SIR,—There seems to be some misunderstanding on both sides of
this controversy. The ancient Roman calendar knew nothing of a seven-day week, which was not officially recognised until Christianity was established as the State religion in the fourth cen- tury. 'Sabbath' then became the ordinary word for Saturday, the seventh day, while Sunday became a holiday as the Lord's Day. These names are still used in languages derived from those spoken by the early Christians. Other days were, in Greek, called by numbers; Tuesday, for instance, being the 'third day.' There is thus no excuse whatever for the solecism of using the term 'Sabbath' as though it could possibly mean Sunday, and the Legertonians, assuming they can count up to seven, must be quite well aware of this.
The simple fact is that the holiness of the Sabbath was part of the Mosaic Law which the Christians deliberately rejected as obsolete. So far as they were concerned 'the commandments' meant those of the Gospel, not those of the Hebrew decalogue (cf. ii Cor. iii, 7) and they never supposed that religious obligations had to fit into any precise arithmetical framework.—Yours faithfully,
78 Queen's Gate, Bolton, Lancs
W. SMITH
78 Queen's Gate, Bolton, Lancs
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