Victorinus of Pettau — On the Creation of the World (parasceve / sabbath)

On this day also, because of the passion of the Lord Jesus Christ, we keep 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 this day we are accustomed to make a carrying-over, so that on the Lord's Day we may go forth to the bread with thanksgiving. And let a carrying-over be made from the parasceve, lest we seem to keep the Sabbath with the Jews in any way—which Sabbath the Lord of the Sabbath, Christ, says through His prophets that His soul hates (Isa. 1:13–14); which Sabbath He dissolved in His own body. Earlier, when He Himself commanded Moses that circumcision not pass beyond the eighth day, which often falls on a Sabbath day, as we read written in the Gospel (John 7:22). Moses, foreseeing the hardness of that people (Matt. 19:8), therefore on the Sabbath day—we used to read (Ex. 17:9, 12; Col. 2:14)—also crucified the ordinance itself. And there were battles which, from the foreigners on the Sabbath (1 Macc. 2:31–41), so that they might be captured, and as it were the severity of the law might be shaped toward avoiding a discipline.