it to eschatological rest rather than observance of a literal day. Such writing, however, did serve to deepen the idea of Christian rest on Sunday, and its practice increased in prominence throughout the early Middle Ages. Thomas Aquinas taught that the Decalogue is an expression of natural law which binds all men, and therefore the Sabbath commandment is a moral requirement along with the other nine. Thus in the West, Sunday rest became more closely associated with a Christian application of the Sabbath, a development towards the idea of a "Christian Sabbath" rather than a Hebrew one. Sunday worship and Sunday rest combined powerfully to relate to Sabbath commandment precepts. Continuations of Hebrew practices Seventh-day Sabbath was observed at least sporadically by a minority of groups during the Middle Ages. In the early church in Ireland, there is evidence that a sabbath-rest on Saturday may have been kept along with Mass on Sunday as the Lord's Day. It appears that many of the canon laws in Ireland from that period were derived from parts of the laws of Moses. In Adomnan of Iona's biography of St Columba it describes Columba's death by having Columba say on a Saturday, "Today is truly my sabbath, for it is my last day in this wearisome life, when I shall keep the Sabbath after my troublesome labours. At midnight this Sunday, as Scripture saith, 'I shall go the way of my fathers'" and he then dies that night. The identification of this Sabbath day as a Saturday in the narrative is clear in the context, because Columba is recorded as seeing an angel at the Mass on the previous Sunday and the narrative claims he dies in the same week, on the Sabbath day at the end of the week, during the 'Lord's night' (referring to Saturday night-Sunday morning). An Eastern body of Christian Sabbath-keepers mentioned from the 8th century to the 12th is called Athenians ("touch-not") because they abstained from uncleanness and intoxicating drinks, called Athinginians in Neander: "This sect, which had its principal seat in the city of Armorion, in upper Phrygia, where many Jews resided, sprung out of a mixture of Judaism and Christianity. They united baptism with the observance of all the rites of Judaism, circumcision excepted. We may perhaps recognize a branch of the older Judaizing sects." Cardinal Hergenrother says that they stood in intimate relation with Emperor Michael