shenoute.night.BV278-282 Chapter 1

By Shenoute

Down in the night in which we taught unwise men in the house of God, at dawn on the ninth of the month of Tobe, with them loaded inside and bound, as we were going to condemn the impure there to become strangers to the place of Christ,

This I was seeing while petitioning the Lord of all creation, asking 'is it appropriate to place them in these communities, or is it appropriate to pluck their root from out of them?'

Behold, a man who takes on the form of authority, who has been sent by one who is greater than him; he has gone into those places without asking permission with another following him as though beneath him.

He grabbed me as I passed in the streets of those places, suffering for the pestilent people there.

He starts to raise his hand against me, to fight with me, acting like someone who takes care of those ones who were there.

As for me, I fought against him, choking him with the thing that was wound around his neck or on his shoulders, saying these things: 'I am not afraid at all nor disturbed! What are you?

What, why do you hide yourself and don't reveal yourself?

If you are a spirit or an angel come from God, I too am his servant!', and: 'If you persist, I will not persist. Will you tell me if they have sent you, whether it is they who have sinned before God or we who have sinned before him? For we have deliberated about leaving them there in our midst. Otherwise we won't forgive you, rather I will fight against you more.'

As I was saying these and other things, he wrestled with me because he wanted to go, and I wrestled with him, and I was able to best him and top him.

And after he acted like he wanted to topple me, I struck him to the ground.

I prevailed against his hatred with my feet, as I stood calling to the brethren I saw around me looking after me in all this struggle: 'seize this other one!'

For I considered within me that it is impossible for a human to defeat a spirit or angel of God, rather a human falls to the ground because of fear if they see them, as those who appear to them scarcely make them firm against this thought in this way.

And behold, they appeared a second time quickly, as they are demons, and I knew that this is the haste of Satan letting him deceive the multitudes that are gathered inside in places so that they endure the mysteries of the impeity of those who commit offensive acts inside of them until the weed becomes much more abundant than the good seed.

For the people have chosen to see to please those who belong to the ones who do evil, rather than to please God.

This is the way that one person was not cast out on account of his father because they were ashamed, another on account of his brother, another on account of his vain desire, another for hypocrisy and favoritism, others looking for what they drink and reject, everything for the sake of people and not for the sake of Jesus, according to the way in which we have said many times in many places, not we alone, but also those who were before us choosing God truly.

Therefore we wait for a testimony in other forms to cut out of the body the members which have rotten inside it.

Are the Scriptures not enough, which command to pluck out and destroy, to build and to plant?

But I have told you, brothers, that the enemy misleads many among those who believe quickly, with every word and every soul.

This is the way it happens in many places while many fight against impiety, as they trust a spirit of deception and the teachings of demons.

Truly it is no evil if one who loves Christ fights with a good spirit if it appears before them!

He will love them more and be happy about them.

For he knows that they are not fighting against him, as they guard and keep from bending to a demon and falling under the authority of a spirit (…) thinking that it is a holy [a]ngel.

As long as I dwell in the same places together with people, male and female, great men and great women, little boys and little girls,

as long as I partake with them and they partake with me of the mystery, as long as I pray with them and they pray with me, as long as I eat bread with them and they eat with me, or while my hand and theirs are in the same bowl upon this same table, and they dare to destroy the creations of God in any defilement or profanity down in this house or those houses and those places (…) turn them to (..) [h]is name in great toils and in heaps of gold upon copper upon every thing, all of which you will not accept, until we set them up so some souls will benefit, and some souls serve God in every purity.

not only do I become an enemy to them in the days of my life in the way that we have said many times,

as long as I speak with them in peaceful words, as long as I act as one who rejoices with them and who blesses them, they are more cursed, and all their deeds, and those who know about their deeds and hide them, they are more cursed together with them, and all their deeds.