But Clement uses the term Lord’s day once more, and this time clearly, as representing, not a literal day, but the whole period of our regenerate life. For he speaks of it in treating of fasting, and he sets forth fasting as consisting in abstinence from sinful pleasures, not only in deeds, to use his distinction, as forbidden by the law, but in thoughts, as forbidden by the gospel. Such fasting pertains to the entire life of the Christian. And thus Clement sets forth what is involved in observing this duty in the gospel sense:— “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.”[449] From this statement we learn, not merely his idea of fasting, but also that of celebrating the Lord’s day, and glorifying the resurrection of Christ. This, according to Clement, does not consist in paying special honors to Sunday, but in abandoning an evil disposition, and in assuming that of the Gnostic, a Christian sect to which he belonged. Now it is plain that this kind of Lord’s-day observance pertains to no one day of the week, but embraces the entire life of the Christian. Clement’s Lord’s day was not a literal, but a mystical, day, embracing, according to this, his second use of the term, the entire regenerate life of the Christian; and according to his first use of the term, embracing also the future life in Heaven. And this view is confirmed by Clement’s statement of the contrast between the Gnostic sect to which he belonged and other Christians. He says of their worship that it was “NOT ON SPECIAL DAYS, as some others, but _doing this continually_ in our whole life.” And he speaks further of the worship of the Gnostic that it was “_not_ in a specified place, or selected temple, or at certain festivals, and on appointed days, _but during his whole life_.”[450] It is certainly a very remarkable fact that the first writer who speaks of the Lord’s day as the eighth day uses the term, not with reference to a literal, but a mystical, day. It is not Sunday, but the Christian’s life, or Heaven itself! This doctrine of a perpetual Lord’s day, we shall find alluded to in Tertullian, and expressly stated in Origen, who are the next two writers that use the term Lord’s day. But Clement’s mystical or perpetual Lord’s day shows that he had no idea that John, by Lord’s day, meant Sunday; for in that case, he must have recognized that as the true Lord’s day, and the Gnostics’ special day of worship.