The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

For we shall incur no common harm, but great danger, if we rashly yield ourselves to the purposes of men who rush into strife and sedition, to estrange us from what is right.

Let us be kind to one another, according to the compassion and sweetness of our Maker.

For it is written, The kind shall inhabit the land, and the guiltless shall be left on it, but they who transgress shall be destroyed from off it.

And again he says: I saw the ungodly lifted high, and exalted as the cedars of Lebanon. And I went by, and behold he was not; and I sought his place, and I found it not. Keep innocence, and look on uprightness; for there is a remnant for a peaceable man.

Moreover let us cleave to those whose[*](Cleaving to the peaceable) peacefulness is based on piety and not to those whose wish for peace is hypocrisy.

For it says in one place: This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

And again, They blessed with their mouth, but cursed in their hearts.

And again it says they loved him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongue, and their heart was not right with him, nor were they faithful in his covenant.

Therefore let the deceitful lips be dumb which speak iniquity against the righteous. And again, May the Lord destroy all the deceitful lips, a tongue that speaketh great things, those who say. Let us magnify our tongue, our lips are our own, who is lord over us?

For the misery of the poor and groaning of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord, I will place him in safety,

I will deal boldly with him.

For Christ is of those who are humble-minded,[*](The humility of Christ) not of those who exalt themselves over His flock.

The sceptre of the greatness of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, came not with the pomp of pride or of arrogance, for all his power, but was humble-minded, as the Holy Spirit spake concerning him. For it says,

Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? We declared him before the Lord as a child, as a root in thirsty ground; there is no form in him, nor glory, and we saw him, and he had neither form nor beauty, but his form was without honour, less than the form of man, a man living among stripes and toil, and acquainted with the endurance of weakness; for his face was turned away, he was dishonoured, and not esteemed.

He it is who beareth our sins, and is pained for us, and we regarded him as subject to pain, and stripes and affliction,

but he was wounded for our sins and he has suffered for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him; with his bruises were we healed.

All we like sheep went astray, each man went astray in his path;