Lo, there you are, you love them, as required by the affirmation of Oneness, since the affirmer of Oneness loves all people through the Truth and for the [sake of] the Truth; he seems them connected to his soul in the way that [his] affines and kin [are connected to him], nay, in the way that parts are connected [to a whole]. Thus he regards them through the eyes of divine mercy and lordly tenderness and is sympathetic to them, treating them compassionately, when [the like of him] the people of mercy see them preoccupied with falsehood and tested by fate; but they do not love you by virtue of their being veiled and [their] subsisting in the darkness of the soul and the contrareity of nature. You believe in the Book, that is, in the genus of scripture, all of it, by virtue of the all-inclusiveness of your knowledge of the Oneness, while they do not believe because of their confinement to their religion and their being veiled by what they follow; and when they meet you they say, 'We believe', out of that hypocrisy of theirs that seeks to procure their evanescent goals; but when they are alone, they bite at you their fingertips, in rage, because of the rancour that stems from their essences and [because of] their concealed hatred [for you]. As for the rest [of their enmity], it is manifest.
