Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/73

 GOG AND MAGOG.

vanish in smoke, 1 all cities will be destroyed, 2 and men will be drunken and yet not drunken. 3

Another very distinct sign of the advent of a Messiah, which is remotely alluded to in the Bible but which attained to an extraordinary development in the Talmud and especially in later writings; is the battle of Gog, Prince of Magog. 4 Grog and Magog are, however, named by the Eabbis as two princes, and this view has taken root in the Quran in the Kabbinical form, 5 since two persons, Gog and Magog, are mentioned as dwellers in the uttermost parts of the earth. 6

In the details of the idea of future retribution many resemblances are to be found, which, by virtue of the unity cf the Jewish view and its derivation from the Scriptures, shew themselves as borrowings from Judaism. Thus according to the Talmud, a man's limbs themselves shall give testimony against him ;? in one passage we find these words : " The very members of 8 a'man bear witness against him, for it is said : ' Ye yourselves are my witnesses saith the Lord. ' " With this we may compare Sura XXIV. 24 : 9 " Their own tongues, and hands, and feet, shall one day be witness against them of their own doings. 10 The judgment

1 Sura XLIV. 9 ff.

2 Sura XVII. 60.

3 Sura XXII. 2. Oomp. Suras XXVII. 89, XXXIX. 68, LXIX. 13 ff.

4 Ezekiel, xxxviii. and xxxix.

5 Sura XXI. 96. glU ^ g*^

6 Sura XVIII. 93.

7 Chagiga 16, Taanith 11.

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8 Isaiah, xliii. 12. 9

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10 Of. also Stiras XXXVI. 65, XLI. 19.