CHAPTER 5

“GOOD FRIDAY” & “EASTER SUNDAY”

IN THE PATRISTIC WRITINGS

A full collection of Patristic statements about a Friday crucifixion and a Sunday resurrection needs to be made. It will create a bulwark against all the modern theories that try to establish a literal “three days and three nights”. I am indebted to Adam Rutherford for most of the following quotations that he painstakingly collected from early writings. (Pyramidology, Book 2, pages 388-390)

JUSTIN MARTYR. (Apology for the Christians) “But Sunday is the day upon which we all hold our common assembly - - and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn; and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, He appeared to His apostles and disciples and taught them what we now submit to your consideration.”

BARNABAS. (Epistle of Barnabas, chapter XII., in which Barnabas argues in terms of the symbolism of the days of the week, each of which is “as a thousand years”, and then he looks through a telescope into the future, beyond a seventh day Millennium, to the “eighth day”, of which the resurrection of Jesus forms the type.) Verse 10 - “For which cause we observe the eighth day with gladness, in which Jesus rose from the dead; and having manifested Himself to His disciples, ascended into heaven.”

CYPRIAN. “The Lord’s Day is both the first and the eighth day.”

IGNATIUS. “- - the Lord’s Day, on which our life also arose through Him, that we may be found disciples of Jesus Christ.”

PETER, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA. “We keep the Lord’s Day as a day of joy because of Him who rose thereon.”

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. “A Christian - - - observes the Lord’s Day, thereby glorifying the resurrection of the Lord. The eighth day is the Lord’s Day.”

TERTULLIAN. “The Lord’s Day is the holy day of the Christian church. The Lord’s Day is the Christian’s solemnity.” “Sunday we give to joy. We observe the day of the Lord’s resurrection.” “Though we share Sunday with them [i.e. the pagan sun-worshippers] we are not apprehensive lest we seem to be heathens.”

THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH. “Both custom and reason challenge from us that we should honour the Lord’s Day, seeing that on that day it was that our Lord completed His resurrection from the dead.”

IRENÆUS. “The mystery of the Lord’s resurrection may not be celebrated on any other day than the Lord’s Day.” “Pentecost fell on the first day of the week, and was therefore associated with the Lord’s Day.”

ORIGEN. “To keep the Lord’s Day is one of the marks of a perfect Christian.”

EUSEBIUS. “From the beginning, Christians assembled on the first day of the week, called by them the Lord’s Day, for the purpose of religious worship”

[It might be added here that in Acts 20:7, the disciples gathered in such a manner, but it should be pointed out that although it was Sunday for them, it was still Saturday evening for us. Throughout the Acts period the ancient Sabbath was kept inviolate. But on Saturday evening the Christians gathered to break bread and have joy in their risen Lord. It was only subsequently that Sunday, as we know it today, was kept as a sort of new Sabbath, without any Scriptural warranty. The apostles never refrained from work on the first day of the week, as may be seen from the sequel to the passage quoted above in Acts.]

MELITOS, BISHOP OF SARDIS. “The early Christians not long after the Lord passed into the heavens used the Lord’s Day as a common name.” “Today we kept the Lord’s Day.”

It should be noted that Barnabas and Ignatius were born in the same century that Jesus rose from the dead. And although the Emperor Constantine legalised Sunday as the weekly day of worship in his empire during the fourth century of the Christian era, he did not initiate it by any means, he only legalised it, for it was already the established practice of believers (as shown by the quotations above) way back some 250 years before his days.

In addition, it might be said here for completeness, that Constantine was not so much concerned with Christianity when he made his decree, because it was before his so-called conversion. He was a rabid anti-Semite, and showed very clearly from his writings that he wanted to eliminate everything he could relating to traditional Jewish activities. Hence, for example, he ordered that people should work on Saturday. To quote from his (later) Council of Laodicea, Canon 29, “Christians must not play Jews by ceasing to work on the Sabbath, but that they work on that day and prefer the Lord’s Day by ceasing work as Christians if they can.”

These remarks are made here, not to get embroiled in a totally different subject, however interesting it may be, but rather to show from every angle that Sunday morning was the time of Christ’s resurrection, and therefore there can be no justification for modern theorists to argue otherwise. Justin Martyr’s clear statement about “the day before that of Saturn” shows a Friday crucifixion, and his words “the day after that of Saturn” have just as clear a ring about them. Jesus died on Friday afternoon, and rose on Sunday morning. Hence the interpretation of the phrase “three days and three nights” must be exactly equivalent to the other phrase used, namely “on the third day.” We established this briefly in the text of the work, and in this additional chapter have laboured to give the fullness of the Patristic background to our assertions, which will now lead on to a study of the Biblical texts in the next chapter.

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