Chapter III.
Of those things which are spoken of God
anthropomorphically.
For
if when these things
are said of God they are to be understood literally in a material gross
signification, then also He
sleeps
, as it is said, “Arise,
wherefore sleepest thou, O Lord?”
920
though it is elsewhere said of Him: “Behold he that keepeth
Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”
921
And
He
stands
and
sits
, since He says, “Heaven is my
seat, and earth the footstool for my feet:”
922
though He “measure out the heaven
with his hand, and holdeth the earth in his fist.”
923
And He is “drunken with wine”
as it is said, “The Lord awoke like a sleeper, a mighty man,
drunken with wine;”
924
He “who only
hath immortality and dwelleth in the light which no man can approach
unto:”
925
not to say anything
of the “ignorance” and “forgetfulness,” of
which we often find mention in Holy Scripture: nor lastly of the
outline of His limbs, which are spoken of as arranged and ordered like
a man’s; e.g., the hair, head, nostrils, eyes, face, hands, arms,
fingers, belly, and feet: if we are willing to take all of which
according to the bare literal sense, we must think of God as in fashion
with the outline of limbs, and a bodily form; which indeed is shocking
even to speak of, and must be far from our thoughts.
920
Ps. xliii.
(xliv.) 23
.
921
Ps. cxx.
(cxxi.) 4
.
922
Isa. lxvi. 1
.
923
Isa. xl. 12
.
924
Ps. lxxvii.
(lxxviii.) 65
.
925
1 Tim. vi. 16
.