על החלומות, ספר א י״דOn Dreams, Book I 14
א׳
1[77] In the course of sacred revelation “Sun” is used in several figurative senses. To begin with, it is used of the human mind, which is erected and set up as a city by those who under compulsion serve creation in preference to the uncreated One. Of them we read that “they built strong cities for Pharaoh, namely Peitho,” speech, to which persuading is dedicated, “and Raamses,” sense-perception, by which the soul is eaten through as though by moths: the name means “moth-shock”;—“and On,” the mind, which Moses called Sun-city (Ex. 1:11), since the mind, like a sun, has assumed the leadership of our entire frame and bulk, and makes its forces reach, like the sun’s rays, to every part of it.
ב׳
2[78] And everyone who has accepted the citizenship of the body, and the name of such is Joseph, chooses for his father-in-law the priest and devotee of Mind. For Moses says that Pharaoh “gave him Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis” (Gen. 41:45).
ג׳
3[79] Secondly, Moses uses “sun” figuratively for sense-perception, inasmuch as it shews all objects of sense to the understanding. It is of sense-perception that Moses has spoken on this wise: “the sun arose upon him when he passed by the appearance of God” (Gen. 32:31); for in truth, when we are no longer able to remain in company with holiest forms, which are as it were incorporeal images, but turn in a different direction and go elsewhere, we are led by another light, even that which answers to sense-perception, a light, as compared with sound reason, differing no whit from darkness.
ד׳
4[80] When this sun has risen it wakes up sight and hearing, yea taste and smell and touch, from their seeming sleep, but sound sense and justice and knowledge and wisdom, which it finds awake, it plunges in sleep.
ה׳
5[81] This is why the sacred word says that no one can be clean until the even (Lev. 11 passim), the understanding being till then at the mercy of the movements of sense-perception.
ו׳
6For the priests too he lays down an inexorable law, in the form of a prediction, in the words: “He will not eat of the holy things unless he have washed his body with water, and the sun be set, and he have become clean” (Lev. 22:6 f.).
ז׳
7[82] For he makes it perfectly evident by this declaration that no one is absolutely free from pollution, so as to celebrate the holy and reverend mysteries, by whom the splendours of this mortal life, objects as they are of sense-perception, are still held in honour. But if a man disdains them, the consequence is that he is shone upon by the light of sound sense, and by means of it he will be able completely to purge and wash out of himself the defilements of vain opinions.
ח׳
8[83] Or look at the sun itself. Do you not see that the effect of its rising is the reverse of that of its setting? When it has risen, all things on earth are lit up, while those in the heavens are obscured: on the contrary, when it has set the stars appear, and earthly objects are hidden.
ט׳
9[84] It is precisely the same with us. When the light of our senses has risen like a sun, the various forms of knowledge, so truly heavenly and celestial, disappear from sight: when it reaches its setting, radiances most divine and most star-like sent forth from virtues come into view: and it is then that the mind also becomes pure because it is darkened by no object of sense.