Not only does he declare that the Jews were commanded to keep the Sabbath because of their wickedness, but in chapter xix. he denies that any Sabbath existed before Moses. Thus, after naming Adam, Abel, Enoch, Lot, and Melchizedek, he says:--
"Moreover, all those righteous men already mentioned, though they kept no Sabbaths, were pleasing to God."
But though he thus denies the Sabbatic institution before the time of Moses, he presently makes this statement concerning the Jews:--
"And you were commanded to keep Sabbaths, that you might retain the memorial of God. For his word makes this announcement, saying, 'That ye may know that I am God who redeemed you.'" [Eze. 20:12.]
The Sabbath is indeed the memorial of the God that made the heavens and the earth. And what an absurdity to deny that that memorial was set up when the creative work was done, and to affirm that twenty-five hundred years intervened between the work and the memorial!
In chapter xxi. Justin asserts "that God enjoined you [the Jews] to keep the Sabbath, and imposed on you other precepts for a sign, as I have already said, on account of your unrighteousness, and that of your fathers," &c., and quotes Ezekiel 20 to prove it. Yet that chapter declares that it was in order that they might know who was that being who sanctified them, _i. e._, that they might know that their God was the Creator, that the Sabbath was made to them a sign.
In chapter xxiii., he again asserts that "in the times of Enoch" no one "observed Sabbaths." He then protests against Sabbatic observance as follows:--
"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."
That is to say, there was no Sabbatic institution before Moses, and neither is there any since Christ. But in chapter xxiv., Justin undertakes to bring in an argument for Sunday, not as a Sabbath, but as having greater mystery in it, and as being more honorable than the seventh day. Thus, alluding to circumcision on the eighth day of a child's life as an argument for the first-day festival, he says:--