“You must not imagine that Messiah must prove his Messianity by signs and miracles, doing something unexpected, bringing the dead to life, or similar things, &c. The principal thing is this: the statutes and precepts of our Torah remain for ever, and nothing can be added to them nor ought taken from them. If, therefore, a descendant of David earnestly studies the Law, observes, like David his father, what the Law, both the written and the oral, enjoins, causes all Israelites to act similarly, exhorts those who are lax in the performance of the commandments, and fights the wars of the Lord: he may possibly be Messiah. If he succeeds, builds the Temple in its place, and gathers the outcasts of Israel, he is certainly Messiah; and if he does not succeed, or is killed in war, it is certain that he is not the Messiah promised in the Law; he is like all the noble and good kings of the House of David who have died; and the Almighty only caused him to rise in order to try us thereby, as it is said, ‘And of the wise some will stumble, and through them the people will be tested, purified, and made white, till the time of the end comes; for there is yet a vision for an appointed time’ (Dan. xi. 35). Also Jesus, the Nazarene, who imagined that he would be Messiah, and was killed through the court of law, is alluded to in the Book of Daniel, as it is said, ‘And the sons of the transgressors among thy people will rise, in order to establish a vision, and will stumble’ (ibid. xi. 14). Can there be a greater stumbling than this? All the prophets said that Messiah will be a redeemer and a saviour to the Israelites, will bring together their outcasts, and will strengthen their obedience to the Divine precepts, but he (Jesus) caused destruction by the sword to Israel, the dispersion of those left, and their humiliation; he changed the Law, and misled many people to worship a being beside God. But the thoughts of the Creator of the universe cannot be understood by any human being, for the ways of men are not His ways, nor their thoughts His thoughts; for all the events connected with Jesus and with Mohammed, that rose after him, served only to pave the way for the King Messiah, who will reform all mankind and lead them to the unanimous service of God, as it is said, ‘For then will I turn to the peoples a pure language, that all may call by the name of God, and serve him unanimously’ (Zeph. iii. 9). How can this be done? Almost all people have through them—Jesus and Mohammed—become acquainted with the idea of Messiah, with the words of the Torah and the Divine precepts. Through them the knowledge of the Bible spread even unto the remotest islands and unto many nations ‘uncircumcised’ in heart and uncircumcised in flesh. They seek to justify their disobedience to the precepts of the Torah; some of them say that these precepts are Divine, but are not in force at present, and were never intended to be permanent laws; others maintain that they