Truth About the Split — Page 24
24 as it happened in the case of the first Messiah, even so it was necessary that it should happen, and as a matter of fact, it has actually happened, in the case of the second Messiah. His enemies accused him of having claimed to be a Prophet. This charge he denied explaining that he had been called Prophet only metaphorically. But after his death his followers, like the followers of the first Messiah, began to claim for him prophethood in the same sense in which the claim was attributed to him by his enemies. Such is Maulawi Muhammad Ali’s reading of the parallelism. To me, however, it seems that while Maulawi Muhammad Ali is right in noticing a certain parallelism between the two cases, he has committed an error in the application of the parallelism. The verses quoted from the New Testament show that the Jews charged Jesus as with having claimed to be the 'son of God' in a literal sense. Jesus as denies the charge and says that he claims to be the 'son of God' in the sense in which the previous Prophets were called 'God'. After the death of Jesus as his followers attributed to Jesus 'Godhood' in the sense implied by his enemies. With this example before us if we turn to the case of the second Messiah, the first thing we have to