על החלומות, ספר א מ״אOn Dreams, Book I 41
א׳
1[238] Why, then, do we wonder any longer at His assuming the likeness of angels, seeing that for the succour of those that are in need He assumes that of men? Accordingly, when He says “I am the God who was seen of thee in the place of God” (Gen. 31:13), understand that He occupied the place of an angel only so far as appeared, without changing, with a view to the profit of him who was not yet capable of seeing the true God.
ב׳
2[239] For just as those who are unable to see the sun itself see the gleam of the parhelion and take it for the sun, and take the halo round the moon for that luminary itself, so some regard the image of God, His angel the Word, as His very self.
ג׳
3[240] Do you not see how Hagar, who is the education of the schools, says to the angel “Thou art the God that didst look upon me”? (Gen. 16:13); for being Egyptian by descent she was not qualified to see the supreme Cause. But in the passage upon which we are occupied, the mind is beginning, as the result of improvement, to form a mental image of the sovereign Ruler of all such Potencies.
ד׳
4[241] Hence it is that He Himself says “I am the God,” whose image thou didst aforetime behold deeming it to be I Myself, and didst dedicate a pillar engraved with a most holy inscription (Gen. 31:13); and the purport of the inscription was that I alone am standing (Ex. 17:6) and that it was I alone that established the being of all things, bringing confusion and disorder into order and array, and sustained the universe to rest firm and sure upon the mighty Word, who is My viceroy.