established by this man's authority. "He enjoined on all the subjects of the Roman empire to observe the Lord's Day as a day of rest."
This decree for the general observance of Sunday[1] appears to have been issued A. D. 321, before which time both "the old and new Sabbaths" were observed by Christians. Gibbon says he called the Lord's Day "Dies solis," that is, the Day of the Sun, or Sun'sday. "This day," he said, "should be regarded as a special occasion for prayer." And he gave his soldiers the following form of prayer to use: "We acknowledge thee the only God; we own thee as our King, and implore thy succor. By thy favor we have gotten the victory: through thee are we mightier than our enemies. We render thanks for thy past benefits, and trust thee for future blessings. Together we pray to thee, and beseech thee long to preserve to us, safe and triumphant, our Emperor Constantine and his pious sons." He encouraged celibacy, of the old virgin stamp, having a great veneration for it.
In the thirtieth year of his reign, his great Church of the Holy Sepulchre having been founded, he wished to dedicate it in a becoming manner; and therefore he directed that the bishops who had assembled at the Synod of Tyre in Phœnicia, should be conveyed from there to Jerusalem as soon as they were ready to go; and most of them
- ↑ It was not generally called "Sunday" before this time; probably, never so called. Constantine had claimed Apollo, the sun-god, as his patron, and even after becoming a Christian he stamped Apollo's imago on one side of his coin, and the initials of Christ on the other. The earlier Fathers of the Church observed the first day of the week as a day of rejoicing and triumph, because Christ, on that day, triumphed over the grave, and initiated the resurrection. They did not wholly cease from labor, but observed the old Sabbath as a day of rest. The first day of the week was, by them, called the "Lord's Day."
