Clement on the Sabbath Law.
Prominent examples of paganism are found in Clement’s Gnostic Exposition of the Decalogue. Discoursing upon the Fourth Commandment, he says:
“Having reached this point, we must mention these things by the way, since the discourse has turned on the seventh and the eighth. For the eighth may possibly turn out to be properly the seventh, and the seventh manifestly the sixth, and the latter properly the Sabbath, and the seventh a day of work. For the creation of the world was concluded in six days. For the motion of the sun from solstice to solstice is completed in six months, in the course of which, at one time the leaves fall, and at another plants bud and seeds come to maturity. And they say that the embryo is perfected exactly in the sixth month, that is, in one hundred and eighty days in addition to the two and a half, as Polybus the physician relates in his book On the Eighth Month, and Aristotle the philosopher in his book On Nature. Hence the Pythagoreans, as I think, reckon six the perfect number, from the creation of the world, according to the prophet, and call it Meseuthys and Marriage, from its being the middle of the even numbers, that is, of ten and two. For it is manifestly at an equal distance from both.”[172]
The next paragraph is too gross to appear in this place. Toward the close of this learned (?) “exposition,” Clement gives birth to the following curious argument from the Psalms:
“And the blessed David delivers clearly to those who know the mystic account of seven and eight, praising thus: ‘Our years were exercised like a spider. The days of our years in them are seventy years; but if in strength, eighty years. And that will be to reign.’ That, then, we may be taught that the world was originated, and not suppose that God made it in time, prophecy adds: ‘This is the book of the generation, also of the things in them, when they were created in the day that God made heaven and earth.’ For the expression, ‘when they were created’ intimates an indefinite and dateless production. But the expression ‘in the day that God made,’ that is, in and by which God made ‘all things,’ and ‘without which not even one thing was made,’ points out the activity exerted by the Son. As David says, ‘This is the day which the Lord hath made; let us be glad and rejoice in it’; that is, in consequence of the knowledge imparted by Him, let us celebrate the divine festival; for the Word that throws light on things hidden, and by whom each created thing came into life and being, is called day. And in fine, the Decalogue, by the letter Iota, signifies the blessed name, presenting Jesus, who is the Word.”[173]
Pagan nonsense could scarcely go further, and yet this man wielded a prominent influence in developing the doctrine of Sunday Observance.