The Stacks project

Remark 19.9.3. The Freyd-Mitchell embedding theorem says there exists a fully faithful exact functor from any abelian category $\mathcal{A}$ to the category of modules over a ring. Lemma 19.9.2 is not quite as strong. But the result is suitable for the Stacks project as we have to understand sheaves of abelian groups on sites in detail anyway. Moreover, “diagram chasing” works in the category of abelian sheaves on $\mathcal{C}$, for example by working with sections over objects, or by working on the level of stalks using that $\mathcal{C}$ has enough points. To see how to deduce the Freyd-Mitchell embedding theorem from Lemma 19.9.2 see Remark 19.9.5.