Eusebius (»Alexandrinus«): De die dominica (Versio A) (5)

For that is the day that the Lord had made. Let us praise and rejoice in it!

Let us rejoice not befuddled by intoxication and drunkenness, but delighted in the declamation of the divine scriptures! God gave us that day, on which he began to make the world, in which he destroyed the power of death, and he called it the day of the Lord, that beginning with the name of the day itself we respect and keep the commandments of the Lord. A hired laborer goes in his house and dedicates himself to his work and on six days he does not dare to look up and see the sun, where it comes from and where it goes to, but weary in your works the lamentable shatters and weeps, in sweat and in pains, and never is it granted to him to look up or to take a rest, as we said, but he only waits for the day of the Lord, that, if anything, the dirt is shaken off his body, and often you do not even concede him that. And which defense will you have, tell me! Of course, there are some who out of beneficence will say on the day of the Lord: Come here, today let’s help the poor in their work! And who do not know that since they want to do good they sin even more. If you want to help the poor, do not steal the day of God, but give your earnings to the poor, from which you have your revenue. When they are obliged to do your work, then give help to the poor! But when your slaves and your hired laborers and your cattle are obliged to rest, then you take away their rest and give it to the poor. God knows whose work it is! Do not transgress the commandment of the Lord, do not steal his day, do not deprive your slaves and your hired laborers from their rest, do not get separated from the prayer, do not stay away from the church! For nothing is higher than the church, the church is higher than the heaven and brighter than the sun and clearer than the moon and the stars and more valuable than the whole world. I know many who do not enter the church the whole week, often even entirely. And when something bad happens to them because of their ill-doing, they accuse God and not themselves and say: ‘Why has God allowed that to happen?’ And they do not know that as far as they put themselves away from the church as far away is also God from them, as also the prophet says:

Those far away from you perish.