אליגוריות החוקים, ספר ג מ״אAllegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Book III 41
א׳
1Wherefore we were compelled to resort to signs given by means of the voice, nouns and verbs, which cannot fail to be intelligible, that the other may get a clear and unmistakable idea of our meaning. (This was reason’s first inadequacy.) In the second place, it was inadequate to report things truly.
ב׳
2[121] For what is the good of giving a clear and distinct expression, if it be in other respects false? For under these circumstances the hearer must needs be deceived and incur a very great misfortune, being not merely ignorant but ill-taught into the bargain. For what if, pointing to the letter alpha I say to the boy clearly and distinctly that it is gamma, or to eta and tell him that it is omega? Or what if the music-master tells the beginner as he points to the enharmonic genus that it is the chromatic, or says of the chromatic that it is the diatonic, or of the note on the highest string that it is the central, or of the conjunct that it is the disjunct tetrachord, or of the highest tone in the tetrachord scale that it is the lowest?
ג׳
3[122] He will speak clearly and distinctly, it may be, but not truly. But in this way he will be a doer of evil—of the evil that belongs to speech. But when he attains both of these requisites, both clearness and truthfulness, he will render the word beneficial to the pupil, bringing into play its two virtues, perhaps the only virtues indeed which it possesses.