Institutes

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 do you sleep, O Lord?” though it is elsewhere said of Him: “Behold he that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” And He stands and sits, since He says, “Heaven is my seat, and earth the footstool for my feet:” though He “measure out the heaven with his hand, and holds the earth in his fist.” And He is “drunken with wine” as it is said, “The Lord awoke like a sleeper, a mighty man, drunken with wine;” He “who only has immortality and dwells in the light which no man can approach unto:” 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.