s warning to the Magnesians: don’t worship on the Sabbath (Saturday) like the Jews.

Even though Ignatius may have tried to distinguish Christianity from Judaism, in practice this was not so easily accomplished. In fact, Ignatius’s only argument for why Christians should not observe the Sabbath like Jews was based on his reading of the Jewish Bible—the Christian Old Testament:

For the most divine prophets lived according to Jesus Christ. . . . And so those who lived according to the old ways came to a new hope, no longer keeping the Sabbath but living according to the Lord’s day.[15]

Ignatius did not defend this reading of the Old Testament. He provided no evidence to support his claim that the ancient prophets were actually Christians, meaning that they “lived according to Jesus Christ.” But he was convinced—and assumed that his Christian readers would be too—that the ancient prophets not only were Christian, but also had already ceased observing the Sabbath and had begun worshipping on the Lord’s day long ago.

Ignatius was not the only ancient Christian who believed that Christianity should distinguish itself from Judaism in practices of Sabbath observance, nor was he the only one to suggest that the Old Testament justified worship on the Lord’s day rather than the Sabbath. Whereas Ignatius had only implied that the prophets of old did not keep the Sabbath, Justin Martyr provided evidence for this claim.

Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr was a convert to Christianity (died c. AD 165).[16] In one of his writings, he provided a detailed account of his conversion.[17] He described how he sought for truth first among the philosophy of the Stoics and then among the Peripatetics and Pythagoreans before turning to the philosophy of Plato. One day, as he walked along the seashore pondering all he had learned, he happened upon an older gentleman who was a Christian. This man was kind and friendly. As they visited, the man listened to Justin’s personal struggles with finding truth. At first, the old man only asked him questions. Then, when Justin was forced to acknowledge he did not have all the answers, the man began to teach him. He told Justin of prophets long ago that had foretold the coming of the Son of God who would redeem the world. He testified of God’s purpose for humanity and of redemption in Jesus Christ. Justin’s heart and mind were touched, and he became convinced that he had now discovered the only true philosophy: Christianity. Like Ignatius, Justin Martyr believed that Christianity needed to be distinguished from Judaism. Just as Justin believed that Christianity was the only true philosophy, he also believed that Christianity was the one and only true Israel—and he used the words of the ancient prophets of Israel to demonstrate his point.[18]

For Justin Martyr, true Israel did not observe the Sabbath, but the Lord’s day. The Apostle Paul had once argued that circumcision was not necessary for Gentile-Christians to be redeemed by Christ because Abraham was justified by God for his faith prior to receiving circumcision (see Romans 4:1–12; Galatians 3:1–18).[19] Justin now adopted that same logic and applied it to the Sabbath:

And why did [God] not instruct those persons who lived before the time of Moses and Abraham to observe these same precepts; men who are called just and were pleasing to God, even though they were not circumcised in the flesh, and did not keep the Sabbaths?[20]

The implied answer is that God did not teach the people to observe the Sabbath until the time of Moses because the Sabbath itself is not necessary for salvation. And if the Sabbath was not necessary for those who lived before Moses, Justin thought, then it was not needed now.[21] Justin relied on this argument again and again.[22]

For Justin, the Jewish practice of resting on the Sabbath was nothing more than idleness: “You consider yourselves religious when you refrain from work on one day out of the week, and in doing so you don’t understand the real meaning of that precept.”[23] This was a common criticism lobbied against Jews; they were called “lazy” and “idle” for their refusal to work on the Sabbath.[24] For instance, the Roman poet Juvenal, writing around the same time as Ignatius, said of the Jews: “It’s their fathers who are to blame, taking every seventh day as a day of laziness and separate from ordinary life.”[25] Similarly, the Roman historian Tacitus, also writing in the early second century AD, connected the Jewish Sabbath and the Jubilee year prescribed in Leviticus 25 as equal opportunities for idleness: “They [the Jews] say that they first chose to rest on the seventh day because that day ended their toils; but after a time they were led by the charms of indolence to give over the seventh year as well to inactivity.”[26] Justin adopted this common Roman criticism of the Jews, but he suggested that the reason for Jewish idleness was actually a misinterpretation of the Sabbath commandment. In one instance, Justin argued that the Sabbath was imposed on Jews for only one reason: so that they “would be forced to remember [God], as he himself said, That you may know that I am God your Savior.”[27] In this paraphrase of Exodus 31:13 or Ezekiel 20:12, 20, Justin emphasized that knowledge of God—“that you may know”—is the primary purpose for the Sabbath and implied that the Jews misinterpreted this purpose. In another instance, Justin argued that the “true . . . Sabbath of God” is indeed to be a rest, but not from work as the Jews had assumed; instead, “the New Law demands that you observe a perpetual Sabbath”—that is, a rest from sinful deeds.[28] Whatever the purpose of the Sabbath command was intended to be, Justin was certain that it did not involve resting from work on the seventh day.

Even though Justin Martyr repeatedly discredited the idea of observing the seventh-day Sabbath, he was not against worshipping on a regular, set-apart day. At the end of Justin’s First Apology (written ca. AD 155), a defense of Christianity that he wrote to the Roman emperor Hadrian, he explained Christian worship on Sunday in this way: “And it is on Sunday that we all make assembly in common, since it is the first day, on which God changed darkness and matter and made the world, and Jesus Christ our savior rose from the dead on the same day.”[29] In Exodus, when the Sabbath commandment was given, the Lord explained the reason for resting on the seventh day by linking it to his work of creation: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:11). Justin, however, said that Christians worship on Sunday in order to remember not the conclusion of creation, but rather the first day of the creation of the world and the resurrection of Jesus—the new creation—because both occured on the same day of the week.[30] In this way, Justin adapted the very logic used to explain the Sabbath commandment in Exodus in order to explain Christian worship on the Lord’s day, Sunday.

Notice that Justin said nothing about resting from work on Sunday. Most Christians in this period did not have the luxury to neglect their work. Moreover, were Christians to abstain from work only one day after the Jews, it could reinforce the very assumption that people like Justin were laboring to avoid—that Christians were just a heretical sect of Judaism.[31]

The work of Ignatius and Justin Martyr was just the beginning. It would take many more centuries before Sunday was accepted as the most important day for Christian worship. Even in the fourth century AD, some Christians continued to worship with Jews on the Sabbath (Saturday).

John Chrysostom

The Christian bishop and orator John Chrysostom (AD 347–407) lived in a time very different from that of Ignatius and Justin Martyr. When John was born, Christianity had already been one of the official religions of the Roman Empire for more than thirty years. Under the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, persecution of Christians had ceased (due to the Edict of Milan, given AD 313) and the Lord’s day, Sunday, was even declared an empire-wide day of rest (AD 321)—as was the Jewish Sabbath.[32] Constantine’s Christian biographer celebrated these changes:

[Constantine] decreed that all those under Roman government should rest on the days named after the Savior, and similarly that they should honor the days of the Sabbath. . . . The Day of Salvation then, which also bears the names of Light-Day and Sun-Day, he taught all the military to revere devoutly. To those who shared the divinely given faith [Christianity] he allowed free time to attend unhindered the church of God, on the assumption that with all impediments removed they would join in the prayers.[33]

Within a few years of John Chrysostom’s thirtieth birthday, another major change occurred. The Roman emperor Theodosius I declared Christianity to be no longer an official religion, but the official religion of the Roman Empire (February 27, 380).[34] Although certain protections were still extended to Jews and to pagans, Christians were now a preferred class of people. In a time such as this, one might assume that no Christian would be found celebrating Jewish festivals and other traditions, but many still did—even in Chrysostom’s home city.

John Chrysostom grew up in the same city as Ignatius: Syrian Antioch. There he received the best education available. This training, combined with his innate talent for speaking, would eventually earn him the epithet “golden-mouthed” (chrysostomos in Greek). His family was wealthy, but as John grew and became increasingly devoted to the teachings of Jesus Christ, he felt the need to renounce his wealth and give it to the poor. So he became a monk, then later a deacon in Antioch who oversaw the distribution of aid to the poor. By AD 386, six years after Theodosius had declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, John Chrysostom was ordained to the priesthood and began preaching regularly to the Christian congregations in Antioch. He served in this capacity for the next decade, and word spread of his talent for preaching and leadership. In AD 398, he was invited to become the Bishop of Constantinople—one of the most important Christian leadership positions at that time. As the capital of the eastern empire, Constantinople was a wealthy city, and the church leaders there tended to be wealthy as well. True to his form, John Chrysostom ordered that their wealth be sold to feed the poor, and he regularly preached against the wealthy and powerful from the pulpit of the Great Church (Magna Ecclesia), which would later become Hagia Sophia.[35]

Most of Chrysostom’s teachings about the Sabbath come from the early years after his ordination as he preached in Antioch (ca. AD 386–389).[36] One might think that the sharp rhetoric of people such as Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr would have been sufficient to delineate between Christian and Jewish practices and to dissuade Christians from participating in any practices deemed too Jewish. Yet John Chrysostom lived more than two hundred and fifty years after those authors, and some Christians continued to observe Jewish festivals and worship with Jews on the Sabbath in addition to attending church on the Lord’s day. John Chrysostom presented himself as a physician attempting to cure this “Judaizing disease” of his congregation:

What is this disease? The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews are soon to march upon us one after the other and in quick succession: the feast of Trumpets, the feast of Tabernacles, the fasts. There are many in our ranks who say they think as we do. Yet some of these are going to watch the festivals, and others will join the Jews in keeping their feasts and observing their fasts. I wish to drive this perverse custom from the Church right now. . . . But now that the Jewish festivals are close by and at the very door, if I should fail to cure those who are sick with the Judaizing disease, I am afraid that, because of their ill-suited association and deep ignorance, some Christians may partake in the Jews’ transgressions; once they have done so, I fear my discourses on these transgressions will be in vain. For if they hear no word from me today, they will then join the Jews in their fasts; once they have committed this sin, it will be useless for me to apply the remedy.[37]

Chrysostom concluded his sermon, declaring himself free from the blood and sins of any Christian who would dare to attend synagogue or worship with Jews, including on the Sabbath:

If any of you, whether you are here present or not, shall go to the spectacle of the Trumpets, or rush off to the synagogue . . . or take part in the fasting, or share in the Sabbath, or observe any other Jewish ritual great or small, I call heaven and earth as my witnesses that I am guiltless of the blood of all of you.[38]

Chrysostom made it clear that Christians worshipping like Jews was a “perverse custom” which he hoped to drive from the church.[39]

Many Christian authors from the second century on had declared that Christians should no longer worship like Jews on the Sabbath. When the Christian “Lord’s day,” Sunday, had been decreed an official day of rest under Constantine, the Roman emperor’s Christian biographer had declared that the Lord himself had transferred the weekly holy day from the Sabbath (Saturday) to the Lord’s day (Sunday): “The Word [of God, Jesus Christ] conveyed and transferred the celebration of the Sabbath to the rising of the light, and he transmitted to us an image of true rest, the day of salvation, the day of the Lord, the first day of light.”[40] The commandment issued in Exodus 20 was transferred from the last day of the week to the first, from the Sabbath day to the day of the Lord. Now, more than fifty years after this decree, Chrysostom was still trying to convince Christians to stop worshipping with Jews on the Sabbath.

Why would they not listen? How did those Christians who regularly celebrated the Jewish Sabbath and engaged in other Jewish activities justify their actions? Chrysostom’s third sermon against Judaizing Christians contains a clue. A lengthy segment of this sermon is devoted to explaining why Jesus celebrated Jewish festivals, but Christians should not.[41] At the beginning of this section, Chrysostom argues:

Christ did keep the Passover with them. Yet he did not do so with the idea that we should keep the Passover with them. He did so that he might bring the reality to what foreshadowed the reality. He also submitted to circumcision, kept the sabbath, observed the festival days, and ate the unleavened bread. But He did all these things in Jerusalem. However, we are subject to none of these things, and on this Paul spoke out loud and clear: “If you be circumcised, Christ shall be of no advantage to you.”[42]

If Chrysostom had to spend so much time explaining why Jesus celebrated Jewish festivals, then it is likely at least some Christians were using accounts of Jesus’s life from the Gospels to justify their own practices. Chrysostom continues:

Why did Christ keep the Passover at that time? The old Passover was a type of the Passover to come, and the reality had to supplant the type. So Christ first showed the foreshadowing and then brought the reality to the banquet table. Once the reality has come, the type which foreshadowed it is henceforth lost in its own shadow and no longer fills the need.[43]

For Chrysostom, the Jewish celebration of the Passover was only a type and shadow of the “banquet table,” that is, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.[44] Chrysostom describes the true Passover as follows:

[It is] the offering and sacrifice which is celebrated at each religious service. That you may know that this is true, listen to Paul when he says: “For Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7), and again: “As often as you shall eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:26). So as often as you approach the sacrificial banquet with a clean conscience, you celebrate the Passover.[45]

John Chrysostom goes on to suggest that this logic applies to all Christian participation in what he has deemed Jewish practices. Certainly, Chrysostom would agree with the synod in Laodicea (ca. AD 360), which tried to add authority to this type of anti-Sabbath polemic by decreeing, “Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honoring the Lord’s day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians.”[46]

Chrysostom would probably also agree with a church order (that is, a church handbook of instruction) that originated in Antioch, likely during his life. This church order, the Apostolic Constitutions, declared, “If any clergy or laity enter a synagogue of Jews or of Heretics to pray, let him be condemned and excommunicated.”[47]

Christians such as Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and John Chrysostom held strong supersessionist views about Christianity’s relationship to Judaism. We have seen how these views influenced their practices of Christian worship—particularly their beliefs about the day that Christians should gather to worship Jesus Christ. Some of these authors also held strong views about how proper Christian worship should be practiced on Sunday.

Christian Worship on the Lord’s Day

Justin Martyr

When Justin Martyr wrote his defense of Christianity to the Roman emperor Hadrian, he not only explained that Christians worshipped on Sunday, but also shared a little about what that worship entailed. For Justin and many early Christians, Sunday worship was a time to gather as one, to listen to inspired messages, and to partake of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper (also known as the Eucharist or Communion):[48]

And on the day called Sunday those who dwell in cities or the countryside gather together, and the memoirs of the apostles [the Gospels] or the writings of the prophets [from the Old Testament] are read for as long as there is time. Then, when the reader has stopped, the one presiding, [gives] a sermon, admonishes [us] and invites [us] to imitate these good things [the words of scripture]. Then we all stand up together and pray. And . . . when we have stopped praying, bread and wine [mixed with] water are brought, and the one presiding prays and offers thanks in similar fashion, to the best of his ability, and the people give their ascent, saying “Amen.” And the [bread and wine/water], over which thanks have been given, are distributed to each person and each partakes. And it is sent to those who are not present by means of the deacons.[49]

Christians did not yet have church buildings, so all the events Justin describes here would have taken place in small apartments, in the larger homes of a wealthy Christians, or in a rented location such as a tavern or hotel.[50] The practices summarized here by Justin are not unique to the Christian gatherings he attended; many of these practices were already alluded to in the first-century writings of the Apostle Paul (for example, see 1 Corinthians 11:23–26; 14:26–33).[51] And, by the beginning of the second century, when the Roman governor Pliny the Younger summarize his knowledge of Christian worship, it too sounds quite similar to Justin’s description.

Pliny the Younger was governor of Pontus and Bithynia on the shore of the Black Sea, the northwest coast of modern-day Turkey. Around AD 112, Pliny wrote a letter to the Roman emperor Trajan to solicit advice regarding the decline in worship at the local pagan temples—a problem he attributed to a growing population of Christians. In this letter, Pliny explained to Trajan what he had come to learn about this new religious group. When we read the words of Pliny, we must remember that his description of Christian practices is based on secondhand knowledge, as Pliny himself never witnessed Christian worship. Pliny’s report to Trajan is based on Pliny’s own interpretation of what some Christians confessed when they had been arrested and accused of sedition. Some of these Christian confessions were even extracted under torture—“I [Pliny] judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses.”[52] Pliny was convinced that Christian practices must have been particularly pernicious, given that they were so stubborn in refusing to worship the image of the emperor. Ultimately, however, all that Pliny was able to ascertain about Christian practices was the following:

[These Christians] asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food—but ordinary and innocent food.[53]

Despite the fact that this summary of Christian worship has been filtered through Pliny’s own biases, we can still discern a pattern that corresponds with Justin Martyr’s description. First, Christians regularly gathered on a fixed day, a day set apart for this purpose—most likely Saturday or Sunday.[54] Second, at this meeting they worshipped God together and celebrated their shared belief in Jesus Christ—Justin mentions scripture reading and prayer, whereas Pliny mentions hymn singing. Third, they used this time to recommit themselves to living a Christlike life of honesty and good works—Justin mentions a sermon or address admonishing members to live virtuous lives, and Pliny describes an oath Christians would affirm to live justly. Finally, both Justin and Pliny suggest that part of the regular Christian worship involved eating food. Whereas Christians who were confessing to Pliny only affirmed that this food was “ordinary and innocent,” Justin described a sacred and symbolic meal in which ordinary bread and wine become sacred as they are blessed and then shared among all Christians (compare 1 Corinthians 11:23–26).[55]

Justin and Pliny do not provide us with any details about the content of the sermons, songs, or prayers that were part of early Christian worship. Fortunately, another Christian document, the Didache (written ca. AD 100), describes the prayers some Christians offered over the Eucharist.[56] First, it describes the blessing over the cup of wine: “We give you thanks, our Father, for the holy vine of David, your child, which you made known to us through Jesus your child. To you be the glory forever.” This is followed by the blessing over the bread: “We give you thanks, our Father, for the life and knowledge that you made known to us through Jesus your child. To you be the glory forever.”[57] After baptized Christians[58] finished partaking of the wine and bread, another prayer was offered:

We give you thanks, holy Father, for your holy name which you have made reside in our hearts, and for the knowledge, faith, and immortality that you made known to us through Jesus your child. To you be the glory forever. You, O Master Almighty, created all things for the sake of your name, and gave both food and drink to humans for their refreshment, that they might give you thanks. And you graciously provided us with spiritual food and drink, and eternal life through your child. Above all we thank you because you are powerful. To you be the glory forever. Remember your church, O Lord; save it from all evil, and perfect it in your love. And gather it from the four winds into your kingdom, which you prepared for it. For yours is the power and the glory forever. May grace come and this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. If anyone is holy, let him come; if anyone is not, let him repent. Maranatha! Amen.[59]

It is not clear whether Ignatius, Justin Martyr, or the Christians interrogated by Pliny would have been familiar with these prayers, as worship varied somewhat from city to city. Nevertheless, with these few examples we see already at the beginning of the second century the development of a basic structure or pattern for Christian worship.

John Chrysostom and the Apostolic Constitutions

By the time of John Chrysostom, Christians had more time and space for worship. Since Constantine had declared Sunday a day for rest and worship, more Christians were now able to devote themselves to the Lord at least one day a week, and since Christians were now a legal religion with government support, they could afford to erect buildings dedicated solely to Christian worship. Despite these changes, the basic structure of Christian worship remained quite similar to that outlined by Justin Martyr hundreds of years earlier. Details about worship in Chrysostom’s church survive from a church order known as the Apostolic Constitutions.[60] Although church services throughout the Roman empire and beyond its borders could vary, the Apostolic Constitutions provide one of the most detailed examples of how worship on the Lord’s day might have been experienced.[61]

Several passages from the Apostolic Constitutions detail how the authors believed a church service should be organized. In one passage, the authors compare the church building to a ship, with the bishop serving as the captain, the deacons as mariners, and other church members as passengers.[62] The bishop was to sit on a seat in the front with elders (the “presbytery”) on each side, while the deacons and deaconesses prepared places for the other church members to sit.[63] Everyone was invited to sit in silence before the meeting began.

When the meeting began, an appointed reader stood at the front to read from the Old Testament and then the New Testament. In antiquity, books were expensive, and reading was a luxury; only the wealthiest citizens in the Roman empire owned books. The overwhelming majority of Christians did not personally own any books, including scriptures.[64] Attending church was their one chance to hear the scriptures. So, according to the Apostolic Constitutions, they sat together silently and listened as the assigned reader opened the Old Testament and read two selections of passages. Then another person stood and sang one of the Psalms, and the congregation “join(ed) at the conclusions of the verses.”[65] Finally, a selection from Acts or Paul’s letters was read aloud, followed by a selection from the Gospels.[66]

After the reading, the bishop, also called the high priest, stood and addressed the congregation, saying: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.” The congregation responded, “And with your spirit.”[67] Some of the elders gave sermons, followed by a sermon from the bishop, exhorting the congregation to live righteously.[68] Afterward, it was time for the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

At this point, anyone in the congregation who had not been baptized or who was unworthy to partake of the sacrament was dismissed. The deacon who had dismissed that portion of the congregation would then address those who remained: “Let no one have anything against any one; let no one come in hypocrisy; let us stand upright before the Lord.”[69] The men then greeted other men near them with a “holy kiss” (2 Corinthians 13:11–12), and the women did the same with other women.[70] While the congregation was engaged in this ritual kiss, the priests and deacons were preparing the sacrament.

They held such reverence and respect for the sacred rite of the sacrament that some deacons were assigned to stand near the bread and wine with “a fan, made up of thin membranes, or of the feathers of the peacock, or of fine cloth, and . . . silently drive away the small animals that fly about, that they may not come near to the cups.”[71] As the sacrament portion of the service began, the bishop or high priest would “make the sign of the cross on his forehead with his hand” and address the congregation: “The grace of Almighty God, and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the holy Ghost, be with you all,” to which the congregation responded, “And with your spirit.”[72] The bishop or high priest then said, “Let us give thanks to the Lord,” and the people responded, “It is meet and right so to do.” The Apostolic Constitutions explains that the high priest was then to bless the congregation with a prayer, “as Moses commanded the priests to bless the people.”[73] The bishop could have offered a prayer similar to this one: “Save Your people, O Lord, and bless Your inheritance, which You have obtained with the precious blood of Your Christ, and has called a royal priesthood, and an holy nation.”[74] Additional prayers were also offered for different groups of people and for the church as a whole.[75] All of this was meant to prepare the people to partake of the sacred elements of the Lord’s Supper: the bread and the wine. According to the Apostolic Constitutions, the final prayer spoken by the bishop was as follows:

O God, who art great, and whose name is great, who art great in counsel and mighty in works, the God and Father of Your holy child Jesus, our Savior; look down upon us, and upon this Your flock, which You have chosen by Him to the glory of Your name; and sanctify our body and soul, and grant us the favor to be “made pure from all filthiness of flesh and spirit,” (2 Corinthians 7:1) and may obtain the good things laid up for us, and do not account any of us unworthy; but be our comforter, helper, and protector, through Your Christ, with whom glory, honor, praise, doxology, and thanksgiving be to You and to the Holy Ghost forever. Amen.[76]

To this prayer, the people responded, “Amen.” The bishop then said, “holy things for holy persons,” and the congregation responded in unison:

There is One that is holy; there is one Lord, one Jesus Christ, blessed forever, to the glory of God the Father. Amen. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will among men. Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed be He that comes in the name of the Lord,” being the Lord God who appeared to us, “Hosanna in the highest” (Luke 2:14 and Matthew 21:9).[77]

Afterward, the bishop was the first to partake of the bread and wine, followed by the male elders (presbyters/priests), deacons, readers, singers, and ascetics. Then the women officers, deaconesses, celibate-women, and widows, in that order, proceeded to partake with their heads covered. Finally, all the baptized children and the remainder of the congregation, baptized men and women, came forward to receive the bread and wine. As each person stepped forward, the bishop said, “The body of Christ,” and the person who received the bread said, “Amen.” Then the deacon offered the cup of wine saying, “The blood of Christ, the cup of life,” and the person who received it would say “Amen.”[78]

During this long process, as each individual had the opportunity to come forward one by one to encounter the body of the Lord, a singer chanted Psalm 33.[79] After the last person received the emblems of the body and blood of the Lord, some deacons removed any remaining bread and wine, while another deacon addressed the congregation:

Now we have received the precious body and the precious blood of Christ, let us give thanks to Him who has thought us worthy to partake of these His holy mysteries; and let us beseech Him that it may not be to us for condemnation, but for salvation, to the advantage of soul and body, to the preservation of piety, to the remission of sins, and to the life of the world to come. Let us arise, and by the grace of Christ let us dedicate ourselves to God, to the only unbegotten God, and to His Christ.[80]

Additional prayers were offered by the bishop and a deacon, then the service concluded as a deacon spoke the words, “Depart in peace.”[81]

In the time of John Chrysostom, the Apostolic Constitutions presents this liturgy as the ideal church service. There are hints in the text, however, that things did not always go according to plan. For instance, the document insists again and again that the congregation should be silent: “with all quietness and good order . . . they also keeping silence”; “stand up in great silence”; “keep them silent”; “and praying silently.”[82] The Apostolic Constitutions even quotes a scripture to justify this emphasis on silence: “Be silent, and hear, O Israel” (see Deuteronomy 27:9).[83] The text emphasizes this point so strongly that it seems church services were probably not as silent as the bishop would have liked. Indeed, Chrysostom, along with other bishops and presbyters, occasionally felt the need to admonish their congregations to be quiet and pay attention.[84] On one occasion, Chrysostom complained that the local Christian women talked more during church services “than in the market, or at the [public] bath . . . as if they came here for recreation.”[85] Elsewhere, Chrysostom complains that church members are too distracted during the sermon: “You are called to a kingdom, to the kingdom of the Son of God, and you sit there yawning, and scratching, and dozing?”[86]

Similarly, it seems that Christians in this time may not have attended church services with the frequency that church leadership would have liked. The Apostolic Constitutions instructs the local bishop to “command and exhort” his congregation that they should “come constantly to church morning and evening every day.”[87] This daily church meeting was not a full service like the one previously described, but rather an opportunity to gather with other members of the church to sing psalms and pray. The bishop was also supposed to admonish his congregation as follows: “And on the day of our Lord’s resurrection, which is the Lord’s day, meet more diligently . . . Otherwise what apology will he make to God who does not assemble on that day to hear the saving word concerning the resurrection [. . . and receive the sacrament], the gift of holy food?”[88] This admonishment was likely given because congregants were not coming to church.

In a sermon on the baptism of Christ, John Chrysostom took the opportunity to admonish those who were not regularly attending church. For Chrysostom, such people were stealing time from the Lord, “a holy day set apart for listening to spiritual words,” by focusing on their own affairs on that day.[89] He begins by pointing out that the Lord could have chosen three or four days for himself, but instead allowed Christians six days to do whatever they want and only one day for himself. Then, using the story of the widow’s mites from the Gospels, Chrysostom shows that the Lord does not even demand that Christians stay in church all day on Sunday. He encourages his congregants to be like the widow whom Jesus praised for her great sacrifice because she gave all she had: two small copper coins—two mites (Mark 12:41–44; Luke 21:1–4). Chrysostom says, “What the widow did in her almsgiving, so too you must do on the occasion of this day: just as she cast in two copper coins and gained much favor with God, so too you should lend two hours to God, and you will carry home the profit of countless days.”[90] A century later, another church leader would complain: “When the herald gives the summons to church, everyone claims to be too tired. If there is flute and zither music [in the public square], they rush as though they had wings.”[91]

John Chrysostom’s primary desire was for Christians to attend church to worship on Sunday. Yet he also expressed some concern for how Christians spent their time on the Lord’s day outside of church: “God teaches us in parables that one day in the weekly cycle should be wholly set apart and devoted to the service of spiritual things.”[92] Statements such as this make it sound as though Chrysostom had begun to apply the biblical Sabbath-day prohibitions to the Lord’s day. Yet we cannot be certain, because elsewhere Chrysostom suggests that the biblical Sabbath regulations were “partial and temporary.”[93] We do know, however, that even a century after Chrysostom, there was still no agreement on whether the law-of-Moses prohibitions against Sabbath-day work applied to Christians’ celebration of the Lord’s day.

In the late sixth century, Gregory of Tours (died ca. AD 594) wrote a series of anecdotes describing how certain Christians were punished for performing specific labors on the Lord’s day. In one instance, a group of Christians near the town of Limoges (located today in France) were apparently consumed by fire from heaven for working on the Lord’s day.[94] In another instance, Gregory describes how a Christian began to mill grain on the Lord’s day, but as he turned the millstone his hand miraculously clinched shut and he could not open his fist.[95] Near the same time that Gregory of Tours related these accounts to affirm the Lord’s day as the new biblical Sabbath, another Gregory proclaimed the opposite. Gregory the Great (died AD 604) allowed that one should “rest from worldly work and devote oneself entirely to prayer on the Lord’s day,” but also proclaimed that only the anti-Christ would “cause to abstain from all work on the Sabbath and the Lord’s day.”[96] It would be many more centuries before Sabbatarianism—that is, the belief that the prohibition on Sabbath-day work from Exodus 20 also applies to Christians’ Sunday observance—became the norm in some Protestant traditions.

Conclusion

Today, throughout the world, many Christians are identifiable in part by their practices of worshipping together on Sunday. We have seen how these practices developed in the second through the sixth centuries. During this period, the preference for worshipping on Sunday instead of Saturday developed in an effort to distinguish Christianity from Judaism. Once Sunday was secured as the Christian holy day and Christians were seen as distinct from Jews, some Christians began to apply more freely the Sabbath prohibitions from the law of Moses to the Lord’s day—including the prohibitions on work. Christians also developed their own distinctive practices of worship. While the basic framework for church services was already established by the beginning of the second century, greater Christian freedom in the fourth century and beyond allowed for further developments, including more time for sermons, the reading of scripture, and the celebration of the Eucharist. I have focused on only a handful of writings, from Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr in the second century to John Chrysostom and the authors of the Apostolic Constitutions in the fourth and fifth centuries. Yet in this small sampling of texts, we have seen Christians striving to preserve their ancient traditions while simultaneously adapting their worship to the needs of new generations—even the shared Jewish and Christian practice of a weekly holy day.

Notes

[1] Important studies on the history of the Sabbath and Sunday in early Christian literature include: Samuele Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to Sunday: A Historical Investigation of the Rise of Sunday Observance in Early Christianity (Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University Press, 1977); Richard J. Bauckham, “Sabbath and Sunday in the Post-Apostolic Church,” in From Sabbath to Lord’s Day: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Investigation, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1982), 251–98; Bauckham, “Sabbath and Sunday in the Medieval Church in the West,” in Carson, From Sabbath, 299–309; Roger T. Beckwith and Wilfrid Stott, This is the Day: The Biblical Doctrine of the Christian Sunday in its Jewish and Early Church Setting (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1978); Jean Danielou, The Bible and the Liturgy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1956), 242–86; and Willy Rordorf, Sunday: The History of the Day of Rest and Worship in the Earliest Centuries of the Christian Church, trans. A. A. K. Graham (London: SCM Press, 1968). Rordorf also assembled an anthology of ancient Christian texts about the Sabbath and Sunday with German translation in Sabbat und Sonntag in Alten Kirche (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1972).

[2] For more on the function of anti-Jewish polemic in early Christian literature, see Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Charlotte Fonrobert, “Jewish Christians, Judaizers, and Christian anti-Judaism,” in Late Ancient Christianity, ed. Virginia Burrus, vol. 2, A People’s History of Christianity (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006), 234–54, 306–9; Paula Fredriksen and Oded Irshai, “Christian Anti-Judaism: Polemics and Policies from the Second to the Seventh Century,” in Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4, ed. Steven T. Katz, The Late Roman–Rabbinic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 977–1034; John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes Toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983); Andrew S. Jacobs, Christ Circumcised: A Study in Early Christian History and Difference (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012); Judith M. Lieu, Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century (London: T&T Clark, 1996); Marcel Simon, Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire AD 135–425, trans. Henry McKeating (Portland, OR: Littman, 1986); and Miriam S. Taylor, Anti-Judaism and Early Christian Identity: A Critique of the Scholarly Consensus, Studia Post-Biblica 46 (Leiden: Brill, 1995). On the specific issue of Christian anti-Judaism and the Sabbath, see Bacchiocchi, Anti-Judaism and the Origin of Sunday (Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University Press, 1975); Jason Robert Combs, “The Polemical Origin of Luke 6.5D: Dating Codex Bezae’s Sabbath-Worker Agraphon,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 42, no. 2 (2019): 162–84; and Combs, “Christian Anti-Sabbath Polemic and the Textual Transmission of Luke 4:16 and 23:56,” TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 26 (2021): 1–18.

[3] See Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; and Revelation 1:10. On the origin and significance of the “Lord’s day,” see Bauckham, “The Lord’s Day,” in Carson, From Sabbath, 221–50.

[4] On Ignatius as bishop of Syria, see Ignatius, Romans (Rom.) 2. According to tradition, Ignatius was either the second bishop in Antioch, following Peter (Origen, Homilies on Luke 6.4), or the third, following Peter and Euodius (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 3.22, 36); see Bart D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press, 2003), 1:204; and William R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1985), 10–15.

[5] See Ignatius, Ephesians (Eph.) 1.2; 3.1; Philadelphians 5.1. On the date of Ignatius’s letters, see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.36; and Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch, 3–7.

[6] On the ten-person guard, see Ignatius, Rom. 5.1; and on death by wild beasts, see Ignatius, Eph. 1.2; Trallians 10.1; Rom. 4.1–2; and 5.2–3.

[7] I accept the scholarly consensus that the so-called middle recension best represents the earliest attainable text of Ignatius’s letters; see Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch, 4–5.

[8] On the route of Ignatius’s journey, see Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch, 11.

[9] Ignatius, Magnesians (Magn.) 2.1.

[10] Ignatius, Magn. 2.1–7.2.

[11] Ignatius, Magn. 8.1; 10.3; translation modified from Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, 1:249, 251. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of Ignatius’s letters are from Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers.

[12] “I am not writing these things, my beloved, because I have learned that some of you are behaving like this”; Ignatius, Magn. 11.1.

[13] Ignatius, Magn. 9.1. On the translation, “Lord’s day,” see Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch, 123n3. For more on Ignatius and the Sabbath, see Gager, Origins of Anti-Semitism, 127–28; Lieu, Image and Reality, 23–56; and Heather A. McKay, Sabbath and Synagogue: The Question of Sabbath Worship in Ancient Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 179–83.

[14] “It would be consonant with Ignatius’s concerns elsewhere,” Lieu concludes, “if some [Christians] were meeting on the sabbath.” Image and Reality, 46. It is possible that “observance” in Magnesia could have included synagogue attendance, but that is not explicit in Ignatius’s letter. Moreover, “Sabbath observance” could refer to any number of alternative social practices; see Lieu, Image and Reality, 47; Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch, 123; and Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to Sunday, 213–18.

[15] Ignatius, Magn. 8.2–9.1.

[16] He came to be called Justin Martyr because, according to tradition, he died as a martyr in ca. AD 165. For more on the life of Justin Martyr, see Robert M. Grant, Greek Apologists of the Second Century (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988), 50–73; and David Rokeah, Justin Martyr and the Jews (Leiden: Brill, 2002).

[17] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho (Dial.) 2–8.

[18] Justin Martyr, Dial. 11.5; 123.5–8.

[19] See Rokeah, Justin Martyr and the Jews, 43–44.

[20] Justin Martyr, Dial. 27.5. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of Justin’s Dialogue are from Thomas B. Falls and Thomas P. Halton, St. Justin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho, ed. Michael Slusser (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003).

[21] Justin Martyr, Dial. 23.3.

[22] See Justin Martyr, Dial. 19.5 (all the prophets); 23.1 (Enoch and others); and 92.2 (Enoch, Noah, Noah’s children, and others).

[23] Justin Martyr, Dial. 12.3.

[24] See Louis H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 166; McKay, Sabbath and Synagogue, 192; and Lieu, Image and Reality, 121.

[25] Juvenal, Satires 14.105–6; translation from Susanna Morton Braund, ed., Juvenal and Persius, Loeb Classical Library 91 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).

[26] Tacitus, Histories 5.4.3; translation from Clifford H. Moore and John Jackson, eds., Tacitus, Histories: Books 4–5; Annals: Books 1–3, Loeb Classical Library 249 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931). The Roman philosopher Seneca is also remembered to have criticized the Jews for idleness based on their Sabbath practices; see Augustine, The City of God D-i 6.10–11.

[27] Justin Martyr, Dial. 19.6; italics in original.

[28] Justin Martyr, Dial. 12.3.

[29] Justin Martyr, First Apology (1 Apol.) 67.8. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of Justin’s First Apology are from Denis Minns and Paul Parvis, eds., Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

[30] Regarding Justin’s logic, McKay has explained, “In this piece of apologetic, Justin turns on its head the Jewish view of creation as a sequential act with rest as its completion.” Sabbath and Synagogue, 189.

[31] In the wake of Marcion, who taught that Christians should have nothing to do with the Jewish Bible, Christians such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, and others sought to maintain a distinction from Judaism and simultaneously affirm a positive relation between the God of the Old Testament and Jesus. This resulted in affirmations of the Sabbath’s end being accompanied by often contradictory reinterpretations of biblical Sabbath law intended to demonstrate Christian continuity with Judaism. For instance, Irenaeus maintains that the Sabbath was not “made void” but was “lawfully” observed by Jesus and others (Against Heresies [Haer.] 4.8.1–3); yet he then insists that Christians should not observe the Sabbath day but live a continual Sabbath (Haer. 4.16.1–2). Likewise, Tertullian claims that Jesus did not end but fulfilled Sabbath law (Against Marcion [Marc.] 4.12), while at the same time insisting (with his recent predecessors) that the Sabbath command had come to an end (Marc. 5.4). Kenneth Strand provides a helpful summary of Tertullian’s position that applies equally well to Irenaeus: “The unifying thread in [these discussions] is that the very same God was the God of both OT and NT dispensations and that the OT and NT do not contradict each other.” “Tertullian and the Sabbath,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 9, no. 2 (1971): 140. Strands show that both Irenaeus and Tertullian argue this point fervently, even when it means that they contradict themselves. Strand provides a useful overview of Tertullian’s thought on the Sabbath, but his conclusion that a shift in belief was caused by Tertullian’s Montanist conversion is unconvincing. As Strand himself notes, the shift can be explained by the change from Tertullian’s exegesis of passages in Luke to those in Paul. This note is adopted in part from Jason Robert Combs, “Christian Anti-Sabbath Polemic and the Textual Transmission of Luke 4:16 and 23:56,” TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 26 (2021): 34n24.

[32] See commentary in Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall, Eusebius, Life of Constantine: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 317; and Christoph Markschies, Between Two Worlds: Structures of Earliest Christianity, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1999), 34.

[33] Translation modified from Cameron and Hall, Eusebius: Life of Constantine, 159.

[34] For more on this edict, Cunctos Populos (Theodosian Code 16.1.2), see Clyde Pharr, The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions: A Translation with Commentary, Glossary, and Bibliography (Princeton University Press, 1952), 440. For a further discussion, see R. Malcolm Errington, “Christian Accounts of the Religious Legislation of Theodosius I,” Klio 79, no. 2 (1997): 398–443.

[35] For more on John Chrysostom’s background, see Justo L. González, The Story of Christianity, vol. 1, The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation, rev. ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 227–28; and Robert L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century (Berkeley: University of California, 1983).

[36] The sermons Against Judaizing Christians were most likely presented during John Chrysostom’s first two years of preaching in Antioch; see Paul W. Harkins, ed., Saint John Chrysostom: Discourses Against Judaizing Christians, Fathers of the Church 68 (Catholic University of America Press, 1979), li–lx.

[37] John Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 1.1.5. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of John Chrysostom’s Against Judaizing Christians (Adv. Jud.) are from Harkins, ed., Discourses Against Judaizing Christians.

[38] Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 1.8.1.

[39] Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 1.1.5.

[40] Eusebius, Commentary on the Psalms (Comm. Ps.), in Patrologia Graeca (PG) 23.1169c; my own translation. Bacchiocchi suggests that Eusebius was exaggerating in his statement that “the Logos” himself had transferred worship from Sabbath to Sunday because he (Eusebius) almost immediately contradicts that statement by saying “all that was prescribed for the Sabbath, we have transferred to the Lord’s Day”; see Origin of Sunday, 117–118; Bacchiocchi is quoting Eusebius, Comm. Ps., PG 23.1172. However, Eusebius’s two statements are not necessarily contradictory. Eusebius could believe that the Logos had transferred the holy day from Sabbath to Sunday and that Christians, therefore, transferred “all that had been necessary to do on the Sabbath . . . to the Lord’s Day.” Eusebius, Comm. Ps., PG 23.1172a; my own translation. This note is adopted in part from Combs, “Christian Anti-Sabbath Polemic and the Textual Transmission of Luke 4:16 and 23:56,” 36n32.

[41] Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 3.3.9–3.4.1. For more on John Chrysostom’s anti-Judaizing interpretation of Jesus’s Jewish practices, see Joshua Garroway, “The Law-Observant Lord: John Chrysostom’s Engagement with the Jewishness of Christ,” JECS 18 (2010): 591–615; Jacobs, Christ Circumcised, 116–17; and Fredriksen and Irshai, “Christian Anti-Judaism,” 1005–7.

[42] Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 3.3.9; translation modified from Harkins, Chrysostom: Discourses Against Judaizing Christians, 58.

[43] Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 3.4.1; translation modified from Harkins, Chrysostom: Discourses Against Judaizing Christians, 59.

[44] Jesus instituted the sacrament (Eucharist) at a Passover meal; see Matthew 26:17–30; Mark 14:12–26; and Luke 22:7–39.

[45] Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 3.4.3–4; translation modified from Harkins, Chrysostom: Discourses Against Judaizing Christians, 60.

[46] Canon 29, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 14, trans. Henry R. Percival (Oxford: Parker and Co.; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916), 148. For discussion on the minimal impact of this decree, see Bacchiocchi, Origin of Sunday, 118; and F. J. E. Boddens Hosang, Establishing Boundaries: Christian–Jewish Relations in Early Council Texts and the Writings of Church Fathers (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 93–99.

[47] Apostolic Constitutions (Const. Ap.) 8.47.65; my own translation based on the Greek from Marcel Metzger, ed. and trans., Les Constitutions Apostoliques, III, SC 336 (Paris: Cerf, 1987), 298. See also Fredriksen and Irshai, “Christian Anti-Judaism,” 1005.

[48] On the history and development of ancient Christian worship, see Paul F. Bradshaw, Reconstructing Early Christian Worship (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009); Danielou, Bible and Liturgy; Robin M. Jensen and J. Patout Burns, “The Eucharistic Liturgy in Hippo’s Basilica Major at the Time of Augustine,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 335–38; and Andrew B. McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices in Social, Historical, and Theological Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2014).

[49] Justin Martyr, 1 Apol.67.3–5; translation modified from Minns and Parvis, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, 259–261. On wine mixed with water, see Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 65.3.

[50] Eventually, Christians would purchase such spaces and adapt them to function as churches—for instance, by adding a baptismal font into the basement; see Edward Adams, The Earliest Christian Meeting Places: Almost Exclusively Houses?(London: TT Clark/Bloomsbury, 2013) &; and Michael Peppard, The World’s Oldest Church: Bible, Art, and Ritual at Dura-Europos, Syria (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016).

[51] For more on Christian worship practices in the first century, see Bradshaw, The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship: Sources and Methods for the Study of Early Liturgy, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 47–72; see also Douglas R. de Lacey, “The Sabbath/Sunday Questions and the Law in the Pauline Corpus,” in Carson, From Sabbath, 159–95.

[52] Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96, in Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold, eds. and trans., Roman Civilization, vol. 2, The Empire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), 583.

[53] Pliny, Letters 10.96 (Lewis and Reinhold translation). See commentary in A. N. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 702–8.

[54] While it is most likely that this occurred on a Saturday or Sunday based on the evidence reviewed in this chapter, there is evidence for Christians gathering regularly on other days of the week as well; see McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship, 217–60, especially 224–29.

[55] It is possible that the meal described to Pliny was the Eucharist, but it also may have been quite literally a shared meal, such as a banquet or potluck. Additionally, some early Christians combined the practice of a shared meal with the practice of the Eucharist: see 1 Corinthians 11:17–34; and McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship, 19–64.

[56] On the late first- or early second-century date of the Didache, see Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:411; and Kurt Niederwimmer, The Didache: A Commentary, trans. Linda M. Maloney; Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 52–54.

[57] Didache 9.1–3. All translations of the Didache are from Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers.

[58] This document specifies that only the baptized were allowed to partake of the Eucharist; see Didache 9.5. It also specifies that even baptized Christians must first confess their sins and settle any quarrels prior to partaking of the Eucharist; see Didache 14.1–2.

[59] Didache 10.2–6.

[60] On connections between John Chrysostom and the Apostolic Constitutions, see Anders Ekenberg, “The Eucharist in Early Church Orders,” in The Eucharist—Its Origins and Contexts, ed. David Hellholm and Dieter Sänger, vol. 2, Patristic Traditions, Iconography (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 957–92, especially 970.

[61] For more on early Christian worship in all its varieties, see note 48 above.

[62] Const. Ap. 2.57.1–4.

[63] Const. Ap. 2.57.1–4; 2.57.9–13.

[64] See Harry Gamble, Books and Readers in Early Christianity: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995); and Larry W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2006).

[65] Const. Ap. 2.57.5–6; 8.5.11, in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds. and trans., Ante-Nicene Fathers (hereafter ANF), American Edition (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 1886), 7:421.

[66] Const. Ap. 2.57.7–8; 8.5.11.

[67] Const. Ap. 8.5.11; trans. ANF 7:482–83.

[68] Const. Ap. 2.57.9; 8.5.11–12.

[69] Const. Ap. 2.57; trans. ANF 7.422.

[70] Const. Ap. 2.57.15.

[71] Const. Ap. 8.12; trans. ANF 7:486.

[72] Const. Ap. 8.12.

[73] Const. Ap. 2.57.21.

[74] Const. Ap. 2.57.21. The Apostolic Constitutions provides an example of a much longer prayer as well; see Const. Ap. 8.12.4–51.

[75] Const. Ap. 8.12.

[76] Const. Ap. 8.13; trans. ANF 7:490. Compare Const. Ap. 2.57.21.

[77] Const. Ap. 8.13; trans. ANF 7:490. Compare Const. Ap. 2.57.21.

[78] Const. Ap. 8.13; trans. ANF 7:490–91.

[79] Const. Ap. 8.13.

[80] Const. Ap. 8.14; trans. ANF 7:491.

[81] Const. Ap. 8.15.

[82] Const. Ap. 2.57.4, 8, 15, and 21.

[83] Const. Ap. 2.57.8.

[84] See Neil Adkin, “A Problem in the Early Church: Noise during Sermon and Lesson,” Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, 38, no. 1/2 (1985): 161–63.

[85] Chrysostom, Homily 9 on First Timothy, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 13, trans. James Barmby (Oxford: Parker and Co.; New York: Christian Literature, 1898), 435.

[86] Chrysostom, Homily 2 on Colossians 1.15; translation as found in James Daniel Cook, Preaching and Popular Christianity: Reading the Sermons of John Chrysostom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 72.

[87] Const. Ap. 2.59; trans. ANF 7:422.

[88] Const. Ap. 2.59; trans. ANF 7:422–23.

[89] Chrysostom, Homily on the Baptism of Christ (387) PG 49; my own translation based on the original Greek and with consideration of German translation in Rordorf, Sabbat und Sonntag 198–99 (#124).

[90] Chrysostom, Homily on the Baptism (387) PG 49; my own translation—see note 89.

[91] Eusebius, Sermon XVI 1,4 and 8 (Pseudo-Eusebius of Alexandria); translation as found in Markschies, Between Two Worlds, 34–35, and 208n69–70.

[92] Chrysostom, Homily on Genesis 10.7; trans. as found in Bauckham, “Sunday in the Post-Apostolic Church,” 287.

[93] Based on the same evidence, Beckwith and Stott argue that John Chrysostom supported applying biblical Sabbath prohibitions to the Lord’s day, while Bauckham argues that Chrysostom did not; see Beckwith and Stott, This is the Day, 134–36; and Bauckham, “Sunday in the Post-Apostolic Church,” 286–87.

[94] Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks 10.30; Rordorf, Sabbat und Sonntag, 232–33 (#146).

[95] Gregory of Tours, The Miracles of Bishop Martin 3.3; Rordorf, Sabbat und Sonntag, 234–35 (#148).

[96] Gregory the Great, Letters 13.3; trans. my own based on the original Latin and with consideration of German translation in Rordorf, Sabbat und Sonntag, 234–37 (#149). See Bauckham’s discussion of Gregory of Tours and Gregory the Great on the Lord’s day and the Sabbath in Bauckham, “Sunday in the Medieval Church,” 303.