Sabbath

Sabbath (/ˈsæbəθ/) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to Exodus 20:8 the Sabbath is commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest, as God rested from creation. It is observed differently among the Abrahamic religions and informs a similar occasion in several other practices. Although many viewpoints and definitions have arisen over the millennia, most originate in the same textual tradition of: "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy".

In Judaism, Sabbath is the seventh day of the Hebrew calendar week, which in English is known as Saturday. The term has been used to describe a similar weekly observance in any of several other traditions; the first crescent or new moon; any of seven annual festivals in Judaism and some Christian traditions; any of eight annual pagan festivals (usually "sabbat"); an annual secular holiday; and a year of rest in religious or secular usage, the sabbath year, originally every seventh year.

Biblical Sabbath

Sabbath (as the verb Shavath) is first mentioned in the Genesis creation narrative, where the seventh day is set aside as a day of rest and made holy by God (Genesis 2:2–3). Observation and remembrance of Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments (the fourth in the original Jewish, the Eastern Orthodox, and most Protestant traditions, the third in Roman Catholic and Lutheran traditions). Most people who observe the Sabbath regard it as having been instituted as a perpetual covenant for the Israelites (Exodus 31:13–17), as a sign respecting two events: the day during which God rested after having completed Creation in six days (Exodus 20:8–11), and the Israelites' deliverance from Egypt (Deuteronomy 5:12–15). Originally, Sabbath-breakers were officially to be cut off from the assembly or potentially killed (Exodus 31:15). Observance in the Hebrew Bible was universally from sixth-day sundown to seventh-day sundown (Nehemiah 13:19, cf. Leviticus 23:32) on a seven-day week.

Sabbath in Christianity

Sabbath in Christianity is the inclusion or adoption in Christianity of a Sabbath day. Established within Judaism through Mosaic Law, Christians inherited a Sabbath practice that reflected two great precepts: the commandment to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy (Exodus 20:8, the "Sabbath commandment"), and God's blessing of the seventh day (Saturday) as a day of rest (Genesis 2:2-3). The first of these provisions was associated in Judaism with the assembly of the people to worship in the temple or synagogues.

The position held by most Western Christian denominations is that observance of the Lord's Day, Sunday, supplanted the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday, in that the former "celebrated the Christian community's deliverance from captivity to sin, Satan, and worldly passions, made possible by the resurrection on the first day of the week." Early Christians observed the seventh day with prayer and rest, but they also gathered on the first day. By the 4th century, Christians were officially observing the first day, Sunday, as their day of rest, not the seventh. However, beginning about the 17th century, a few groups of Protestants arose to take issue with some of the practice of the churches around them, sometimes also questioning the theology that had been so widely accepted throughout 16 centuries. Mostly Sabbatarians, they broke away from their former churches to form communities that followed Sabbath-based practices that differed from the rest of Christianity, often also adopting a more literal interpretation of law, either Christian or Mosaic.

Witches' Sabbath

The Witches' Sabbath or Sabbat is a meeting of those who practice witchcraft and other rites.

European records indicate cases of persons being accused or tried for taking part in Sabbat gatherings, from the Middle Ages to the 17th century or later.

Etymology

The English word "sabbat" is of obscure etymology and late diffusion, and local variations of the name given to witches' gatherings were frequent. "Sabbat" came indirectly from Hebrew שַׁבָּת (Shabbath, "day of rest"). In modern Judaism, Shabbat is the rest day celebrated from Friday evening to Saturday nightfall; in modern Christianity, Sabbath refers to Sunday, or to a time period similar to Sabbath in the seventh-day church minority. In connection with the medieval beliefs in the evil power of witches and in the malevolence of Jews and Judaizing heretics (both being Sabbathkeepers), satanic gatherings of witches were by outsiders called "sabbats", "synagogues", or "convents".

The Sabbath in history

Although allusions to Sabbats were made by the Catholic Canon law since about 905, the first book that mentions the Sabbat is, theoretically, Canon Episcopi, included in Burchard of Worms's collection in the 11th century. The Canon Episcopi alleged that "Diana's rides," (by the name of the Roman goddess of the hunt) were false, and that these spirit travels did not occur in reality. Errores Gazariorum later evoked the Sabbat, in 1452.