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| Vision Fifth. Concerning the Commandments.
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Vision Fifth.
| 149 [This vision naturally belongs to
book ii., to which it is a preface.] |
After I had been praying at home, and had sat down
on my couch, there entered a man of
glorious aspect, dressed like a
shepherd, with a white goat’s skin, a wallet on his shoulders,
and a rod in his hand, and saluted me. I returned his salutation. And
straightway he sat down beside me, and said to me, “I have been
sent by a most venerable angel to dwell with you the remaining days
of your life.” And I thought that he had come to tempt me, and
I said to him, “Who are you? For I know him to whom I have been
entrusted.” He said to me, “Do you not know me?”
“No,” said I. “I,” said he, “am that
shepherd to whom you have been entrusted.” And while he yet spake,
his figure was changed; and then I knew that it was he to whom I had
been entrusted. And straightway I became confused, and fear took hold
of me, and I was overpowered with deep sorrow that I had answered him
so wickedly and foolishly. But he answered, and said to me, “Do
not be confounded, but receive strength from the commandments which I
am going to give you. For I have been sent,” said he, “to
show you again all the things which you saw before, especially those
of them which are useful to you. First of all, then, write down my
commandments and similitudes, and you will write the other things as I
shall show you. For this purpose,” said he, “I command you
to write down the commandments and similitudes first, that you may read
them easily, and be able to keep them.”150
| 150 Keep them. That you may be able to keep them more
easily by reading them from time to time.—Vat. |
Accordingly I wrote down the commandments and similitudes, exactly as
he had ordered me. If then, when you have heard these, ye keep them and
walk in them, and practice them with pure minds, you will receive from the
Lord all that He has promised to you. But if, after you have heard them,
ye do not repent, but continue to add to your sins, then shall ye receive
from the Lord the opposite things. All these words did the shepherd, even
the angel of repentance, command me to write.151
| 151 [“The Shepherd,” then, is the “angel
of repentance,” here represented as a guardian angel. This gives the
work its character, as enforcing primarily the anti-Montanist principle of
the value of true repentance in the sight of God.] |
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