על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ד ל״וOn the Special Laws, Book IV 36
א׳
1[188] These things good rulers must imitate if they have any aspiration to be assimilated to God.
ב׳
2But since a vast number of circumstances slip away from or are unnoticed by the human mind, imprisoned as it is amid all the thronging press of the senses, so competent to seduce and deceive it with false opinions, or rather entombed in a mortal body which may be quite properly called a sepulchre, let no judge be ashamed, when he is ignorant of anything, to confess his ignorance.
ג׳
3[189] Otherwise in the first place the false pretender will himself deteriorate as he has banished truth from the confines of the soul, and secondly he will do immense harm to the suitors if through failing to see what is just he pronounces a blind decision.
ד׳
4[190] So then if the facts create a sense of uncertainty and great obscurity, and he feels that his apprehension of them is but dim, he should decline to judge the cases and send them up to more discerning judges. And who should these be but the priests,
ה׳
5[191] and the head and leader of the priests? For the genuine ministers of God have taken all care to sharpen their understanding and count the slightest error to be no slight error, because the surpassing greatness of the King whom they serve is seen in every matter; and therefore all officiating priests are commanded to abstain from strong drink when they sacrifice, that no poison to derange the mind and the tongue should steal in and dim the eyes of the understanding.
ו׳
6[192] Another possible reason for sending such cases to the priests is that the true priest is necessarily a prophet, advanced to the service of the truly Existent by virtue rather than by birth, and to a prophet nothing is unknown since he has within him a spiritual sun and unclouded rays to give him a full and clear apprehension of things unseen by sense but apprehended by the understanding.