“Do not imagine that in the days of Messiah the course of Nature will be altered in any way, or that any new creation will take place. When Isaiah said, ‘The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid,’ he merely employed allegorical and figurative speech; and he meant to say that the Israelite will dwell in safety together with his enemy, who has been as cruel to him as wolves and leopards, &c.; all will join the true religion; they will not rob, nor commit any violence, &c., and in the days of Messiah the meaning of the allegories will be clearly known.
“Our Sages said that there will be no other difference between the present time and the days of Messiah but the independence of the people of Israel.
“It appears from the literal meaning of the prophecies that the Messianic period will be preceded by the war of Gog and [[229]]Magog, and that before the war a prophet will appear to guide the Israelites, and to direct their hearts to repentance. Comp. ‘Behold, I will send you Elijah,’[26] &c. (Mal. iii. 23). Elijah will not come to declare unclean that which is clean, or clean that which is unclean; nor to disqualify persons who are believed to be qualified for joining the congregation of the Lord, or to qualify persons who are believed to be disqualified; but he will come to establish peace on earth, as it is said, ‘He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children’[27] (Ibid. 24).
“Some of our Sages believe that Elijah will come before Messiah, but of all these and similar things no man knows how they will come to pass; they are unexplained in the Prophets, and our Sages have no tradition about them; they only adopt what they believe to be the meaning of the Biblical passages which refer to this subject. Hence the difference of opinion. At all events, the order and the detail of these events do not form an essential portion of our creed; we must not take too much notice of Agadoth and Midrashim speaking on these and similar themes. We must not attribute great importance to them, for they do not lead to the fear or the love of God. We must also abstain from calculating the time of the coming of Messiah, &c. All we have to do is to believe in the coming of Messiah, to wait and hope.
“It is not because they desired to have dominion over all lands and nations, and be honoured by all people, or because they desired to have plenty to eat and drink, and other pleasures, that the wise men and the prophets longed for the Messianic days, but because they would then be at leisure to study the Law and its teaching without being [[230]]interrupted by any oppressor, and would thus make themselves worthy of the life in the world to come (עולם הבא).
“There will not be in those days any famine, war, jealousy, or quarrel, because the good things will be in plenty, and even luxuries will be found everywhere; all will only busy themselves with trying to know the Lord. Therefore the Israelites will be great sages, knowing things which are at present hidden; they will obtain a knowledge of their Creator as far as is possible by human understanding; ‘For the earth is full with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters that cover the sea’ ” (Maim., Mishneh-torah xiv.; Hilchoth Melachim xi.–xii.).
The war of Gog and Magog against the Holy Land referred to by Maimonides is described by the prophet Ezekiel (chaps. xxxviii., xxxix.) as preceding the complete restoration of Israel. Saadiah has a different view of this war. The punishment of Israel in exile is to come to an end at a fixed time, or as soon as the Israelites by earnest and thorough repentance show themselves worthy of Divine grace. In that case no war of Gog and Magog will be waged against them. But if the Israelites should allow the approach of the time fixed for the redemption without having given signs of repentance and improvement, great troubles will be brought upon them, which will forcibly remind them of the necessity of returning to God; they will come together under a leader, Messiah ben Joseph, under whose leadership they will fight against their enemies, but will be beaten, and Messiah ben Joseph himself will be killed. Then Messiah ben David will appear, and with him the period of glory, of permanent peace and prosperity, and of the worship of the One God by all nations. The idea of a double Messiah, a warlike and a peaceful, an unsuccessful and a successful, is not expressed in any of the prophecies in the Bible, and seems to be of a later origin. Maimonides is [[231]]silent about Messiah ben Joseph; so also Albo in Ikkarim, and Rabbi Jehudah ha-levi in the book Cuzari. Albo discusses the question about Messiah in chap. xlii. of the fourth section of Ikkarim. He refutes the opinion of those who maintain that the Messianic prophecies refer to the reign of Hezekiah or to the restoration of Israel under Zerubbabel and Ezra. The condition of the Israelites in the reign of Hezekiah did not resemble the state of prosperity and glory and universal peace as depicted in the Messianic prophecies; the fulfilment of these prophecies is still hoped for, and our hope is founded on our belief in the truthfulness of the Word of God. (Comp. Saadiah, Em. ve-deoth, VIII. iii.).
On the Thirteenth Principle, p. 16
The belief in the Resurrection of the Dead has been formulated in the Mishnah (Sanhedrin x. i) as an essential creed: “He who says that the belief in the Resurrection of the Dead is not implied in the Law has no portion in the world to come.” There is no doubt that the Almighty has the power to give fresh life to the body in which life has been extinct. We set no limits to the Omnipotence of God. But it is different if we ask whether it is the Will of God to give new life to the dust and ashes of the dead, and to restore the soul to the dead body in which it has dwelt before. Maimonides substitutes the Immortality of the Soul for the Resurrection of the Dead, and has been vehemently attacked by those who had a different opinion. He defended his view in an essay called מאמר תחיית המתים, “On the Resurrection of the Dead,” in which he attempts to prove that the Agadoth and Midrashim in depicting the future life employed figurative language, but in reality meant only a spiritual life, without any material enjoyment.
Saadiah defends the literal interpretation of “Resurrection [[232]]of the Dead” (Emunoth ve-deoth, VII.), and believes that the event will take place at the time of the final redemption (גאולה אחרונה). Rabbi Jehudah ha-levi, in Cuzari, though mentioning this principle, seems to understand it as identical with the Immortality of the Soul. The king, who was at first surprised at the scarcity of references to the future life in our prayers, confessed his complete satisfaction, after having heard the exposition of our prayers by the Jewish scholar. “I see,” he says, “that I was in error; those who pray to have the Divine light vouchsafed to them during lifetime, who long to see it with their own eyes, and to attain to the degree of prophecy, they certainly seek something better even than the future life, and they who attain it may be sure that they will also enjoy the blessing of the future life; for if the soul of a man, troubled by the wants of the body, is nevertheless cleaving to the Divine glory, how much more may this be the case after the soul has left this body!” (III. 20). [[233]]