If Everyone Errs

Codex MONB.XG, pages 336–343 (White Monastery, Atripe; Amélineau edition, sections 1–20). Sahidic Coptic source: Coptic Scriptorium corpus shenoute.errs (CC-BY 4.0), digitized text shenoute.errs.XG336-343. No prior English translation exists. Translated 2026-07-11 by Claude (Fable 5) directly from the Sahidic, using the Coptic Scriptorium lemma annotations as a crib. First-pass working translation, not a critical edition: uncertain renderings are marked with numbered footnotes; bracketed [...] marks lacunae in the manuscript. Sentence numbers [n] follow the digital edition's segmentation.

What this work is: an allegorical exposition of the Song of the Sword in Ezekiel 21. Shenoute argues the prophet's sword cannot be a literal blade — a literal sword is wielded by a man, but this sword wields the man. Its two edges are blessing and curse, wrath and mercy; its sheath is woven of compassion; its hilt is the scriptures; its sharpness is knowledge and the Logos; its beauty is love; and we ourselves are the chambers it is sheathed in. The final lines turn the key: the sword is the Word of God (Hebrews 4:12), the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17). The fragment breaks off mid-sentence.

[1] (§24) Likewise again, concerning the deeds that are not good in all the earth:

[2] If every man errs, and every mouth speaks in falsehood, is it not necessary that God prove true? Is it not impossible — can it not be — that he should lie?

The incipit that names the work; echo of Romans 3:4 / Psalm 116:11, "let God be true, and every man a liar."

[3] If our sins and our lawlessnesses had not moved heaven and earth, what would the sword be doing¹⁰ standing there — or appearing drawn, ready to act according to its own will, whether it wills to return to its sheath or does not will to, since it has turned?

[4] Not because it had had its fill, but because it would have spared, over against the will of the man beside whom it stood.¹¹¹

[5] Or — of what kind is the sword? And its sheath, or that which clothes it? Or its length and its breadth, and the manner in which it is given? Or how it gleams¹², or the places in which it has been?

[6] Or the man at whose side it was stretched out — he will not be able to say;

[7] or even if he says it, he will say it after another fashion.

[8] Do not think that the manner of the sword of which the prophet spoke — saying: "Sword, sword, be sharpened and rage, that you may slaughter slaughterings; be sharpened, that you may be given —

Ezekiel 21:9–11 (LXX 21:14–16), the Song of the Sword.

[9] made ready — flash forth¹³; slay, set at naught, thrust away every tree" — is according to the manner of that (ordinary) sword whose types and likeness it is a blessedness to behold.¹⁴

"Slay, set at naught, thrust away every tree" = LXX Ezekiel 21:15 verbatim (σφάζε, ἐξουδένει, ἀπωθοῦ πᾶν ξύλον). Syntax³⁷ of the frame sentence reordered for English; the Coptic suspends "do not think..." across sentences 8–9.

[10] For this one (the ordinary sword) is given into the hand of him who will pierce;

[11] but this one — it is she that grips.

[12] As they say, "The sword — they have sharpened it, and it is ready to be given into the hand of him who will slay." But this one — it is she who grips the man, the man being in her hand; she pierces, by means of the man, those whom she pierces, and it is not the man who pierces with her. It is not the man who turns her toward the place where he wishes to pierce; rather it is she who turns the man toward the place where she wishes to pierce.

"Given into the hand of the slayer" = LXX Ezekiel 21:16.

[13] Nor is it the man who takes vengeance by her in a fit of wrath; rather it is she who takes vengeance, through the man, on those with whom she is angry —

[14] because the man is in her hand, and she is not in the hand of the man. It is she who at every time delivers those whom she pierces into the hand of him whom her hands hold¹⁵, just as a holy one says: "They shall be given over into the hands of the sword."

Psalm 62:11 LXX (63:10 English): παραδοθήσονται εἰς χεῖρας ῥομφαίας — "they shall be delivered into the hands of the sword." Note that the psalm itself gives the sword hands — the observation Shenoute's whole argument turns on.

[15] Just as this one was incited through the prophet to be sharp at the command of the Lord — "Sword, sword, rouse yourself¹⁶ to wrath" — she was also rebuked, that she should turn back from the place in which she slays:²

[16] Yet¹⁷ judgment was also passed on her — that she be judged, or that eyes be filled with (the sight of) her, after she has filled her eyes with those whom she slew — as the word says: "Turn back; do not remain in the place where you were brought forth; I will judge you upon your own land."³

[17] Was it not the Lord who told her to do slayings?

[18] Why then did he say — after she had finished being drawn¹⁸, drawn for a consum[mation]¹⁹ — "I will²⁰ judge you... I will pour out my wrath upon you; I will kindle a fire upon you in my anger,⁴

[19] and deliver you into the hand of barbarian men, artificers of destruction; and you shall become food for the fire, and your blood shall be in the midst of your land;

LXX Ezekiel 21:31–32, nearly verbatim: "I will deliver you into the hands of barbarous men, forgers of destruction. You shall be fuel for the fire; your blood shall be in the midst of your land."

[20] there shall be no memory of you"?

LXX Ezekiel 21:32: "you shall not be remembered."

[21] This is not the occasion, nor the moment, to speak about these things;

[22] but rather to say, in part, of the likeness — or of what the sword is — that she was revealed as a testimony against those who commit these profanities²¹ among us. There is no one who says to her "pierce," and there is no one who says to her "stop piercing."⁵

[23] She has authority to slay or not to slay, none commanding her; rather it is she who commands. She does not stand under the authority of him who slays — rather, he who slays by her stands under her authority. God alone is the one she obeys.

[24] She is not drawn from her sheath by another; it is she who draws herself out of her sheath, and she who returns herself to her sheath, by herself.

[25] And she did not come up out of her sheath to slay (only) until the completion of her wrath — according to what the Lord said of her, "drawn for a consummation,"

LXX Ezekiel 21:28: "drawn for slaughter... for consummation" (εἰς συντέλειαν).

[26] or, "I have drawn my sword out of its sheath, and it shall not return to it any more from now on,"

LXX Ezekiel 21:5: "I have drawn my sword out of its sheath, and it shall return no more."

[27] or, "They were delivered into her hand — the sword's — to slay them at every gate."

Cf. LXX Ezekiel 21:15: "delivered up for the slaughter of the sword... at all their gates."

[28] She prepared herself well to slay; she came to be well-fitted to be given.²²

[29] The sword walks and is sharp on the right and on the left — wherever her face looks.

LXX Ezekiel 21:16: "pass through, be sharp, on the right and on the left, wherever your face is raised."

[30] It was said to that one, "I will judge you in your land"; but it is the whole earth that will be judged through this one, and everyone will be judged by her.

[31] A blessing and a curse, wrath and mercy — these are what stand in her two faces²³, this one and this one, as she is given in the true judgment.⁶

[32] Because of her, God pours out his wrath upon those who provoke him with their pestilent deeds;

[33] because of her also, he turns back from his wrath.

[34] Her coming up out of her sheath is a grace;

[35] her turning back to it is a glory.

[36] It is a terror to see her drawn;

[37] it is a joy to see her returning to her sheath — in truth²⁴, for those who stand in the line of her thrust as she stretches out to slay.

[38] Peace is in her turning back from the places where she slays those she cuts down;

[39] power is in her grip;

[40] steadfastness is in her onrush;

[41] compassion, mercy, kindness, gentleness, the hope of every good thing — these are in her preparation, or in her whole array;

[42] and with these, moreover, she is clothed;

[43] and of these her sheath consists, together with all the other things of this kind.

[44] What covers her, with her sheath, is what is hidden; faith is in her mystery.

[45] Her coming up is like the sun in its place of rising before it has climbed high or spread out — that is what her unveiling is like — because none can bear the rays of her light.

[46] Patience and forbearance are in her unveiling. She was not revealed to take vengeance in the places where she stood; it shall not come about that she pierce the sinless together with sinners, but rather that she deliver those who have sinned, in those places, into the hand of vengeance in the days of vengeance — those of which the Lord spoke in the Gospel: "For these are the days of vengeance."

Luke 21:22, verbatim. Note the theodicy: Shenoute is answering the Abraham-at-Sodom problem (Genesis 18:23, "will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?") — the sword's delay is forbearance, and it discriminates.

[47] No (ordinary) sword can move from a place unless it is moved by those who have the authority. But this one — not only does her authority exist from within herself, to walk to whatever place she wishes to go: she also carries the one whom she pierces — or the one who pierces with her²⁵ — removing him from the places he is in, to other places;

[48] and she also removes him from the places she takes him to; she sets him in his own places.²⁶⁷

[49] Is it not²⁷ a living spirit that is in her — as in the living creatures above whom is the glory of the God of Israel, according to what the prophet said of the wheels that go beneath him: "a living spirit was in them"?

Ezekiel 1:20–21 / 10:17: "the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels." The³⁸ Coptic negation here most naturally reads as a rhetorical question expecting "yes."

[50] Rather — she is the life of the whole²⁸, and every spirit of life exists through her.

[51] Knowledge and the Logos are her sharpness; love is what is in her adornment, or her beauty.

[52] God alone, the Almighty, is her length and her breadth, which are without measure. For when she wishes to rise higher, she rises;

[53] likewise when she wishes to spread out, she spreads; when she wishes to draw in, she draws in; when she wishes to diminish, she diminishes — for she does not appear according to her (true) measures,

[54] for there is no measure to all her array; but according to the measure of those who can bear it, among those who see her, she appears — in the places where she pierces and where she heals. For she strikes,

[55] and she also heals;

Deuteronomy 32:39 / Job 5:18: "I wound and I heal; he strikes, and his hands make whole."

[56] she [strikes]²⁹ and she medicates those whom she has wounded because of their disobedience;⁸

[57] and she also heals those whom the enemy has made feeble by his arrows.

[58] Her hilt — or her grip — is the light of the eyes of those who look toward uprightness and truth and every deed of the service of God, in the places she is near to or far above³⁰: these are the scriptures, or the laws, that were given that we might be saved in them.

The hilt of the sword = the scriptures. To take hold of the Word, you grip it by the written text — the image is astonishing and, to my knowledge, unattested elsewhere in patristic literature in this form.

[59] It is we men who are the chambers in which she is laid at all times — and the heavens of the heavens — men being in her hand like mere things³¹;

[60] or³² it is nothing in her sight to be in the hands of a man, in the measures in which he will be able to pierce with her.⁹

[61] Her sharpness comes out of herself³³ — it is not said (of her) by others³⁴, in the way every (other) sword is whetted from outside. She is in the man who seeks after her;

[62] if she is not revealed, he does not see her.

[63] She is near to the man who seeks after her,

[64] and yet far from him also.

Cf. the Wisdom paradoxes (Wisdom 6:12–16; Sirach 51) and Deuteronomy 30:11–14 — near and far at once; found by the seeker, yet only by self-disclosure.

[65] It is of her that it was said thus: "The word of God is living

[66] and works, and is sharper beyond every two-edged sword." Through her, from her two faces³⁵, they commanded thus — that the soldiers of Christ take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, that we might be strong in the war, casting down those who fight against us, by her, just as the valiant³⁶ were instructed [...]

Hebrews 4:12 ("living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword") and Ephesians 6:17 ("the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God") — the allegory's resolution, stated at last. ⲛⲉⲧⲣⲟⲟⲩⲧ³⁹ (lemma ⲟⲩⲣⲟⲧ), "the eager/valiant ones." The manuscript fragment breaks off here.

Translator's afterword

The argument, reassembled: Ezekiel's sword is commanded, rebuked, judged, and threatened with fire and oblivion (21:31–32) — but a literal blade cannot be a moral agent, so the prophet must mean something else (sent. 8–20). Shenoute's solution: this sword grips the man rather than being gripped (12–14), obeys God alone (23), draws and sheathes herself (24), spares the sinless in the days of vengeance (46), wounds and heals like the God of Deuteronomy 32:39 (54–57), has the scriptures for a hilt (58), dwells sheathed in us (59), is self-sharpening and found only by those she reveals herself to (61–64) — because she is the living Word of God of Hebrews 4:12, the Spirit's sword of Ephesians 6:17 (65–66).

Confidence: the skeleton and all scripture identifications are secure; the flagged spots (see the numbered footnotes) are single words or compressed clauses where a specialist with Crum's lexicon and the codex facsimile would likely improve me. Total: 66 sentences, ~2,650 Coptic tokens, 5 damaged tokens.