על חיי משה, ספר ב כ״וOn the Life of Moses, Book II 26
א׳
1[131] Such are the ideas which he suggests under the figure of the sacred vesture; but, in setting a turban on the priest’s head, instead of a diadem, he expresses his judgement that he who is consecrated to God is superior when he acts as a priest to all others, not only the ordinary laymen, but even kings.
ב׳
2[132] Above the turban is the golden plate on which the graven shapes of four letters, indicating, as we are told, the name of the Self-Existent, are impressed, meaning that it is impossible for anything that is to subsist without invocation of Him; for it is His goodness and gracious power which join and compact all things.
ג׳
3[133] Thus is the high priest arrayed when he sets forth to his holy duties, in order that when he enters to offer the ancestral prayers and sacrifices there may enter with him the whole universe, as signified in the types of it which he brings upon his person, the long robe a copy of the air, the pomegranate of water, the flower trimming of earth, the scarlet of fire, the ephod of heaven, the circular emeralds on the shoulder-tops with the six engravings in each of the two hemispheres which they resemble in form, the twelve stones on the breast in four rows of threes of the zodiac, the reason-seat of that Reason which holds together and administers all things.
ד׳
4[134] For he who has been consecrated to the Father of the world must needs have that Father’s Son with all His fullness of excellence to plead his cause, that sins may be remembered no more and good gifts showered in rich abundance.
ה׳
5[135] Perhaps, too, he is preparing the servant of God to learn the lesson, that, if it be beyond him to be worthy of the world’s Maker, he should try to be throughout worthy of the world. For, as he wears a vesture which represents the world, his first duty is to carry the pattern enshrined in his heart, and so be in a sense transformed from a man into the nature of the world; and, if one may dare to say so—and in speaking of truth one may well dare to state the truth—be himself a little world, a microcosm.