Chapter XVII.—The Saints as Examples of Humility.

Let us be imitators also of those who in goat-skins and sheep-skins^40794079    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.”^40804080    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.”^40814081    Job i. 1.  But bringing an accusation against himself, he said, “No man is free from defilement, even if his life be but of one day.”^40824082    Job xiv. 4, 5.  Moses was called faithful in all God’s house;^40834083    Num. xii. 7; Heb. iii. 2. and through his instrumentality,^40844084    I. ὑπηρεσίας (service). God punished Egypt 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.”^40854085    Ex. iii. 11, iv. 10.  And again he said, “I am but as the smoke of a pot.”^40864086    This is not found in Scripture.