Note 64 — VIII. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. DIED 220 (?) A.D.

It is a curious and remarkable inconsistency, we may here observe, that the modern ardent admirers of the Fathers and Saints of the Church, while professing unbounded respect for their doctrines, for the most part ignore the one of their practices at once the most ancient, the most highly reputed, and the most universal. Quod semper, quod ubique, &c., the favourite maxim of St. Augustine and the orthodox church, is, in this case, “more honoured in the breach than in the observance.” Partial and periodical Abstinence, it is scarcely necessary to add, however consecrated by later ecclesiasticism, is sufficiently remote from the daily frugal living of a St. James, a St. Anthony, or a St. Chrysostom.