Sacred Roots Workshop

114 Sacred Roots Workshop: Retr ieving the Great Tradi t ion in the Contemporary Church

So now let us, receiving the Spirit, walk in newness of life, obeying God. Inasmuch, therefore, as without the Spirit of God we cannot be saved, the apostle exhorts us through faith and chaste conversation to preserve the Spirit of God. ~ Irenaeus, c. 180. Cf. David W. Bercot, ed. A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs . Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998, ibid .

1. With the findings of the Jerusalem Council of apostles and elders of the Church, Gentile Christians were exempt from literal obedience to the Law, cf. Acts 15.

2. This finding included all the Law’s stipulations, including the Sabbath, the new moons and the other chief Feasts.

3. With the Temple’s destruction (AD 70), and growing divide between Christian and non-Christian Jews of that period, Jewish Christians adopted the main Gentile Christian practices (with a more literal law observance practiced in sectarian groups only, e.g., Ebionites, Nazaraeans).

4. From that time, in early Christian practice in Palestine, the Christian calendar consisted only of Christian holy days.

a. The earliest was the Lord’s Day, Sunday, which both the NT and Apostolic Fathers cite.

b. In early Christian practice around 100 AD, we know of the fasts on Wednesday and Friday enjoined in Didache 8 c. 100.

c. Note: These fast days were no doubt set over against the Jewish fasts on Monday and Thursday, cf. Luke 18.12.