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Thus far we have considered Jewish sources affirming the status of Christians and Muslims as "pious of the nations of the world" and thus assured of a "share in the world to come". A different question, no less challenging, was the historical significance of the rise of these two faiths as worldwide phenomena. How, if history is governed by divine providence, were Jews to interpret this phenomenon? Maimonides, Abarbanel and Emden all concur in seeing this as part of the Divine plan for history:
But it is beyond the human mind to fathom the designs of the Creator; for our ways are not His ways, nor are our thoughts His thoughts. All these matters relating to Jesus of Nazareth and the Ishmaelite (Mohammed) who came after him, only served to clear the way for King Messiah, to prepare the whole world to worship G-d with one accord, as it is written, "For then I will turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve Him with one consent" (Zeph. 3:9). Thus the Messianic hope, the Torah, and the commandments have become familiar topics - topics of conversation [among the inhabitants] of the far isles and many peoples, uncircumcised of heart and flesh. They are discussing these matters and the commandments of the Torah. [43] 69
This passage, removed by censors in the Middle Ages, has only recently been restored to printed editions of the Mishneh Torah. Despite his reservations about the validity of these creeds, Maimonides ascribes to them a positive role in advancing the spiritual awareness of the world, as part of a divinely providential plan to prepare the world for the messianic age. Abarbanel offers a somewhat different interpretation:
There is no doubt that this was the most powerful of providential acts that G-d brought about so that the Torah should not be lost completely. For when He foresaw the long duration of this great exile [of the Jewish people], He saw that if we [Jews] were to live among the idolatrous cultures of antiquity, who had neither heard of the Torah nor witnessed its greatness, then Torah would soon be forgotten . . . That is why [G-d] prepared the cure before the disease by exiling [Jewry] among nations who supported [the Torah], and in this way the Torah was sustained by us during this long exile. For as we see with our eyes, these nations [i.e. the Christian and Islamic countries of the Middle Ages] acknowledge the truth [of the Torah] and hold it in high regard, and there is no difference [between them and us] except in their understanding of it. Because of this the Torah remains strong and enduring among us. [44] 70
Like Maimonides, Abarbanel sees the rise of Christianity and Islam as part of a divine plan, though unlike Maimonides he relates it specifically to the fate of Judaism. Paradoxically it is the faith of Christians and Muslims that helps preserve the faith of Jews during what would otherwise have been an almost unendurable exile. It should be remembered that Abarbanel lived through the persecution and expulsion of Jews from Spain in the late fifteenth century and was traumatised by it. 71
We should consider Christians and Muslims as instruments that will help bring about the recognition of G-d by all men on earth. While the [heathen] nations worshipped their idols and denied the existence of G-d, and thus recognized neither the power of G-d nor the principle of reward and punishment, the existence of Christians and Muslims helped disseminate among the nations the awareness of G-d's existence, and introduced into the most distant lands the realization that there is a G-d who rules the world, who rewards and punishes, and who has revealed Himself to men. Indeed, thinking Christian scholars have not only taught the nations to accept the written revelation but have also acted as defenders of the oral revelation which is equally of Divine origin. For when vicious people from our own midst, sworn enemies of the Law of G-d, conspired to abrogate the Talmud and to do away with it, there arose from among the non-Jews defenders who fought against these attempts. 72
R. Jacob Emden here carries further the line of argument of Maimonides. His reference to "non-Jewish defenders" of the Talmud is probably to Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522) who fought against the attempt of the apostate Johannes Pfefferkorn to have all copies of the Talmud burned by order of the Catholic church.
To summarize: despite their persecutions at the hands of Christians and Muslims - a sustained narrative of Crusades, inquisitions, expulsions, forced conversions, ghettoes, pogroms, and systematic denial of rights - Jews of the Middle Ages (with exceptions, it need hardly be said) saw Christianity and Islam as ways in which individuals might achieve salvation within the universal Noahide covenant, and as part of a divinely ordained process whereby monotheism and its accompanying moral code were spread to humanity as a whole. It would have been understandable if the Jewish reaction had been the opposite, yet it was not - such was the inexorable logic of the Jewish imagination to recognize, beyond the parameters of Judaism, other paths to the divine presence.
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