ld endeavour to discover an expedient for remedying this evil. And
the discovery of such an expedient was the more easy to them, the more
that, in general, they were destitute of a sense of truth, and
especially of exegetical skill, so that they could not see any reason
for rejecting an interpretation on the ground of its being forced and
unnatural.

In proof of what we have said, we here briefly present the arguments
with which _Abarbanel_ opposes the explanation of a suffering and
expiating divine Messiah. In the first place, by the absurd remark that
the ancient teachers did not intend to give a literal, but an
allegorical explanation, he seeks to invalidate the authority of the
tradition on which the later Jewish interpreters laid so great a
stress, whensoever and wheresoever it agrees with their own
inclination; and, at the same time, he advances the assertion that they
referred the first four verses only to the Messiah,--an assertion which
the passages quoted by us show to be utterly erroneous. Then, after
having combatted the doctrine of original sin, he continues: "Suppose
even that there exists such a thing as original sin,--when God, whose
power is infinite, was willing to pardon, was His hand too short to
redeem (Isa. l. 2), so [Pg 316] that, on this account, He was obliged
to take flesh, and to impose chastisements upon himself? And even
although I were to grant that it was necessary that a single individual
of the human race should bear this punishment, in order to make
satisfaction for all, it would, at all events, have been at least more
appropriate that some one from among ourselves, some wise man or
prophet, had taken upon him the punishment, than that God himself
should have done so. For, supposing even that He became incarnate,
He would not be like one of us.--It is altogether impossible and
self-contradictory that God should assume a body; for God is the first
cause, infinite, and omnipotent. He cannot, therefore, assume flesh,
and subsist as a finite being, and take upon himself man's punishment,
of which nothing whatsoever is written in Scripture.--If the prophecy
referred to the Messiah, it must refer either to the Messiah ben
Joseph, or the Messiah ben David (compare the Treatises at the close of
this work). The former will perish in the beginning of his wars;
neither that which is said of the exaltation, nor that which is said of
the humiliation of the Servant of God applies to him; much less ca