To the Citizens of Rome, on the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day

Gregory, servant of the servants of God, to his most beloved sons, the citizens of Rome. [a]

It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the Sabbath day. What else can I call them but preachers of Antichrist? For when he comes, he will make both the Sabbath day and the Lord’s day be kept free from all work. Because he pretends to die and rise again, he wants the Lord’s day held in reverence. And because he forces the people to live like Jews, so that he may bring back the outward rite of the law and bring the faithlessness of the Jews under himself, he wants the Sabbath observed. [b] For what the prophet says, “You shall bring in no burden through your gates on the Sabbath day” (Jeremiah 17, verse 24), could be held to as long as it was lawful to keep the law according to the letter. But since the grace of Almighty God, our Lord Jesus Christ, has appeared, the commands of the law that were spoken figuratively cannot be kept according to the letter. For if anyone says that this command about the Sabbath is to be kept, he must also say that fleshly sacrifices are to be offered; he must say too that the command about circumcision of the body is still to be kept. But let him hear the apostle Paul saying against him, “If you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing” (Galatians 5, verse 2).

We therefore take what is written about the Sabbath spiritually, and hold it spiritually. For Sabbath means rest. But we have the true Sabbath in our Redeemer himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever acknowledges the light of faith in him, if he draws the sins of craving through his eyes into his soul, brings burdens in through the gates on the Sabbath day. We bring in no burden through the gates on the Sabbath day, then, if we draw no weights of sin through the bodily senses into the soul. For we read that this same Lord and Redeemer of ours did many works on the Sabbath day, so much so that he rebuked the Jews, saying, “Which of you does not untie his ox or his donkey on the Sabbath day and lead it away to water?” (Luke 13, verse 15). If, then, the Truth himself in person commanded that the Sabbath should not be kept according to the letter, whoever keeps the rest of the Sabbath according to the letter of the law, whom else does he contradict but the Truth himself?

Another thing too has been brought to my notice: perverse men have preached to you that no one ought to bathe on the Lord’s day. Now, if anyone longs to bathe for luxury and pleasure, we do not allow it on any other day either. But if it is for the body’s need, we do not forbid it even on the Lord’s day. For it is written, “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it” (Ephesians 5, verse 29). And again it is written, “Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its cravings” (Romans 13, verse 14). He, then, who forbids provision for the flesh in its cravings certainly allows it in its needs. For if it is a sin to wash the body on the Lord’s day, the face ought not to be washed on that day either. But if this is allowed for a part of the body, why is it denied to the whole body when need requires it? On the Lord’s day, however, there should be a rest from earthly labor, and attention should be given in every way to prayer, so that if anything has been done carelessly during the six days, it may be atoned for by petitions on the day of the Lord’s resurrection.

Keep these things, dearest sons, as people endowed with sure constancy and right faith. Despise the words of foolish men, and do not readily believe everything you hear they have said; but weigh it in the scale of reason, so that, standing firm and steady against the wind of error, you may be able to reach the solid joys of the heavenly kingdom.

Two manuscripts add the date: the month of September, in the sixth indiction. [c]