the Messiah would come in the two hundred and fifty-sixth cycle of the moon (between 1096 and 1104)."

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Elijah and even the Messiah play rather unimportant parts in Saadia's eschatology, for God is the Redeemer who will perform all the acts of mercy for His people Israel. Saadia's view, that the resurrection will take place during the Messianic period, and will not be postponed to "the world to come,' is shared by Rabbi Hai Gaon (969-1038), the last of the Geonim. He adds, however, that those who die after the resurrection shall be revived at the end of the Messianic age, when a new world will be established ("the world to come "), into which all the righteous and all the repentant sinners, whether Jews or gentiles, who recognize the God of Israel, will be admitted, while all others will go to Gehenna."

Rabbi Abraham ben Hiyya Albargeloni, called the Prince (1065-1136), a famous Jewish astronomer of Castile, formulates a

very exalted view of the Messianic period." God will forgive all sins, even the sin of the first man, will remove the evil desire from the hearts of men, and strengthen the faith of all who believe in Him. War will cease with the extinction of all evil passions and the perfect development of all good latent in the human heart. Albargeloni's theory, expressed at the end of his treatise, of the perfection of men's minds and souls in the time of the Messiah, is almost modern. With the exception of the use of Biblical passages as the basis for argument, it sounds more like the reasoning of a modern evolutionary philosopher than of a Jewish philosopher of the eleventh century.

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Some new fancies added to the many Messianic prophecies appear in an apocalypse, "The Book of Zerubbabel," compiled, probably by an Italian Jew, at about this time. We find the same background as before, and the same dramatis persona-Messiah son of Joseph, here called Nehemiah

ben Hushiel; Messiah son of David, here named Menahem ben Amiel (Comforter, son of God's people); Elijah, and the same Armilus, the anti-Messiah, born of Satan and a marble statue. One new character is introduced, the mother of the Messiah, Hephzibah ("my desire is in her "). Guided on her path by a great star, she will appear five years before the coming of the Messiah son of Joseph, and will slay two mighty kings with the staff of Aaron, which was preserved in Tiberias.

The background of this fanciful description of the Messianic age is as follows: Zerubbabel, the scion of the house of David, desires to know something about the destiny of his afflicted people. He is thereupon carried to Rome, "the bloody city," where he meets the Messiah of hideous appearance, soon to be transformed into a beautiful youth, and is introduced to him by the angel Metatron. The angel tells Zerubbabel, how the Messiah has been living in Rome since

the days of Nebuchadnezzar, under the disguise of a deformed and hideous creature, and reveals to him the date of his appearance (990 years after the destruction of the Temple, 1058 or 1060 C. E.)," and the incidents of the Messianic era. In this apocalypse, Elijah is supposed to revive only the slain Nehemiah Messiah son of Joseph, together with the faithful who met death at the time of persecution, as well as the generation of the wilderness.

The most sympathetic and most lovable character among the sages and philosophers whose names adorn the pages of Spanish Jewish history is that of Rabbi Jehudah Halevi (1080-1142?), a poet and a philosopher, but above all a true Jewish patriot, whose heart was consumed with a great love for his people and its land. As a medieval philosopher, he naturally believes in the prevalent Messianic fancies, but in speaking of the future of Israel or of Palestine, his soul becomes aglow with sacred enthusiasm, and in

the fervor and passion of his patriotism he forgets them all. We need read only his

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Zionistic poems to obtain an insight into the workings of the soul of this great and loyal Jew.

Do not calculate the date of redemption, wait patiently, do not hasten, thou shalt yet behold the glory of My work. Say unto those who boast of possessing kings and princes, "My king is the Holy One of Jacob, He is the Rock of my redemption.” “

The poet believed implicitly in the eternity of the Jewish nation, and, with magnificent optimism, even when the period in which the Messiah was expected had passed," he sang of Israel's redemption through Elijah" and through Messiah, the scion of the house of Jesse, and of the vengeance wreaked upon

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Edom and Arab," because they helped in the destruction of Israel's land." Like the sun and the moon which stand forever, so will the sons of Jacob remain a nation forever. If God repulses them with His left hand, He immediately brings them nigh with His right hand. The children of Israel must