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Lack of positive evidence prevents us from speaking with any certainty as to whether there was among Christians any recognised and approved observance of Saturday (the Sabbath) in the first, second and third centuries. There is no hint of such observance in early Christian literature; and there are passages which rather go to discountenance the notion[5].

Duchesne, whose opinion deservedly carries much weight, comes to the conclusion that the observance of Saturday in the fourth century was not a survival of an attempt of primitive times to effect a conciliation between Jewish and Christian practices, but an institution of comparatively late date[6]. Certainly one cannot speak confidently of the existence of Saturday as a day of religious observance among Christians before the fourth century.

Epiphanius[7], in the second half of the fourth century, speaks of synaxes being held in some places on the Sabbath; from which it may probably be inferred that it was not so in his time in Cyprus.

In the Canons of the Council of Laodicea (which can hardly be placed earlier than about the middle of the fourth century, and is probably later) we find it enjoined that ‘on the Sabbath the Gospels with other Scriptures shall be read’ (16); that ‘in Lent bread ought not to be offered, save only on the Sabbath and the Lord’s day’ (49); and that ‘in Lent the feasts of martyrs should not be kept, but that a commemoration of the holy martyrs should be made on Sabbaths and Lord’s days’ (50). Yet it was forbidden ‘to Judaize and be idle on the Sabbath,’ while, ‘if they can,’ Christians are directed to rest on the Lord’s day. The Apostolic Constitutions go further; and, under the names of St Peter and St Paul, it is enjoined that servants should work only five days in the week, and be free from labour on the Sabbath and the Lord’s day ‘with a view to the teaching of godliness’ (viii. 33). Uncertain as are the date and origin of the Constitutions they may be regarded as in some measure reflecting the general sentiment in the East in the fifth, or possibly the close of the fourth century[8]. From these testimonies it appears that the Sabbath was a day of special religious observance, and that in the East it partook of a festal character. Falling in with this way of regarding Saturday we find Canon 64 of the so-called Apostolic Canons (of uncertain date, but possibly early in the fifth century[9]) declaring, ‘If any cleric be found fasting on the Lord’s day, or on the Sabbath, except one only [that is, doubtless “the Great Sabbath,” or Easter Eve], let him be deprived, and, if he be a layman, let him be segregated[10].’ The Apostolic Constitutions emphasise the position of the Sabbath by the exhortation that Christians should ‘gather together especially on the Sabbath, and on the Lord’s day, the day of the Resurrection’ (ii. 59); and again, ‘Keep the Sabbath and the Lord’s day as feasts, for the one is the commemoration of the Creation, the other of the Resurrection’ (vii. 23³). We find also that one of the canons of Laodicea referred to above is in substance re-enacted at a much later date by the Council in Trullo (A.D. 692) in this form, that except on the Sabbath, the Lord’s day, and the Feast of the Annunciation, the Liturgy of the Pre-sanctified should be said on all days in Lent (c. 52).

In the city of Alexandria in the time of the historian Socrates the Eucharist was not celebrated on Saturday; but other parts of Egypt followed the general practice of the East. Socrates says that Rome agreed with Alexandria in this respect[11].

It is certain that very commonly, though not universally, in the East the Sabbath was regarded as possessing the features of a weekly festival (with a eucharistic celebration) second in importance only to the Lord’s day. And Gregory of Nyssa says, ‘If thou hast despised the Sabbath, with what face wilt thou dare to behold the Lord’s day.... They are sister days’ (de Castigatione, Migne, P.G. xlvi. 309).

In the West we find also that the Sabbath was a day of special religious observance; but there was a variety of local usage in regard to the mode of its observance. At Rome the Sabbath was a fast-day in the time of St Augustine[12]; and the same is true of some other places; but the majority of the Western Churches, like the East, did not so regard it. In North Africa there was a variety of practice, some places observed the day as a fast, others as a feast. At Milan the day was not treated as a fast; and St Ambrose, in reply to a question put by Augustine at the instance of his mother Monnica, stated that he regarded the matter as one of local discipline, and gave the sensible rule to do in such matters at Rome as the Romans do[13]. In the early part of the fourth century the Spanish Council of Elvira corrected the error that every Sabbath should be observed as a fast[14].

As to the origin of the Saturday fast we are left almost wholly to conjecture. It has been supposed by some to be an exhibition of antagonism to Judaism, which regarded the Sabbath as a festival; while others consider that it is a continuation of the Friday fast, as a kind of preparatory vigil of the Lord’s day. It is outside our scope to go into this question.

A relic of the ancient position of distinction occupied by Saturday may perhaps be found in the persistence of the name ‘Sabbatum’ in the Western service-books. Abstinence (from flesh) continued, ‘de mandate ecclesiae,’ on Saturdays in the Roman Church. For Roman Catholics in England it ceased in 1830 by authority of Pope Pius VIII.