על החלומות, ספר א מ׳On Dreams, Book I 40
א׳
1[231] Testimony to this is afforded also by the divine response made to Moses’ question whether He has a name, even “I am He that is” (Ex. 3:14). It was given in order that, since there are not in God things which man can comprehend, man may recognize His subsistence.
ב׳
2[232] To the souls indeed which are incorporeal and are occupied in His worship it is likely that He should reveal Himself as He is, conversing with them as friend with friends; but to souls which are still in a body, giving Himself the likeness of angels, not altering His own nature, for He is unchangeable, but conveying to those which receive the impression of His presence a semblance in a different form, such that they take the image to be not a copy, but that original form itself.
ג׳
3[233] Indeed an old saying is still current that the deity goes the round of the cities, in the likeness now of this man now of that man, taking note of wrongs and transgressions. The current story may not be a true one, but it is at all events good and profitable for us that it should be current.
ד׳
4[234] And the sacred word ever entertaining holier and more august conceptions of Him that IS, yet at the same time longing to provide instruction and teaching for the life of those who lack wisdom, likened God to man, not, however, to any particular man.
ה׳
5[235] For this reason it has ascribed to Him face, hands, feet, mouth, voice, wrath and indignation, and, over and beyond these, weapons, entrances and exits, movements up and down and all ways, and in following this general principle in its language it is concerned not with truth, but with the profit accruing to its pupils.
ו׳
6[236] For some there are altogether dull in their natures, incapable of forming any conception whatever of God as without a body, people whom it is impossible to instruct otherwise than in this way, saying that as a man does so God arrives and departs, goes down and comes up, makes use of a voice, is displeased at wrongdoings, is inexorable in His anger, and in addition to all this has provided Himself with shafts and swords and all other instruments of vengeance against the unrighteous.
ז׳
7[237] For it is something to be thankful for if they can be taught self-control by the terror held over them by these means. Broadly speaking the lines taken throughout the Law are these two only, one that which keeps truth in view and so provides the thought “God is not as man” (Num. 23:19), the other that which keeps in view the ways of thinking of the duller folk, of whom it is said “the Lord God will chasten thee, as if a man should chasten his son” (Deut. 8:5).