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    "num": 1,
    "slug": "complete",
    "title": "Selections from the Book of the Ancient",
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    "words": 1428,
    "text": "## p. 543 (leaf n548)\n\nIn the ancient, according to what we have said, the like of it will necessarily be in the modern, since it is its opposite and contrary, and knowledge of one of the two opposites is knowledge of the other, according to the opinion of the truthful divines. The matter is not in the ancient and the modern as the ignorant mutakallimun ٣ in this chapter supposed, those who inferred the absent from the present despite their mutual opposition in contention, and the part from the whole despite the appearance of corruption in <that>. We have already explained in the beginning of the Book of the Imamate the discourse concerning the present and how its state is in relation to the state ٦ of the absent, with what in it is convincing and sufficient; so let him who prefers it take it from there. However, we shall come in these books with more eloquent than that discourse and more comprehensive of the meanings [and] since we have already included in these books the collection of the sciences of our friends, upon them be peace, in them. ٩ I only say this following the course of the abridgment of them, namely the summaries and the genera; as for <what> is after that and what is beneath it, it is a state. Were it not for that, the saying “Say: if the sea were ink for the words of my Lord, the sea would be exhausted before the words of my Lord were exhausted” would not be sound. ١٢ So know that and be certain of it.\n\n\n## p. 544 (leaf n549)\n\nI say: the most specific of things to the Eternal is existence by which it dispenses with the agent. That is because if it has never ceased to be existent, then if it were by an agent it would be existent \n٣ prior to it, and what another precedes is not eternal; therefore existence is the most specific of its properties. Yet originated things are also existent and necessarily were so. That is because the influencer’s effects are only similar to it since they are like its properties \n٦ in the most excellent manner, owing to the difference of agent and recipient in excellence and deficiency. If the matter is thus, the originated existence must derive from the existence of the Eternal, yet the existence of the Eternal is in the mode of necessary [existence] dispensing with the agent and in the mode \n٩ of cause to another, not in the mode of the caused. By this mode the property belongs to the Eternal. Among the properties of the Eternal also is that all originated things are from its act and its effect, since all of them must of necessity terminate in it and return to its being a cause to them, whether \n١٢ proximate or remote. Thus the Eternal has only these two properties, and they are one; that is because existence for it is the attribute by which its effect and effects must be similar to their influencer in the most excellent manner. Therefore the originated things fall short \n١٥ of the Eternal and their attributes are many.\n\n\n## p. 545 (leaf n550)\n\nAnd since speech has brought us to this place, let us say: The Ancient which is the First Substance and the First Cause [which] has not ceased and will not cease to exist, and existence is the most specific of its attributes to it, and influence is the nearest of them to resembling its essence. For were it not for that, there would be no indication of it in things, nor would one thing be contrary to another. And know that from the First Ancient Substance there came to the Second, which is its effect and its originated act, a union resembling marriage. Then when it cast its sperm they mixed in a weak mixture because of the weakness of the originated in relation to the Ancient. And the purpose of the Ancient in this marriage was the deliverance of the deficient originated from the darknesses of the earth. Then when this mixture occurred between them, the Ancient distinguished and ennobled the originated, and Nature thereupon came into being. Therefore the natural acts were attributed to the five, and to the paucity of purity, ignorance, and lack of knowledge. Then when Nature came into being, two contraries arose from it: motion and rest; motion possesses the circumference and rest possesses the center; so each of them came to be at a distance from the other. Then when they separated and parted, the purity of the hyle and every good, beauty, splendor, light, and radiance that was in it gathered toward the circumference, and the act of the Ancient was ennobled in it and it became as though it were the Ancient, except that the Ancient Substance had no need of motion, whereas this one needs it because of our mutual rivalry. And we have only needed the acquisition of benefits and the repulsion of harms on account of desire, and desire for us arises from\n\n\n## p. 546 (leaf n551)\n\nBefore the hyle and its union with the eternal substance. So when the spheres revolved for our benefits, we, and we were not able to catch up with what had become of the hyle purified, catching up with the eternal substance, despite our need for that, the eternal substance made for us a way to it. And when ٣ desire was in us as a longing, but it was a longing for base things, the Eternal placed in the hyle in which He manifested His act a longing contrary to this longing, opposing it in ٦ kind, so that longing might connect with longing on account of homogeneity, and one of them might overcome the other by the act of motion and rest and the breadth of the surrounding upon the center; so know that. So by my master’s truth, it is the utmost of knowledge, and if I wished I would have expanded it in what has no end ٩ of discourse. But these books, O my brother, are the miracles of my master, and — by His great truth — none attains what is in them of the sciences except our brother; as for whoever else than him from among our brothers for whom we did not store up this nor compose it for them, he only attains ١٢ from them what appeared of our sciences in them and our crafts which we placed and deposited in them. As for other than these, from among the opposites and the base and the vile and the foolish whose souls are dark, the defiled, the spoken-of, God only increases them thereby in blindness and error and ignorance ١٥ and dullness; so know that, O my brother, and thank Him since He preferred you over many of those He created, and continue the study, you will attain the desire. And do not ruin anything of it until you have exhausted its study and gathered its sections and what we mentioned becomes imaginable to you; in it is a matter possessing order.\n\n\n## p. 547 (leaf n552)\n\nAnd regimen and ordering, either by the way of the Balance or by the way of the regimen. So if it is imagined for you, then perform the experiment upon it at that time, for it—and by the truth of my master—is completed and is sound from the first moment and with the first regimen, and you will find it at that time as the sages said: that it is the play of children and the work of women. So know that and act upon it. And this I only say to you in the Greatest Chapter, and other than it from all the chapters its course is excellent, even if [that] has for it from the share in that what is not for other than it, according to the nobility of its measure and the majesty of its danger. And since the discourse has ended with us at this place, let it be the end of the book, if God the Exalted wills. And by God is our success, and He is sufficient for us and the best trustee. The Book of the Ancient is completed, with praise of God and His help and the goodness of His success and His prayers upon our master Muhammad and his family, all of them.\n\n\n## p. 548 (leaf n553)\n\n<literal English translation of the body>",
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