Anti-Sabbath Rhetoric Increases
Around the year 600 AD, Pope Gregory I denounced as preachers of Antichrist those who were teaching in Rome that work should not be done on the Sabbath, in accordance with the Fourth Commandment. He wrote, “It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the Sabbath day. What else can I call these but preachers of Antichrist, who, when he comes, will cause the Sabbath day as well as the Lord’s day to be kept free from all work” (Gregory I, Selected Epistles, bk. 13, Epistle 1). While the Bible does predict that an antichrist power will arise from within Christianity, it nowhere says that the antichrist will force people to abstain from work and worship on the seventh day Sabbath.