על הכרובים ה׳On the Cherubim 5
א׳
1[14] For the second sense when the word means set opposite for judgement, we have an example in the account of the woman suspected by her husband of adultery. “The priest,” so he says, “shall place the woman in front of, or ‘over against,’ the Lord and uncover her head” (Numb. 5:18). What scripture would indicate by these last words, let us investigate. An action right in itself may often be wrong in the doing, and things contrary to duty in themselves may be done in the spirit of duty. For instance the restoration of a deposit when it is done not from any honest motive but either to injure the recipient, or to lead up treacherously to the repudiation of a greater trust, is a duty in itself, yet in its actual execution wrong.
ב׳
2[15] On the other hand, if the physician who purposes to use purge or knife or hot iron to benefit his patient, conceals the truth from him, that he may not shirk the treatment through anticipation of its terror, or collapse and faint when exposed to it, we have an action contrary to duty in itself yet in its actual execution right. So too with the wise man who, fearing that the truth may strengthen the enemy’s position, gives them false information to save his country. And thus Moses says “follow justice justly” (Deut. 16:20), implying that it is possible to do so unjustly, when the judge brings no honest mind to bear upon the case.
ג׳
3[16] Now words spoken openly and deeds done openly are known to all, but the inward thought which prompts them in either case is not known. We cannot tell whether it is wholesome and pure, or diseased and stained with manifold defilement. No merely created being is capable of discerning the hidden thought and motive. Only God can do so, and therefore Moses says “things hidden are known to the Lord God, but things manifest are known to the Creature” (Deut. 29:29).
ד׳
4[17] Now we see the cause why Reason, the priest and prophet, is bidden to set the soul “over against the Lord” with her head uncovered (Numb. 5:18), that is with the dominant principles, which constitute her head, laid bare, and the motives which she has cherished stripped of their trappings, so that, being judged by the all-penetrating eye of God the incorruptible, she may either like counterfeit coinage have her lurking dissimulation revealed, or being innocent of all evil may, by appealing to the testimony of Him who alone can see the soul naked, wash away the charges brought against her.
