Page 53 . The Sunday Law of Constantine . --The law issued by the emperor Constantine on the seventh of March , A . D . 321 , regarding a day of rest from labor , reads thus :
" All judges and city people and the craftsmen shall rest upon the venerable Day of the Sun . Country people , however , may freely attend to the cultivation of the fields , because it frequently happens that no other days are better adapted for planting the grain in the furrows or the vines in trenches . So that the advantage given by heavenly providence may not for the occasion of a short time perish ." -Joseph Cullen Ayer , A Source Book for Ancient Church History ( New York : Charles Scribner ' s Sons , 1913 ), div . 2 , per . 1 , ch . 1 , sec . 59 , g , pp . 284 , 285 .
The Latin original is in the Codex Justiniani ( Codex of Justinian ), lib . 3 , title 12 , lex . 3 . The law is given in Latin and in English translation in Philip Schaff ' s History of the Christian Church , vol . 3 , 3d period , ch . 7 , sec . 75 , p . 380 , footnote 1 ; and in James A . Hessey ' s Bampton Lectures , Sunday , lecture 3 , par . 1 , 3d ed ., Murray ' s printing of 1866 , p . 58 . See discussion in Schaff , as above referred to ; in Albert Henry Newman , A Manual of Church History ( Philadelphia : The American Baptist Publication Society , printing of 1933 ), rev . ed ., vol . 1 , pp . 305-307 ; and in Leroy E . Froom , The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers ( Washington , D . C .: Review and Herald Publishing Assn ., 1950 ), vol . 1 , pp . 376-381 .
Page 54 . [ Return to Pages : 54 , 266 ] Prophetic dates . --An important principle in prophetic interpretation in connection with time prophecies is the year-day principle , under which a day of prophetic time is counted as a calendar year of historic time . Before the Israelites entered the land of Canaan they sent twelve spies ahead to investigate . The spies were gone forty days , and upon their return the Hebrews , frightened at their report , refused to go up and occupy the Promised Land . The result was a sentence the Lord passed upon them : " After the number of the days in which ye searched the land , even forty days , each day for a year , shall ye bear your iniquities , even forty years ." Numbers 14:34 . A similar method of computing future time is indicated through the prophet Ezekiel . Forty years of punishment for iniquities awaited the kingdom of Judah . The Lord said through the prophet : " Lie again on thy right side , and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days : I have appointed thee each day for a year ." Ezekiel 4:6 . This year-day principle has an important application in interpreting the time of the prophecy of the " two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings " ( Daniel 8:14 , R . V .) and the 1260-day period , variously indicated as " a time and times and the dividing of time " ( Daniel 7:25 ), the " forty and two months " ( Revelation 11:2 ; 13:5 ), and the " thousand two hundred and threescore days " ( Revelation 11:3 ; 12:6 ).
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