The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

Clemens Romanus (Clement of Rome)

Clement of Rome. The Apostolic Fathers, Volume 1. Lake, Kirsopp, editor. London: William Heinemann Ltd.; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912.

And if anyone will candidly consider this[*](The greatness of Jacob’s blessing) in detail, he will recognize the greatness of the gifts given by him.

For from him[*](The obscurity of this passage is partly due to an ambiguity in the Greek, partly to the faultiness of the chapter-divisions. The first verse of this chapter ought really to be closely connected with the last verse of Chapter XXXI; the by him in XXXII, 1 means by God, and the from him in XXXII, 2 means from Jacob.) come the priests and all the Levites, who serve the altar

of God, from him comes the Lord Jesus according to the flesh, from him come the kings and rulers and governors in the succession of Judah, and the other sceptres of his tribes are in no small renown seeing that God promised that thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven.

All of them therefore were all renowned and magnified, not through themselves or their own works or the righteous actions which they had wrought, but through his will;

and therefore we who by his will have been called in Christ Jesus, are not made righteous by ourselves, or by our wisdom or understanding or piety or the deeds which we have wrought in holiness of heart, but through faith, by which Almighty God has justified all men from the beginning of the world; to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.