Serapion of Thmuis

Abba Serapion of Thmuis or Serapion of Nitria was one of the Desert Fathers quoted in the Apophthegmata Patrum (Sayings of the Desert Fathers).

Quotes

Wortley, John (2014). Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Yonkers, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 978-0-88141-497-4. 

• A brother asked Abba Serapion: “Tell me a saying.”
  The elder said: “What can I say to you? That you took the goods of widows and orphans and set them in this embrasure?”—for he saw that it was full of books.
  • Saying 2

• Abba Serapion said: “Just as the soldiers of the emperor standing before him cannot turn their attention to left or to right, so too if a person stand before God and rivet his attention on his presence, in fear of him all the time, no action of the enemy can terrorize him.”
  • Saying 3

• As soon as this earth's great elder, the blessed Antony, who prayed for the whole world, departed, everything has been torn apart and is in anguish, and the Wrath devastates Egypt. While he was truly on earth, he extended his hands and prayed and spoke with God all day long. He did not let the Wrath descend on us. Lifting up his thoughts, he kept it from coming down. But now that those hands are closed, no one else can be found who might halt the violence.
  • Ep. ad discipulos Antonii (letter to two disciples of Anthony the Great) 5, 7–8, 19–20; trans. by Harmless, William (2004). Desert Christians. Oxford University Press. p. 108. ISBN 0-19-516222-6.