Chapter LVII.—Let the authors of sedition submit themselves.
Ye therefore, who laid the foundation of this sedition, submit yourselves to the presbyters,
and receive correction so as to repent, bending the knees of your hearts. Learn to be subject,
laying aside the proud and arrogant self-confidence of your tongue. For it is better for you
that ye should occupy254 a humble but honourable place in the flock of Christ, than that,
being highly exalted, ye should be cast out from the hope of His people.255 For thus speaketh
all-virtuous Wisdom:256 “Behold, I will bring forth to you the words of My Spirit, and I will
teach you My speech. Since I called, and ye did not hear; I held forth My words, and ye re-
garded not, but set at naught My counsels, and yielded not at My reproofs; therefore I too
will laugh at your destruction; yea, I will rejoice when ruin cometh upon you, and when
sudden confusion overtakes you, when overturning presents itself like a tempest, or when
tribulation and oppression fall upon you. For it shall come to pass, that when ye call upon
Me, I will not hear you; the wicked shall seek Me, and they shall not find Me. For they hated
wisdom, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; nor would they listen to My counsels, but
despised My reproofs. Wherefore they shall eat the fruits of their own way, and they shall
be filled with their own ungodliness.” …257
254 Literally, “to be found small and esteemed.”
255 Literally, “His hope.” [It has been conjectured that ἔλπιδος should be ἔπαύλιδος, and the reading, “out
of the fold of his people.” See Chevallier.]
256 Prov. i. 23–31. [Often cited by this name in primitive writers.]
257 Junius (Pat. Young), who examined the ms. before it was bound into its present form, stated that a whole
leaf was here lost. The next letters that occur are ιπον, which have been supposed to indicate εἶπον or ἔλιπον.
Doubtless some passages quoted by the ancients from the Epistle of Clement, and not now found in it, occurred
in the portion which has thus been lost.
Chapter LVII.—Let the authors of sedition submit themselves.
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Chapter LVII.—Let the authors of sedition submit themselves.