Taking a Holy-day

If you were with us last Sunday, you know we began to speak of the commandment to “remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). And last Sunday, we focused on how God, for our own good, took this one day in seven and set us free from work, that we might not slave away any longer. But sabbath is about more than just relaxation. It's about more than just resting and recuperating. It's more than a day off. Because if it were just about those things, the ancient Israelites wouldn't have had to take it so very, very seriously. If you work through your day off, well, you're depriving yourself of a blessing, but the only one you're hurting is yourself. But about the sabbath, it was written: “The seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall be put to death” (Exodus 31:15). Now that tells us that the sabbath is about more than our personal well-being! And the key word here is 'holy.' 

Sabbath is a day that's holy, a day set apart, a day made and reserved for God's purposes rather than our own. To turn the sabbath to our own purposes wasn't just harming ourselves or depriving ourselves. It was reckoned as a serious offense against God, called “profaning his sabbaths” (Ezekiel 22:8). And if the community as a whole were to do that, it would “bring more wrath on Israel” (Nehemiah 13:18). The sabbath was indeed for Israel's benefit: it was a delightful and dearly cherished gift, when they thought of it rightly. It's just that it was a gift they were not to refuse or abuse, because it was the gift of time consecrated to a holy God. It was listed as the first and foremost of Israel's feasts, their holidays (Leviticus 23:1-3). 

Later Jewish writers developed a belief that even the angels in heaven worshipped God there by observing and celebrating the sabbath, and that Israel was blessed on earth by being the one nation invited to join the angels in this worship (Jubilees 2.18). And so Jews came to pray that they'd take this gift as “an opportunity for reverence, for knowledge of [God's] power, for hindrance of evil.”¹

But what did it look like – before we get into questions of how this applies to us – what did it look like for the people of God back then to keep the sabbath holy? We've talked already about the quality of rest, about things that they didn't do on the sabbath. But what did they do? Suppose you could hop in a time machine and go visit Joseph and Mary and eight-year-old Jesus one sabbath, spend it with them. How would they have kept a holy sabbath? Resting and ceasing from the thirty-nine prohibited forms of labor, Joseph's carpentry tools laid aside untouched for the day, what might they have done?

For starters, as daylight faded and sabbath approached on Friday evening, they would have lit a lamp in their home, a way of giving the sabbath an honorable welcome, and would have done so with a prayer of blessing.² And they would have purified themselves, washed up, made sure they were clean (2 Maccabees 12:38). On the sabbath, if they were to happen to be visiting Jerusalem at the time, they might have heard and seen and smelled the sabbath rituals at God's temple, which – among other purposes – was built specifically for the celebration of the sabbath (2 Chronicles 2:4). Jewish thought of the time held that Israel was “to rest in [the sabbath] from all work of the occupations of the children of men except to offer incense and to bring gifts and sacrifices before the Lord for the days and the sabbaths” (Jubilees 50.10). In addition to the regular daily offerings, the priests worked overtime. Each sabbath, there were an extra two lambs to offer up, and another fifth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, and with it a libation, a drink-offering, probably an extra quart of wine poured out (Numbers 28:9-10). Not only that, but on the sabbath, as a new shift of priests came on duty, they would have had to change out the Bread of the Presence, which your Bible may call the 'showbread' (Leviticus 24:5-8). Inside the temple, there were golden tables on which rested twelve loaves of sacred bread laid out in God's presence, sprinkled with frankincense. One of the Levite clans, the Kohathites, was specifically tasked with baking it (1 Chronicles 9:2). There they sat before the Lord for a week, and at the end of the week, each sabbath the priests would eat this bread on holy ground, alongside the offerings of the day. The sabbath was characterized by sacrifice, which benefited all Israel.

But suppose we caught Joseph and Mary and Jesus in Nazareth. What might the sabbath have looked like there with them? The scriptures that they cherished tell us that “the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation” (Leviticus 23:3). Now what on earth is a holy convocation? It's a feast that involves the people being called together, each in their own place. It was a public gathering of worship, whether in the temple or – away from Jerusalem – in the village synagogue. One Jewish writer of the time says that wherever Jews lived, they “assemble in the same place on these seventh days” into a “school of good sense, temperance, courage, justice, and the other virtues.”³ So to the Nazareth synagogue the Holy Family, like other families in town, would have gone. It was, after all, a holy convocation, a sacred assembly. What would it have been like there?

Luke tells us that “from ancient generations, Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every sabbath in the synagogues” (Acts 15:21). So a reading from the Law, the first five books of our Bible, was a universal feature of sabbath worship. Luke also says that “the utterances of the prophets” are “read every sabbath” (Acts 13:27). So there were two major readings: part of the Law, and some portion of the other books of our Old Testament. Attached to this were an interpretation and sermon. We read about Jesus, as a visiting teacher, being invited to read and preach in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:16-21) and about Paul, as also a visiting teacher, being invited to preach at the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:14-16). One of the key forms of sabbath worship was attention paid to God's word, and the education gained from it. 

One prayer used in the synagogues defines the purpose of the sabbath as “a seeking out of laws,” that is, studying the word of God.⁴ And one Jew from the time of Jesus described it like this: The Law “required them to assemble in the same place on these seventh days...” “On that day, they abstain from every other work and betake themselves to the sacred places which are called synagogues. They are seated according to age in fixed places, the young below the old, holding themselves ready to listen with the proper good manners. Then one of them takes the books and reads.” “Sitting together in a respectful and orderly manner,” they “hear the laws read so that none should be ignorant of them.” “Most of them sit in silence except when it is the practice to add something to signify approval of what is read.” “Another, from among those with most experience, comes forward and explains anything that isn't easy to understand.” “Some priest who is present, or one of the elders, reads the holy laws to them and expounds them point-by-point till about the late afternoon, when they depart, having gained both expert knowledge of the holy laws and considerable advance in piety.”⁵

In addition, while there at the synagogue, those gathered there to worship on the sabbath would pray and praise God. Synagogues were sometimes even referred to as 'houses of prayer.' Even a pagan observer, two centuries before Jesus came to earth, observed that Jews would on the sabbath “pray in the temples until evening, with hands outstretched.”⁶ One Jewish writer describes the point of gathering on the sabbath as “to praise the Lord in the assembly of the elders and to glorify the Mighty One in the council of the older men.”⁷ A later synagogue prayer used on the sabbath defined the point of sabbath as “thankful praise to God on behalf of those things which he has freely given to men.”⁸

But the entire sabbath couldn't be spent in the synagogue. What about the rest of it? We can imagine that each family would continue its worship at home, saying their prayers and blessings, talking through and continuing to reflect on the readings from God's word. I'm sure that in their house no less than the synagogue, Joseph and Mary talked of God's grace and power and wisdom each sabbath, as young Jesus listened in. They also would have set apart the sabbath in other ways. One rabbi suggested that “your sabbath meal should not be like your weekday meal, and your sabbath garment should not be like your weekday garment”⁹ – in other words, dress better and eat better. Even a pagan observer could see that Jews “kept the sabbath by inviting each other to drink and enjoy wine,”¹⁰ and Jewish writings from the time say that God honored Israel by allowing them “to eat and to drink and to be satisfied on this day of festival” (Jubilees 50.10). 

Also, with what was left, they might have spent time peacefully outside. Since, after all, God rested on the sabbath to observe the created world of nature he'd made, all those rocks and trees and skies and seas, some Jewish writers suggested that “the study of the truths of nature” would be an apt part of a balanced sabbath observance: “Learn to meditate yourself on the lessons of nature and all that in your own life makes for happiness.”¹¹

And so we've spent a sabbath day with Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. But the sabbath law, this commandment, grew to more than just that one day a week. The sabbath was the prototype for all Israel's festivals, standing at the head of their calendar; but Israel came to see the celebration of all their other holy days as an extension of what God declared in this commandment. And so the command to keep the sabbath holy also meant to keep all their holidays the way God meant them to be kept. There was, of course, the first day of each month, marked by the new moon, and sanctified with various offerings: seven lambs, two bulls, a ram, a goat, and set amounts of flour and wine (Numbers 28:11-15). Early in the spring, there was the Feast of the Passover, where each family would itself take on the priestly duty of sacrificing its own lamb (Exodus 12:3), to be roasted and completely eaten by morning (Exodus 12:8-10), while painting their doorposts and lintels with the blood (Exodus 12:22-25) and teaching their children about God's mercy in judgment (Exodus 12:26-27). The next day began the Feast of Unleavened Bread, continuing the commemoration of Israel's departure from Egypt (Exodus 23:15). They remembered it by spending a week eating bread baked without yeast (Leviticus 23:6), “the bread of affliction” (Deuteronomy 16:3). The week started and ended with holy convocations on which work was banned, though the days in between could involve work (Leviticus 23:7-8; Numbers 28:18, 25). All the men had to present themselves before the LORD (Exodus 23:17), and the firstborn of every family or every creature born in the past year had to be redeemed (Exodus 34:19-20). And in Jerusalem were offered up more sacrifices for the nation, same as on the new moon (Leviticus 23:7; Numbers 28:19-22).

As spring unfolded and the barley ripened, Israel was commanded to celebrate a feast at “the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain” (Deuteronomy 16:9), to celebrate “the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field” (Exodus 23:16). Once again, all the men had to “appear before the Lord GOD” (Exodus 23:17), to present the first sheaf of barley from the harvest to the priest, who would wave it high before God for his acceptance as the firstfruits. There were other offerings in Jerusalem, less elaborate than before: just one lamb, with a smaller amount of flour and wine (Leviticus 23:12-13). But only after presenting the new barley to the priest could a family begin eating new bread made from the fresh harvest (Leviticus 23:14). Some Jews came to think of this feast as a thanksgiving on behalf of the entire human race, but particularly for God's gift of the Promised Land to Israel.¹²

Seven weeks after the presentation of the barley firstfruits came the Feast of Weeks – a holy convocation on which work was banned (Leviticus 23:21). This time, they offered new grain from the wheat harvest (Leviticus 23:16), while remembering to leave the edges of their field unharvested so that the poor could glean from it as they pass by (Leviticus 23:22). At this festival, two loaves of leavened bread made from the new wheat flour were presented by each family to a priest, who'd again wave them high in the air for God to accept (Leviticus 23:17). In Jerusalem, it was a time of special rejoicing in God's name (Deuteronomy 16:11), with all the same offerings as a new moon but also two additional lambs as a peace offering (Leviticus 23:18-19; Numbers 28:27-31). Some Jews came to think of this feast as a time to offer God a token of gratitude for his great faithfulness, and for the Israelite's soul to rise in joy the same way that leaven makes bread rise.¹³

There were no holidays scheduled over the summer, but autumn kicked off with the Feast of Trumpets on the year's seventh new moon. Proclaimed with trumpet blasts (Leviticus 23:24), it was another holy convocation on which work was banned (Leviticus 23:24-25), and was mostly celebrated with more sacrifices in Jerusalem, not quite doubling the usual for the new moon (Numbers 29:3-5). Some Jews came to think of it as a reminder of the way God spoke like a trumpet blast at Mount Sinai, but also a chance to thank God for worldly peace.¹⁴

Nine days later came the Day of Atonement – not a feast but a fast, a time to “afflict yourselves” (Leviticus 23:27) – and to not share Israel's fasting on that day was to be cut off from the community (Leviticus 23:29). It was a “sabbath of solemn rest” (Leviticus 23:32), a holy convocation on which work was banned (Leviticus 23:27-28, 30-31), with the same offerings as the extra ones from the Feast of Trumpets (Numbers 29:8-11). But the purpose of the day was “to make atonement for you before the LORD your God” (Leviticus 23:28), and it featured a special ritual during which all Israel's sin and guilt was laid on the head of a goat which was released into the desert, away from the people, like stuffing sin back into its envelope and stamping “Return to Sender” on it; and the high priest would purify the tabernacle (or temple) and enter God's own presence in the Holy of Holies that day (Leviticus 16).

After that, the holiday year wound down with the Feast of Ingathering, or Feast of Booths or Tabernacles, once all the summer crops had been harvested (Exodus 23:16; Leviticus 23:39; Deuteronomy 16:13). To remember the lifestyle of the generation that lived in the desert after leaving Egypt, everyone would move into tents or huts for seven days (Leviticus 23:42-43), while the first and eighth day of the festival were holy convocations (Leviticus 23:35-36, 39). Once again, the men had to present themselves before the LORD (Exodus 23:17), while in Jerusalem there'd be sacrifices each of the eight days, totaling 105 lambs, 71 bulls, 15 rams, 8 goats, nearly 15 bushels of flour, and over 66 gallons of wine poured out (Numbers 29:13-38). It was a time of special rejoicing (Leviticus 23:40; Deuteronomy 16:14), and may have been attached to prayers for a good rain over the coming rainy season to water the barley and wheat for the coming year – to keep the feast well was assurance that “the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful” (Deuteronomy 16:15). It was on the eighth day of this feast, the last holy convocation of the year, that Jesus stood up in the temple and yelled out that if anyone was thirsty, they could come to him and drink the water of life (John 7:37).

Alright, we've said all of that, but how does any of this apply to Christians today? The sabbath was good for the Israelites to observe, looking back to the creation of the world and to their redemption from Egypt. But from the very dawn of the gospel, the old sabbath was outshined by something new – a new feast that the Church came to call the Lord's Day. It was held on the same day of the week that the Romans called 'Sunday,' and each week, on the Lord's Day, the Church remembered the first day of the old creation, when God began to create the world, but also it was the eighth day of the seven – the day of overflow, the day that burst the bounds of the week with something fresh. And that something fresh was a radical new creation. For it was the day when the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and the same day of the week when the Holy Spirit was poured out from heaven. That's why one second-century Christian said, “We observe the eighth day in gladness, the day on which Jesus was raised from the dead and appeared and ascended into the heavens.”¹⁵ 

And so for Christians, observance of the old holidays – even the sabbath itself – faded into irrelevance, because the purpose of the commandment became fulfilled, for the new-covenant age, in the Lord's Day. We don't just keep the sabbath – we do one better, by fulfilling the commandment through keeping the Lord's Day holy. That's why you'll note, at the top of each bulletin you get here, that the order of worship is prefaced by saying “The Lord's Day.”

But how do Christians keep the Lord's Day holy? Well, we can learn from how the people of the old covenant kept the sabbath day holy. And we first and foremost do it here at church, where we attend to God's word in the readings and sermon, we offer praise and prayer, and we celebrate the sacrifice. “On the first day of the week,” Luke writes, “we were gathered together to break bread” (Acts 10:27). “On the first day of the week,” Paul orders, “each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper” (1 Corinthians 16:2). John, meanwhile, declares, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day” (Revelation 1:10). And the author writing to the Hebrews urges, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together (as is the habit of some) but encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:24-25).

And listen to the testimony of the Christians of the early centuries, what they did: “On the Lord's Day, gather together to break bread and give thanks, first confessing your failings so that your sacrifice may be pure.”¹⁶ “It is on Sunday that we all make assembly in common, since it is the first day, on which God changed darkness and matter and made the world, and Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead on the same day.”¹⁷ “We devote Sunday to joyousness.”¹⁸ “Every friend of Christ should keep the Lord's Day as a festival, the day of resurrection, the queen and chief of the days..., on which our life appeared and victory in Christ was given over death”; keep it “in a spiritual way, rejoicing in meditation on the laws..., wondering at the workmanship of God...”¹⁹ “Rejoice at all times on the first day of the week. Indeed, anyone who afflicts himself on the first day of the week is guilty of sin. … Don't lend precedence to worldly affairs over the word of God, but put them aside each Lord's Day and hurry to the church, for she is your glory. For what excuse shall they give to God, those who don't assemble on that day to hear the saving word and to be nourished with divine and everlasting food? … What excuse before the Lord God shall the one who absents himself from the assembly of the church have? He doesn't even imitate the Gentiles but, through failing to assemble, grows neglectful and scornful and distances himself and does evil.”²⁰ “What silly excuse do most of you give? 'I can pray at home,' you say. … My friends, you are deceiving yourselves! Yes, you can pray at home, but not in the same way as you can in the church. In the church there is a large throng of spiritual fathers; there, with one accord, a cry is sent up to God. When you call upon the Lord by yourself, he does not listen to you in the same way as when you invoke him along with your brothers. Here in church, you have something more. Here you have the oneness of mind, the unison of voices, the common bond of love, the prayers of the priests.”²¹ “Be constant, therefore, in assembling with those faithful who are being saved in your mother, the Church, which is living and life-giving.”²² “Go to church every Sunday. … Christians should devote themselves to God alone on Sunday, and go to church for the sake of the salvation of their soul. When you come to church, pray for your sins; don't engage in quarrels or provoke scandals. … While you're standing in church, don't engage in idle conversation, but listen patiently to the divine lessons. … Pay tithes to the church out of your little profits.”²³ To “observe the sabbath in a spiritual manner” is “to be zealous for good works and to engage in reading and prayer.”²⁴

Now, what do we get out of all of that? We see, I hope, that the Lord's Day is a big deal – a much bigger deal than most of us make it. It's the queen of all days, it's the best day of the year – and we get it each and every week? What a remarkable gift! What a chance to encounter the holy Lord! And the chief way to do that, we're told, is that we are obligated to be at church each Sunday. Now, obviously, there are exceptional circumstances that might prevent one of us from assembling on a given Sunday. The lockdown last year showed us one. But terrible weather might prevent us from meeting. Or you might be sick, or injured, or responsible for caring for a loved one who can't be left unattended. Or there might be an emergency situation. But those are the exceptions – rare exceptions. 

To listen to how the old-covenant people of God observed the sabbath, and how the early Christians fulfilled it on the Lord's Day, should cause us to pause. Because these days, we've come to accept it as common for some of us to be every-other-weekers, or once-a-monthers. Assembling in the church each and every Lord's Day is not God's suggestion or God's nifty idea; it's God's commandment to his new-covenant people. The Lord's Day is a holy convocation commanded in the Law of Christ. That doesn't mean we never go on vacation, traveling to other places! But it means that the commandment goes with us, bidding us to make sure we assemble into God's church on the Lord's Day wherever we go, just as we must here at home. 

Imagine that, on a Monday morning, you were awakened by a blinding light; the Lord Jesus Christ is standing before you in his Father's glory, with a million angels behind him, and his hands outstretched to display the wounds received for your salvation; and he says to you, “We had a date, and you stood me up. I was there, waiting; where were you? What happened?” Would the way you'd spent your Sunday stand up to the light of his face? See, to skip church for our own daily agenda isn't just a matter left to our choice. God actually names it sin. 

Now, the good news – the truly great news – is that Jesus is a specialist in forgiveness of sins! He does it as we repent, confess, believe, throw ourselves to him, and offer ourselves to him for his transforming touch. And as he heals us, we hunger and thirst for the blessing of assembly on the Lord's Day.

So how should we spend the Lord's Day? In the church, of course – the assembly, not necessarily the building. But we're not here literally all day. It used to be that our tradition had both a Sunday morning and a Sunday evening assembly, but we laid that aside many years past – so how do we keep the other hours of the Lord's Day holy? What do we do with the rest of our Sunday? For when we get home from church, we don't reclaim the rest of the day as ours to do as we please. The whole day belongs to the Lord. So how do we honor that?

We might fill the Lord's Day with personal prayer and devotion, whether in our families or by ourselves. Spend a bit more time in prayer today than you did yesterday – after all, God made sure you have the time. We might also confess our sins and feel the sweet breeze of forgiveness on our souls. We can welcome the Lord's Day in a spirit of joy and cheer – after all, Jesus is raised from the dead, the Spirit is poured out on you, and that means you have the promise of a new creation coming, that life will always have the victory, and what about resting in that hope can be anything but joyful? We might take more time on the Lord's Day to read the Bible – read more of it, read chapter after chapter, read it more deeply and attentively. We might also read other spiritual books – the great classics, or simply whatever devotional you might keep. We might sing hymns around the house or in our gardens, letting them saturate our hearts. We might quiet ourselves in soul, silencing the voices in our minds, emptying ourselves so that we can dwell attentively to God's spiritual presence. We might reflect on the sheer beauty and grace of our salvation – thinking today about how abundantly God has changed us, brought us out of the darkness and into greater and greater light. We might contemplate the works of God in nature – go for a stroll and be attentive to your Father's world.

We might gather in smaller groups (family or not), might celebrate God's gifts with thankful praise, might discuss the deeper mysteries we may not always have time to consider by ourselves. We can feast mightily in the joy of the Lord, relishing God's goodness in food and drink, all while bearing in mind our Lord's teaching that “when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:13-14). And we might go forth and begin the works of mercy, for Jesus declared that “it is lawful to do good on the sabbath” (Matthew 12:12), to “save life” (Mark 3:4 / Luke 6:9). And so we might sit with the grieving, or visit the sick, or feed the hungry, or reach out to the lonely; and when done in Jesus' name, such is a beautiful and holy Lord's Day indeed. And, of course, we might give rest to our bodies with a wholesome nap, and give rest to our souls by abiding in Christ.

And just as the Lord's Day fulfills the sabbath, so the Christian calendar fulfills the Israelite calendar, by taking parts of it, reorienting them to Christ, and filling the whole year with his celebrations. We have our fasting seasons, like Advent and Lent, and our festive seasons of the year for feasting, like Epiphany and Easter (which is the Passover), and holy days like Christmas and Pentecost (which used to be the Feast of Weeks). From Christmas and Easter down to the details, the Church has filled in the year, first, with memories of the earthly and heavenly life and ministry of Jesus, and, second, with testimonials to his ongoing work in his people, like (for example) when we remember Jesus' holiness in Saint Patrick on March 17, but so many other days in so many other lives. In fact, there's so much to celebrate that it's said the average medieval peasant in England worked only two out of every three days in a year! Learning to think with this calendar and cherish all the holy days laid out for us, is how we fulfill the feasts in Christ – and how our souls throb to the heartbeat of his joy.

In keeping both the Lord's Day each week, and the other feasts of the Church, as truly holy – in reserving them as Jesus' time in our calendars – we have a grand opportunity. Our lives fulfill the commandment, true. But it's more than that. Our lives become open to grace. As we set aside this time, reserving it for God in whichever ways he asks of us, making the most of it (by his definition, not ours), our lives absorb the patterns and rhythms we keep, and so become conformed more and more to the image of God's Son, which is our ultimate goal (Romans 8:29), for in him the Church lives and moves and has her being (cf. Acts 17:29). This is the Lord's Day, fulfilling the sabbath in a truer way than ever before – so continue to take a holy-day, beginning with the church assembly and continuing through all of each Lord's Day and each high and holy feast. In doing so, we honor Jesus, we exalt him on high; and he elevates us as he draws us nearer to himself. Glory to the Lord on the Lord's Day, as we await the new heavens and new earth, born already in our hearts! For that will be the Lord's Day that knows no end. Hallelujah!

 

1  Hellenistic Synagogue Prayers 5.14

2  See m. Shabbat 2.7; and compare also Seneca, Letters on Ethics to Lucillus 95.47

3  Philo of Alexandria, Hypothetica 7.2; On the Special Laws 2.62; compare also Josephus, Against Apion 2.175

4  Hellenistic Synagogue Prayers 5.19

5  All quotes taken from Philo of Alexandria, Every Good Man Is Free 82-83 and Hypothetica 7.12-13

6  Agatharchides of Cnidus, quoted in Josephus, Against Apion 1.209

7  Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 11.8, quoting and adapting from Psalm 107:32

8  Hellenistic Synagogue Prayers 5.19

9  Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai, Tractate Baḥodesh, 34:2 6E

10  Plutarch, Quaestiones convivales 6.2

11  Philo of Alexandria, On the Life of Moses 2.216; On the Decalogue 100

12  Philo of Alexandria, On the Special Laws 2.167-171

13  Philo of Alexandria, On the Special Laws 2.180, 185

14  Philo of Alexandria, On the Special Laws 2.188-192

15  Epistle of Barnabas 15.9

16  Didache 14.1

17  Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 67.8

18  Tertullian of Carthage, Apology 16.11

19  Pseudo-Ignatius, Magnesians 9.2

20  Didascalia Apostolorum

21  John Chrysostom, On the Incomprehensible Nature of God 3.34

22  Didascalia Apostolorum

23  Caesarius of Arles, Sermon 13.3

24  Caesarius of Arles, Sermon 100.4