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Patrick Manning

Methods
for Human
History
Studying Social,
Cultural,
and Biological
Evolution
Methods for Human History
 Patrick Manning

Methods for Human

History
Studying Social, Cultural, and Biological Evolution
Patrick Manning
World History Center
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-53881-1 ISBN 978-3-030-53882-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53882-8

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
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 Acknowledgments

I wish to acknowledge the various experiences that have introduced me to

the challenges and the pleasures of exploring academic knowledge across
disciplinary boundaries. As an undergraduate at Caltech (1959–1963), I
encountered ample doses of math, chemistry, and history, and smaller doses
of physics, biology, English, geology, and economics, plus encouragement to
link them. Working with Philip Curtin and Jan Vansina as a graduate student
at the University of Wisconsin—Madison (1963–1967), I found that African
History also included anthropology, linguistics, politics, and agricultural eco-
nomics. I focused on economic history and took a second MS in economics
with Jeffrey Williamson. Once I was teaching, William S. Griffiths introduced
me to C-language programming as he guided me through my initial simu-
lation of African population and migration. During 1978–1988, I held a
Guggenheim Fellowship at the Population Studies Center at the University of
Pennsylvania, where I learned from leading lights in demography.
At Northeastern University (1984–2006), I was jointly appointed in
History and African-American Studies. The latter department gave me close
interactions with specialists in music, theatre, visual art, sociology, political
science, and economics, in a common project to study connections across
the African continent and the New World diaspora. When Northeastern’s
graduate program in world history began (from 1994), I was able to teach a
remarkable range of courses at the global level, including courses for history
grads on interdisciplinary methodology in 2000 and 2001. At the University
of Pittsburgh (2006–2016), I was able to teach three courses on interdisci-
plinary methodology, each including over 15 students from a wide range of
disciplines (the syllabi are available on my website). Many of the students in
those courses were outstanding. They included, in 2009, Jean Bessette, Dan
Bisbee, Dan Chyutin, Racheal Forlow, Amy Hoffman, Jim Hommes, Ahmet
Izmirlioglu, Liz Molnar, and Molly Nichols. Outstanding in 2012 were
Sarah Bishop, John Christie-Searle, Lauren Collister, Richard Gray, Sharon

v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Quinsaat, Sanjana Ravi, Peter Wood, Yu Yawen, and Qi Zhang. (Sanjana

Ravi was awarded a fellowship during which she co-authored a method-
ological article with me.) In 2015, outstanding were Matt Drwenski, Aura
Jirau Arroyo, Ognjen Kohanic, Carlos Alberto López, Rongqian Ma, Jacob
Pomerantz, Aisling Quigley, Bennett Sherry, and Weiyan Xiong.
In addition to these structural ties, the many individuals from whose
insights and energies I have benefited include colleagues, students, and
other acquaintances. At Northeastern: Yinghong Cheng, Pam Brooks,
Bin Yang, Jeff Sommers, Eric Martin, David Kalivas, Tiffany Trimmer, and
Deborah Smith Johnston. At Pitt: Madalina Veres, Ahmet Izmirlioglu, Chris
Eirkson, Jim Hommes, and Lars Peterson. Skilled grad students coached
me in genetics (Jason Carson), geology and climatology (Aubrey Hillman),
and statistics (Yun Zhang, James Sharpnack, Bowen Yi, and especially Yu
Liu). The faculty colleagues to whom I am most indebted are Siddharth
Chandra, Jan Lucassen, Leo Lucassen, Dan Bain, Geoffrey Bowker, Molly
Warsh, Ruth Mostern, Marcus Rediker, Vladimir Zadorozhny, and Hassan
Karimi. I am deeply grateful for insights on the full manuscript from four
readers: Chris Chase-Dunn, Eugene Anderson, Bill Wimsatt, and Felipe
­Fernández-Armesto. I appreciate the comments on specific sections by Ralph
Adolphs, David J. Anderson, William Croft, Curtis V. Manning, David Reich,
Ian Tattersall, Michael Tomasello, and Bill Wimsatt. I have been greatly
pleased with the work of editor Megan Laddusaw and of Palgrave Macmillan
for bringing the work to publication.
For nearly the past thirty years, my daughter, Gina Manning, has been a
teacher of English. In that time, I have gained inspiration through association
with her devotion to finding ways to help young people learn in a variety of
circumstances—in public and private schools, for students with special needs
and for those recognized as gifted. I visited classes, read her reports, and saw
how many of the students made dramatic advances within each year. She sets
an impressive standard; I believe I have learned from it.
 Contents

1 Introduction 1

Part I Methods for Human History

2 Human Evolution: Biological, Cultural, and Social 23

3 Physical Science and Biological Coevolution 33

4 Systems and Information Science 41

5 Behavior of Individuals, Groups, and Networks 53

6 Study of Human Institutions 63

7 Emotions and Human Nature 75

Part II Disciplines and Theories

8 Disciplines and Their Evolution 83

9 Natural Selection in an Imperial Era, 1850–1945 91

10 DNA in a Progressive Era, 1945–1980 109

vii
viii CONTENTS

11 Ecology and Society in a Neoliberal Era, 1980–2010 131

12 Cross-Disciplinary Analysis in Global Tension,

2010–2020 157

References 173

Index 191
 List of Tables

Table 1.1 Methods summarized, by chapter 16

Table 2.1 Assumptions in various theories of evolution 31

ix
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The purpose of this book is to assist students and researchers in learning and
applying multiple methods for historical and cross-disciplinary analysis. It is to
provide practical guidelines for expanding knowledge of the human order as
we explore it in this global age. The book is to assist readers in reaching new
resources—across the many fields of knowledge and back in time to moments
of causation and interaction—in hopes of resolving the dilemmas of the pres-
ent and the mysteries of the past. The scope of the book includes identifying
major topics and issues in research, along with the disciplines, theories, meth-
ods, and data through which research questions are explored. The time frame
crosses three geological epochs, including the present.1
This survey focuses on disciplines, theories, and especially methods of his-
torical study. Disciplines are the social institutions and analytical engines that
have divided academic knowledge into subsections, then expanding knowl-
edge within each terrain.2 Theories are formal interpretations of the dynamics
in each field of study. Methods involve two basic stages: combining analytical
logic and empirical detail to explore the dynamics of change, and then pre-
senting the results to an audience in the hope of confirming historical and
analytical interpretations.
The benefit of gaining an acquaintance with the full map of disciplines and
methods associated with human history and evolution is that of expanding
historical literacy. Advanced study generally provides researchers with deep

1 The time frame of this work, in geological terms, includes: introduction to the Pleistocene

epoch (from Homo erectus over 2 million years ago and including Homo sapiens for the past
300,000 years), the Holocene epoch (from 12,000 years ago), and the Anthropocene epoch
(from 200 years ago). Much of the analysis of human evolution can be organized into these three
major periods of time.
2 By “institutions,” I mean organizations composed of members who share a common set of

practices and objectives.

© The Author(s) 2020 1

P. Manning, Methods for Human History,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53882-8_1
2 P. MANNING

training in a primary specialization; in addition, advanced study commonly

provides researchers with initial training in closely related disciplines. The
purpose here is to expand such knowledge across disciplinary borders—to
show how researchers can move beyond their principal specializations to
develop broad literacy in the disciplines that address human history.

Priorities in Topics and Methods of Analysis

The discipline of history can address almost every topic in the past, but one
cannot study everything at once. How are we to prioritize topics in order to
explore methods for a range of historical issues that are wide yet still specific?
I have chosen to give first priority to human life itself, in all its complexity,
from the short term of individual lives to the long-term existence of our
­species. This top priority is examined in the domains of biological sciences
and social sciences.
Of necessity, a secondary emphasis is the environment within which
humanity exists. That is, human life is conditioned by the massive and influ-
ential surroundings, organic and inorganic, of which humanity is still a tiny
part. The environment of humans includes the biosphere (the lives of ani-
mals, plants, and microorganisms) and the inorganic constituents of Earth
(the geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere). This second priority is exam-
ined in the domains of biological sciences (thus overlapping the biological
study of humans) and also the physical and environmental sciences.
A third set of emphases comes out of intellectual accomplishments—­
representations of the world that have emerged from the human mind and
are now centered in universities. The theories, collections of data, and inter-
pretive arguments leave their sediment in libraries, archives, electronic files,
and human brains.
These three arenas form a triad in research: human life itself, our environ-
ment, and the human knowledge on which we rely to make sense of the first
two. On the third point, men and women have been asking themselves for
millennia about the origins and changes in human society.3 The discourse on
origins is built deeply into myth, philosophy, religion, and culture, especially
in literature. During the past 160 years, however, these questions have been
rephrased, since Darwin’s 1859 Origin of Species expressed them in terms of
biological evolution.4 The 1858 discovery of Neanderthal skeletal remains
(followed by the 1864 naming of Homo neanderthalensis) reinforced this
rephrasing of the question of human origins. Darwin’s principle of natural

3 David Christian, emphasizing the long human tradition of articulating myths of origin, treats

evolutionary theory of life, along with the Big Bang theory of the universe, as modern myths
of origin. David Christian, Origin Story: A Big History of Everything (New York: Little, Brown
2018), ix–x, 7–12.
4 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (London: John Murray,

1859).
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

selection was a successful explanation of the human organism. Indeed, the

logic of Darwinism became a powerful metaphor for how to organize the
study of large systems in change. Parallels to Darwinian thinking became
influential not only in biological subfields but in studies of the physical
­universe, studies of human learning, and analyses of human social change.
Within the triad of research arenas that I have identified, a common
inquiry has persisted at least since the time of Darwin. I propose to think of
that inquiry as a combination of biological and sociocultural evolution—I call
it “the discourse on human evolution.” The idea of human evolution as an
encompassing and interacting set of changes, at multiple levels from the bio-
logical to the macro-social, has now moved beyond a vague dream to become
a series of practical research projects. As a result, researchers and readers in
many disciplines are finding that, in order to investigate the issues in human
evolution, they need to develop at least basic literacy in disciplines beyond
their home discipline. This broad discourse, as I present it, encompasses bio-
logical, cultural, and social evolution of humans, along with the surrounding
environment—although I will emphasize that “social evolution” has involved
several approaches.
During the same era of some 160 years, expanding universities have
encouraged disciplinary specialization. They have led in packaging knowledge
into five great intellectual containers: biological sciences, physical sciences,
social sciences, arts and humanities, and now information sciences. Biological
and social sciences have given most attention to aspects of human evolution,
yet physical sciences and the arts and humanities have also developed visions
of human evolution within their distinctive frameworks. Exploring broad
evolutionary change requires crossing disciplinary boundaries—locating and
learning to use resources on widely varying topics, with theories and meth-
ods that are at once distinctive and localized but also interconnected, drawing
inspiration from each other. Investigating this set of issues requires attention
at once to the specificity of each domain and to the interplay and generality of
domains.
Disciplines have grown and expanded in depth, resulting in elaborate the-
ories, huge libraries and datasets, impressive empirical results, specialized
terminology, and institutional walls to protect each discipline from others.
Yet they preserve the traces of their common origins and mutual inspira-
tions. Each discipline is now written up skillfully by its leading practitioners.
In addition, there are growing efforts at combining disciplines and showing
the ways in which applying multiple disciplines can help in addressing big
and difficult problems. National censuses, national income, climate analysis,
genomics, and studies of health provide past cases of such large-scale, multi-
disciplinary enterprises. In another interesting case, the discipline of history
of science formed itself in 1945, to explore historical development of the
full range of natural sciences (but leaving aside the social sciences). For the
future, the human order faces challenges that will require further advances
4 P. MANNING

in multidisciplinary analysis: the problems of impending climatic disaster, the

accelerating social inequality, and, perhaps most importantly, the problems of
denial in which humans have developed new knowledge but cannot agree to
apply it.
To pursue this approach to methods in the study of human evolution,
I must define disciplines in terms of their outward-looking relationships with
each other, not just their central foci. In particular, I propose updated defini-
tions of basic categories in evolution and its processes among humans.5 First,
I define human evolution as a general category of processes: “Human evo-
lution is the differentiation of humans, their biological and social makeup,
over multiple generations through systematic processes of internal change,
in interaction with episodic changes in external environment.” Specifically,
I argue that human evolution involves at least three distinct mechanisms: bio-
logical, cultural, and social evolution, each with its own systemic process of
internal change. In biological evolution, that process is the natural selection of
genetic characteristics.6 In cultural evolution, the systemic process is a coev-
olution of the process of social learning in interaction with biological natural
selection.7 In social evolution, the systematic process of internal change is the
social selection of constructed social institutions.8
These restatements of the definition of evolution require a parallel restate-
ment of the definition of coevolution. The biological definition of coevolu-
tion has recently been phrased as: “Coevolution is the process of reciprocal
adaptation and counter-adaptation between ecologically interacting species.”9
But the perspective of human evolution requires a parallel definition for
“human coevolution,” including evolutionary interactions within the human
species. Thus, “Human coevolution includes intra-species processes of
­reciprocal adaptation and ­counter-adaptation among interacting processes of
evolution within the species.”

5 These definitions are explored in further depth in Chapter 2.

6 The theory of natural selection is applicable to eukaryotic species that are governed by DNA.
7 In this case, the systematic process of internal change is, inherently, the coevolution of social

learning and biological evolution. The term “coevolution” was explicitly adopted by founding fig-
ures of cultural evolution theory, who defined cultural evolution as “Darwinian evolution of cul-
ture and genes.” Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd, “The Evolution of Human Ultra-Sociality,”
in Irenäus Eibl-Eibisfeldt and F. Salter, eds., Indoctrinability Ideology, and Warfare (New York:
Berghahn Books, 1998), 71–95.
8 Details are given throughout this book and in Patrick Manning, A History of Humanity: The

Evolution of the Human System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 36–61.
9 This definition is reworded slightly from Michael A. Brockhurst and Britt Koskelle,

“Experimental Coevolution of Species Interactions,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 6 (2013):

367. Brockhurst and Koskelle note that coevolution “affects most organisms and is considered a
key force structuring biological diversity.” For an early use of the term “coevolution,” see Paul
R. Ehrlich and Peter H. Raven, “Butterflies and Plants: A Study in Coevolution,” Evolution 18
(1964): 586–608.
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

For humans, this means that social evolution, cultural evolution, and
biological evolution may interact. Coevolution in humans is restricted to
adaptations and counter-adaptations among evolutionary processes. Other
adaptations, especially to episodic environmental change, take place within
the limits of each of the distinct evolutionary processes. Thus, the term
“coevolution,” as applied to humans, is not appropriate for describing the full
range of interactions among the factors in history.
Further, the notion of three processes within human evolution leads log-
ically to the definition of a Human System, encompassing the entire human
species, and in which its changes are generated by the separate and interacting
processes of biological, cultural, and social evolution. The Human System,
including its functioning from the level of individuals and communities to its
global population and structures, arises as a topic throughout this book.

Six Historical Topics, with Relevant Methods

What are the big questions in human history? What are the disciplines and
theories with which we explore those questions? How did theories and meth-
ods develop and interact? The focus in this volume is on learning methods for
pursuing answers to such questions.
Here are some initial examples of methods for human history—to indicate
to readers what to look for in the pages to come. This section presents six
topics of research and six historical methods as illustrations of the widely var-
ying issues in analysis of human evolution. These six methods—and the addi-
tional thirty methods to be presented in Part I of this book—are presented in
a structured format, beginning with a question and ending with an answer.
The methods range widely in topic, theory, and details of the evidence, but
I classify the methods into four types of analysis: propose a hypothetical rela-
tionship, define an ontology, verify a hypothesis, and estimate parameters. That
is, they are to propose a relationship that can ultimately be tested, to cate-
gorize data to clarify their relationships, to confirm a hypothesis in compari-
son with an alternative, and to calculate relationships of data after assuming a
verified hypothesis. Following this exploration of six historical problems, the
chapter goes on to summarize the overall characteristics of historical methods,
with discussion of types of data, analysis, and presentation.
The initial six topics of research range widely: from 1.6 million years ago
to today’s global debates, from individual tool-makers to communities cre-
ating language, and from life in the Caribbean to the endless debate about
skin color. Each of these cases identifies a topic of inquiry, a historical ques-
tion, a theory and discipline relevant to human evolution, a specific historical
method, and a specific category of analysis. In most cases, the answer to the
historical question is given in the text; in other cases, you as reader are asked
to propose your own answers in what will be a “thought experiment.”
6 P. MANNING

Biology: change of physical appearance. Here is an important example

in the biological evolution of the human form, as studied in the disciplines
of paleontology and genetics. It is the study of change in human physical
form from the time of Homo habilis to that of Homo erectus. Paleontology
is the study of early human remains, mostly skeletal, tracing early hominin
forms through changes in teeth, stature, brain capacity, male and female
stature, and hunting vs. foraging activity. To understand the role of spe-
cific human remains in the process of human evolution, one must interpret
those remains in terms of both genetic and epigenetic change—the evolution
of DNA across generations through natural selection as compared with the
life-course development of individuals through the actions of proteins on the
genome.10 “Turkana Boy” is the nearly complete skeleton from the edge of
Lake Turkana, who died at 8 years of age, 1.6 million years ago. Compared to
Homo habilis, his was a big shift in height, with long legs apparently adding
the ability to run and hunt. Here are comparisons of Turkana Boy with aver-
ages for preceding Homo habilis and succeeding Homo erectus.

Homo habilis Turkana Boy Homo erectus

Years ago 2 million years 1.6 million years 1.5 million years
Height (m) 1.35 1.6 1.8
Brain capacity 600 cc 880 cc 900 cc

What was the mechanism of change? Was it genetic evolution through a

series of mutations in DNA? Or was it change in development through rapid
epigenetic shifts in protein activity in a genome that changed little? This anal-
ysis involves choosing between two theories to explain the observed changes.
Paleontologist Ian Tattersall argues the latter.11 It is supported because
the boy’s lineage had abandoned the trees and was equipped to move only
as a biped. Legs were longer, and arms were shorter than before: the boy
was neither a bipedal ape nor a modern human. New lessons about the
­composition of DNA distinguish “coding” vs. “regulatory” DNA, where the
former governs production of proteins and the latter governs the expression
of coding DNA. For close relatives, differences in phenotype may owe as
much to the regulation of coding genes as to the genes themselves. Changes
in behavior associated with brain size, meanwhile, were to come among later
communities.

10 “Epigenetics” refers to changes in DNA, such as DNA methylation and histone modifica-
tion, that result in heritable changes in gene expression without changing the sequence of amino
acids in the DNA. The Greek prefix “epi-” means upon, near—in general, proximity.
11 Tattersall emphasizes changing life-course development through gene expression (or regula-

tion). Gene expression in turn changes through epigenetic changes or perhaps through a “minor
mutation,” as in the regulatory portion of DNA. Tattersall, Masters of the Planet, 98. See also
François Jacob, “Evolution and Tinkering,” Science 196 (1977), 1161–66.
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

Topic 1.1: Biological change

Question: Did the phenotype of Turkana Boy result from genetic or epigenetic
change?
Theory: genetic evolution; epigenetic life-course development.
Evidence: Turkana Boy skeletal remains; materials from surroundings of skeleton;
remains of other hominin individuals.
Analysis category: Hypothesis test.
Answer to the Question: Turkana Boy’s phenotypical changes were primarily
developmental rather than genetic. No intermediate types are known: this big
change parallels other “jumps” in the fossil record. Thus, developmental change
might have altered gene timing, opening “new adaptive avenues” that led to
change in phenotype.
Presentation: Ian Tattersall presents his confirmation of the epigenetic hypothe-
sis in textual detail, backed up by theory, as part of a book.
Citation: Ian Tattersall, Masters of the Planet, 91–98.

Cultural evolution: learning tool-making. Early human advances resulted

from biological evolution alone. Stone tools appeared 2.6 million years ago;
hands changed shape; brains expanded; stone tools are shown to have been
made by right-handers. Other changes included sharpened bones; change in
diet; running and throwing; and ability to move to diverse environments.
But individual learning eventually contributed: humans “crossed the
Rubicon” at that point. The theory of cultural evolution argues that humans,
with their large brain capacity, can learn and preserve new techniques through
social learning.12 For humans, cultural evolution is a supplement to the bio-
logical process of natural selection. Cultural evolution argues that humans
could not only learn new techniques through trial and error but pass them
on to the next generation, as members of the next generation learn the tech-
niques by observation, imitation, or through mentored teaching. The new
knowledge, stored in the brains of the individuals, is passed on through the
process of learning rather than through genetic reproduction. Further, this
theory of learning emphasizes “dual heritage,” in that genetically supported
cooperation among humans might grow along with social learning. The
two processes of genetic growth in cooperation across the generations and
social learning during individual life course do not automatically reinforce
each other. But the theory assumes that their contending pressures will reach
an equilibrium with the result that humans tended gradually to accumulate
learning: this is “crossing the Rubicon”—it is also a description of the process
of coevolution. Stephen Henning and Joseph Henrich worked, independently

12 Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson, The Origin and Evolution of Cultures (New York:

Oxford University Press, 2005).

8 P. MANNING

and together, to test this idea.13 They worked with modeling and game the-
ory rather than historical data.
When did cultural evolution begin? Perhaps it was as early as
750,000 years ago (as revealed at a site of Homo erectus at Gesher Benot
Ya’aqov, Israel); perhaps 300,000 years ago. Brains expanded to 1200 cc, and
techniques for stone blades emerged. Hominids stood “on the precipice of
true cumulative cultural evolution.” Since the nature of the transition was
necessarily quite gradual, it is difficult to pick a particular moment.

Topic 1.2: Cultural evolution

Question: How did early individuals of genus Homo learn to make stone
tools?
Theory: Cultural evolution, assuming dual heritage, begins with “crossing the
Rubicon.”
Evidence: Studies of living apes; analysis of stones and bones; modeling of com-
parative DNA from humans and apes today and from ancient human DNA.
Analysis category: Propose a hypothetical relationship.
Answer to the Question: Individual learning and gene-based cooperation each
grew. Human learning of techniques of tool-making was able to “cross the
Rubicon,” as the passing of learned techniques across the generations reinforced
the genetic inheritance of practices of collaboration. This hypothesis awaits
verification.
Presentation: Tables estimating the type of learning and the number of genera-
tions necessary to build a new type of learning into a population.
Citation: Shennan, The Secret of Our Success, 280–81, 291–93.

Evolution and environmental change: skin color. Biological evolution takes

place not simply within any organism but also in interaction with the organ-
ism’s environment. In an example that has become famous, British biologist
Henry Bernard Davis Kettlewell conducted experiments in the 1950s show-
ing that the rise of atmospheric coal dust in industrializing England had led
to changes in certain “peppered” moths—moths of a species that was previ-
ously all-white came to be spotted with black marks, which made them less
obvious to predators.14

13 Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution,

Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2016); Stephen Shennan, Genes, Memes and Human History: Darwinian Archaeology on
Cultural Evolution (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2003).
14 Michael E. N. Majerus, “Industrial Melanism in the Peppered Moth, Biston Betularia:

An Excellent Teaching Example of Darwinian Evolution in Action,” Evolution: Education and

Outreach 2 (2008): 63–67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12052-008-0107-y. See also http://ask-
abiologist.asu.edu/peppered-moths-game/kettlewell.
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

Medical science has gradually shown the difference between the inter-
nal unity of the human species and external differences in stature, hair form
and color, skin color, and the size and shape of facial features. Aspects of
the natural environment that can influence human phenotype include lati-
tude and insolation, altitude, and perhaps temperature and humidity. Other
environmental factors, less systematic, are diet, type and level of exercise.
Explanations have not yet become definitive for differences in form of eyes,
size and shape of nose and lips.
But very clearly, among humans, differences in skin color are correlated
with regions of ancestry. Skin color also varies within regional populations:
in recent centuries, expanded migration led to greater mixes of skin colors;
the differences in skin color also led to racial categorization and hierar-
chy, bringing great debate, mistreatment, and confusion. Anthropologist
Nina Jablonski analyzed the literature on skin color, demonstrating the
specific causes of differences in skin color and the time it took for them to
develop.15 Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) from the sun causes two main dan-
gers to humans: destruction of folate (weakening male sperm production)
and destruction of Vitamin D3 (weakening calcium collection, harmful dur-
ing pregnancy). Melanin expanded and created dark skins when humans
lost body fur 1.2 million years ago, limiting UVR. When humans moved to
higher latitudes where solar radiation was weak, decline in Melanin (lighter
color) was beneficial in admitting more UVR for Vitamin D3. New data
have provided an improved world map of UVR intensity.16 The case of the
Americas, settled by humans beginning 19,000 years ago, resulted in dark
skins among those at the equator. This suggests that the development of mel-
anin among light-skinned people took place well within 15,000 years.

15 Nina Jablonski, “The Evolution of Human Skin and Skin Color,” Annual Review of
Anthropology 33 (2004): 585–623. See also Nina G. Jablonski and P. G. Maré, eds., The Effects of
Race (Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, 2018).
16 For a world map showing the varying degrees of insolation that affect skin color, see

“Evolution of Human Skin and Skin Pigmentation,” ­Anth.la.psu.edu/research/research-labs/

jablonski-lab. As the accompanying text notes, “Our research on the evolution of human skin
and skin color has demonstrated that skin color is the product of natural selection acting to reg-
ulate levels of melanin pigment in the skin relative to levels of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) in the
environment. Melanin is a natural sunscreen that prevents the breakdown of certain essential bio-
molecules (in particular, the B vitamin folate, and DNA), while permitting enough UVR to enter
the skin to promote the production of essential vitamin D.”
10 P. MANNING

Topic 1.3: Evolution and environmental change

Question: What are the causes of human skin color and its variations?
Theory: Genetic evolution.
Evidence: Skin colors, UVR levels, folate levels, production of Vitamin D.
Analysis category: Estimate parameters (in rank order)
Answer to the Question: Skin color was determined by natural selection in
response to different environments. Melanin in skin protects against UVR,
causes dark skin, and has health benefits.
Presentation: Historical summary of human loss of fur, darkening of skin, then
lightening and darkening of skin as humans moved to higher and lower lati-
tudes, showing implications for health.
Citation: Jablonski, “The Evolution of Human Skin and Skin Color,” 585–86,
599–602.

Social institutions: language. The ability to speak complete sentences

depends on skills in reasoning, an interest in communication, and ability to
vocalize those two clearly. Of these, speaking in sentences was the last step
and is argued to have begun 70,000 years ago.
The theory of institutional evolution argues that the formation of the
first speech community also created the first social institution, where an
institution is a group of people cooperating to achieve a common purpose.
This exercise asks you to imagine yourself in a group of humans that are
trying to develop a system of spoken language. It asks you to (1) assume
that people lived in families of 10–20, without spoken language, and (2)
then assume that young people (ages 10–15) began to speak in sentences,
developing their spoken communication with each other. What steps would
members of the new group take to ensure that their group survives and
expands? What resulting changes might take place in the pre-existing family
structure?
The citation from Manning gives ideas on some of the early steps. Was
there social conflict as the new group formed? How was speech taught to
adults, children, and infants? How big did the group need to be? How
did speakers select words and build sentences for names, body parts, roles;
actions of work and play; modifiers—big and small, old and young? Speakers
needed to stay in touch, accepting additions and changes to the language.
Creation of a speaking community was a rehearsal for the process of cre-
ating groups for other purposes. Since families had taken form much ear-
lier under the influence of genetic evolution, any changes in family structure
resulting from the rise of language would have been through a process of
coevolution.
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

Topic 1.4: Social institutions and coevolution

Question: How did spoken language create an expanded community?
Theory: institutional evolution, assuming that groups create and renew social
institutions; biological evolution of families
Evidence: Your experience on learning and speaking language, and on social rela-
tionships among speakers of a language.
Analysis category: Propose hypothetical relationships.
Answer to the Question: (Thought experiment) List your ideas on decisions
made by individuals and groups of people beginning to speak. Explain
which decisions could create a larger community that sustains language. Identify
any expected change in families.
Presentation: Present an orderly list, reflecting your understanding of decisions
made within a group that would preserve a language community.
Citation: Manning, A History of Humanity, 37–43.

Large-scale datasets: social inequality. Discussion of social inequality, focus-

ing mainly on recent lifetimes, has developed some large datasets. A leading
example, the World Inequality Database, led by Thomas Piketty, focuses on
national-level data from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.17 Thanks
to the United Nations and the World Bank, world population and economy
are well documented since 1950. Before that time, only Europe and North
America are well documented, plus Japan and China. For now, it is hard to
know the experience of inequality in other places and times.
Here is a proposal for research on an area of the world that was at once
a center of wealth and poverty: the islands of the Caribbean Sea, from 1500
and especially 1750 to the present, from the era of plantation agriculture to
the present-day mix of independent nations and colonies. Here is a way to
explore the population, economy, and society of a region, outside Europe,
that experienced wide-ranging and changing inequality and is thoroughly
documented with European records.18
Caribbean territories were clearly marked by island shores, islands were
occupied by six different powers and numerous independent nations, and
documents exist for most times and spaces on commerce, wars, adminis-
tration, population, migration, rates of birth and death, disease, climate,
and even land use. (The data need to be retrieved, translated, converted
to consistent measures, and organized to reflect the different sorts of

17 WorldInequality Database, http://WID.world.

18 Matt Drwenski, “Scales of Inequality: Strategies for Researching Global Disparities from
1750 to the Present” (MA thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 2015).
Another random document with
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institution is so pure that men in their present imperfect state cannot
acceptably sanctify it. They will keep it, however, in the new creation,
but in the meantime they keep with joyfulness the eighth day, which
having never been sanctified by God is not difficult to keep in the
present state of wickedness.
Justin Martyr’s reasons for not observing the Sabbath are not at all
like those of the so-called Barnabas, for Justin seems to have
heartily despised the Sabbatic institution. He denies that it was
obligatory before the time of Moses, and affirms that it was abolished
by the advent of Christ. He teaches that it was given to the Jews
because of their wickedness, and he expressly affirms the abolition
of both the Sabbath and the law. So far is he from teaching the
change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week,
or from making the Sunday festival a continuation of the ancient
Sabbatic institution, that he sneers at the very idea of days of
abstinence from labor, or days of idleness, and though God gives as
his reason for the observance of the Sabbath, that that was the day
on which he rested from all his work, Justin gives as his first reason
for the Sunday festival that that was the day on which God began his
work! Of abstinence from labor as an act of obedience to the
Sabbath, Justin says:—

“The Lord our God does not take pleasure in such

observances.”[633]

A second reason for not observing the Sabbath is thus stated by

him:—

“For we too would observe the fleshly circumcision, and the

Sabbaths, and in short, all the feasts, if we did not know for
what reason they were enjoined you—namely, on account of
your transgressions and the hardness of your hearts.”[634]

As Justin never discriminates between the Sabbath of the Lord

and the annual sabbaths he doubtless here means to include it as
well as them. But what a falsehood is it to assert that the Sabbath
was given to the Jews because of their wickedness! The truth is, it
was given to the Jews because of the universal apostasy of the
Gentiles.[635] But in the following paragraph Justin gives three more
reasons for not keeping the Sabbath:—

“Do you see that the elements are not idle, and keep no
Sabbaths? Remain as you were born. For if there was no
need of circumcision before Abraham, or of the observance of
Sabbaths, of feasts and sacrifices, before Moses; no more
need is there of them now, after that, according to the will of
God, Jesus Christ the Son of God has been born without sin,
of a virgin sprung from the stock of Abraham.”[636]

Here are three reasons: 1. “That the elements are not idle, and
keep no Sabbaths.” Though this reason is simply worthless as an
argument against the seventh day, it is a decisive confirmation of the
fact already proven, that Justin did not make Sunday a day of
abstinence from labor. 2. His second reason here given is that there
was no observance of Sabbaths before Moses, and yet we do know
that God at the beginning did appoint the Sabbath to a holy use, a
fact to which as we shall see quite a number of the fathers testify,
and we also know that in that age were men who kept all the
precepts of God. 3. There is no need of Sabbatic observance since
Christ. Though this is mere assertion, it is by no means easy for
those to meet it fairly who represent Justin as maintaining the
Christian Sabbath.
Another argument by Justin against the obligation of the Sabbath
is that God “directs the government of the universe on this day
equally as on all others!”[637] as though this were inconsistent with
the present sacredness of the Sabbath, when it is also true that God
thus governed the world in the period when Justin acknowledges the
Sabbath to have been obligatory. Though this reason is trivial as an
argument against the Sabbath, it does show that Justin could have
attached no Sabbatic character to Sunday. But he has yet one more
argument against the Sabbath. The ancient law has been done away
by the new and final law, and the old covenant has been superseded
by the new.[638] But he forgets that the design of the new covenant
was not to do away with the law of God, but to put that law into the
heart of every Christian. And many of the fathers, as we shall see,
expressly repudiate this doctrine of the abrogation of the Decalogue.
Such were Justin’s reasons for rejecting the ancient Sabbath. But
though he was a decided asserter of the abrogation of the law, and
of the Sabbatic institution itself, and kept Sunday only as a festival,
modern first-day writers cite him as a witness in support of the
doctrine that the first day of the week should be observed as the
Christian Sabbath on the authority of the fourth commandment.
Now let us learn what stood in the way of Irenæus’ observance of
the Sabbath. It was not that the commandments were abolished, for
we shall presently learn that he taught their perpetuity. Nor was it
that he believed in the change of the Sabbath, for he gives no hint of
such an idea. The Sunday festival in his estimation appears to have
been simply of “equal significance” with the Pentecost.[639] Nor was
it that Christ broke the Sabbath, for Irenæus says that he did not.[640]
But because the Sabbath is called a sign he regarded it as
significant of the future kingdom, and appears to have considered it
no longer obligatory, though he does not expressly say this. Thus he
sets forth the meaning of the Sabbath as held by him:—

“Moreover the Sabbaths of God, that is, the kingdom, was,

as it were, indicated by created things,” etc.[641]

“These [promises to the righteous] are [to take place] in the

times of the kingdom, that is, upon the seventh day which has
been sanctified, in which God rested from all the works which
he created, which is the true Sabbath of the righteous,”[642]
etc.

“For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years: and in six

days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore,
 that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.”[643]

But Irenæus did not notice that the Sabbath as a sign does not
point forward to the restitution, but backward to the creation, that it
may signify that the true God is the Creator.[644] Nor did he observe
the fact that when the kingdom of God shall be established under the
whole heaven all flesh shall hallow the Sabbath.[645]
But he says that those who lived before Moses were justified
“without observance of Sabbaths,” and offers as proof that the
covenant at Horeb was not made with the fathers. Of course if this
proves that the patriarchs were free from obligation toward the fourth
commandment, it is equally good as proof that they might violate any
other. These things indicate that Irenæus was opposed to Sabbatic
observance, though he did not in express language assert its
abrogation, and did in most decisive terms assert the continued
obligation of the ten commandments.
Tertullian offers numerous reasons for not observing the Sabbath,
but there is scarcely one of these that he does not in some other
place expressly contradict. Thus he asserts that the patriarchs
before Moses did not observe the Sabbath.[646] But he offers no
proof, and he elsewhere dates the origin of the Sabbath at the
creation,[647] as we shall show hereafter. In several places he
teaches the abrogation of the law, and seems to set aside moral law
as well as ceremonial. But elsewhere, as we shall show, he bears
express testimony that the ten commandments are still binding as
the rule of the Christian’s life.[648] He quotes the words of Isaiah in
which God is represented as hating the feasts, new-moons, and
sabbaths observed by the Jews,[649] as proof that the seventh-day
Sabbath was a temporary institution which Christ abrogated. But in
another place he says: “Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath: he
kept the law thereof.”[650] And he also explains this very text by
stating that God’s aversion toward the Sabbaths observed by the
Jews was “because they were celebrated without the fear of God by
a people full of iniquities,” and adds that the prophet, in a later
passage speaking of Sabbaths celebrated according to God’s
commandment, “declares them to be true, delightful, and
inviolable.”[651] Another statement is that Joshua violated the
Sabbath in the siege of Jericho.[652] Yet he elsewhere explains this
very case, showing that the commandment forbids our own work, not
God’s. Those who acted at Jericho did “not do their own work, but
God’s, which they executed, and that, too, from his express
commandment.”[653] He also both asserts and denies that Christ
violated the Sabbath.[654] Tertullian was a double-minded man. He
wrote much against the law and the Sabbath, but he also
contradicted and exposed his own errors.
Origen attempts to prove that the ancient Sabbath is to be
understood mystically or spiritually, and not literally. Here is his
argument:—

“‘Ye shall sit, every one in your dwellings: no one shall

move from his place on the Sabbath day.’ Which precept it is
impossible to observe literally; for no man can sit a whole day
so as not to move from the place where he sat down.”[655]

Great men are not always wise. There is no such precept in the
Bible. Origen referred to that which forbade the people to go out for
manna on the Sabbath, but which did not conflict with another that
commanded holy convocations or assemblies for worship on the
Sabbath.[656]
Victorinus is the latest of the fathers before Constantine who offers
reasons against the observance of the Sabbath. His first reason is
that Christ said by Isaiah that his soul hated the Sabbath; which
Sabbath he in his body abolished; and these assertions we have
seen answered by Tertullian.[657] His second reason is that “Jesus
[Joshua] the son of Nave [Nun], the successor of Moses, himself
broke the Sabbath day,”[658] which is false. His third reason is that
“Matthias [a Maccabean] also, prince of Judah, broke the
Sabbath,”[659] which is doubtless false, but is of no consequence as
authority. His fourth argument is original, and may fitly close the list
of reasons assigned in the early fathers for not observing the
Sabbath. It is given in full without an answer:—

“And in Matthew we read, that it is written Isaiah also and

the rest of his colleagues broke the Sabbath.”[660]
 CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SABBATH IN THE RECORD OF THE EARLY FATHERS.

The first reasons for neglecting the Sabbath are now mostly obsolete—A
portion of the early fathers taught the perpetuity of the decalogue, and
made it the standard of moral character—What they say concerning
the origin of the Sabbath at Creation—Their testimony concerning the
perpetuity of the ancient Sabbath, and concerning its observance—
Enumeration of the things which caused the suppression of the
Sabbath and the elevation of Sunday.
The reasons offered by the early fathers for neglecting the
observance of the Sabbath show conclusively that they had no
special light on the subject by reason of living in the first centuries,
which we in this later age do not possess. The fact is, so many of the
reasons offered by them are manifestly false and absurd that those
who in these days discard the Sabbath, do also discard the most of
the reasons offered by these fathers for this same course. We have
also learned from such of the early fathers as mention first-day
observance, the exact nature of the Sunday festival, and all the
reasons which in the first centuries were offered in its support. Very
few indeed of these reasons are now offered by modern first-day
writers.
But some of the fathers bear emphatic testimony to the perpetuity
of the ten commandments, and make their observance the condition
of eternal life. Some of them also distinctly assert the origin of the
Sabbath at creation. Several of them moreover either bear witness to
the existence of Sabbath-keepers, or bear decisive testimony to the
perpetuity and obligation of the Sabbath, or define the nature of
proper Sabbatic observance, or connect the observance of the
Sabbath and first day together. Let us now hear the testimony of
those who assert the authority of the ten commandments. Irenæus
asserts their perpetuity, and makes them a test of Christian
character. Thus he says:—
 “For God at the first, indeed, warning them [the Jews] by
means of natural precepts, which from the beginning he had
implanted in mankind, that is, by means of the Decalogue
(which, if any one does not observe, he has no salvation), did
then demand nothing more of them.”[661]

This is a very strong statement. He makes the ten commandments

the law of nature implanted in man’s being at the beginning; and so
inherited by all mankind. This is no doubt true. It is the presence of
the carnal mind or law of sin and death, implanted in man by the fall,
that has partially obliterated this law, and made the work of the new
covenant a necessity.[662] He again asserts the perpetuity and
authority of the ten commandments:—

“Preparing man for this life, the Lord himself did speak in
his own person to all alike the words of the Decalogue: and
therefore, in like manner, do they remain permanently with us,
receiving, by means of his advent in the flesh, extension and
increase, but not abrogation.”[663]

By the “extension” of the decalogue, Irenæus doubtless means the

exposition which the Saviour gave of the meaning of the
commandments in his sermon on the mount.[664] Theophilus speaks
in like manner concerning the decalogue:—

“For God has given us a law and holy commandments; and

every one who keeps these can be saved, and, obtaining the
resurrection, can inherit incorruption.”[665]

“We have learned a holy law; but we have as Law-giver him

who is really God, who teaches us to act righteously, and to
be pious, and to do good.”[666]
 “Of this great and wonderful law which tends to all
righteousness, the ten heads are such as we have already
rehearsed.”[667]

Tertullian calls the ten commandments “the rules of our regenerate

life,” that is to say, the rules which govern the life of a converted
man:—

“They who theorize respecting numbers, honor the number

ten as the parent of all the others, and as imparting perfection
to the human nativity. For my own part, I prefer viewing this
measure of time in reference to God, as if implying that the
ten months rather initiated man into the ten commandments;
so that the numerical estimate of the time needed to
consummate our natural birth should correspond to the
numerical classification of the rules of our regenerate life.”[668]

In showing the deep guilt involved in the violation of the seventh

commandment, Tertullian speaks of the sacredness of the
commandments which precede it, naming several of them in
particular, and among them the fourth, and then says of the precept
against adultery that

It stands “in the very forefront of the most holy law, among
the primary counts of the celestial edict.”[669]

Clement of Rome, or rather the author whose works have been

ascribed to this father, speaks thus of the decalogue as a test:—

“On account of those, therefore, who, by neglect of their

own salvation, please the evil one, and those who, by study of
their own profit, seek to please the good One, ten things have
been prescribed as a test to this present age, according to the
number of the ten plagues which were brought upon
Egypt.”[670]
 Novatian, who wrote about a. d. 250, is accounted the founder of
the sect called Cathari or Puritans. He wrote a treatise on the
Sabbath, which is not extant. There is no reference to Sunday in any
of his writings. He makes the following striking remarks concerning
the moral law:—

“The law was given to the children of Israel for this purpose,
that they might profit by it, and return to those virtuous
manners which, although they had received them from their
fathers, they had corrupted in Egypt by reason of their
intercourse with a barbarous people. Finally, also, those ten
commandments on the tables teach nothing new, but remind
them of what had been obliterated—that righteousness in
them, which had been put to sleep, might revive again as it
were by the afflatus of the law, after the manner of a fire
[nearly extinguished].”[671]

It is evident that in the judgment of Novatian, the ten

commandments enjoined nothing that was not sacredly regarded by
the patriarchs before Jacob went down into Egypt. It follows,
therefore, that, in his opinion, the Sabbath was made, not at the fall
of the manna, but when God sanctified the seventh day, and that
holy men from the earliest ages observed it.
The Apostolical Constitutions, written about the third century, give
us an understanding of what was widely regarded in the third century
as apostolic doctrine. They speak thus of the ten commandments:—

“Have before thine eyes the fear of God, and always

remember the ten commandments of God,—to love the one
and only Lord God with all thy strength; to give no heed to
idols, or any other beings, as being lifeless gods, or irrational
beings or dæmons.”[672]

“He gave a plain law to assist the law of nature, such a one
as is pure, saving, and holy, in which his own name was
 inscribed, perfect, which is never to fail, being complete in ten
commands, unspotted, converting souls.”[673]

This writer, like Irenæus, believed in the identity of the decalogue

with the law of nature. These testimonies show that in the writings of
the early fathers are some of the strongest utterances in behalf of
the perpetuity and authority of the ten commandments. Now let us
hear what they say concerning the origin of the Sabbath at creation.
The epistle ascribed to Barnabas, says:—

“And he says in another place, ‘If my sons keep the

Sabbath, then will I cause my mercy to rest upon them.’ The
Sabbath is mentioned at the beginning of the creation [thus]:
‘And God made in six days the works of his hands, and made
an end on the seventh day, and rested on it, and sanctified
it.’”[674]

Irenæus seems plainly to connect the origin of the Sabbath with

the sanctification of the seventh day:—

“These [things promised] are [to take place] in the times of

the kingdom, that is, upon the seventh day, which has been
sanctified, in which God rested from all his works which he
created, which is the true Sabbath, in which they shall not be
engaged in any earthly occupation.”[675]

Tertullian, likewise, refers the origin of the Sabbath to “the

benediction of the Father”:—

“But inasmuch as birth is also completed with the seventh

month, I more readily recognize in this number than in the
eighth the honor of a numerical agreement with the
Sabbatical period; so that the month in which God’s image is
sometimes produced in a human birth, shall in its number tally
 with the day on which God’s creation was completed and
hallowed.”[676]

“For even in the case before us he [Christ] fulfilled the law,

while interpreting its condition; [moreover] he exhibits in a
clear light the different kinds of work, while doing what the law
excepts from the sacredness of the Sabbath, [and] while
imparting to the Sabbath day itself which from the beginning
had been consecrated by the benediction of the Father, an
additional sanctity by his own beneficent action.”[677]

Origen, who, as we have seen, believed in a mystical Sabbath, did

nevertheless fix its origin at the sanctification of the seventh day:—

“For he [Celsus] knows nothing of the day of the Sabbath

and rest of God, which follows the completion of the world’s
creation, and which lasts during the duration of the world, and
in which all those will keep festival with God who have done
all their works in their six days.”[678]

The testimony of Novatian which has been given relative to the

sacredness and authority of the decalogue plainly implies the
existence of the Sabbath in the patriarchal ages, and its observance
by those holy men of old. It was given to Israel that they might
“return to those virtuous manners which, although they had
received them from their fathers, they had corrupted in Egypt.” And
he adds, “Those ten commandments on the tables teach nothing
new, but remind them of what had been obliterated.”[679] He did not,
therefore, believe the Sabbath to have originated at the fall of the
manna, but counted it one of those things which were practiced by
their fathers before Jacob went down to Egypt.
Lactantius places the origin of the Sabbath at creation:—
 “God completed the world and this admirable work of
nature in the space of six days (as is contained in the secrets
of holy Scripture) and consecrated the seventh day on
which he had rested from his works. But this is the Sabbath
day, which, in the language of the Hebrews, received its name
from the number, whence the seventh is the legitimate and
complete number.”[680]

In a poem on Genesis written about the time of Lactantius, but by

an unknown author, we have an explicit testimony to the divine
appointment of the seventh day to a holy use while man was yet in
Eden, the garden of God:—

“The seventh came, when God

At his work’s end did rest, decreeing it
Sacred unto the coming age’s joys.”[681]

The Apostolical Constitutions, while teaching the present

obligation of the Sabbath, plainly indicate its origin to have been at
creation:—

“O Lord Almighty, thou hast created the world by Christ,

and hast appointed the Sabbath in memory thereof, because
that on that day thou hast made us rest from our works, for
the meditation upon thy laws.”[682]

Such are the testimonies of the early fathers to the primeval origin
of the Sabbath, and to the sacredness and perpetual obligation of
the ten commandments. We now call attention to what they say
relative to the perpetuity of the Sabbath, and to its observance in the
centuries during which they lived. Tertullian defines Christ’s relation
to the Sabbath:—

“He was called ‘Lord of the Sabbath’ because he

maintained the Sabbath as his own institution.”[683]
 He affirms that Christ did not abolish the Sabbath:—

“Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath: he kept the law
thereof, and both in the former case did a work which was
beneficial to the life of his disciples (for he indulged them with
the relief of food when they were hungry), and in the present
instance cured the withered hand; in each case intimating by
facts, ‘I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.’”[684]

Nor can it be said that while Tertullian denied that Christ abolished
the Sabbath he did believe that he transferred its sacredness from
the seventh day of the week to the first, for he continues thus:—

“He [Christ] exhibits in a clear light the different kinds of

work, while doing what the law excepts from the sacredness
of the Sabbath, [and] while imparting to the Sabbath day
itself, which from the beginning had been consecrated by the
benediction of the Father, an additional sanctity by his own
beneficent action. For he furnished to this day divine
safeguards—a course which his adversary would have
pursued for some other days, to avoid honoring the Creator’s
Sabbath, and restoring to the Sabbath the works which were
proper for it.”[685]

This is a very remarkable statement. The modern doctrine of the

change of the Sabbath was unknown in Tertullian’s time. Had it then
been in existence, there could be no doubt that in the words last
quoted he was aiming at it a heavy blow; for the very thing which he
asserts Christ’s adversary, Satan, would have had him do, that
modern first-day writers assert he did do in consecrating another day
instead of adding to the sanctity of his Father’s Sabbath.
Archelaus of Cascar in Mesopotamia emphatically denies the
abolition of the Sabbath:—
 “Again, as to the assertion that the Sabbath has been
abolished, we deny that he has abolished it plainly; for he was
himself also Lord of the Sabbath.”[686]

Justin Martyr, as we have seen, was an out-spoken opponent of

Sabbatic observance, and of the authority of the law of God. He was
by no means always candid in what he said. He has occasion to
refer to those who observed the seventh day, and he does it with
contempt. Thus he says:—

“But if some, through weak-mindedness, wish to observe

such institutions as were given by Moses (from which they
expect some virtue, but which we believe were appointed by
reason of the hardness of the people’s hearts), along with
their hope in this Christ, and [wish to perform] the eternal and
natural acts of righteousness and piety, yet choose to live with
the Christians and the faithful, as I said before, not inducing
them either to be circumcised like themselves, or to keep the
Sabbath, or to observe any other such ceremonies, then I
hold that we ought to join ourselves to such, and associate
with them in all things as kinsmen and brethren.”[687]

These words are spoken of Sabbath-keeping Christians. Such of

them as were of Jewish descent no doubt generally retained
circumcision. But there were many Gentile Christians who observed
the Sabbath, as we shall see, and it is not true that they observed
circumcision. Justin speaks of this class as acting from “weak-
mindedness,” yet he inadvertently alludes to the keeping of the
commandments as the performance of “the eternal and natural
acts of righteousness,” a most appropriate designation indeed.
Justin would fellowship those who act thus, provided they would
fellowship him in the contrary course. But though Justin, on this
condition, could fellowship these “weak-minded” brethren, he says
that there are those who “do not venture to have any intercourse
with, or to extend hospitality to, such persons; but I do not agree with
them.”[688] This shows the bitter spirit which prevailed in some
quarters toward the Sabbath, even as early as Justin’s time. Justin
has no word of condemnation for these intolerant professors; he is
only solicitous lest those persons who perform “the eternal and
natural acts of righteousness and piety” should condemn those who
do not perform them.
Clement of Alexandria, though a mystical writer, bears an
important testimony to the perpetuity of the ancient Sabbath, and to
man’s present need thereof. He comments thus on the fourth
commandment:—

“And the fourth word is that which intimates that the world
was created by God, and that he gave us the seventh day as
a rest, on account of the trouble that there is in life. For God is
incapable of weariness, and suffering, and want. But we who
bear flesh need rest. The seventh day, therefore, is
proclaimed a rest—abstraction from ills—preparing for the
primal day, our true rest.”[689]

Clement recognized the authority of the moral law; for he treats of

the ten commandments, one by one, and shows what each enjoins.
He plainly teaches that the Sabbath was made for man, and that he
now needs it as a day of rest, and his language implies that it was
made at the creation. But in the next paragraph, he makes some
curious suggestions, which deserve notice:—

“Having reached this point, we must mention these things

by the way; since the discourse has turned on the seventh
and the eighth. For the eighth may possibly turn out to be
properly the seventh, and the seventh manifestly the sixth,
and the latter properly the Sabbath, and the seventh a day of
work. For the creation of the world was concluded in six
days.”[690]

This language has been adduced to show that Clement called the
eighth day, or Sunday, the Sabbath. But first-day writers in general
have not dared to commit themselves to such an interpretation, and
some of them have expressly discarded it. Let us notice this
statement with especial care. He speaks of the ordinals seventh and
eighth in the abstract, but probably with reference to the days of the
week. Observe then,
1. That he does not intimate that the eighth day has become the
Sabbath in place of the seventh which was once such, but he says
that the eighth day may possibly turn out to be properly the seventh.
2. That in Clement’s time, a. d. 194, there was not any confusion
in the minds of men as to which day was the ancient Sabbath, and
which one was the first day of the week, or eighth day, as it was
often called, nor does he intimate that there was.
3. But Clement, from some cause, says that possibly the eighth
day should be counted the seventh, and the seventh day the sixth.
Now, if this should be done, it would change the numbering of the
days, not only as far back as the resurrection of Christ, but all the
way back to the creation.
4. If, therefore, Clement, in this place, designed to teach that
Sunday is the Sabbath, he must also have held that it always had
been such.
5. But observe that, while he changes the numbering of the days
of the week, he does not change the Sabbath from one day to
another. He says the eighth may possibly be the seventh, and the
seventh, properly the sixth, and the latter, or this one [Greek, ἡ μὲν
κυρίως εἶυαι σάββατου,], properly the Sabbath, and the seventh a
day of work.
6. By the latter must be understood the day last mentioned, which
he says should be called, not the seventh, but the sixth; and by the
seventh must certainly be intended that day which he says is not the
eighth, but the seventh, that is to say, Sunday.
There remains but one difficulty to be solved, and that is why he
should suggest the changing of the numbering of the days of the
week by striking one from the count of each day, thus making the
Sabbath the sixth day in the count instead of the seventh; and
making Sunday the seventh day in the count instead of the eighth.
The answer seems to have eluded the observation of the first-day
and anti-Sabbatarian writers who have sought to grasp it. But there
is a fact which solves the difficulty. Clement’s commentary on the
fourth commandment, from which these quotations are taken, is
principally made up of curious observations on “the perfect number
six,” “the number seven motherless and childless,” and the number
eight, which is “a cube,” and the like matters, and is taken with some
change of arrangement almost word for word from Philo Judæus, a
teacher who flourished at Alexandria about one century before
Clement. Whoever will take pains to compare these two writers will
find in Philo nearly all the ideas and illustrations which Clement has
used, and the very language also in which he has expressed them.
[691] Philo was a mystical teacher to whom Clement looked up as to
a master. A statement which we find in Philo, in immediate
connection with several curious ideas, which Clement quotes from
him, gives, beyond all doubt, the key to Clement’s suggestion that
possibly the eighth day should be called the seventh, and the
seventh day called the sixth. Philo said that, according to God’s
purpose, the first day of time was not to be numbered with the other
days of the creation week. Thus he says:—

“And he allotted each of the six days to one of the portions

of the whole, taking out the first day, which he does not
even call the first day, that it may not be numbered with the
others, but entitling it one, he names it rightly, perceiving in it,
and ascribing to it, the nature and appellation of the limit.”[692]

This would simply change the numbering of the days, as counted

by Philo, and afterward partially adopted by Clement, and make the
Sabbath, not the seventh day, but the sixth, and Sunday, not the
eighth day, but the seventh; but it would still leave the Sabbath day
and the Sunday the same identical days as before. It would,
however, give to the Sabbath the name of sixth day, because the first
of the six days of creation was not counted; and it would cause the
eighth day, so called in the early church because of its coming next
after the Sabbath, to be called seventh day. Thus the Sabbath would
be the sixth day, and the seventh a day of work, and yet the Sabbath
would be the identical day that it had ever been, and the Sunday,
though called seventh day, would still, as ever before, remain a day
on which ordinary labor was lawful. Of course, Philo’s idea that the
first day of time should not be counted, is wholly false; for there is
not one fact in the Bible to support it, but many which expressly
contradict it, and even Clement, with all deference to Philo, only
timidly suggests it. But when the matter is laid open, it shows that
Clement had no thought of calling Sunday the Sabbath, and that he
does expressly confirm what we have fully proved out of other of the
fathers, that Sunday was a day on which, in their judgment, labor
was not sinful.
Tertullian, at different periods of his life, held different views
respecting the Sabbath, and committed them all to writing. We last
quoted from him a decisive testimony to the perpetuity of the
Sabbath, coupled with an equally decisive testimony against the
sanctification of the first day of the week. In another work, from
which we have already quoted his statement that Christians should
not kneel on Sunday, we find another statement that “some few”
abstained from kneeling on the Sabbath. This has probable
reference to Carthage, where Tertullian lived. He speaks thus:—

“In the matter of kneeling also, prayer is subject to diversity

of observance, through the act of some few who abstain from
kneeling on the Sabbath; and since this dissension is
particularly on its trial before the churches, the Lord will give
his grace that the dissentients may either yield, or else
indulge their opinion without offense to others.”[693]

The act of standing in prayer was one of the chief honors

conferred upon Sunday. Those who refrained from kneeling on the
seventh day, without doubt did it because they desired to honor that
day. This particular act is of no consequence; for it was adopted in
imitation of those who, from tradition and custom, thus honored
Sunday; but we have in this an undoubted reference to Sabbath-
keeping Christians. Tertullian speaks of them, however, in a manner
quite unlike that of Justin in his reference to the commandment-
keepers of his time.
Origen, like many other of the fathers, was far from being
consistent with himself. Though he has spoken against Sabbatic
observance, and has honored the so-called Lord’s day as something
better than the ancient Sabbath, he has nevertheless given a
discourse expressly designed to teach Christians the proper method
of observing the Sabbath. Here is a portion of this sermon:—

“But what is the feast of the Sabbath except that of which

the apostle speaks, ‘There remaineth therefore a Sabbatism,’
that is, the observance of the Sabbath by the people of God?
Leaving the Jewish observances of the Sabbath, let us see
how the Sabbath ought to be observed by a Christian. On the
Sabbath day all worldly labors ought to be abstained from. If,
therefore, you cease from all secular works, and execute
nothing worldly, but give yourselves up to spiritual exercises,
repairing to church, attending to sacred reading and
instruction, thinking of celestial things, solicitous for the future,
placing the Judgment to come before your eyes, not looking
to things present and visible, but to those which are future
and invisible, this is the observance of the Christian
Sabbath.”[694]

This is by no means a bad representation of the proper

observance of the Sabbath. Such a discourse addressed to
Christians is a strong evidence that many did then hallow that day.
Some, indeed, have claimed that these words were spoken
concerning Sunday. They would have it that he contrasts the
observance of the first day with that of the seventh. But the contrast
is not between the different methods of keeping two days, but
between two methods of observing one day. The Jews in Origen’s
time spent the day mainly in mere abstinence from labor, and often
added sensuality to idleness. But the Christians were to observe it in
divine worship, as well as sacred rest. What day he intends cannot