Triumfo de la Sagrada Ley: En repuesta a diversas questiones hechas por un fraile de Ruan (The Triumph of the Sacred Law: In Response to Various Questions Posed by a Cleric of Rouen)
Saul Levi Mortera
ca. 1640
Fourth Question: With Which Testimony Is It Proven That the Messiah Has to Be a Man Purely and Not Jointly Man and God?
We have already said that whoever invents new things is the one who has to bring the proof and not seek it, and proposing a doctrine which the scripture does not teach is repugnant to the mind. Because it is the same to seek proofs repugnantly that the Messiah is man and God, as it is to seek them to prove that the Messiah is a centaur or a hermaphrodite. But rather, with greater ease we could bring several proofs to prove these fanciful propositions. Firstly, the prophet Ezekiel in 37:24 says So shall they be My people and I will be their God. And My servant David shall be king over them. One can well see that his servant David is different, since one was as God and one as King. The prophet Hosea (3:5) says: Afterwards shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and does not say David their God. In addition, Isaiah, when speaking of the Messiah, says in 11:2 that there will be in him fear of God, and by what we showed in the first question, one can see the pure unity of the Lord, and if the Messiah would be man and God, it would be necessary for him to be the One God, in which case it would not be fitting for him to say that he feared himself, and it suffices for the first response, apart from it being sufficient reason in itself, because if there were such a monstrosity in the world, the sacred scripture would have publicized it in infinite places, which it does not do anywhere; ergo, there is no such thing.
Fifth Question: Whether the Messianic Redemption Has to Be Only Corporeal and Temporal?
The messianic redemption has to be only corporeal, as was that of Moses for the people enslaved in Egypt, for the spiritual redemption depends only on the observance which the Lord gave at Mount Sinai, which could be observed with greater ease with the corporeal benefits which the people of Israel then enjoyed. And removing all the impediments which until today serve them, apart from one, which is a particular divine favor, which the Lord then promises, as Ezekiel 36:26–28 says: And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and you shall keep Mine ordinances and do them. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people, and I will be your God. [These are] very clear words which do not permit interpretation, and whoever would wish to argue with the steps of the scripture that reveal this truth will have necessarily to transfer it all.
Credits
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.
