In the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the Compassionate
Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty-Three: On Knowing the Abode of the Gnostic's Referring One Who Does Not Know Him to One beneath Him, So That He May Teach Him What It Is Not within the Gnostic’s Capacity to Teach Him, and His Declaring the Originator Transcendent beyond Ecstasy and Joy
The setting of scales for reckoning
Was brought by the speaking Book:
A book of essence, without reed pen,
Ink, or acquisition,
Without attributes or qualifications,
Without departure or return.
If he repents of what befell him,
The Accepter of Repentance meets him.
He demanded thanksgiving of him in cooking pots
And in bowls like reservoirs.
(Rational Oneness and Witnessing the Worshipped)
This is the Abode of the oneness of acts—I mean affirming the oneness of acts: there is no agent but God.
Notes
Translator’s note: In the title's compressed clause, the final unvocalized verb can mean “teach him” or “know it,” and the pronouns' antecedents remain uncertain. The main rendering retains the teaching reading; alternatively, the clause may mean “to teach him what it is not within his capacity to know.”
