“And:
“‘Now all the seven were made in starry heaven,
In circles shining as the years appear.’
“The Elegies of Solon, too, intensely deify the seventh day. And how? Is it not similar to Scripture when it says, ‘Let us remove the righteous man from us, because he is troublesome to us?’ When Plato, all but predicting the economy of salvation, says in the second book of the Republic, as follows: ‘Thus he who is constituted just shall be scourged, shall be stretched on the rack, shall be bound, have his eyes put out; and, at last, having suffered all evils, shall be crucified.’”[170]
A similar combination of pagan error and wild speculation is found in another of Clement’s works, where he discusses reasons for fasting on Wednesday and on Friday, and also considers how one may keep Sunday. Writing of the “True Gnostic,” Clement says:
“He knows also the enigmas of the fasting of those days—I mean the Fourth and the Preparation. For the one has its name from Hermes, and the other from Aphrodite. He fasts in his life, in respect of covetousness and voluptuousness, from which all the vices grow. For we have already often above shown the three varieties of fornication, according to the apostle—love of pleasure, love of money, idolatry. He fasts then, according to the law, abstaining from bad deeds, and according to the perfection of the Gospel, from evil thoughts. Temptations are applied to him, not for his purification, but, as we have said, for the good of his neighbors, if, making trial of toils and pains, he has despised and passed them by.
“The same holds of pleasure. For it is the highest achievement for one who has had trial of it, afterwards to abstain. For what great thing is it, if a man restrains himself in what he knows not? He, in fulfilment of the precept according to the Gospel, keeps the Lord’s day, when he abandons an evil disposition, and assumes that of the Gnostic, glorifying the Lord’s resurrection in himself. Further also when he has received the comprehension of scientific speculation, he deems that he sees the Lord, directing his eyes towards things invisible, although he seems to look on what he does not wish to look on; chastising the faculty of vision, when he perceives himself pleasurably affected by the application of his eyes; since he wishes to see and hear that alone which concerns him.”[171]
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: