The Saints as Examples of Humility.

Chapter XVII.—The Saints as Examples of Humility.

Let us be imitators also of those who in goat-skins and sheep-skins⁴⁰⁷⁹ 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.”⁴⁰⁸⁰  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.”⁴⁰⁸¹  But bringing an accusation against himself, he said, “No man is free from defilement, even if his life be but of one day.”⁴⁰⁸²  Moses was called faithful in all God’s house;⁴⁰⁸³ and through his instrumentality,⁴⁰⁸⁴ 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.”⁴⁰⁸⁵  And again he said, “I am but as the smoke of a pot.”⁴⁰⁸⁶