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5
2590-2614

  • Maybe that weak-natured one will break his (vow of) repentance, and the bad luck of his breaking it will overtake him.” 2590
  • Explaining that the violation of a covenant and (vow of) repentance is the cause of affliction; nay, it is the cause of metamorphosis, as in the case of the “Fellows of the Sabbath” and in the case of the “Fellows (who disbelieved in the miracle) of the Table of Jesus,” for (God hath said), “And He turned them into apes and swine.” And in this community there is (only) metamorphosis of the spirit, but at the Resurrection the form of the spirit will be given to the body.
  • To violate a pact and break vows of repentance becomes the cause of accursedness in the end.
  • The violation of vows of repentance by the “Fellows of the Sabbath” became the cause of their metamorphosis and destruction and abomination.
  • Therefore God turned those people into apes, since they rebelliously broke their covenant with God.
  • In this community there has never been metamorphosis of the body, but there is metamorphosis of the spirit, O man endowed with perception.
  • When his spirit becomes the ape-spirit, his clay (body) is debased by the ape-spirit. 2595
  • How should the ass be debased by his (bodily) form, if his spirit had possessed the virtue (that is derived) from (rational) experience?
  • The dog of the Companions (of the Cave) had a goodly character: was he any the worse on account of his (bodily) form?
  • The “Fellows of the Sabbath” suffered outward metamorphosis, in order that the people might behold outwardly their ignominious fall.
  • Through breaking (vows of) repentance a hundred thousand others have become hogs and asses inwardly.
  • How the fox approached the runaway ass a second time in order to beguile him once more.
  • Then the fox came quickly towards the ass: the ass said, “One must beware of a friend like you. 2600
  • Ignoble creature, what did I do to you that you brought me into the presence of a dragon?
  • What but the malignity of your nature was the cause of your enmity to my life, O perverse one?”—
  • Like the scorpion, which bites a man's foot though no inconvenience has come to it from him,
  • Or like the Devil who is the enemy of our souls, though no inconvenience or injury has befallen him from us;
  • Nay, but he is naturally the adversary of the human soul and rejoices at the destruction of Man; 2605
  • He never breaks off his pursuit of any human being: how should he abandon his wicked disposition and nature?
  • For, without any cause, his essential malignity pulls him on to (commit) injustice and tyranny.
  • He continually invites thee to a spacious tent in order that he may cast thee into a pit,
  • Saying, “In such and such a place there is a tank of water and (many) fountains,” that he may cast thee headlong into the tank.
  • That accursed one caused an Adam, notwithstanding all his inspiration and insight, to fall into woe and bane, 2610
  • Without any sin (having been committed against him) and without any previous harm having been wrongfully done to him by Adam.
  • The fox replied, “It was a spell of magic that appeared in your eyes as a lion;
  • Else I am more puny in body than you, and I always feed there by night and day.
  • If he (the magician) had not wrought a spell of that kind, every famishing (animal) would have run thither.