St. Basil can hardly imagine that Clinias lived after Christ; yet Old Testament prohibitions are against false swearing only.  Possibly the third commandment and such a passage as Lev. xix. 12, may have been in his mind.  If Clinias had lived some half a millennium later there seems no reason why he should not have saved himself three talents by using the words of the Apostle in 2 Cor. xi. 31.