על החלומות, ספר ב י׳On Dreams, Book II 10
א׳
1[68] So then, O soul, that art loyal to thy teacher, thou must cut off thy hand, thy faculty, when it begins to lay hold of the genitals, whether they be the created world or the cares and aims of humanity.
ב׳
2[69] For he often bids us cut away the hand that has taken hold of the “pair” (Deut. 25:11, 12), first because it has thereby given a welcome to the pleasure which it should hate, secondly because it has judged that to beget rests with ourselves, and thirdly because it has ascribed to the created the power of its maker.
ג׳
3[70] Observe that Adam, that mass of earth, is doomed to die when he touches the twofold tree (Gen. 2:9), thus honouring the two before the one, and revering the created rather than the maker. Not so be it with thee. Pass clear away “from the smoke and wave,” and flee fast from the silly cares and aims of mortal life as from that dread Charybdis and touch it not, as the saying goes, with the tip of thy toe.
ד׳
4[71] But when thou hast stripped thyself to serve the holy rites, then widen hand and power and take a right good grip of the lessons of instruction and wisdom, for there is an ordinance running thus: “If a soul bring a gift or sacrifice, the gift shall be fine flour,” and then it continues, “and taking a full handful from the fine flour, with the oil and all the frankincense, he shall lay the memorial on the altar” (Lev. 2:1, 2).
ה׳
5[72] This is an excellent saying, that the server of the sacrifice should be an unbodied soul, not the twofold gross mass compounded of mortal and immortal. For that which prays, which gives thanks and offers sacrifice truly without blemish, must be as he says a “one” only, the soul.
ו׳
6[73] What then is the offering of an unbodied soul? What but the fine flour, the symbol of a will, purified by the councils of instruction, fit to produce nourishment that gives no sickness and life that knows no guilt.
ז׳
7[74] From such a sacrifice is the priest bidden to take his handful, take it with his whole hand, that is with all the grips of the mind, to offer the best of sacrifices, even the whole soul, brimful of truths of all sincerity and purity—a soul, too, rich with fatness, gladdened by light divine and perfumed with the breaths exhaled from justice and the other virtues, thus fitted to enjoy for ever a life of all fragrance and sweetness. For this is signified by the oil and the frankincense with which the priest fills his hand as well as with the wheaten flour.