Ignatius of Antioch
Tradition tells us he was a disciple of John the Apostle. And later became the bishop in Antioch. He died in 108 A.D.
Ignatius is often quoted as an early witness to Sunday (or Lord's Day) observance.
The supposed reference to Lord's Day observance from the Magnesian letter, as it is often translated, is here quoted from Walter Martin's book "The Truth About Seventh Day Adventist, p. 152. reads as follows:


The quote, as quoted by Walter Martin and others appears at first glance to establish the early Christian usage of "Lord's Day" as referring to Sunday and replacing God's Sabbath. Whether or not Ignatius actually referred to Sunday as the Lord's day is open to question.

Scholars acknowledge that there are ambiguities in understanding the original text. For one thing the word "day" seems to be a later insertion. The meaning with the modifier "Lord's" can be "life" not "day" at all.

Fashioning their lives after the Lord's life,
Living according to the Lord's life, in which our life also springs up.
Makes far more sense than "living after the Lord's Day".

Copies close to the time of Ignatius, are pretty much non existent and what is found is fragmented, by the time we find complete copies of Ignatius letter, copied centuries later, Sunday worship had already gained a foothold. By that time the Latin word "dominicam" was commonly used to mean "Lord's day" for the first day of the week. However, that in no way proves Ignatius had that thought in mind when he wrote (in Greek).

Let's look at this portion in a wider context of Ignatius Magnesian letter:


Is the contrast between between Judaizing and living according to the Lord's day, or
is the contrast between Judaizing and living according to Christ's life?

The latter reading makes sense, we know the Jews burdened the Sabbath with hundreds of legalistic rules, Christ didn't do away with the Sabbath, nor is there any record of Him changing the date, He freed the seventh day Sabbath from the bondage of those hundreds of rules and invites us to worship Him in spirit and in truth.


Who are "those who walk in the ancient practices"?
Are they the " divine prophets who lived according to Jesus Christ." (mentioned in VIII)
They kept the Seventh-day Sabbath, did they not? But not in the manner of the Jews, for they had found the newness of hope and were living according to their hope in Jesus Christ.

The long recension of the letter reads as follows:

Observe the Sabbath in the matter of keeping it in the original sense of spiritual, rather than by traditions that the Pharisees have setup for the sabbath.

Even in today's world, the word "sabbatizing " doesn't automatically mean Seventh-day Sabbath keeping. That word is equivalent to the general idea of Judaizing, or setting up of rules, rather than a day of worship in spirit and truth.

In looking at these writings of early Christians we need to realize they are all translations and often hundreds of years rest between the writer and the translation. We need to be careful not to place upon them the meaning that the Sunday keeping church placed upon them hundreds of years later in their attempt to link their departure from God's commandments back to early Christians.

This is a hard one to understand what Ignatius of Antioch had in mind but I've come across a few clues..

Bacchiocchi, a Seventh-Day Adventist, believes there's no Scriptural mandate to change or eliminate Sabbath-keeping, and he singles out the Catholic Church for its role in changing the day.
"The Church of the capital of the empire, whose authority was already felt far and wide in the second century, appears to be the most likely birthplace of Sunday observance," he writes.....

Bacchiocchi also told WND: "Anti-Judaism caused the abandonment of the Sabbath, and pagan sun worship influenced the adoption of Sunday."
He says evidence of anti-Judaism is found in the writings of Christian leaders such as Ignatius, Barnabas and Justin in the second century. He notes these three "witnessed and participated in the process of separation from Judaism which led the majority of the Christians to abandon the Sabbath and adopt Sunday as the new day of worship."

"...Ignatius, ... ..witnessed and participated in the process of separation from Judaism which led the majority of the Christians to abandon the Sabbath and adopt Sunday as the new day of worship......Ignatius According to Irenaeus, Ignatius was Bishop of Antioch at the time of Trajan (A.D. 98-117).1 The Bishop argues "against the Judaizing tendencies of his territory, which, not far geographically from Palestine, had suffered the influences of the synagogue and of the Judaeo-Christians."2 His language suggests that the separation from Judaism was in progress, though the ties had not yet been severed.3 In fact the tenacious survival and veneration of Jewish institutions such as the Sabbath is explicitly mentioned by this author. For instance, in his Epistle to the Magnesians Ignatius writes, "For if we are still practicing Judaism, we admit that we have not received God's favor.... The necessity to renounce Jewish customs is again urged in chapter 10:3, where the warning is given that "it is wrong to talk about Jesus Christ and live like the Jews. For Christianity did not believe in Judaism but Judaism in Christianity." In his letter to the Philadelphians the Bishop similarly admonishes that "if anyone expounds Judaism to you, do not listen to him. For it is better to hear Christianity from a man who is circumcised than Judaism from one who is uncircumcised" (ch. 6 :1).

These frequent recommendations to abandon the practice of Judaism imply a strong leaning toward Jewish practices within the Christian communities of Asia Minor. In this climate it is hardly conceivable that a radical break from Sabbath keeping had already taken place. ,,,,... As Kenneth A. Strand concisely and incisively remarks, "Regardless of what "Lord's Day" may have meant either in Magnesia or in Antioch and regardless of whether or not Ignatius intended a cognate accusative, the context reveals that it is not the early Christians who are pictured as ';no longer sabbatizing,'; but that it is the Old Testament prophets who are described . . . Surely Ignatius knew that the Old Testament prophets observed the seventh day of the week, not the first! The contrast here, then, is not between days as such, but between ways of life 'between the Jewish sabbatizing' way of life and the newness of life symbolized for the Christian by Christ's resurrection."9 ...

Conclusion. This brief analysis of the texts of Ignatius, Barnabas and Justin has confirmed the presence in their respective communities (Antioch, Alexandria, Rome) of strong anti-Judaic feelings which, augmented by social tensions and theological convictions, created the necessity of avoiding any semblance of Judaism.
Iguatius at Antioch condemns the "judaizing" of some Christians and particularly their "sabbatizing" (that is, the observance of the Sabbath according to the manner of the Jews), enjoining Christians "to live according to the life of the Lord." Although, according to our evaluation, the text of Magnesians 9, 1 refers to the "Lord's life" rather than to the "Lord's day," this does not minimize the fact that the condemnation of "sabbatizing" and the invitation "to live not according to Judaism," indicate that a separation from Judaism was being urged. These conditions undoubtedly encouraged the adoption of Sunday worship in order to force a clearer distinction from the Jews.
Barnabas in Alexandria, in his effort to neutralize the influence of Jewish customs, assumes a radical position, repudiating, with his allegorical method, the historic validity of Jewish practices and beliefs and "denying purely and simply that the literal practice of the Sabbath had ever been the object of a commandment of God."60 He empties the Sabbath of its significance and obligation for the present age in order to present the eighth day as its legitimate continuation and replacement. Finally, the testimony of Justin, coming from Rome, confirms what we have already gathered from other sources, namely the existence, particularly in the capital city, of deep anti-Judaic feelings. These apparently influenced Justin in reducing the Sabbath to "the very sign of the reprobation of the Jewish people."61 The adoption of a new day of worship appears to have been motivated by the necessity to evidence a clear dissociation from the Jews. 62...."ANTI-JUDAISM AND THE ORIGIN OF SUNDAY by Samuele Bacchiocchi

Yes, there was antagonism between Jews and Christians. We see it already in Paul's day, with Jewish teachers causing trouble for Paul because he didn't impose Jewish rituals.
And yes, it did play a part in Christians shying away from the Sabbath.

Yet anti Sabbath people looking into history, wrongly get a picture that there was a huge and rapid breaking away from the true Sabbath in the early Christian church, when in reality it took many centuries, and many decrees and other means, for the Roman Catholic church to impose Sunday as the day that was to be the day of rest.


1. The Catholic Church was very zealous in destroying the writings of people that didn't support their version of what they wanted people to believe. We tend to find evidence of the beliefs of others mainly from the writings of men that condemned them, which tended to present it in a negative manner. It's confirmed by their "enemies" that they wrote things, but their writings have basically vanished.

2. As to the early "Church Fathers" writings, there was a lot of adding and subtracting done to writings of men that were fairly prominent in their time, and respected, so over the centuries their writings were altered to fit the accepted "traditions" the church sought to establish as coming from the apostolic age.

Ignatius of Antioch
He was a real, well respected leader in the early church. He did write letters to believers admonishing them to be faithful Christians.
BUT
There are, in all, fifteen epistles which bear the name of Ignatius.
The first eight of these letters supposedly written by Ignatius are almost universally considered spurious.

That leaves seven Epistles which are acknowledged as written by Ignatius.
But they are different lengths. There are two Greek letters claiming to be the same but one shorter and another longer. Which versions are the genuine letters of Ignatius.

General consensus tends to choose the shorter versions as genuine. Some refused to acknowledge the authenticity of any of Ignatius' Epistles, whether long or short.

The reason to defend one or the other, or none at all, often centered on whether the parts confirmed their belief, or was against their belief.

So in the end -- what did Ignatius of Antioch really write, and what was added, subtracted, interloped. It's obvious to most researchers that there is a problem.

Coupled with this is errors in translations.
Translators sometimes added a subject, when the ancient manuscripts didn't give the subject. Thus when the manuscript says we need to" honor the Lord's". There is no subject written there, so they put in the word "day", and presto -- they claim a Sunday proof. But in context the meaning probably meant "honor the Lord's way" or "honor the Lord's life".