Paganism Surviving in ChristianityLewis, Abram Herbert
Religion
Paganism Surviving in Christianity
Lewis, Abram Herbert
Christianity and other religions; Paganism
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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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