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Pahlavi Texts, Part II (SBE18), E.W. West, tr. [1882], at sacred-texts.com
1. When at any time I write more pleasantly, this directs you to understand that still with the steadfast, are my affection and natural lowly-mindedness; afterwards, too, that which happens when you have kept me wide away from the way of brotherhood, and higher even than a father, master, leader, ruler, or high-priest, is due to the fame and happiness of
my body and life, not to affection of character, but the position of religion and the command of the sacred beings. 2. On that account, when you have seen the pure religiousness, the learned knowledge, and the repose-promoting truth of the invisible (avênâpîh) of which my 1 heart is leaping with evidence, so that you are steadfast even unto the nôid asta-ka ('not though the body') of which Zaratûst the Spîtamân spoke 2--and, because, turned by me to the religion which is thy passport (parvânakŏ) to the best existence, you have understood that it is the organizer of the greatest protection, even that is supposed by me--I undergo all the terror of the period in hope of the supreme recompense.
3. And the position that that religion has given, which on that account is mine, you have that way considered as supremacy 3; and if, sent from you or another person, the opposition of one of the same religion is seen to be the dispersion and disruption of the appointed profession, I act against the continuance of the opposition, and as steadfastly as the series (zarah) of submissiveness and gratification of your priestly lordship has done to me. 4. And this will be undoubtedly realised by you, that if you do not turn away from this decree which is not preservative, but, being appointed, I reach out from
the country of Irân 1, then I shall become its greatest attacker of you. 5. And so I consider that from my opposition it is possible for more harm to happen unto you than from many accusers who are like the leader of those of the good religion, the many who are as it were of like fame with me.
6. And also from my departure, and the non-existence of one that is a friend of yours, who, like me, is less able to be for your harm than he who is one of the many accusers of whom it is I who am the restrainer, you know this, that my coming is on account of the affection of some and the reverence of others. 7. From the exercise of religion I do not at all fall away, and for the sake of the position of the religion I am maintaining opposition 2 to any one; even when he is a friend who is loved by me, I am then his antagonist 8. Fate (zîkŏ) 3 is the great truth of the vacant, the form (andâm) 4 which has procured the light of life.
349:1 The MS. J ends at this point, but the continuation of the text, as far as the word 'important' in Chap. IX, 7, is interpolated in Dd. XXXVII, 33 in the same MS.
349:2 In Vend. XIX, 26, 'not though the body, not though the life, not though the consciousness should part asunder,' would he curse the good, Mazda-worshipping religion.
349:3 He now proceeds from persuasion to an assertion of his authority, accompanied by threats.
350:1 Referring to his intended visit to Sîrkân (see Chaps. V, 5, VII, 3, Ep. I, xi, 4),
350:2 J has 'I am an opposition.'
350:3 Or 'living.'
350:4 Or 'the time (hangâm).'