But Irenæus did not notice that the Sabbath as a sign does not point forward to the restitution, but backward to the creation, that it may signify that the true God is the Creator.[644] Nor did he observe the fact that when the kingdom of God shall be established under the whole heaven all flesh shall hallow the Sabbath.[645]

But he says that those who lived before Moses were justified “without observance of Sabbaths,” and offers as proof that the covenant at Horeb was not made with the fathers. Of course if this proves that the patriarchs were free from obligation toward the fourth commandment, it is equally good as proof that they might violate any other. These things indicate that Irenæus was opposed to Sabbatic observance, though he did not in express language assert its abrogation, and did in most decisive terms assert the continued obligation of the ten commandments.

Tertullian offers numerous reasons for not observing the Sabbath, but there is scarcely one of these that he does not in some other place expressly contradict. Thus he asserts that the patriarchs before Moses did not observe the Sabbath.[646] But he offers no proof, and he elsewhere dates the origin of the Sabbath at the creation,[647] as we shall show hereafter. In several places he teaches the abrogation of the law, and seems to set aside moral law as well as ceremonial. But elsewhere, as we shall show, he bears express testimony that the ten commandments are still binding as the rule of the Christian’s life.[648] He quotes the words of Isaiah in which God is represented as hating the feasts, new-moons, and sabbaths observed by the Jews,[649] as proof that the seventh-day Sabbath was a temporary institution which Christ abrogated. But in another place he says: “Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath: he kept the law thereof.”[650] And he also explains this very text by stating that God’s aversion toward the Sabbaths observed by the Jews was “because they were celebrated without the fear of God by a people full of iniquities,” and adds that the prophet, in a later passage speaking of Sabbaths celebrated according to God’s commandment, “declares them to be true, delightful, and inviolable.”[651] Another statement is that Joshua violated the Sabbath in the siege of Jericho.[652] Yet he elsewhere explains this very case, showing that the commandment forbids our own work, not God’s. Those who acted at Jericho did “not do their own work, but God’s, which they executed, and that, too, from his express commandment.”[653] He also both asserts and denies that Christ violated the Sabbath.[654] Tertullian was a double-minded man. He wrote much against the law and the Sabbath, but he also contradicted and exposed his own errors.

Origen attempts to prove that the ancient Sabbath is to be understood mystically or spiritually, and not literally. Here is his argument:—

Great men are not always wise. There is no such precept in the Bible. Origen referred to that which forbade the people to go out for manna on the Sabbath, but which did not conflict with another that commanded holy convocations or assemblies for worship on the Sabbath.[656]

Victorinus is the latest of the fathers before Constantine who offers reasons against the observance of the Sabbath. His first reason is that Christ said by Isaiah that his soul hated the Sabbath; which Sabbath he in his body abolished; and these assertions we have seen answered by Tertullian.[657] His second reason is that “Jesus [Joshua] the son of Nave [Nun], the successor of Moses, himself broke the Sabbath day,”[658] which is false. His third reason is that “Matthias [a Maccabean] also, prince of Judah, broke the Sabbath,”[659] which is doubtless false, but is of no consequence as authority. His fourth argument is original, and may fitly close the list of reasons assigned in the early fathers for not observing the Sabbath. It is given in full without an answer:—