Tertullian
"[L]et him who contends that the Sabbath is still to be observed as
a balm of salvation, and circumcision on the eighth day . . . teach
us that, for the time past, righteous men kept the Sabbath or
practiced circumcision, and were thus rendered friends of God.
For if circumcision purges a man, since God made Adam
uncircumcised, why did he not circumcise him, even after his
sinning, if circumcision purges? . . . Therefore, since God
originated Adam uncircumcised and unobservant of the Sabbath,
consequently his offspring also, Abel, offering him sacrifices,
uncircumcised and unobservant of the Sabbath, was by him [God]
commended [Gen. 4:17, Heb. 11:4]. . . . Noah also,
uncircumcisedyes, and unobservant of the SabbathGod freed from
the deluge. For Enoch too, most righteous man, uncircumcised and
unobservant of the Sabbath, he translated from this world, who did
not first taste death in order that, being a candidate for eternal
life, he might show us that we also may, without the burden of the
law of Moses, please God" (An Answer to the Jews 2 [A.D.
203]).
The Didascalia
"The apostles further appointed: On the first day of the week let
there be service, and the reading of the holy scriptures, and the
oblation [sacrifice of the Mass], because on the first day of the
week [i.e., Sunday] our Lord rose from the place of the dead, and
on the first day of the week he arose upon the world, and on the
first day of the week he ascended up to heaven, and on the first
day of the week he will appear at last with the angels of heaven"
(Didascalia 2 [A.D. 225]).
Origen
"Hence it is not possible that the [day of] rest after the Sabbath
should have come into existence from the seventh [day] of our God.
On the contrary, it is our Savior who, after the pattern of his own
rest, caused us to be made in the likeness of his death, and hence
also of his resurrection" (Commentary on John 2:28 [A.D.
229]).
Victorinus
"The sixth day [Friday] is called parasceve, that is to say, the
preparation of the kingdom. . . . On this day also, on account of
the passion of the Lord Jesus Christ, we make either a station to
God or a fast. On the seventh day he rested from all his works, and
blessed it, and sanctified it. On the former day we are accustomed
to fast rigorously, that on the Lords day we may go forth to our
bread with giving of thanks. And let the parasceve become a
rigorous fast, lest we should appear to observe any Sabbath with
the Jews . . . which Sabbath he [Christ] in his body abolished"
(The Creation of the World [A.D. 300]).
Eusebius of Caesarea
"They [the early saints of the Old Testament] did not care about
circumcision of the body, neither do we [Christians]. They did not
care about observing Sabbaths, nor do we. They did not avoid
certain kinds of food, neither did they regard the other
distinctions which Moses first delivered to their posterity to be
observed as symbols; nor do Christians of the present day do such
things" (Church History 1:4:8 [A.D. 312]).
"[T]he day of his [Christs] light . . . was the day of his
resurrection from the dead, which they say, as being the one and
only truly holy day and the Lords day, is better than any number
of days as we ordinarily understand them, and better than the days
set apart by the Mosaic law for feasts, new moons, and Sabbaths,
which the apostle [Paul] teaches are the shadow of days and not
days in reality" (Proof of the Gospel 4:16:186 [A.D. 319]).
