First Christian Voices: Practices of the Apostolic Fathers

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First Christian Voices

only by the accursed, and by those who had conceived an unrighteous envy against them. Exposed to such sufferings, they endured them gloriously. For what will we say, friends? Was Daniel cast into the den of lions by those who feared God? Were Ananias, and Azarias, and Mishael shut up in a furnace of fire by those who practiced the great and glorious worship of the Most High? Far from us be such a thought! Who, then, were they that did such things? The hateful, and those full of all wickedness, were roused to such a tone of fury that they inflicted torture on those who served God with a holy and blameless purpose. They did not know that the Most High is the Defender and Protector of all those who with a pure conscience worship His excellent name. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen. But those who endured with confidence are now heirs of glory and honor, and have been exalted and made distinguished by God in their memorial forever and ever. Amen. F irst C lement 53: You understand, dear ones, and you understand well the sacred Scriptures. You have looked very carefully into the sayings of God. We write these things for your remembrance. When Moses went up into the mountain, and camped there with fasting and humiliation, forty days and forty nights, the Lord said to him, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf” (Exod 32:7–8). And the Lord said to him, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that