Chapter XVII.—The saints as examples of humility. Let us be imitators also of those who in goat-skins and sheep-skins71 went about pro- claiming 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 hon- oured, and was called the friend of God; yet he, earnestly regarding the glory of God, humbly declared, “I am but dust and ashes.”72 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.”73 But 10 bringing an accusation against himself, he said, “No man is free from defilement, even if his life be but of one day.”74 Moses was called faithful in all God’s house;75 and through his instrumentality, God punished Egypt76 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.”77 And again he said, “I am but as the smoke of a pot.”78 71 Heb. xi. 37. 72 Gen. xviii. 27. 73 Job i. 1. 74 Job xiv. 4, 5. [Septuagint.] 75 Num. xii. 7; Heb. iii. 2. 76 Some fill up the lacuna which here occurs in the ms. by “Israel.” 77 Ex. iii. 11, Ex. iv. 10. 78 This is not found in Scripture. [They were probably in Clement’s version. Comp. Ps. cxix. 83.] Chapter XVII.—The saints as examples of humility. 28 Chapter XVII.—The saints as examples of humility.