Can you oblige me by giving me the exact date and wording of Constantine's Sunday edict? If you can give me also the years of Constantine's birth, accession to the throne, and death, I shall be glad.
Constantine, surnamed Magnus, "the Great," was born at Nissa, in Asia Minor, in February, 274 AD. After serving with distinction in the army, under Diocletian and Maximian, he was allowed to join his father in Britain, after the appointment of the latter to the dignity of Caesar.
Upon the death of his father (July 25, 306 AD) he assumed the purple as Augustus, and as soon as prudence and circumstances would permit he proceeded to Italy to make good his claim by force of arms. After a series of successes, his position was assured by the decisive victory over Maxentius at the Milvian bridge, near Rome, October 28, 312 AD.
The year following this he issued the famous Edict of Milan (March, 313 AD) restoring all forfeited civil and religious rights to the Christians, and recognizing Christianity as on a level with Paganism in the Empire. He died at Nicomedia, 22nd May, 337 AD. His famous Sunday Edict was issued in 321 AD, and reads thus:
Let all the judges and townspeople, and all artisans, rest on the venerable day of the sun. But let those who are situated in the country freely and at fall liberty attend to the cultivation of their fields; because it often happens that no other day to so fit for towing earn or planting vines; lent, by neglecting the proper occasion, they should lose the benefits granted by Divine bounty.
This covers the whole of your question, but it may be well in this connection to note a few points on which there is quite general misunderstanding.
For one thing it should be known that Constantine did not issue this edict as a Christian. Whether Constantine was ever in his life moved by the slightest Christian principle, or was ever guided by anything else than State policy and selfish ambition, is very doubtful; but it is quite certain that in 321 AD he made no pretense of being a Christian.
In the year following he issued another decree, regulating pagan soothsaying. It was not till just before his death that he went through the form of baptism, and up to that time he had played his part with such consummate skill that the adherents of the Church and the pagan priests both claimed him as one of them.
Schaff, the learned Church historian, says that he "enjoined the observance of Sunday, though not as Dies Domini [the Lord's day], but as Dies Solis [the day of the sun], in conformity to his worship of Apollo."
Chambers' Encyclopedia (Article "Sunday") says: "Unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the Sabbatical observance of that day [Sunday] to known to have been ordained, to the edict of Constantine, 321 AD."
It must not be supposed that this was the origin of Sunday observance. Constantine, as the most skillful politician the world has ever seen, saw how things were drifting, and issued his edict accordingly. The Church was being paganized, and already the worship of Apollo, as the rising sun, had been adopted by professed Christians, who made it identical with "the Sun of righteousness." (Malachi 4:2) Thus Constantine's edict pleased both pagans and professed Christians, and at the same time served to further the union between the two, which later on culminated in the Papacy.
It will be noted that Constantine's edict called only for judges and artisans to cease from labor on Sunday, but granted farmers fall liberty to continue their agricultural operations, which shows that up to that time, at least, nobody had considered Sunday as a rest day; but it also shows that Constantine did not change the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first. That is something that cannot be charged to any person.
Of course when we speak of changing the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first, we mean only changing the practice, since the Sabbath itself can no more be changed than God's throne can.
Constantine was but one factor in a long chain of events, all manipulated by the establisher and head of the Papacy, namely, Satan. The substitution of Sunday observance for Sabbath observance, like the introduction of images of Christ, instead of Christ in the heart, was part of that great apostasy which resulted from substituting human philosophy and tradition for the simple Word of God.
The reformation, which will enshrine Christ in the heart, and restore the Sabbath to its original and rightful position, will be effected only by accepting the Word of God in its fullness, and living by every portion of it, without omission or substitution.--Present Truth, October 11, 1900.