CHAPTER 36

Know that the true reality and quiddity of prophecy consist in its being an overflow overflowing from God, may He be cherished and honored, through the intermediation of the Active Intellect, toward the rational faculty in the first place and thereafter toward the imaginative faculty. This is the highest degree of man and the ultimate term of perfection that [78a] can exist for his species; and this state is the ultimate term of perfection for the imaginative faculty. This is something that cannot by any means exist in every man. And it is not something that may be attained solely through perfection in the speculative sciences and through improvement of moral habits, even if all of them have become as fine and good as can be. There still is needed in addition the highest possible degree of perfection of the imaginative faculty in respect of its original natural disposition. Now you know that the perfection of the bodily faculties, to which the imaginative faculty belongs, is consequent upon the best possible temperament, the best possible size, and the purest possible matter, of the part of the body that is the substratum for the faculty in question. It is not a thing whose lack could be made good or whose deficiency could be remedied in any way by means of a regimen. For with regard to a part of the body whose temperament was bad in the original natural disposition, the utmost that the corrective regimen can achieve is to keep it in some sort of health; it cannot restore it to its best possible condition. If, however, its defect derives from its size, position, or substance, I mean the substance of the matter from which it is generated, there is no device that can help. You know all this; it is therefore useless to explain it at length.

You know, too, the actions of the imaginative faculty that are in its nature, such as retaining things perceived by the senses, combining these things, and imitating them. And you know that its greatest and noblest action takes place only when the senses rest and do not perform their actions. It is then that a certain overflow overflows to this faculty according to its disposition, and it is the cause of the veridical dreams. This same overflow is the cause of the prophecy. There is only a difference in degree, not in kind. You know that [the Sages] have said time and again: A dream is the sixtieth part of prophecy.1 [78b] No proportion, however, can be established between two things differing in their species. One is not allowed to say, for instance, that the perfection of a man is a certain number of times greater than the perfection of a horse. They reiterated this point in Bereshith Rabbah, saying: Dream is the unripe fruit [nobeleth] of prophecy.² This is an extraordinary comparison. For unripe fruit [nobeleth] is the individual fruit itself, but one that has fallen before it was perfect and before it had matured. Similarly the action of the imaginative faculty in the state of sleep is also its action in the state of prophecy; there is, however, a deficiency in it and it does not reach its ultimate term. Why should we teach you by means of the dicta of [the Sages], may their memory be blessed, and leave aside the texts of the Torah? If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord do make Myself known unto him in a vision, I do speak with him in a dream.³ Thus He, may He be exalted, has informed us of the true reality and quiddity of prophecy and has let us know that it is a perfection that comes in a dream or in a vision [marʾeh]. The word marʾeh [vision] derives from the verb raʾoh [to see]. This signifies that the imaginative faculty achieves so great a perfection of action that it sees the thing as if it were outside, and that the thing whose origin is due to it appears to have come to it by the way of external sensation. In these two groups, I mean vision and dream, all the degrees of prophecy are included, as shall be explained. It is known that a matter that occupies a man greatly — he being bent upon it and desirous of it — while he is awake and while his senses function, is the one with regard to which the imaginative faculty acts while he is asleep when receiving an overflow of the intellect corresponding to its disposition.⁴ It would be superfluous to quote examples of this and to expatiate on it as this is a manifest matter that everyone knows. It is similar to the apprehension of the senses with regard to which no one whose natural disposition is healthy disagrees.

After these preliminary propositions, you should know5 that the case to be taken into consideration is that of a human individual the substance of whose brain at the origin of his natural disposition is extremely well proportioned because of the purity of its matter and of the particular temperament of each of its [that is, the brain’s] parts and because of its size and position, and is not affected by hindrances due to temperament, which derive from another part of the body. Thereupon that individual would obtain knowledge and wisdom⁶ until he passes from potentiality to actuality and acquires a perfect and accomplished human intellect and pure and well-tempered⁷ human moral habits. Then all his desires will be directed to acquiring the science of the secrets of what exists and knowledge of its causes. His thought will always go toward noble matters, and he will be interested only in the knowledge of the deity and in reflection on His works and on what ought to be believed with regard to that. By then, he will have detached his thought from, and abolished his desire for, bestial things — I mean the preference for the pleasures of eating, drinking, sexual intercourse, and, in general, of the sense of touch, with regard to which Aristotle gave a clear explanation in the “Ethics,” saying that this sense is a disgrace to us.⁸ How fine is what he said, and how true it is that it is a disgrace! For we have it in so far as we are animals like the other beasts, and nothing that belongs to the notion of humanity pertains to it. As for the other sensual pleasures — those, for instance, that derive from the sense of smell, from hearing, and from seeing — there may be found in them sometimes, though they are corporeal, pleasure for man as man, as Aristotle has explained. We have been led to speak of things that are not to the purpose, but there was need for it. For most of the thoughts of those who are outstanding among the men of knowledge are preoccupied with the pleasures of this sense,⁹ are desirous of them. And then they wonder how it is that they do not become prophets, if prophecy is something natural. It is [79b] likewise necessary that the thought of that individual should be detached from the spurious kinds of rulership and that his desire for them should be abolished — I mean the wish to dominate or to be held great by the common people and to obtain from them honor and obedience for its own sake. He should rather regard all people according to their various states with respect to which they are indubitably either like domestic animals or like beasts of prey. If the perfect man who lives in solitude thinks of them at all, he does so only with a view to saving himself from the harm that may be caused by those among them who are harmful if he happens to associate with them, or to obtaining an advantage that may be obtained from them if he is forced to it by some of his needs. Now10 there is no doubt that whenever — in an individual of this description — his imaginative faculty, which is as perfect as possible, acts and receives from the intellect an overflow corresponding to his¹¹ speculative perfection, this individual will only apprehend divine and most extraordinary matters, will see only God and His angels, and will only be aware and achieve knowledge of matters that constitute true opinions and general directives for the well-being of men in their relations with one another. It is known that with regard to these three aims set forth by us — namely, the perfection of the rational faculty through study, the perfection of the imaginative faculty through natural disposition, and the perfection of moral habit through the turning-away of thought from all bodily pleasures and the putting an end to the desire for the various kinds of ignorant and evil glorification — there are among those who are perfect very many differences in rank; and on the differences in rank with regard to these aims there depend the differences in rank that subsist between the degrees of all the prophets.

You know that every bodily faculty [80a] sometimes grows tired, is weakened, and is troubled, and at other times is in a healthy state. Now the imaginative faculty is indubitably a bodily faculty. Accordingly you will find that the prophecy of the prophets ceases when they are sad or angry, or in a mood similar to one of these two. You know their saying that prophecy does not descend [during a mood of] sadness or of languor;¹² that prophetic revelation did not come to Jacob our Father during the time of his mourning because of the fact that his imaginative faculty was preoccupied with the loss of Joseph;¹³ and that prophetic revelation did not come to Moses, peace be on him, after the disastrous incident of the spies and until the whole generation of the desert perished, in the way that revelation used to come before,14 because — seeing the enormity of their crime — he suffered greatly because of this matter. This was so even though the imaginative faculty did not enter into his prophecy, peace be on him, as the intellect overflowed toward him without its intermediation. For, as we have mentioned several times, he did not prophesy like the other prophets by means of parables. This will be made clear later on, for it is not the purpose of this chapter. Similarly you will find that several prophets prophesied during a certain time and that afterwards prophecy was taken from them and could not be permanent because of an accident that had supervened. This is indubitably the essential and proximate cause of the fact that prophecy was taken away during the time of the Exile. For what languor or sadness can befall a man in any state that would be stronger than that due to his being a thrall slave in bondage to the ignorant¹⁵ who commit great sins and in whom the privation of true reason is united to the perfection of the lusts of the beasts? And there shall be no might in thine hand.¹⁶ This was with what we have been threatened. And this was what it meant by saying: They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.¹⁷ And it also says: Her king and her princes are among the nations, the Law is no more; yea, her prophets find no vision from the Lord.¹⁸ This is true, and the cause thereof is clear. For the instrument has ceased to function. This also will be the cause for prophecy being restored [80b] to us in its habitual form, as has been promised in the days of the Messiah, may he be revealed soon.