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18. These things being ignorant of, I derided those holy servants
and prophets of Thine. And what did I gain by deriding them but to
be derided by Thee, being insensibly, and little by little, led on
to those follies, as to credit that a fig-tree wept when it was
plucked, and that the mother-tree shed milky tears? Which fig
notwithstanding, plucked not by his own but another's wickedness, had
some "saint" eaten and mingled with his entrails, he should breathe
out of it angels; yea, in his prayers he shall assuredly groan and
sigh forth particles of God, which particles of the most high and true
God should have remained bound in that fig unless they had been set
free by the teeth and belly of some "elect saint"! And I,
miserable one, believed that more mercy was to be shown to the fruits
of the earth than unto men, for whom they were created; for if a
hungry man who was not a Manichaean should beg for any, that
morsel which should be given him would appear, as it were, condemned
to capital punishment.
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