Timeline of the Churches of God (No. 30)

27 CE	Early Persecution of the Church John the Baptist a man sent by God (John 1:6), A messenger preparing the way (Mal.3:1).
28 CE	John the Baptist beheaded, - Christ begins his ministry.
30 CE	Christ, the Sabbath-keeping Lamb of God crucified on Passover (Wednesday April 5)
	The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth at the end of the Sabbath day (Saturday April 8/Sunday April 9). Then, the 1^st day of the week, (Sunday April 9, 9:00 a.m.) he ascends into heaven as the wave sheaf offering, the first of the firstfruits. See the paper: The Wave Sheaf Offering (No. 106b)
30-31CE	The disciples are sent out to the various lands to establish the churches.
	Joseph of Arimathea, with Aristobulus, is held to have taken the faith to Britain. Judas Timothy took it to India, Mark took it to Alexandria, John to Ephesus, Peter took it to Antioch and to Parthia with others who also went to the other nations listed in Acts (see the paper Origin of the Christian Church in Britain (No. 266)).
30-70 CE	Jerusalem Church ruthlessly persecuted by Jews. See the paper: The Sign of Jonah and the History of the Reconstruction of the Temple (No. 13)
34 CE	Stephen is stoned to death. Believers are scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.
	Sudan. First Christians; gospel taken to Nubia (Meroc) by Ethiopian eunuch baptized by Philip.
	Mission extended to Samaritans by Philip; fresh persecution.
42 CE	Mark the Evangelist arrives in Alexandria; founds what became the Coptic Church.
	Phoenicia Cyprus, Antioch: ‘A great number that believed turned to the Lord’ (Acts 11.21).
44CE	Persecution in Jerusalem under king Herod Agrippa I; James brother of John executed, imprisonment and escape of Peter.
50 CE	Jews and Christians are banished from Rome.
	Assyrian Christians found Church of the East (later Nestorian).
54 CE	1^st imperial Roman persecution of Christians, under Emperor Nero,
58 CE	Paul arrested in Jerusalem.
60 CE	Paul sent for trial to Rome
61 CE	Paul in Rome under military guard; gospel proclaimed in capital of empire,
	Paul writes: ‘The Good News which has reached you is spreading’ all over the world’ (Colossians 1.6, Jerusalem); “The Good News, which you have heard, has been preached to the whole human race’ (Colossians 1.23; Greek ‘to all creation under the sky’). Britain (later UK). First resident Christians (Roman soldiers, merchants); origins of Celtic Church.
63 CE	End of the 62 weeks of years of Daniel 9:25
	Martyrdom of James brother of Christ, first bishop of Jerusalem
	Martyrdom of Apostle Mark in Baucalis near Alexandria.
	Nero’s persecutions begin, Paul and Peter martyred
64 CE	Great Fire of Rome; Apostles Peter and Paul martyred; thousands of Christians burned or killed by Emperor Nero.
66 CE	Anti-Jewish riots and pogroms in Egypt: 50,000 killed in Alexandria, 60,000 elsewhere. Vespasian with 60,000 troops quells Jewish insurrection; reconquers Galilee.
70 CE	End of the Seventy Weeks of Years and the destruction of the Temple. Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus with 4 legions; 600,000 killed in Judaea, 10,000 Jews crucified, 90,000 Jews to Rome as slaves; Jews scattered abroad. Christians earlier had taken heed to the warnings of the Messiah and fled to Pella under Symeon to escape the Roman army. (See- World Christian Encyclopedia (see pages 23-32) A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, Oxford University Press - 1982)
71 CE	Roman Coliseum built - makes sport of martyring Christians
72 CE	Christians who fled Jerusalem in 70 CE now return back to Jerusalem. They set up Christian churches all over Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia but they came into conflict with the Greek Christian churches because of the problems with the observance of the law or Torah. This is thought by modern Catholicism to be because Peter and Paul had set up a separate system with the Greek, but that was not the case. It is also worth mentioning that the title "pope" was carried by bishops in major sees such as Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch in the third century but never by the apostles.
81 CE	2nd imperial Roman persecution, under Domitian.
98 CE	3rd imperial persecution, under Trajan.
115 CE	Martyrdom of Ignatius bishop of Antioch.
120 CE	The Waldensian Church is formed in the Piedmont valleys after the dispatch of Polycarp, disciple of the Apostle John, from Smyrna. From this date on they passed down from father to son the teachings they received from the apostles including the keeping of the Sabbath's, New Moon's, and Feasts. See the paper: The New Moons of Israel (No. 132)
	Note: The Waldensians were Sabbath-keeping Subordinationist Unitarians well before Waldo was on the scene. According to Dugger and Dodd, A History of the True Religion, (3rd ed. Jerusalem, 1972, p. 224 ff.).
132 CE	Second Jewish rebellion under Bar Kokhba; second destruction of Jerusalem by Romans in 134; almost entire Jewish population of Palestine died or fled.
154 CE	Anicetus introduces the Pagan Easter festival into the Roman Church. He is opposed by Polycarp disciple of John. Polycarp heads the church in the east at Smyrna and speaks for all Quartodecimans.
	Justin Martyr writes his First Apology to the Emperor of Rome on behalf of the Church of Rome. He explained that Christ was the Great Angel of the OT who gave the Law to Moses. On behalf of the Church at Rome Justin told the Emperor that, if they came across people who said they were Christians and that when they died they would go to heaven, not to believe them because they were not Christians. This was the test of a true Christian. It was a shibboleth in the church. People who said that when they died they went to heaven were Gnostic impostors.
156 CE	Death at the stake of Polycarp bishop of Smyrna.
161 CE	4^th imperial Roman persecution, under Marcus Aurelius.
180 CE	Theophilus of Antioch makes the first mention of a trias later incorrectly translated into English as Trinity, and the insipient beginnings of the Binitarian doctrine emerges for the first time in the history of the church (see Early Theology of the Godhead (No. 127)).
192 CE	Bishop Victor Rome forcibly brings in Easter over the Passover and the Quartodeciman Disputes split the church. Polycrates disciple of Polycarp stands against the heretical Roman Faction. Irenaeus bishop of Lyon tries to intercede to no avail. See the paper: The Quartode ciman Disputes (No.277).
193 CE	5^th imperial Roman persecution, under Septimius Severus,
195 CE	Irenaeus expounds the correct Unitarian doctrine of the Nature of God in Against Heresies. He states the goal of the elect is to become elohim or theoi (in other words gods cf. Zech. 12:8) according to the Bible text (see the paper The Elect as Elohim (No. 1).
200 CE	Sabbath observance widespread & appears to have been opposed from Rome. It was kept in Egypt as the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus (c. 200-250 CE) shows.
	Origen also enjoined Sabbath-keeping
	Similarly the Constitution of the Holy Apostles (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, p. 413; c. 3rd century) states: Thou shalt observe the Sabbath, on account of Him who ceased from His work of creation, but ceased not from His work of providence: it is a rest for meditation of the law, not for idleness of the hands.
	Vicious persecutions of Coptic Christians in Egypt with thousands martyred.
	Tertullian says the British Church has been long established at this time.
220 CE	The problems of Modalism emerge in the discussions between the popes in Rome and Alexandria. A distinction is attempted in the Trias of The Father, Christ and the Holy Spirit. Here the influence of the Modalism of Attis is seen in the Christian church from Rome. Christ is elevated to God as a Modal structure for the first time. See the paper Early Theology of the Godhead (No. 127)
220 CE	The Sabbath in India
	The introduction of Sabbath-keeping to India caused a controversy in Buddhism in 220 CE. According to Lloyd (The Creed of Half Japan, p. 23) the Kushan Dynasty of North India, called a council of Buddhist priests at Vaisalia, to bring uniformity among the Buddhist monks on the observance of their weekly Sabbath. Some had been so impressed by the Old Testament writings that they had begun to keep the Sabbath.
235 CE	6th imperial Roman persecution, under Maximinus.
249 CE	7th imperial Roman persecution, under military ruler Decius; systematic state attempt to destroy Christianity.
253 CE	8th imperial Roman persecution, under Valerian.
270 CE	9th imperial Roman persecution, under Aurelian.
300 CE	By the Fourth Century, the priests of the pagan god Attis were complaining that the Christian ministry at Rome had stolen all their doctrines.
303 CE	10th and last imperial Roman persecution, under Diocletian; destruction of all church buildings and scriptures ordered. Around 500,000 Christians executed in 10 years of systematic slaughter.
305 CE	The Sabbath in Spain
	From canon 26 of the Council of Elvira (c. 305), it appears that the church in Spain had kept the Sabbath. Rome had introduced the practice of fasting on the Sabbath to counteract Sabbath-keeping. Pope Sylvester (314-335) was the first to order the churches to fast on the Sabbath, and Pope Innocent (402-417) made it a binding law in the churches that obeyed him.
	Innocentius did ordaine the Saturday or Sabbath to be always fasted (Peter Heylyn History of the Sabbath, Part 2, Ch. 2, London, 1636, p. 44).
314 CE	Edict of Toleration of Milan, the Emperor Constantine sought to use Christianity for political purposes and initially supported the Roman faction, which came to adopt the doctrines of Athanasius and, later, that of the Cappadocians. The doctrinal position of the church had become blurred by Gnostic factions, influenced by the mystery cults. Constantine supported the Athanasian faction on the mistaken assumption that, because it was dominant in Rome, it was the major sect, but the deposition of Arius in the packed Synod of Alexandria led ultimately to war with his co-Emperor, Licinius, and the troubles of 322-323 CE
	Pope Sylvester (314-335) was the first to order the churches to fast on the Sabbath.
	Rome attempts to counteract Sabbath keeping.
318 CE	Conference of the Deposyni: In 318 Constantine had ordered the conference between the bishop of Rome and the desposyni, the bishops were of the family of Jesus Christ.
	The desposyni (meaning literally in Greek Belonging to the Lord as they were blood relatives of Jesus Christ) asked Sylvester, who now had Roman patronage, to revoke his confirmation of the authority of the Greek Christian bishops at Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Ephesus, and in Alexandria, and to name desposynos bishops in their stead. In addition, they asked that the practice of sending cash to Jerusalem as the mother church be resumed. This practice is easily recognizable as the tithe of the tithe system, which had been in force in the church until Emperor Hadrian’s ban in 135 CE. These blood relatives of Christ demanded the reintroduction of the Law, which included the Sabbath and the Holy Day system of Feasts and New Moons of the Bible. Sylvester dismissed their claims and said that from now on, the mother church was in Rome and he insisted they accept the Greek bishops to lead them.
	This was the last known dialogue with the Sabbath-keeping church in the east led by the disciples who were descended from blood relatives of Messiah.
	The bishop, or pope, (all bishops of major sees were called pope initially when the term was introduced from the cults) then with Roman contrivance, ordered that they be exterminated and this campaign of extermination was undertaken against Christ’s immediate family from 318 onwards. See the paper: The Virgin Mariam and the Family of Jesus Christ (No. 232)
322 CE	The deposition of Arius in the packed Synod of Alexandria led ultimately to war with Constantine’s co-Emperor, Licinius, and the troubles of 322-323 CE.
325 CE	Council of Nicea convened. The Canons of the Council of Nicea have been lost. It was later established that there were only 20, which commenced the introduction of aberrations such as: domiciliary rules for the clergy living with females, i.e. celibacy; the persecution by the imposition of penance of Unitarians (incorrectly called Arians) and those who supported Licinius; the establishment of the diocesan system and its controls on priests and the prohibition of the clergy lending at interest; and the introduction of standing prayers at Sunday worship and during the "Pascal Season." The Paschal Season so-called was in fact the forced introduction and harmonisation of Easter as practiced in the West from Rome by the Attis system and by the Greeks in the East under the Adonis system and in Egypt under the Osiris/Isis system. This festival was instead of the Bible Passover). The Creed reconstructed from Constantinople itself, introduces the concept of Binitarianism essential to the formulation of the Trinity and introduces the aberration that Christ was the "only begotten of the Father" and hence removes the promise of the elect as begotten sons of God. Athanasius says (in Ad Afros) that there were 318 bishops present. Arius was summoned to the Council often, which began possibly on 20 May 325 CE under the Athanasian Hosius of Cordova. Constantine joined the Council on 14 June. To get agreement Constantine marched in a cohort of Roman troops and arrested a number of bishops and exiled Arius, Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais to Illyrica. Arius' writings were then burnt and all three were anathematised. The remainder agreed on the symbol of the Creed on 19 June. The Council ended on 25 August with a 'party' hosted by Constantine with presents to the bishops.
	Three months after the Council, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognius of Nicea, who were forced to sign the Creed under duress, were exiled for retracting and Theodotus of Laodicea, who also signed under duress and retracted, recanted rather than join them.
	Persecution instituted by the imposition of penance of Unitarians (incorrectly called Arians) and those who supported Licinius.
328 CE	Constantine realizing that the Athanasians were not the majority sect and were a source of division and persecution in the Empire recalls the five Unitarian leaders, (it is suggested at the urging of Constantia, widow of Licinius. However, it is more probable that she was merely a prominent Unitarian of the Eusebian or Arian faction). The problem with the Unitarian Christian system was that it followed the Bible tenets and was not concerned with the control of nations. Each nation was separate and subject to its own leaders and the religious system of that nation was between them and God. As the nation obeyed God so it was blessed. The empire was concerned with world domination and the converts to the church in Rome were also imbued with this mentality. Thus they courted an organization that wanted world domination and would tolerate no opposition to that model. As a result, the Roman Church system adapted the pagan system of the sun cults and among the Aryans to Christianity, such that no Bible believing person can follow both systems.
335 CE	The Sabbath in Persia
	The Sabbath-keeping churches in Persia underwent forty years of persecution under Shapur II, from 335-375 specifically, because they were Sabbath-keeping.
	“They despise our sun-god. Did not Zoroaster, the sainted founder of our divine beliefs, institute Sunday one thousand years ago in honour of the sun and supplant the Sabbath of the Old Testament. Yet these Christians have divine services on Saturday” (O'Leary The Syriac Church and Fathers, pp. 83-84, requoted Truth Triumphant p. 170).
	This persecution was mirrored in the west by the Council of Laodicea (c. 366). Hefele notes:
	Canon 16 - The Gospels along with other Scripture be read on the Sabbath (cf. also canons 49 and 51, Bacchiocchi, fn. 15, p. 217).
	Canon 29 - Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day honouring rather the Lord's day by resting, if possible, as Christians. However if any shall be found judaizing, let them be anathema for Christ (Mansi, II, pp. 569-570, see also Hefele Councils, Vol. 2, b. 6)
337 CE	The Emperor Constantine baptized a Unitarian by Eusebius on his deathbed.
339 CE	Severe persecution of Christians in Persia, until 379; intermittent vicious persecution by Sassanian rulers until 640 conquest by Islam.
345 CE	Persecution in East Syria and Persia drives 400 Nestorians with a bishop to settle in Malabar, India.
351 CE	The Unitarian Goths publish the Bible in the Gothic Language
358 CE	The Jews Change the Calendar
	Jewish calendar is changed from the Temple period model by a calculation system and delineated under Rabbi Hillel II ca. 368 CE (from input by Babylonian rabbis of ca 344 CE). The Waldensian and later the Transylvanian Sabbatarians did not follow the Jewish calendar but worked on the astronomical conjunction of the New Moon. See the paper: God's Calendar (No. 156) & The foreword by Cox to R. Samuel Kohn, The Sabbatarians in Transylvania (No. A_B2), *[1894], CCG Publishing, 1998.*
380 CE	The Montanists in the second century started a cult of worship of the Holy Spirit as they expected the Holy Spirit to come and take the place of the sons and announce a more perfect gospel. This view was repressed but led to the Fourth Council of Rome in 380 where Pope Damasus condemned whoever denied that the Holy Spirit should be adored like the Father and the Son (ibid., p. 711). Thus the next year (381) at the Council of Constantinople, the Holy Spirit was added to the Godhead as the Trinity but not perhaps as successfully as the Cappadocians would have liked. This forms the next great distinction between the Churches of God and Trinitarianism.
381 CE	Council of Constantinople sees the formulation of the doctrine of the trinity and the defining of the Holy Spirit as a third part of the Godhead, furthering the binitarian heresy emanating from the council of Nicaea. However, the full doctrinal position was not agreed upon until the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE. This council saw the exit of the thirty-six semi-Arians, Macedonians or Pneumatomachi. The council, after that exit, consisted of only 150 bishops. It was thus unrepresentative of much of Christianity at the time.
	Ambrose of Milan, with Theodosius gains control of Roman Church.
	The Athanasian/Arian disputes lead to bitter persecution.
	The doctrines attributed to so-called Arianism, namely of the creation of the Holy Spirit by Christ, are not substantiated from any writings of Arius or of the faction.
	See the paper: Socinianism, Arianism and Unitarianism (No. 185)).
	There was no Trinitarian Emperor on the throne until 381, when the Trinity was formulated at Constantinople under protection of Theodosius. They had all been Unitarians until 381 with the exception of Julian the apostate.
	This Unitarian creed is based on the theology expressed in Psalm 45:6-7 and Hebrews 1:8-9. The early apologists such as Irenaeus at Lyons held it in the second century. This theology was held by the Goths, Vandals, Alans, Suevi, Heruli, Britons, Lombards, Germans, and all the northern tribes. See the paper: The Pre-Existence of Jesus Christ (No. 243) for the creed of the Goths). It came from the teachings of theologians and disciples of the apostles that were already centuries old before the Council of Nicea in 325 CE, where many of these bishops were present. The heresy of Binitarianism was commenced from this Council.
	In 381 the Trinity was declared at Constantinople from the theology of the Cappadocians Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus. The destruction of the faith by the Greeks and Romans had begun to take effect. Trinitarians incorrectly and dishonestly label the creed as Arianism, to give the impression that their doctrine is older and this doctrine originated with Arius in the fourth century. The Trinitarians then alternately label the subordinationist Unitarian doctrine after Arius (Arianism) and then Eusebius of Nicomedia (Eusebianism) and other bishops much senior to Arius (who was not even present at Nicea, only being summoned there for advice on logic). Trinitarians accuse Arians of holding that the Spirit was a creation of the son, when in fact that is the doctrine of Filioque advanced from the Council of Toledo, by the Catholics themselves in the sixth century. Even the Greeks rejected that view. People who label this view as Arian, are either being deliberately dishonest, or do not understand enough to know what they are saying.
382 CE	In 382 Theodosius I had resettled the Visigoths in the empire but they were still Unitarian. Allegedly it was the Emperors, especially Valens, who converted the northern tribes to Unitarianism and not to Trinitarianism. The Goths, Vandals Alans, Suevi, Heruli, were all Unitarian as were the tribes of the Teutons and there were a number of bishops from the Unitarian tribes at Nicea. The German Hermunduri remained Unitarian until the eighth century.
385 CE	Banishment of some Sabbatarians from Britain to Ireland after the execution of Priscillian.
	Celtic Sabbath-keeping
	Henry Charles Lea, the foremost authority on the Papal Inquisitions, records in the period of the commencement of persecution involving judicial capital punishment for heresy, that at the time of the execution of Priscillian with six of his followers in 385 AD, that "others were banished to a barbarous island beyond Britain." (A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, vol.1. New York: Harper & Brothers 1887, p.213.) What was this barbarous island? Most likely, it would appear to be Ireland. Britain and Ireland were favorite places for banishment and the marketing of slaves in those days. If indeed, many faithful "heretics" were banished to Ireland for centuries, it could not but have had a profound effect or that island, which became a great centre of light under, Patrick (5th century), Columba (521-597), and Columbanus (c. 540-615) as the darkness of papal tyranny descended over the continent. Missionaries went forth from Ireland to Switzerland, Bohemia, and Kiev. Ireland was one of the most difficult areas for Rome to subjugate, and this explains why such unending efforts have been made for over 1200 years to completely subjugate this island of Ireland. (Taken from Cherith Chronicle, April-June 1998, pp. 46-47).
	The Celtic Church, which occupied Ireland, Scotland and Britain, had the Syriac (Byzantine) scriptures instead of the Latin vulgate of Rome. The Celtic Church, with the Waldenses and the Eastern empire, kept the seventh-day Sabbath. When Queen Margaret fled to Scotland with her father Edward Atheling, a pretender to the English throne, she wrote "to her English cousins expressing astonishment at the religious practices of the Scots. Among the 'peculiarities' of the Scots was that 'they work on Sunday, but keep Saturday in a sabbatical manner.' To another correspondent she complained, 'They are accustomed also to neglect reverence for the Lord's days (Sundays); and thus to continue upon them as upon other days all the labours of earthly work.'
	"The observance of the Saturday Sabbath by most Scots went hand in hand with their refusal to 'recognize the overlordship of the Pope in matters spiritual'. Despite the best efforts of King Nectan centuries earlier, Scottish Christianity was still of the 'Columban' or 'Celtic', not the 'Roman', variety.
	"The most popular narrative history of Scotland--Scotland: A Concise History by P. Hume Brown (Langsyne) -- confirms that at Margaret's accession, 'the people worked on Sundays and observed Saturday as the Sabbath day'. Peter Berresford Ellis in Celtic lnheritance (Constable, 1992) page 45 writes: 'When Rome began to take a particular interest in the Celtic Church towards the end of the sixth century AD there were several differences between them... The Celtic Sabbath was celebrated on a Saturday.' Ellis' comment covers the Celtic Church in Wales, Ireland, Cornwall and Gaul, as well as Scotland. Romanism was, apparently, coming into Scotland but had no strength north of the Forth.
	"This gave Queen Margaret her crusade (and her route to canonization): 'Margaret did all she could to make the Scottish clergy do and believe exactly what the Church of Rome commanded.' This involved the enforcement of Sunday-keeping, a policy continued by her son, King David I. Nevertheless, on the eve of the Reformation, there were still many communities in the Scottish Highland loyal to the seventh-day Sabbath, as opposed to 'the Papal Sunday'.
	"Two books published in 1963-- to commemorate Columba's landing at lona in 563-- concerned themselves with the 'Celtic distinctives' and counted among them the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath. Dr. W.D. Simpson published The Historical St. Columba in Edinburgh. He confirms that Columba and his companions kept 'the day of the Sabbath' and in case there should be any doubt adds in a footnote 'Saturday, of course'... F.W. Fawcett was commissioned to write his Columba--Pilgrim for Christ by the Lord Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. His book was published in Londonderry and printed by the Derry Standard in connection with the Irish commemoration of Columba's mission. Fawcett outlines eight Celtic distinctives. Among these that the Celts had a married priesthood and that they observed the seventh day as the Sabbath." --David Marshall, The Celtic connection. England: Stanborough Press, 1994, pp.29, 30.
	"The reason why Pope Gregory I had perceived the Celtic Church as such a major threat and why he and his successors expended such efforts in destroying the distinctive 'Irish customs' became massively evident.
	"A.O. and M.O. Anderson, in the Introduction to their Adomnan's Life of Columba (Thomas Nelson 1961), shed light, not only on Columba's seventh-day Sabbath keeping practice, but on the gradual 'adjustment' of manuscripts by generations of Roman copyists, in an attempt to provide an impression that the Celtic saints held Sunday sacred.
	"Adomnan's use of sabbatum for Saturday, the seventh day of the week, is clear indication from 'Columba's mouth' that 'Sabbath was not Sunday.' Sunday, the first day of the week is 'Lord's day.' Adomnan's attitude to Sunday is important, because he wrote at a time when there was controversy over the question whether the ritual of the biblical Sabbath was to be transferred to the Christians' Lord's-day.' (A.O. and M.O. Anderson (eds) Adomnan's Life of Columba (Thomas Nelson's Medieval Texts, 1961), pages 25-26.)
	"The Old Testament required seventh-day Sabbath observance and, reason Adomnan's editors, since the New Testament nowhere repealed the fourth commandment, the seventh-day was observed by all early Christians. The evidence they adduce suggests that no actual confusion between Sunday and 'the Sabbath' occurred until the early sixth century, and then in the writings of the rather obscure Caesarius of ArIes. (ibid., page 26.)
	"'In England, the question of Sunday may have been among the 'other ecclesiastical matters' discussed by the Synod of Whitby in 664', reason the Andersons, in addition to the date of Easter which could not have caused such a rift. A weekly, not just a yearly observance separated the Celts from the Romans. But the Romans had the task of writing the history of the Church and of copying the writings of Church fathers. While those injunctions not to add or take away from the words of the Book and, in the main, to have done a conscientious job, the same scruples did not apply when they copied out the writings of the Church fathers. As the centuries progressed the writings of the Celtic saints, including Patrick were 'amended' to convey the impression that the saints held Sunday sacred, whereas, in the earliest versions of their manuscripts, it is clear that they observed the seventh-day Sabbath. (Ibid., pages 26-28).
	The Roman 'movement' to supersede the Celtic Sabbath with Sunday 'culminated in the production of an (apocryphal) 'Letter of Jesus', or 'Letter of Lord's-day', alleged to have been found on the altar of Peter in Rome; and is said in the annals to have been brought to Ireland by a pilgrim (c. 886). Upon this basis laws were promulgated, imposing heavy penalties for those that violated on Sunday certain regulations derived from Jewish prohibitions for Sabbath... There is in fact no historical evidence that Ninian, or Patrick, or Columba, or any of their contemporaries in Ireland, kept Sunday as a Sabbath.' (ibid., page 28.)
	"The seventh-day Sabbath, enjoined by the fourth of the ten commandments, had been observed by Jesus and nowhere in Scripture had its sacredness been diminished or transferred to another day....
	An "early version of The Rule of Columba is reproduced in Columba—Pilgrim for Christ by [Clergyman] F.W. Fawcett, MA. [Clergyman] Fawcett is a Church of Ireland clergyman. He was commissioned by the Lord Bishop of Derry and Raphoe to produce this book as part of the celebrations in 1963 of the departure of Columba for lona in AD 563." --Marshall, The Celtic Connection, 46.
	The fifth rule of the Celtic Church listed in The Rule of Columba is "The Seventh Day was observed as the Sabbath."
392 CE	Theodosius the Great (392-395) reunited the empire, but it was divided again by his successors Honorius and Arcadius in 395.
396 CE	Visigoths under Alaric invade Greece. In obedience to biblical law, he destroys pagan statues there and hence he is held to have plundered Athens and then the Balkans in 398. In 401 they invaded Italy continuing until 403.
400 CE	Socrates the Historian says:
	For although almost all Churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries [assumed by Catholics to be the Eucharist or Lord's Supper so-called] on the Sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, refuse to do this (Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, Bk 5, Ch. 22, p. 289).
	The Sabbath in Africa
	Augustine of Hippo, a devout Sunday keeper, attested that the Sabbath was observed in the greater part of the Christian world (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (NPNF), First Series, Vol. 1, pp. 353-354) and deplored the fact that in two neighboring Churches in Africa, one observed the seventh day Sabbath, while another fasted on it (Peter Heylyn, op. cit., p. 416).
	See the paper: General Distribution of the Sabbath-keeping Churches (No. 122)).
	The Churches generally held the Sabbath for some time.
	The ancient Christians were very careful in the observation of Saturday, or the seventh day ... It is plain that all the Oriental churches, and the greatest part of the world, observed the Sabbath as a festival ... Athanasius likewise tells us that they held religious assemblies on the Sabbath, not because they were infected with Judaism, but to worship Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, Epiphanius says the same (Antiquities of the Christian Church, Vol. II, Bk. Xx, Ch. 3, Sec 1, 66. 1137,1136). Athanasius was a Binitarian heretic hence the "worship Jesus" comment.
	The Sabbath in China
	In the last half of the fourth century, the bishop of the Sabbath-keeping Abyssinian Church, Museus, visited China. Ambrose of Milan stated that Museus had traveled almost everywhere in the country of the Seres' (China) (Ambrose, De Moribus, Brachman-orium Opera Omnia, 1132, found in Migne, Patriologia Latina, Vol. 17, pp. 1131-1132). Mingana holds that the Abyssinian Museus traveled to Arabia, Persia, India and China in 370 (see also fn. 27 to Truth Triumphant, p. 308).
	The Sabbath Churches were established in Persia and the Tigris-Euphrates basin. They kept the Sabbath and paid tithes to their Churches (Realencyclopæie fur Protestantishe und Kirche, art. Nestorianer; see also Yule The Book of Ser Marco Polo, Vol. 2, p. 409).
	The St. Thomas Christians of India were never in communion with Rome.
	They were Sabbath-keepers, as were those who broke off communion with Rome after the Council of Chalcedon, namely the Abyssinian, the Jacobites, the Maronites, and the Armenians and the Kurds, who kept the food laws and denied confession and purgatory (Schaff-Herzog The New Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge, art. Nestorians and Nestorianer).
402 CE

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Celtic Sabbath-keeping