Clement of Alexandria: STROMATA (MISCELLANIES), Part V, Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 34

And now the whole world of creatures born alive, and things that grow, revolves in sevens. The first-born princes of the angels, who have the greatest power, are seven. [3464] The mathematicians also say that the planets, which perform their course around the earth, are seven; by which the Chaldeans think that all which concerns mortal life is effected through sympathy, in consequence of which they also undertake to tell things respecting the future.

And of the fixed stars, the Pleiades are seven. And the Bears, by the help of which agriculture and navigation are carried through, consist of seven stars. And in periods of seven days the moon undergoes its changes. In the first week she becomes half moon; in the second, full moon; and in the third, in her wane, again half moon; and in the fourth she disappears. Further, as Seleucus the mathematician lays down, she has seven phases. First, from being invisible she becomes crescent-shaped, then half moon, then gibbous and full; and in her wane again gibbous, and in like manner half moon and crescent-shaped.

"On a seven-stringed lyre we shall sing new hymns,"

writes a poet of note, teaching us that the ancient lyre was seven-toned. The organs of the senses situated on our face are also seven--two eyes, two passages of hearing, two nostrils, and the seventh the mouth.

[3464] [By Rabbinical tradition. But see Calmet, Dict. Bib., p. 78.]

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