of the friends of God—the inward gifts into which no ruse or gradual enticement enters. Rather, they are evidence of fidelity to covenants, soundness of intention, and satisfaction with the decree when what is sought is absent and what is disliked is present. None shares these charismatic gifts with you except the angels brought near and God’s chosen, excellent folk.
As for the charismatic gifts we said the common people know, hidden ruse can enter them all.
(Uprightness and Distinguishing Gradual Enticement)
Moreover, if we suppose something to be a charismatic gift, it must result from uprightness or produce uprightness. This is indispensable; otherwise it is not a charismatic gift. If the charismatic gift results from uprightness, God may make it your share of your work and the recompense of your deed. When you come before Him, He may bring you to account for it.
None of what we have mentioned enters the inward charismatic gifts we described, for knowledge accompanies them. The strength and nobility of knowledge show you that ruse does not enter them. The bounds of revealed law are not set up as a snare for divine ruse, for they are the very clear path to attaining felicity.
Knowledge protects you from admiration of your own work. It belongs to the nobility of knowledge that it puts you to work; when it puts you to work, it strips you of [attribution to] it and attributes that to God. It informs you that through His granting success and His guidance, whatever has appeared from you in obedience to Him and preservation of His bounds has appeared.
If there appears upon him
Notes
Translator’s note TN4809-1: In ‘strips you of it,’ the pronoun is read with the ensuing attribution to God: knowledge removes the servant’s attribution of the work to himself.
