“Rightly, then, they reckon the number seven motherless and childless, interpreting the Sabbath, and figuratively expressing the nature of the rest, in which ‘they neither marry nor are given in marriage any more.’”
The following quotation completes the testimony of Clement. He speaks of the precept concerning fasting, that it is fulfilled by abstinence from sinful pleasure. And thus he says:—
“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 fulfillment 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.” Book vii. chap. xii.
Clement asserts that one fasts according to the law when he abstains from evil deeds, and, according to the gospel, when he abstains from evil thoughts. He shows how the precept respecting fasting is fulfilled when he speaks of one who “in fulfillment of the precept, according to the gospel, keeps the Lord’s day when he abandons an evil disposition.” This abandonment of an evil disposition, according to Clement, keeps the Lord’s day, and glorifies the Lord’s resurrection. But this duty pertains to no one day of the week, but to all alike, so that he seems evidently to inculcate a perpetual Lord’s day, even as Justin Martyr enjoins the observance of a “perpetual Sabbath,” to be acceptably sanctified by those who maintain true repentance. Though these writers are not always consistent with themselves, yet two facts go to show that Clement in this book means just what his words literally import, viz., that the keeping of the Lord’s day and the glorifying of the resurrection is not the observance of a certain day of the week, but the performance of a work which embraces every day of one’s whole life.
1. The first of these facts is his express statement of this doctrine in the first paragraph of the seventh chapter of this book. Thus he says:—
“Now, we are commanded to reverence and to honor the same one, being persuaded that he is Word, Saviour, and Leader, and by him, the Father, NOT ON SPECIAL DAYS, AS SOME OTHERS, but doing this continually in our whole life, and in every way. Certainly the elect race, justified by the precept, says, ‘Seven times a day have I praised thee.’ Whence not in a specified place, or selected temple, or at certain festivals, and on appointed days, but during his whole life, the Gnostic in every place, even if he be alone by himself, and wherever he has any of those who have exercised the like faith, honors God; that is, acknowledges his gratitude for the knowledge of the way to live.” Book vii. chap. vii.
2. The second of these facts is that in book vi., chapter xvi., as already quoted, he expressly represents Sunday as “a day of work.”
Certainly Clement of Alexandria should not be cited as teaching the change of the Sabbath, or advocating the so-called Christian Sabbath.