Forbidden to you is carrion: these are the exceptions from among the kinds of lawful enjoyments and they are carrion, that is, extinguished desire which is the vice of excess that is incompatible with contentment, such as effeminacy or the inability to pursue the [minimal] necessary of enjoyments or to partake of enjoyment with a loss of moderation in the appetitive faculty as is the case with effeminates and certain flirts, as well as those ascetics and renouncers in character, who fall short of [the requirements of] wayfaring by their lack of preparedness; and blood, that is, enjoying the caprices of the soul in deeds, for the admixing of caprice and its tarnishing effect spoils all deeds; and the flesh of swine, and all aspects of enjoyment that are actualised through covetousness and avarice, for the faculty of covetousness is the vilest of faculties and the most obstructive of the paths to perfection and salvation; and what has been hallowed to other than God, that is acts of spiritual discpline and deeds performed for show and all that is done for other than God, as the breaking of the soul, curbing it and opposing it does not count as a beautiful and meritorious act and an aid to wayfaring unless it is [done] for the sake of God. If it is done for other than God, it is an act of [idolatrous] association and association is the greatest of grave sins; and the beast strangled, that is, restricting the soul from vices and preventing it from despicable acts by the actualisation of forms of virtues and the issuing forth of good acts in forms [contaminated] with caprice, for acts of the soul are virtuous when it is curbed and vanquished for the sake of God, and when [its] caprice, its source of vigour and life, leaves it so that it subsists by the will of the heart, similar to when blood, which is the life force of an animal, is let out upon its being slaughtered for the sake of God; and the beast beaten down, that is, when qualities of excellence issue forth outwardly from the soul while it is averse to that and must be coerced to it; and the beast fallen, those [enjoyments] which are connected to excess, diminution and inclination to the lower aspect and the soul's lapsing from [its] sublime aspirations and the powerful degree; and the beast gored, that which issues forth out of fear and of being compelled out of the like, such as the probity that comes about by means of the reprimands of the market inspector and out of the fear of being disgraced; and what beasts of prey have devoured, such as the virtues of probity that come about as a result of the intensity of the irascible faculty in the way of pride and passion and the mastery of wrath.
