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58 LSI IC)cYAIIB III OF AdIABENR

were the secret helpers of the Qatari bishops,153 through the
combat of prayer, for accomplishing their ecclesiastical ministry
with the honour of sccmliness13’ — these, Abraham, leader of
Masmahig,135 violently disturbed by tyrannical rule. Like a man
drunk on impiety, he picked up the holy altar from the sacred place
and desecrated it. But because this potent evil was of small value, I
mean in his eyes, he continued to do wrong as much as was in his
power.136 l ie excommunicated and threatened dreadfully all who
may have received or helped or given a gift to the monks of our
Lord. He cut off as if from himself the hope of Christianity in your
region such that the small remainder of God’s monks whom he
found in your region he shamelessly expelled from your region
with unmeasured impudence. And all of you remain quiet.
And here is the wonder. That even if this is love of the monks
in your region: that when they are both driven out and harmed and
even forced to be displaced from your region you arc devoid of
grief and feeling and speech and zeal, on account of this nothing
prevents you from falling into all evils according to the will of the
evil leader, who rules in the town of Masmahig137 under the name
of the episcopacy. Noris there need for Satan to come to you with
the name Antichrist. There has already been done by you whatever
Satan wants to be done. If anything is left which has not been
done, it is our expectation in Jesus that it will be done just as easily
as those things were done. For in as much as that evil servant of
satanic works is prospering in this way in your region as he is now,
and you not only arc not moved by the zeal of God but arc
perhaps also partakers in the evil, then this evil which is to come
upon the world has already come upon the world, that is, upon you
before the whole world.
Because of this according to my duty, behold, I address you:
take care of your souls and your faith, O Christian people. Open
the eyes of your discernment. See the great evil that exists in your

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131 Ils,