service files ser hept.md

INTRODUCTION

let us attend to ourselves, imitating the Fathers.

This sermon is the second of the two short pieces which follow the two *On the Fathers who have finished their course*, the first of which I have already translated for this page. Indeed it is not evident that this was originally a separate piece, since the first line in the Greek simply speaks of ‘his weakness’, that is the devil’s. As with the genuine Syriac hymns of St Ephrem, the division into text into separate hymns often varies from manuscript to manuscript and edition to edition.

blinds his eyes. So, as I said before,

The arrangement of the text is similar to that of the hymn *On the Fathers who have finished their course* translated earlier. In the new Greek edition the text is in volume 2, pages 32-33.

Knowing, then, brethren, weakness,

If we walk in the way that they walked in,

we shall find in it that the Lord Jesus

has become for us guide and fellow-worker.

When then Enemy sees that Christ, the true Light,

is with us, he will not dare

to look at us at all, for the light that is in us

brethren, lovers of Christ, let us be determined

to purify our hearts, so as to draw upon us

the grace of the Spirit for our assistance;

and no longer does the evil one have power against us.

But we idiots give him power

by distancing ourselves from God

by setting aside his holy commandments.

Finding us stripped naked of grace, the Enemy

guides us himself into his own way.

Therefore I implore you, and beg you always:

Let us flee the evil one; let us keep away from him;

let us untie the bonds with which he has bound us

by our own choice. Let us take refuge in Christ,

bearing the good and light yoke

of his compassion, so that, walking

in the good way of Christ’s commandments,

we may reach the city which God has prepared

for those who love him. To him belong honour

and majesty, to the Father and to the Son

and to the Holy Spirit, now and for ever,

and to the ages of ages. Amen.