Chapter XVII.—The saints as examples of humility.

Let us be imitators also of those who in goat-skins and sheep-skins⁷²⁷²    Heb. xi. 37. went about proclaiming the coming of Christ; I mean Elijah, Elisha, and Ezekiel among the prophets, with those others to whom a like testimony is borne [in Scripture]. Abraham was specially honoured, and was called the friend of God; yet he, earnestly regarding the glory of God, humbly declared, “I am but dust and ashes.”⁷³⁷³    Gen. xviii. 27. Moreover, it is thus written of Job, “Job was a righteous man, and blameless, truthful, God-fearing, and one that kept himself from all evil.”⁷⁴⁷⁴    Job i. 1. But bringing an accusation 10 against himself, he said, “No man is free from defilement, even if his life be but of one day.”⁷⁵⁷⁵    Job xiv. 4, 5. [Septuagint.] Moses was called faithful in all God’s house;⁷⁶⁷⁶    Num. xii. 7; Heb. iii. 2. and through his instrumentality, God punished Egypt⁷⁷⁷⁷    Some fill up the lacuna which here occurs in the ms. by “Israel.” with plagues and tortures. Yet he, though thus greatly honoured, did not adopt lofty language, but said, when the divine oracle came to him out of the bush, “Who am I, that Thou sendest me? I am a man of a feeble voice and a slow tongue.”⁷⁸⁷⁸    Ex. iii. 11, Ex. iv. 10. And again he said, “I am but as the smoke of a pot.”⁷⁹⁷⁹    This is not found in Scripture. [They were probably in Clement’s version. Comp. Ps. cxix. 83.]