Appendix H: Historical Sabbath Keepers

A concise line of witnesses showing that God preserved Sabbath keepers from the apostles to the present.

The fourth commandment did not expire at the cross, nor did history leave it without defenders. In every era men and women chose obedience to the Creator above conformity to custom. Their testimony forms the “thread that never broke.”

Apostolic Foundations (First–Second Centuries)

The book of Acts records Paul preaching “every sabbath” in synagogue and marketplace alike (Acts 18:4). Luke notes that Gentiles begged for “the next sabbath” meeting (Acts 13:42). Early writers such as Ignatius and Justin Martyr mention Sunday gatherings precisely because many believers still rested on the seventh day. The rebukes themselves prove the practice endured.

Imperial Opposition (Third–Seventh Centuries)

Church councils in the fourth century (Laodicea, canons 29–38) legislated against “Judaizing” and ordered Christians to work on Sabbath. Yet Socrates Scholasticus reports that in Constantinople and Alexandria, Christians still assembled on the seventh day for worship. Pope Gregory I complained in AD 603 about “preachers of Antichrist” who taught the Sabbath in the city of Rome. Suppression was necessary only because Sabbath keeping persisted.

Medieval Witnesses

Celtic believers: Irish and Scottish records prior to the Synod of Whitby (AD 664) show Saturday rest alongside distinctive biblical festivals. Roman missionaries labored to replace these customs with Sunday-only observance.

Waldenses and Alpine Christians: Inquisitorial transcripts accuse “Insabbati” of honoring the seventh day and rejecting papal feast days. Their vernacular Scriptures emphasized the Ten Commandments as binding.

Ethiopian Church: The Ethiopian Tewahedo tradition publicly guarded both Sabbath and Sunday until Jesuit pressure in the seventeenth century attempted to abolish the seventh day, provoking civil unrest.

Reformation to Early Modern Era

The Protestant Reformation unleashed Scripture study. In Silesia the reformers Andreas Fischer and Oswald Glait defended the Sabbath in print (1520s). Hungarian and Transylvanian Sabbatarians organized congregations even under persecution. In England, Sabbatarian Baptists established the Mill Yard Church (1650s); Stephen Mumford carried the light to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1664, founding America’s oldest continuous Sabbath-keeping church.

Modern Revival and Global Expansion

During the 1840s Advent awakening, Seventh Day Baptists shared the Sabbath with Advent believers. Publications like Joseph Bates’s The Seventh-day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign spread quickly, and Seventh-day Adventists organized in 1863 with a mandate to proclaim the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Today millions worldwide (Adventists, Church of God fellowships, Messianic congregations, and independent believers) honor the seventh day. Many rediscovered it simply through personal study of the Bible.

Why This Matters

The historical thread demonstrates that Sabbath reform is not a novelty but a restoration. In the last crisis Revelation 12:17 describes the remnant as those “which keep the commandments of God.” The story of past Sabbath keepers strengthens faith for that final witness.

Source Notes

  1. Canons of the Council of Laodicea; Pope Gregory I, Epistle 13.1 (AD 603).
  2. Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, Book V.
  3. William Jones, History of the Christian Church (1832), vols. 2–3; J. A. Wylie, The History of the Waldenses (1851).
  4. Damtew Tefera, “Sabbath Observance in Ethiopian Orthodoxy,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 47 (2009).
  5. Don A. Sanford, A Choosing People: The History of Seventh Day Baptists (1992).