The Parables of the Saviour The Good Child\'s Library, Tenth Book
THE GOOD CHILD'S LIBRARY. TENTH BOOK. THE PARABLES OF THE SAVIOUR, IN EASY VERSE. WITH BRILLIANT ILLUMINATIONS, FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS 1851. PREFACE. The object of the "GOOD CHILD'S LIBRARY," is to encourage a taste for
There can be no question but that this repeated insistence of Maimonides
has strongly affected all subsequent Jewish thought. To him, eternal
bliss consists in perfect spiritual communion with God. 'He who desires to
serve God from Love must not serve to win the future world. But he does
right and eschews wrong because he is man, and owes it to his manhood
to perfect himself. This effort brings him to the type of perfect man,
whose soul shall live in the state that befits it, viz. in the world to
come.' Thus the world to come is a state rather than a place.
But Maimonides' view was not accepted without dispute. It was indeed
quite easy to cite Rabbinic passages in which the world to come is
identified with the bodily Resurrection. Against Maimonides were produced
such Talmudic utterances as the following: 'Said Rabbi Chiya b. Joseph,
the Righteous shall arise clad in their garments, for if a grain of wheat
which is buried naked comes forth with many garments, how much more shall
the righteous arise full garbed, seeing that they were interred with
shrouds' (Kethub. 111 b). Again, 'Rabbi Jannai said to his children,
Bury me not in white garments or in black: not in white, lest I be not
held worthy (of heaven) and thus may be like a bridegroom among mourners
(in Gehenna); nor in black, lest if I am held worthy, I be like a mourner
among bridegrooms (in heaven). But bury me in coloured garments (so that
my appearance will be partly in keeping with either fate),' (Sabbath,
114 a). Or finally: 'They arise with their blemishes, and then are healed'
(Sanh. 91 b).
THE GOOD CHILD'S LIBRARY. TENTH BOOK. THE PARABLES OF THE SAVIOUR, IN EASY VERSE. WITH BRILLIANT ILLUMINATIONS, FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS 1851. PREFACE. The object of the "GOOD CHILD'S LIBRARY," is to encourage a taste for