The Masnavi, Book One (Oxford World's Classics)

The Jewish Vizier who Misled Christians
41

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When you don’t see His power, don’t claim you do!
Or prove it if you really have a clue!
In every act with which you’re satis
fied
You give yourself the credit with such pride,
But when your actions make you blush with shame
640
You say, ‘He forced me; God’s the one to blame!’
Prophets in this world follow God’s command
While in
fidels receive in hell what’s planned:
In heaven, prophets have free will, that’s clear,
But fools will claim it for themselves right here!
Since every bird will 
fly to its own kind,
Its soul ahead, the body dragged behind,
Hell’s dungeons are where in
fidels belong
For in this world the prison’s where they throng;
Prophets belong to heaven, that’s their goal,
645
That’s why they seek the depths of every soul ––
This talk is incomplete, but anyhow
Let’s
finish the main narrative right now.
The vizier makes the disciples give up hope of
his ending his seclusion
Then the vizier cried out from his locked cell,
‘Now listen well to what I have to tell:
Jesus has issued this command to me
To separate from friends and family,
To face the wall and sit here all alone,
Renouncing life, and that includes my own:
From now on I’ve no right to even speak
650
Let alone teach the wisdom that you seek,
I’m dead from now on, friends, so it’s goodbye,
I’m taking my belongings to the sky!
In order not to burn like wood in hell,
Enduring blame and hardship there as well,
I’ll sit with Jesus from now on up there
In heaven’s summit, like a perfect pair.’
The Jewish Vizier who Misled Christians
42

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The vizier’s appointment of each one of the
group-leaders as his successor
He summoned each group-leader on his own
To privately divulge what Christ had shown:
He said to each one, ‘Christ has chosen you
655
As my sole heir and God’s own spokesman too;
The other leaders are your deputies,
You should consider them your own trainees,
If one of them should grumble or protest
Kill him, or put him under house-arrest!
But don’t disclose this while I’m still the head,
Don’t seek my role until I’m
finally dead,
Until that time, act like you haven’t heard,
Don’t make a claim, nor breathe a single word!
Inside this scroll is Jesus’s decree ––
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Recite it then to his community!’
To each of them he said, ‘This is your role,
There’s no one else who can assume control.’
He treated each one like a special king,
And promised each of them the same old thing;
To each he gave a separate scroll he’d signed
With di
fferent rules as if God changed his mind!
Discrepancies in them were easily read,
As di
fferent as the letters A to Z,
Each contradicted what the rest declared,
665
Already news about this ploy I’ve shared.
The vizier’s suicide in seclusion
He stayed apart a further forty days
Then killed himself to 
flee his own vile ways,
When people heard the news they moaned and screamed,
For some, the end of time had come, it seemed:
Towards his grave they came in disbelief
And pulled their hair, and ripped their clothes in grief !
The Jewish Vizier who Misled Christians
43

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Who knows how many came in those 
first weeks,
Including Arabs, Turks, the Kurds, and Greeks!
They kissed his grave’s soil, thinking it was pure,
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Redemptive su
ffering they sought as their cure:
For one whole month the crowds wept tears of blood,
Creating round his grave a massive 
flood.