The Lord Thundered

Translated from the Sahidic Coptic (White Monastery codex GG 19–28; Amélineau, Oeuvres de Schenoudi 2:134–143) by Claude, 2026-07-12. No published English translation known. A polemic against pagans and heretics: the friends of God versus the friends of Satan, the toppled idols, the light that shines in the darkness — and then a devastating turn onto Shenoute's own congregation, who have heard every word of Scripture and obeyed none of it. uncertain renderings are flagged in the numbered footnotes; [...] gaps.

...[de]monic [spirits¹] dwell in them. They have filled books for themselves with words of abomination, so that the Lord will wipe them out, along with what is left of them — as it is written: the remnant of the impious shall perish.

Through the righteousness of all the righteous, they were called the friends of God — as Abraham is the friend of God, and as the apostles, whom the Lord called my friends. But through the lawlessness of the heretics, Satan has kept them for himself as friends — they and their philosophers besides, who let their hair grow long like women.

The Lord Jesus, for his part, wills — according to what is written — that those who believe in him and love him and keep his words should be with him in his kingdom, that they may see him in his glory and rest with them² forever. But Satan, for his part, is zealous, according to what pleases him, that he may see all the heretics with him in the furnace of fire which has been made ready for him and his angels, as it is written — so that the heretics may see the one who boasts over them, You are mine!, while his disgrace is their glory, down in hell forever.

By faith, according to what is written, Abraham did not spare his beloved son on account of his desire toward God, but offered him up while God was testing him. The nations, on the other hand, poured out the blood of their sons and their daughters to the demons, as it is written in the Psalms.

Unbelieving and impious kings came forth from your seed from the beginning — such as Gog and Magog and those like them, and Herod the king, whom the Lord reckoned as a jackal³; and you yourselves have fallen likewise. Faithful kings, righteous kings came forth from the seed of the Christians from the beginning until now — such as David and Solomon and Hezekiah, and all the ancient kings; and it was righteous kings and governors who overturned your temples and cast down your idols. They are from among the Christians.

The setting-up of your gods, from the beginning, became a ruin to your souls; and the casting down of your idols in these present times has made you wretched — because those whom you set up for yourselves as gods have been shattered, or broken to pieces, when the Christians dragged them on their faces along the ground, laughing and mocking at your folly, raising their voices, bringing up songs like those who sing to a harp, while their heart rejoiced within them over the destruction of the things that were worshiped. Saying it in this way [...] rebuking you [...] [...] Adam⁴ [...] shattered [...] joining hands⁵, they became like wild beasts and cattle: carry them off, bound like a load of dung! And again: the idols of the nations are silver and gold, works of the hands of men; those who make them shall become like them, and everyone who trusts in them. And again: all the gods of the nations are idols of demons.

But these things, and many others besides, they say while singing psalms to the blessed God, rejoicing over the consolation of their mother, the holy Church — seeing her filled with multitudes of the people of those who believe in God and in his Christ Jesus, prostrating themselves, worshiping the Lord according to what is written: Come, let us worship and bow down to him, let us weep before the Lord who made us; for he is our God, and we are his people. And they laugh, for their part, over your temples that have become deserts, and all your other places where you offered up sacrifice to that which is empty.

The sojourn of our God Jesus Christ became a ruin to your temples; it became a strength to the catholic Church. To you it became a scattering; to his holy people it became [...] a gathering in. Likewise also the cross of the God of the Christians, Jesus: it became for them life everlasting, and it became a destruction to the things you serve.

The Christians are sons of the king, Christ the Lord Jesus, who are in the light of life, as it is written. But the heretics, and all the impious nations, are in the [dark]ness — like a man who has [gone] into a place [of] darkness, and darkness⁶ has been spread over him, so that those who look for him cannot see him. This is the way of the leaders of the nations, who have been faithless from the beginning: they have been shut up in the place of darkness, which is Satan; and they have been lost in his corners and his streets and his storerooms; and the gloom of every lawlessness has been spread out over them, when he appeared among them and filled them with darkness — like houses built beneath the earth, with not a small vent⁷ of light in them, because God has abandoned them.

The true light, Jesus — this is he who gives light to his Christian sons, who possess the light, who believe in the light and walk in the light at all times; the darkness has not overtaken them, as it is written. And as a man who has fled out of a desert place of darkness into a place of light, with a great multitude of a city surrounding him — this is the way, and more, of our ancient fathers: Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and those who came before them, and those who came after them, who all fled from the error that is in the world into the knowledge of the truth. They came to be under the shadow of the Lord, the God of heaven. And according to what is written, as the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it — this is the way of their whole seed from the beginning until now: they give light in good works, and the darkness of the whole race of the heretics has not been able to prevail against them.

As for you — what does the written word say to you, O heretics? You have loathed the reproof of sinners⁸; and: your tongue and your heart are empty; you have fallen away from your counsels, according to the multitude of your impieties. The Lord has wiped you out, because you have done him injury; your memorial has perished with a manifestation⁹; you have been rolled up in the destruction you wrought; you have become dumb¹⁰. And you sons of strangers, of demons — you have gone lame out of your ways. The Lord will overturn you and not build you again, for the words of your mouths are lawlessness and guile. You did not desire to know the good, to do it, but you devised lawlessness upon your bed; you stood yourselves in every evil way, and wickedness you did not hate. Your heart gathered lawlessness together for you; you have fallen away from before the face of God and his Christ Jesus. Coals have fallen upon you from him; he has cast you up into a fire, because you are a senseless people who did injury to his name. Your arrogance has gone up to him continually; you have lifted your head to the heavens, you have spoken against God in violence. Because of this, he has ranked you as an enemy, and has given you over to eternal mockery. A wind, which is the fury of the Lord, has blown upon you, and you are withered; and that wind, which is his wrath, shall lift you away like chaff — for it is yet a little while, and you shall not exist at all.

For you are ignorant that you have received great shame; you have been diminished little by little, together with your whole seed. Whence have you perished like a shattered tree, O sinners — that I should rejoice over what is empty? Or how have you been diminished, O enemies of the Lord? Is it not clear that the Spirit of the Lord which is in the prophets is against you? — that behold, your enemies shall perish, and all who work lawlessness shall be scattered abroad; and again, that sinners shall be diminished from the earth; and, the transgressors shall be wiped out. The good shall dwell upon the earth, and the holy ones shall be left remaining upon it.

How long will the transgressor be manifest? For it is a hateful thing¹¹, the good, if we do not repent after we have heard all these words which bear witness to us, together with those of the Scriptures.

Among the lilies of those that grow up in the field, and other things of the least sort, the thorn¹² is changed — it is reckoned in various forms¹³, changing and changing again through those who work upon it. But the impious man abides in his wickedness, as it is written: he was not changed by all the words of God toward love, and truth, and every good thing.

God, for his part, spoke many times and in many ways, with his Holy Spirit, counseling them concerning all his wishes. Yet it was one single time that he commanded Noah to make the ark — and he completed his work, and he was saved from the wrath that came upon the earth, he and his whole house, together with the birds and the beasts and cattle in great number. But we who do evil, we have not listened, after all these words from God, that we should do a righteousness in which we might be saved.

And it was one single time that God spoke to Abraham, to offer up his beloved son — and he did it quickly, according to the will of the Lord, because he loved him more than his son. But we have not listened to him, down to this present hour, in all his words, that we might present our bodies to him as a sacrifice in all purity and all truth.

Nor did the angel make many words with Lot, that he should flee for himself out of those cities which the Lord burned up with a fire from heaven, from God — but he did what was commanded him, in haste. But we have not listened to God in all his words, that we should flee from every evil into every work that is good and true.

And it was again one single word that God spoke to his disciples: Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men — and they left their nets at once, and their boats, and their father, and the hired men, and followed him. And this is the way in which they received these great honors and this great glory from him, through works of wonder. But we have not listened to him in all his words, that we should leave behind our lusts and all our sins, and be made worthy of his mercy and his blessing.

Who is it that I shall call to witness for me, and he will listen — that the saints and the righteous, from our ancient fathers and the prophets down to our fathers the apostles, were not disobedient to God, to do all his wishes? Nay, they even urged others on, teaching them his ways, as it is written: I will teach the lawless your ways, and the impious shall turn back to you.

But we have no perception at all of doing his will out of our own compulsion¹⁴, as sons who are to inherit the kingdom of their Father who is in the heavens; nor again have we listened to his words and his teachings out of the Scriptures — the very ones that compel us to submit ourselves.