He said, 'Adam, tell them their names', and He did not say 'teach them' because acquired knowledge that entails [spiritual] ascension is of the specific qualities of the all-comprehensiveness of humankind. Thus each [quality] accepts only what accords with its nature of that genus of perceptibles and not any other. Just as, for example, vision [exists in humans] because of the many visible things, so it does not increase knowledge or level and accepts only what belongs to the genus of visibles even if these be manifold. Such is the state of every inner faculty. [And when he had told them their names He said] As for the meaning of: 'Did I not tell [you that I know the Unseen in the heavens and the earth?] [that is] an affirmation by Him concerning the natures of the angels, that He, exalted be He, knows what they know not of the Unseen in the heavens and the earth, that which is the mystery of spiritual knowledge and [divine] love, deposited in man whose knowledge God has taken unto Himself.
And I know what you reveal, of what you know regarding the corrupt acts of man, and what you were hiding, in the way of your deeming your essences preferable to his on account of their purity and sanctity.