Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of figures
- Acknowledgments
- Maps
- Introduction: Shenoute's life, times, and Discourses
- Part I Heretics and Other Enemies of the Church
- 1 And it happened one day
- 2 As I sat on a mountain
- 3 I am amazed
- Part II Shenoute as Pastor and Preacher
- Part III The Christian's Struggle with Satan
- Part IV The Conflict with Gesios
- Bibliography
- Index of names
- Index of subjects
- Index of biblical passages
3 - I am amazed
from Part I - Heretics and Other Enemies of the Church
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of figures
- Acknowledgments
- Maps
- Introduction: Shenoute's life, times, and Discourses
- Part I Heretics and Other Enemies of the Church
- 1 And it happened one day
- 2 As I sat on a mountain
- 3 I am amazed
- Part II Shenoute as Pastor and Preacher
- Part III The Christian's Struggle with Satan
- Part IV The Conflict with Gesios
- Bibliography
- Index of names
- Index of subjects
- Index of biblical passages
Summary
[The beginning of the work, approximately four pages, is wanting.]
Dangers of apocryphal books
[“ …] I created it through the command of the Father.” And, “As for everything that exists in heaven and on earth, it is I who created them all through the command of the Father.” And, “And as for man himself, together we fashioned him.” And, “The body and soul belong to me; the breath and the spirit are my Father's.” And, “We took up a part of heaven and we stirred it and mixed it with a part of the earth, and we created man.” Listen so that you may understand that those who write apocryphal books are blind, and blind are they who learn them by heart and who believe them, cast down together into pits.
He has furthermore said, “The Son said, ‘It so happened that when the Father had finished creating the twelve worlds, which none of the angels knows, he created another seven worlds.’ And, ‘It is within the twelve that the unspeakable goods dwell.’ And, ‘Outside the seven, he created another five worlds.’ And, ‘In them the spirits of power dwell.’ And, ‘Outside these five he created three other worlds, being’ – so they say – ‘the abodes of the angels. And, ‘The twenty-seven worlds are all outside this heaven and this earth.’”
The deceitful words are many, through which many are those who have become deceived and deceived others. Or do you not see that they do not know what they are talking about? Because if other worlds exist, which no angel knows about because he did not tell them about them, then how is it that they know about them? And how would he teach them about them? For it is written, “The Lord will not do anything without having revealed it to his servants, the prophets.” How much more so his angels! Where did they learn these things? So it is also written, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” It did not say “earths,” as many witnesses declare. The Lord spoke in this way, saying to his Father, “My Father, glorify me with the glory that I had in your presence before the world [existed].”
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- Chapter
- Information
- Selected Discourses of Shenoute the GreatCommunity, Theology, and Social Conflict in Late Antique Egypt, pp. 54 - 82Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015