They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
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Clement Of Rome
AD 99
Let us be imitators also of those who in goat-skins and sheep-skins.
Let us be imitators also of those who in goat-skins and sheep-skins
Melon signifies a sheep; melote signifies a sheep skin, with the wool on it. This, or a goat skin, was the usual covering of poor people, and as such was adopted by the ancient prophets, mortified to all the luxuries of life. Thus Elias
At all times indeed, but especially then when I reflect upon the achievements of the saints, it comes over me to feel despondency concerning my own condition, because we have not even in dreams experienced the things among which those men spent their whole lives, not paying the penalty of sins, but always doing rightly and yet always afflicted.
For consider, I beseech you, Elijah, to whom our discourse has come round today, for he speaks of him in this passage, and in him his examples end: which [example] was appropriate to their case. And having spoken of what befell the Apostles, that they were slain with the sword, were stoned, he goes back again to Elijah, who suffered the same things with them. See 2 Kings 1:8 For since it was probable that they would not as yet hold the Apostles in so great estimation, he brings his exhortation and consolation from him who had been taken up [into Heaven] and who was held in special admiration.
They had not even raiment, he says, through the...
His temple, He was unwilling to send him with heavenly power and glory, that the people who had been ungrateful towards God might be led into the greatest error, and suffer punishment for their crimes, since they had not received their Lord and God, as the prophets had before foretold that it would thus happen. For Isaiah whom the Jews most cruelly slew, cutting him asunder with a saw,
