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Part Two · Chapter Thirty-Seven — The Grades of Prophetic Overflow
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You must pay attention to the nature of existence in this divine overflow that reaches us, by which we think and through which our intellects differ. Sometimes a portion of it reaches a particular person and the measure of what reaches him is just enough to perfect him and no more; and sometimes the portion that reaches the person is large enough to overflow beyond his own perfection to the perfecting of others — as is the case with all existing things, some of which have attained such perfection that they can govern others, while others have attained perfection only to the degree that they are governed by others, as we have explained.
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After this, know: if this intellectual overflow flows only upon the rational faculty and nothing of it flows upon the imaginative faculty — either because the overflow is small in amount or because the imaginative faculty is deficient constitutionally so that it cannot receive the overflow of the intellect — this is the class of scholars and philosophers. But when the overflow is upon both faculties together — the rational and the imaginative — as we and other philosophers have explained, and the imaginative faculty is at the peak of its constitutional perfection, this is the class of prophets. If, however, the overflow is upon the imaginative faculty only, and the rational faculty is deficient — either constitutionally or from lack of training — then this class includes the rulers of cities, lawmakers, diviners, soothsayers, those who have true dreams, and likewise those who perform wonders through unusual techniques and hidden arts even though they are not scholars. They all belong to this third class.
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Something you must verify: some members of this third class experience remarkable imaginations, dreams, and terrors while awake resembling a prophetic vision, to the point that they believe themselves to be prophets. They are greatly astounded at what they perceive of those imaginations, and they think they have attained knowledge without instruction. They produce great confusions in important theoretical matters, and real things become mixed for them with imaginary things in a strange confusion — all of this due to the strength of the imaginative faculty and the weakness of the rational faculty and its having produced nothing at all, meaning that it has not passed from potentiality to actuality.
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It is well known that there are great gradations within each of these three classes; and each of the first two classes divides into two sections, as we have explained: the overflow reaching each class is either just enough to perfect that individual alone, or it exceeds his perfection in an amount sufficient to perfect others through him. The first class, the scholars: the overflow upon a person's rational faculty may be just enough to make him capable of inquiry and understanding, so that he knows and discerns, yet he is not moved to teach others or to compose works, and finds no desire for it nor ability in it. Or the overflow upon him may be enough to compel him necessarily to compose and teach. Similarly for the second class: the inspiration may come in an amount that only perfects that prophet himself, or it may come in an amount that obliges him to call people together and teach them and overflow his perfection upon them.
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It is now clear to you that were it not for this additional perfection, no sciences would have been composed in books, nor would the prophets have called people to the knowledge of truth — for a scholar would not compose anything just for himself to learn what he already knows. Rather, the nature of this intellect is always to overflow and extend from a recipient of that overflow to another recipient after him, until it terminates in a person whom the overflow cannot pass beyond but can only perfect, as we illustrated in some chapters of this treatise.
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The nature of this matter requires that whoever attains this additional measure of overflow should call people together, whether they accept it or not, even if it harms him physically — to the point that we find prophets who kept calling people until they were killed; for that divine overflow moves them and does not leave them to rest or be quiet at all, even when they encounter hardship. Therefore you find that Jeremiah, peace be upon him, stated explicitly that when the humiliation inflicted by those sinners and unbelievers of his time overtook him, he attempted to seal his prophecy and not call them to the truth they had rejected — but he could not manage it. He said: 'For the word of the Lord has been to me a reproach and mockery all day long, and I said: I will not mention Him nor speak any more in His name; but it was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary of holding it in and I could not' (Jer. 20:8-9). This is also the meaning of the other prophet's words: 'The Lord God has spoken; who will not prophesy?' (Amos 3:8). Note this.