finally that bidding the succeeding Fasts & Festivals he
dismissed the assembly.
The
Muscovites, being neer unto
the &
Greeks, once within the jurisdiction of the Patriark
of
Constantinople, partake much also of their customes.
They count it an unlawfull thing to fast the
Saturday,
which shewes that somewhat is remayning of that e∣steeme,
in which once they had it: and for the
Holydayes,
Sundayes aswell as any other, they doe not hold them∣selues
so strictly to them, but that the Citizens and Artifi∣cers,
im
••ediatly after Divine Service betake themselues
unto their labour
••, and domesticke businesses. And this,
most probably, is the custome also of all the
Churches of
the
East; as holding a Communion with the Church of
Greece, though not subordinate thereunto: from the
which Church of
Greece, the faith was first derived unto
these
Muscovites, as before was said; and with the faith,
the observation of this day, and all the other
holydayes, at
that time in u
••e. As for the Country people, as
Gaguinus
tells us, they seldome celebrate or ob
••erve any day at all,
at lest not with that care and order as they ought to doe;
saying, that it belongs onely unto
Lords and
Gentlemen
to keepe
Holydayes. Last of all, for the
Habassines, or
E∣thiopian
Christians, though further off in situation; they
come as neere unto the fashions of the ancient
Graecians.
Of them wee are enformed by Master
Br••rewood out of
Damiani, that they reverence the
Sabbath, keeping it so∣lemne
equally with the
Lords day. Scaliger tells us, that
they call both of them by the name of
Sabbaths; the one
the first, the other the later
Sabbath: or in their owne
language, the one
Sanbath Sachristos, that is,
Christs Sab∣bath;
the other
Sanbath Iudi, or the
Iewes Sabbath,
Bellarmine thinks that they derived this observation of the
Saturday or
Sabbath, from the Constitutions ascribed to
Clemens: which indeed frequently doe presse the obser∣vation
of that day, with no lesse fervour then the
Sunday.
Of this we have already spoken. And to this
Bellarmine