"ought not to Judaize and be idle on the Sabbath, bat to work on that day; especially observing the Lord's day, and if it is possible, as Christians, resting from labour." Afterwards the Emperor Theodosius forbade certain public games on Sunday, Christmas, Epiphany, and the whole time from Easter to Pentecost. Justinian likewise forbade theatrical exhibitions, races in the circus, and the fights of wild beasts, on Sunday, under severe penalties. This was done in order that the religious services of the Christians might not be disturbed. By his laws the Sunday continued to be a day in which public business was not to be transacted. But the Christmas days, the fifteen days of Easter, and numerous other days previously observed of Christians or pagans, were put in the same class by the law. All this it seems was done from no superstitious notions respecting those days, but for the sake of public utility and convenience. However, the rigour of the Jewish Sabbatical laws was by no means followed. Labours of love, opera caritatis, were considered as suitable business for those days. The very statute of Theodosius recommended the emancipation of slaves on Sunday. All impediments to their liberation were removed on that day, and though judicial proceedings in all other matters were forbidden on Sunday, an exception was expressly made in favour of emancipating slaves. This statute was preserved in the code of Justinian.[1] All these laws go to show that there were similar customs previously established among the Christians without the aid of legislation.
About the middle of the sixth century the Council of Orleans forbade labour in the fields, though it did not forbid travelling with cattle and oxen, the preparation of food, or any work necessary to the cleanliness of the house or the person—declaring that rigours of that sort belong more to a Jewish than to a Christian observance of the day. That, I think, is the earliest ecclesiastical decree which has come down to us forbidding field labour in the country; a decree unknown till five hundred and thirty-eight years after Christ. But before that, in the year three hundred and thirteen, the Council of Elvira in Spain decreed, that if any one in a city absented himself three Sundays consecutively from the church, he should be suspended from
- ↑ Cod., Lib. iii. Tit. zii. 1. 2« See also, 1. 3 and 11.
