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THE MESSIAH
OF ISMIR
SABBATAI ZEVI
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BY JOSEPH KASTEIN, -p0# +4,
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TRANSLATED BY HUNTLEY PATERSON
THE VIKING PRESS
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SABBATAI ZEWI |
Der Messias Von Ismir
COPYRIGHT 1930 BY ERNST ROWOHLT VERLAG, K.G.A.A., BERLIN
COPYRIGHT 1931 BY THE VIKING PRESS, INC.. NEW YORK
PRINTED,IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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1466977
Contents
The Spirit of the Age
Early Days
Massacres
The Pronouncing of the Sacred Name
The Ploughed Field |
~The Prophet and the Harlot
The Blast of the Trumpet
Tumult
Echo
Migdal Os
The Catastrophe
The Renegade
Death Agony
The Meaning of the Episode
List of Kings
Bibliography
Index
PAGHE
13
35
55
78
OF
122
139
188
219
245
279
2905
328
349
341
344
Illustrations
Sabbataéi Levi FRONTISPIECE
Salonica 30
Smyrna 20
Oliver Cromwell go
Nathan Ghazaté 106
“Two Arch-Impostors” 154
Sabbatai Enthroned 170
Sabbatai in Prison 234
Penitential Exercises of the Sabbataians 234
Sabbatai Zevi 298
THE MESSIAH
OF ISMIR
DEDICATED TO Martin BuBER
LEADER OF MEN
CHAPTER I
The Spirit of the Age
| ae in the seventeenth century there lived in Ismir,
the modern Smyrna, a certain Jew named Mordecai
Zevi. He came of a Byzantine family from Morea and
earned a frugal but honest livelihood by keeping a small
poulterer’s shop, on the proceeds of which he supported
his wife and three sons, Elijah, Joseph, and Sabbatai. The
latter is the hero of this narrative, and, to understand his
personality and how it came about that a people scattered
7a arn
re amen tO
and the place the Jews occupied in it. The Galuth, or
Diaspora, had been completed, and the great wandering
movement inaugurated after the destruction of the sec-
ond Temple had been brought to a close, the last great
dispersal of a Jewish colony, the banishment of the Jews
from Spain, having taken place a hundred years previ-
ously. A new centre was already forming in the East.
Poland and the Ukraine had received the flood of return-
ing fugitives, who in search of food and a means of live-
lihood had wandered as far as Siberia. |
This wandering movement had been forced upon them
to procure the barest necessaries of life; they could secure
breathing-space only by cajoling it from their environ-
3
4 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
ment. Thus their chance of settling down was aiways
limited to spheres where economic conditions presented
the least resistance, and they could hope to flourish only
where they found an opportunity of supplying a need in_
the economic system. They were urged on, therefore, by /
economic forces alone, and the intellectual or spiritual
plane of the environment they eventually chose did not
concern them. .
It was a precarious existence, but at least it was an
existence. At times they actually grew rich, but their
wealth was always insecure. They had no haven, no re-
treat to which they could betake themselves to enjoy
their possessions in peace and safety. Everywhere they
were strangers in a strange land, unable to found rich
families or produce an aristocracy of wealth. They raised
funds for their poorer brethren, who were still wandering
to and fro, and sent money to Jerusalem where many of
their destitute co-religionists were living, and they paid
the landlords and authorities heavily for allowing them
to settle down and work, to practise their religious ob-
servances, and even to travel on business and to wear
beards. While they trafficked only in goods in which the
whole world was free to deal, they themselves became ob-
jects of barter for all and sundry. Emperors sold them to
princes, together with the money value they represented,
and princes assigned them to certain towns. They had be-
come valuable chattels.
Frequently they were transported, just as merchandise
is transported, as, for instance, when a ruler, a country, or
a town required money. In such cases their goods were
confiscated and they were driven out and allowed to re-
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE 5
turn only on payment of huge bribes. Those who know
not whether they will possess anything on the morrow
are naturally less scrupulous about the methods they
adopt, and lay hands on all they can while they have the
chance, for at any moment they may be held up to ran-
som. But in the world about them this made for unpopu-
larity which, in its turn, again led to their being attacked,
driven out, and forced once more to take undue thought
for the morrow. Thus the vicious circle of exploitation
and oppression was formed.
But there were periods when their wealth enabled
them to lead a comfortable existence. For instance, in
Germany during the Thirty Years War their help was
urgently needed to fill the coffers of war and they were
placed under special protection. But there was one les-
son which through all the vicissitudes of fate they learnt
to take to heart, and that was that possessions are are at once
all and nothing. They were necessary for life but did not
guarantee life. Everything was fleeting and temporary.
Their possesstons had no home or habitation.
Besides making social outcasts of them, their wander-
ings led them, except in Spain, into spheres where they
had no spiritual foothold. They heard a language spoken,
songs sung, tales told, saw festivals celebrated and pleas-
ures experienced, which were not their own. They were
no longer the fruit of intellectual growth but had, as it
were, gone to seed; the intellectual controversies of their
Age had nothing to do with their own problems; the
bloody wars about them were not fought for ideals they
held sacred; while for anything which as living souls they
had to say regarding matters transcending the daily
6 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
round, the common task, they found none that had ears
to hear, none in whose breast they could raise an echo.
Thus both the good and the evil of their perilous lives
had to be confined within the four walls of their houses.
Their spirit had no habitation.
Even more than economic and intellectual conditions
id the nature of their faith isolate them in the lands they
inhabited. And in this matter it was they themselves who
sought isolation. But, strange to say, the world about
them demanded that they should abandon their faith, and
it was Spain, where once they had met with the greatest
tolerance, which in this respect brought the cruellest
pressure to bear upon them. Thus as the price of its
friendship the world called upon the Jews to renounce
an old, a much older faith than it professed itself; and
when, in due course, the new faith was split up into many
different forms, the Jews were confronted by the demands
of four mutually hostile bodies—the Mohammedans, the
Catholics, the Greek Church, and the Protestants. Those
who have once created a religion from the depths of their —
own souls, and breathed life into it, naturally have a sense
of possession which resists all attempts at conversion.
But unfortunately at this time there was literally no
place in the world where the forms and influence of their
faith and its powers of resistance and inspiration could
take root. Religion is the flower of a higher form of life
upon a certain soil and in a certain community; deprived
of these it becomes merely a tradition cut off from its
roots. Their faith had no home.
In a world which seemed to be boundless, because it
possessed none of those means of communication which
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE 7
shorten distances, every remote place bore the stigma of
a foreign land. The Moor from the East and the Jew
from every quarter of the globe were objects of wonder,
and when wonder is coupled with ignorance of habits
and customs it engenders an attitude of haughty disap-
proval and a sense of superiority. But when these strange
beings expose themselves to the public gaze not only on
rare occasions, at some annual fair, but year in year out
as fellow-citizens and neighbours, they inspire hostility
not unmingled with a certain secret fear. Thus the Jews
came to be regarded as lepers, who bore the stigma of
their isolation about with them. Their nationality ue)
no home. is
A people without a home!
But men must have a home. No man can live without
a home or habitation, and if the world denies him this
he creates a home in his own heart. If the reality is taken
from him, he clutches at the shadow. And provided that
the will to live has not been broken there remains one
last refuge on which he can build—his inner shrine.
The Jews succeeded in this rare achievement, and this
gave them a unique position in history which can be
understood only on its merits, since there are no analogous
cases to help.
It was upon this inner shrine that they heaped every-
thing their Age denied them, that is to say, all their an-
cestral achievements and aspirations, the history of their
ancient tribes with their destinies, hopes, and beliefs from
time immemorial, right back to the spiritual circle in
which they had developed and collapsed. Thus their
inner shrine was full to the brim with records and
emories. They Lived in the present _ by means of the
Pee ere mens ee
THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
“ m
oe
“This had a twofold result, which is of the utmost
” Gps seeeanee for the understanding of this narrative. Those
things which served them as memories could no longer
be the sport of chance and change; they were recorded
in sacred and imperishable form in the books of the Bible,
in the Thora, the Prophets, and the Writings. They
were amplified and enriched by the Talmud, that grand
attempt to harmonize the ever-changing present with the
meaning and content of the Bible. These constituted their
philosophic works, their judicial codes, their fairy tales,
their reading primers, their legends, myths, folklore, love
songs, and historical records. Their children grew up
steeped in the atmosphere of events that had happened
thousands of years ago. They might know the face, the
bright armour, and the terrifying halberd of the watch=
man at the gate of their town, but they knew nothing
more about him. Yet of Abraham, their grandsire, they
knew everything down to the most intimate detail of his
life. They were interested in the political conditions of
their Age and concerned about them only in so far as they
affected their own lives for the next few days. But the
question whether the Children of Israel had done right
to substitute kings for judges was a subject of passionate
perennial interest. What cared they whether the lord of
the manor might be a tyrant if he chose or whether the
peasant must be a slave? But homeless as they were, all
that concerned them was how much the Jew must leave
on the fields as gleanings for the poor. Thus their every-
day problems were two thousand years old and set in
IM
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE 9
from which they had been driven. And as they lived
amid such traditions, they also lived in the environment
which had given them birth. They had not ceased to live-
in the Oréent.
But their history did not merely consist of a sequence
of events—wars, the rise and fall of kings, and migra-
tions; it was also an interlacing of the spiritual and the
material, at once the evolution of a people and the evolu-
tion of a religion. They formed the only community in
the world which had not developed from climatic and
social conditions alone, but was also called upon to be
the bearer of a religious idea. Long before they had set-
tled down they had been promised a land of their own
where they could fulfil their mission; before they had
become a united nation capable of development, they had
been told that they would never die out, and before they
had proved themselves worthy of their religious mission,
they had been assured that one day their faith would be
spread over the whole world. Thus they reached maturity
buoyed up by countless promises, and lived, and time
and again failed. In the course of their history they failed
so often in the mission they had been given that at last
they were punished by being scattered over the face of
the earth; but as this was intended only to punish and
not to exterminate them, they were given a further final /—
promise—that of redemption through a Messiah. “
To modern man this seems a far-away mystic idea
belonging to another sphere and passing human compre-
hension. But to the Jews of those days the Messiah was
no more strange or distant than the figures in their Bible.
their imaginations against the background of the home
Le
Se ent eee
10 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
The Messiah, as an essential factor in their living past,
belonged to the world of everyday life, and the miracles
associated with his appearance they expected as a matter
of course, as the ordinary appurtenances of their spiritual
existence. Thus to them the miracle was a factor of every-
~ day léfe.
So they lived in their memories, with the result that
their past never died. Too long had they been separated
and taken away from their source. Yet they had not
forgotten it, but carried it about in their hearts like a
plant that has no native soil but is expected to flourish in
foreign lands. It was something within them striving
to grow old and die, but they could not let it die, for
they had nothing else wherewith to satisfy the hunger
of their souls. Nevertheless, they were unable to convert
their memories into reality and return to their native
land and start life afresh. Whither then could they go
with this treasure which was in danger?
The Rabbis, the spiritual shepherds of this people,
found a solution. They appealed to the brains instead of
to the hearts of their flock, burying memory beneath
endless interpretations, reflections, speculations, and the-
ories. They knew that a heart may tire at a beat but
that a brain works on for ever. And quite rightly they
saw that the life of Judaism was threatened from the
quarter of the heart. So they weaned it from the source
from which it had hitherto derived its sustenance—the
Bible, and gave it the Halacha, the Law. Young men
were forbidden to read the Bible until their twentieth
year. True there was the Talmud; but only when they
reached years of discretion were they allowed to read
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE 11
this dangerous and holy work which was such a menace
to the Jews in dispersion.
But thirsting for support and sustenance for the secret
longings of their hearts, the people were opposed to this,
d from the Halacha they turned to the Haggada, or
egends, and the hidden crisis of Judaism at this time
consists of the silent war between Halacha and Haggada,
between the brain that was armed and the heart that was
menaced. A situation of permanent danger was thus
)created ; on the one hand was the threat of ultimate petri-
faction, on the other of collapse into mysticism. The key
to the situation was their homelessness.
A great though dangerous attempt on a grand scale
was made to wrest a decision from this state of threatened
equilibrium—through the works of the Kabala. The
Kabala is at once a mode of thought and a piece of
literature. It is both a theory and a cosmogony, a method
of life in the present while having as its object the under-
standing of life in all eternity. It constitutes an attempt
to continue the life of a people who had once created a
religion, by examining the links connecting life on this
earth with the act of creation. It is a mystic interpreta-
tion of the universe and concerned with answering the
question of how imperfection came to be associated with
God’s work, and is full of a passionate desire to harmo-
nize the perfection of the creative act with the imperfec-
tion of actual life.
The Kabala was the production of minds who, setting
out to solve the riddle of the universe, were also anxious
to find a reason for their unique fate as Jews. God and the
world had been parted. A certain country and its people
12 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
had been parted. The world could return to God, its
home, and the Jews could return to their ancient sanctu-
ary. The pure emanations of God’s spirit had become en-
tangled in the impurity of matter; they must be released
from this contamination, collected together, and borne
up to God. God’s people had been dispersed to the four
winds, among strange peoples; they must be collected
from the ends of the earth and brought back to serve
God in their ancestral home.
fj The world must be saved; a people must be saved—
/ the Messiah cult! 3
» It was not every Jew who was capable of following
the difficult and tortuous paths of the Kabala, but every
Jew believed in a Messiah. Kabalism gave rise to passion-
ate and heated opposition, and its adversaries and sup-
porters fought each other with unscrupulous malice. But
the quarrel was merely concerned with ways and means.
The hope and object of both parties was identical—the
coming of the Messiah.
. With fateful impatience they waited. Like blind fish .
on the bed of the ocean they had feelers stretched out,
which began to quiver at the approach of anything which
might feed their hopes. They responded to the magnetism
of phenomena. Thus the Jew was endowed with a unique
organ which differentiated him from the rest of the world
and which, though it may have become atrophied, con-
tinues to differentiate him to this day.
Such was the spiritual background against which the
following events took place.
CHAPTER II
Early Days
ABBATAI ZEvI was born in July 1626 on the day
which in the Jewish calendar corresponds to the
ninth of Ab, the day on which the second Temple was
destroyed. His father, ‘Mordecai Zevi, the poor poulterer,
was of a somewhat weak and ailing constitution and suf-
fered from every kind of illness to the end of his days.
But he regarded the existence of his three sons as a bless-
ing which made life easier for him, and, as they grew up,
he destined two of them, Joseph and Elijah, to his own
trade, which in due course they pursued. The eldest,
Sabbatai, he destined for study.
What kind of study? There is no question here of any
of the various scientific courses of which we naturally
think when we mention study. In this case study meant
merely the therough mastery of the books of the Bible
and the Talmud, an achievement which occupied a life-
time and yet was not a profession. Now and again it
helped a man to secure a post or to become a Rabbi, in
which case he had a modest but not always enviable
competency; for even poor communities allowed them-
selves the luxury of a spiritual guide and could find many
candidates for a post uniting moral power with a posi-
tion which, though poor, was secure.
13
14 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
But for the majority of such students there was no
practical employment, and looked at from the social
point of view it was a piece of irresponsible extravagance
for a poor tradesman to burden himself for life with a
child who in all probability would never be able to earn
a farthing. In so doing such a man arrogated to himself
the privilege of a wealthy merchant or a member of the
aristocracy.
But even if such considerations had been brought to
Mordecai Zevi’s attention, he would have been incapable
of understanding them. His thoughts were on a different
plane. He was an insignificant little Jew living at the
beginning of the seventeenth century, and we must try to
forget the three hundred years that separate us from him
and his life. We are then confronted with a form of
spirituality which to us seems heroic and idealistic, but
which to the men of that day appeared perfectly natural
and commonplace. It was based on the simple primitive
principle of doing what lay nearest and letting the mor-
row take care of itself. No more and no less! All that
remained of strength and energy belonged to that other
side of the day—-to God.
So Sabbatai Zevi was sent to the Jeshzbah, the school
of which Rabbi Joseph Escapa was the head. Joseph
Escapa was a zealous teacher and Sabbatai was a zealous
pupil. He was a quiet peculiar child, an earnest little
Oriental Jew, who did not find learning very difficult.
Indeed, he was extraordinarily quick of understanding,
and when once he had learnt a thing he never forgot it.
Thus he accumulated a vast mass of knowledge which he.
mastered as a man only masters what he has known a
EARLY DAYS | 1g
long while. But what a man has known a long while he
does not hold in the highest respect, and Sabbatai soon
began not only to form opinions of his own and to be
critical, but also to find fault even with the form in which
his knowledge was presented to him——the Hebrew tongue.
He loved this language, and felt that in the course of its
evolution it had deteriorated and: become common and
coarse. A passionate little fellow, he was enamoured of
the clear and resonant language of the prophets of old,
and hoped that people would return to it and hold it in
esteem. Indeed, he openly boasted that one day. he would
revive classical Hebrew in all_its purity.
His self-importance raised no smile, for clever Jewish
children were treated with great indulgence and respect
in his circle. In any .case, Sabbatai had extraordinary
achievements to his credit, for he had studied and mas-
tered the whole of Talmudic and Rabbinic literature by
the time he reached his fifteenth year. Others required a
whole lifetime for such a feat. But he had succeeded while
he was still on the confines of childhood, and now if he
wished to remain true to tradition he would have to go
over the same ground again and again, seeking ever fresh
subtleties, possibilities, and interpretations, and deciding
delicate points of religious lore; only thus could he hope
to win a position of authority in the realm of Jewish
scholarship.
But this he could not bring himself to do. He did not
possess the necessary inner serenity and resignation. The
very speed with which he had mastered the traditional
curriculum proved that his was a hasty restless tempera-
ment, ever eager for new knowledge and experiences. He
16 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
seemed to be driven on by some inner force towards an
unseen goal, and this made it impossible for him to go
back over ground he had once trod. He left that for
those who were merely industrious. He was not indus-
trious. He was hungry and inquisitive. His hunger had
not been stilled, nor was he satisfied with the knowledge
he had so dutifully acquired. He felt as though he were
confronted by empty space.
It was not his understanding that rebelled, for where
could he have found better intellectual nourishment than
that provided by the intricacies of the Talmud, in which
a people had stored up all that they had been unable to
turn into concrete reality in a land of their own? It was
rather his heart that was starved. Or, to be quite accurate,
it. was not only his heart, but that intermediate realm
between brain and feeling, between spirit and instinct,
between intellect and emotion, that part of his being
which yearned for creative activity and endurance, that
craved stimulation.
For this precocious child the Talmud was not sufficient.
It introduced him only to an intellectual reality, and of
reality Sabbatai knew nothing. Children learn to know
and suffer reality at play, and youths when they have
been given a calling and are set face to face with life.
But Sabbatai had never been allowed to play, much
less to engage in any ordinary employment. And since
man lives on this earth and is beset ‘by all the myriad
phenomena of the universe he must have some sort of
reality, even if he has to invent it himself.
Sabbatai found this ready to hand. True, it could not
be grasped with the fist, but neither could it be touched
EARLY DAYS 17
or shaken by the realities of existence, and this alone
made it extraordinarily powerful. It was the world of
the Kabala, a_ world full of wonders, “containing the
te oe
history. and promised. destiny-of_a_people as_w as the
meaning of creation and of the universe. In it all the
secrets of sin and réd@iption were revealed, though cer-
tainly only to him who could read with knowledge
and understanding. In it the rigid, logical consistency of
Talmudic reasoning was resolved into passionate and
quivering perceptions and conclusions fraught with
ecstasy.
Thus it constituted, as it were, a new and unknown
realm where men could wander less fettered by tradition,
constraints, and formalities; it had come into being too
recently for such things to have taken root on its soil.
True its theoretical and theosophical side, the Kabala
Jéiuntt, afforded ample opportunity for the exercise of
purely intellectual activities. But it also had its theur-
gical side, its practical system, the Kabala Maassit. Both,
however, presented an entirely different world from that
found in Talmudic and Rabbinic lore. In studying it
there was no need to stand, as it were, hammer in hand
before a collection of miscellaneous objects, theories,
discoveries, interpretations, and decisions; on the con-
trary, he who espoused the doctrine of the Kabala was
necessarily led to participate as a human being and a
personality in all the wonders it contained.
The key-note of the Kabala is the conviction that one
day a man will arise to restore order to a world that had
lost it—a Messiah. The advent of a Messiah was im<
perative. For the elemental soul substance, the Nizuzorh,
18 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
had fallen and decayed and become entangled in the
tentacles of elemental evil, because the spirits, the
divine elements, the Sheibtrath Hakelim had fallen.
They had to be separated from each other again; in other
words, evil had to be annihilated. Then the world would
be good once more. Then grace, borne down by the myriad
emanations of the Almighty, the Sefiroth, would once
more pour down upon the earth. Then the world of Order
would come into being, the Olam ha-Tikkun. The just
and the pure in heart could contribute to this end if they
could but see the links between the world above and the
world below, and carry out the Kavanot, the penitential
exercises prescribed in the practical Kabala. Every man
was capable of doing this, but only the Messiah, the
incarnation of primordial man, Adam Kadmon, who him-
self partook of the godhead, could accomplish it with full
strength and certainty.
This work, therefore, held out a hope and a mission
to every man. The call was to every individual soul that
took the trouble to study its teaching. It only rested with
him to seek for the key and to bestir himself. It was into
this ground that young Sabbatai Zevi shot his roots.
The reader will readily understand that he merely
skimmed the surface of the system in order as quickly as
possible to reach the living and practical part, the part
which called upon him as an individual and would
enable him to fulfil what he secretly felt to be his mission.
No sense of immaturity deterred him from immersing
himself in this atmosphere, but the world he discovered
was hard and extremely hostile to life. It was full of
all kinds of mortifications of the flesh, prayers, fastings,
EARLY DAYS . 19
penitential exercises, ablutions, and observances demand-
ing monastic abstinence and calculated to numb the
senses. But in return a man acquired extraordinary clar-
ity of vision and a heightened sensitiveness towards the
transcendental and the supernatural. He was enabled to
draw into close and visible proximity to God and the
angels, to foretell the course of events on earth, and
perform acts which simpler men were forced to regard
as miracles. .
This discipline thus promised to bring about an ex-
traordinary enhancement of personality, and the further
he penetrated into this new kingdom, the more convinced _
was Sabbatai that this was so. Young and immature
though he was, he soon won the reputation of being as
great and learned Kabalist. People came to him anxiou
es oe oe
to benefit from his knowledge and ready~to~accept his
eee ee ne teeny,
teaching, which for a man of his tender years constituted
something of a ‘triumph and gave him an extraordinary
serisé of his own importance and value. It made hint feel
that he was a person of Some consequence who stood
apart from the rest of mankind, superior to those of his
own age and generation. He was at this time just eight-
een n_and the Rabbis of Anis town had already conferred
From time immemorial men have been wont to to gather
about the scholar to learn from him, subordinating their
minds to his and making their master’s thoughts their
own. Thus when Sabbatai became a Chacham it was
also imperative for him to have a band of disciples who
acknowledged themselves his intellectual dependants.
But the old or mature men, who came to him to.ask a
3
20 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
question or to have a mystery solved, were no good for
this purpose, because they always turned away respect-
fully wagging their heads and thanking him. He had
no use for those who made off when once they had been
answered. His disciples must be men who would remain
with him and by their constant presence proclaim to the
whole world that he was the young Chacham, a wonder-
ful and extraordinary man. Thus he looked about for
young men who, like himself, were filled with curiosity
and a thirst for knowledge, believers, fanatics, and en-
thusiasts, of whom, indeed, there were plenty to be found.
He merely had to select them, draw them to him and
cunningly convey to them that he, the Chacham Sabbatai
Zevi would lead them along thrilling, mysterious, and
wonderful paths. He knew that he was endowed with
such an abundance of spiritual riches that he had enough
for hundreds of followers.
Ww
-~ Thus from among those who worked with him and
came to him with their questions, he selected a special
body whose leader and teacher he became. In selecting
them he was not concerned with friendship, though
knowledge and youth are all that a man needs for such
a relationship. Never did he become the friend of any
man. Throughout his life he regarded all men_as.belong-
ing to only two two classes—supporters or adversaries. This
was particularly sc so during the period we are discussing
when he was longing to unburden himself of his su-
perfluous riches and when all he demanded of the young
men about him was that they should stand before him and
receive what he had to offer. He was searching not for
men but for disciples; for in making them intellectually
eae Oe
EARLY DAYS 21
dependent on him he was gratifying his youthful longing
for personal adherents. They were to take the place of
‘those things by means of which other children reached
self-consciousness—the games in which they played the
leader. But he turned this craving into a vocation.
In the exercise of his calling he was extremely auto-
cratic though sincere. He expected his disciples _ to per-
form exceptionally difficult penitential exercises and
mortifications of the flesh, and he was the first to set
them a high example. Sometimes he fasted for a whole
week. He carried out ablutions on the béach in every
season of the year and in any weather. He frequently
withdrew from them for hours at a time to engage in
prayer and they would hear him singing the Messianic
hymn of Israel Nadshara in his extraordinarily beautiful
voice. His voice possessed a charm which he exploited to
gain influence, frequently turning its sensuous appeal t
account to win adherents. It was not his intellect alone
that gave him power over others, but a certain magnet=
ism_which emanated from his whole personality andi n-
creased. with the years. ‘As a man who felt constantly
spurred on to influence and master others, he was no
doubt fully aware of the impression created by his ex-
ternal appearance, and both friend and foe are agreed
that he was extremely handsome. Slim and well propor-
tioned, he had dark deep-set eyes, a full sensuous mouth
and a graceful carriage, while all reports agree that
a strange and fragrant aroma emanated from his body.
On returning from his penitential exercises “‘his face
used to shine like that of some unearthly being’? and
the primitive engravings and drawings of his day depict
22 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
him with exceptionally large and vivacious eyes and
mouth.
Again and again we are told that his person and ap-
pearance were that of the “dreamer,” but such a descrip-
tion merely conceals a reluctance accurately to describe
his behaviour and the spirit that guided his actions. True,
he may have been a romantic young man, but his actions
were sensible, sane, and full of significance. When he
was not alone or engaged in penitential exercises, he
would go every night, surrounded by his disciples, outside
the city gates, following the example of the great foreign
Kabalist, Chaim Vital Calabrese of Safed. Beneath the
starlit heavens outside the city he would probe the great
mysteries, weighing them word by word, thought by
thought, and sentiment by sentiment. This was not gush-
ing enthusiasm, it was the exercise of a propensity which
from time immemorial had been the possession of his
people. Even when they were wandering in the wilder-
ness the Jews had been able to detach themselves from
everyday life and in front of their tents on the boundless
plain retire into that solitude where every event becomes —
converted into a spiritual experience. This was merely
their peculiar way of expressing and living their kinship
with Nature, their acceptance of Being through the rever-
ent recognition of the spirit, just as when he gathers the
fruit from the soil or from the trees a Jew will always
show his humility before Nature’s handiwork by saying
grace. All Sabbatai did was to worship God in the open,
a simple proceeding which he did not allow the mockery
of the unsympathetic Turks to interrupt. He knew the
importance of what he was doing, and if he had not felt
EARLY DAYS 23
it himself, the recognition of his followers could not have
failed to prove it to him. His father above all was loud
‘in his approval, constantly declaring that all his son
did was pleasing in God’s eyes and maintaining that God
had obviously rewarded him for having devoted one of
his children to the study of holy things. And this hap-
pened as follows.
About this time there were violent upheavals in Turkey
owing to constant changes of government and of rulers.
As soon as Sultan Ibrahim came into power, one of his
first actions was to declare war on the great Republic of
Venice. Hitherto Constantinople and Salonica had been
the two commercial centres of Turkey. But the war cut
off the usual trade routes and the majority of the English,
French, Dutch, and Italian merchants, refusing to have
their business disturbed by the feud between the Sultan
and Venice, without further ado shifted their commercial
headquarters to Ismir.
This immediately led to vast changes in the status
and appearance of that city, and for the Jews in partic-
ular it introduced a new era. Hitherto very few Jews
had settled there and they were not much better off than
the poor poulterer Mordecai Zevi. But now the whole
trade of the Levant became concentrated in Ismir, creat-
ing a great demand for labour. Three or four times a year
the great caravans came from India, Persia, Armenia,
Media, and Anatolia, bearing the produce of those lands—
spices, cloth, silks, hides, skins, and ornaments, which were
exchanged for metals, implements, arms, furniture, and
crockery. Caravanserais and counting houses were opened
and there was a demand for men who understood the native
24 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
language and could act as interpreters and agents. A large
English commercial firm approached Mordecai Zevi and
appointed him their authorized representative and agent.
And thus in a very short space of time the poor poulterer
became a highly respected and well-to-do merchant.
-But this did not turn his head, and his behaviour
proved that it is not only the poor who are pious. He
regarded his riches merely as the reward for his piety.
True, political and economic conditions had made him,
together with the rest of the rapidly growing Jewish com-
munity in Ismir, quite wealthy. But what were politics
and economic conditions? Nothing, unless they were sent
by God as rewards or punishments. And here there seemed /
to be an obvious moral—the pious life of the Chacham
Sabbatai Zevi had brought blessing upon his father and
the whole of the community. Old Mordecai felt that
this truth must be heralded abroad; it could not be too
often or too loudly repeated. And as he was appealing
to those who like himself had, as it were, arisen one
morning to find themselves prosperous, he met with
plenty of people ready to believe and agree.
/ Thus Sabbatai Zevi again became the centre of interest
and won a certain limited recognition. His feeling of self-
importance increased, and his previous actions acquired
significance. He saw that he had already succeeded in
accomplishing something; for had not his spiritual power
secured the happiness of at least one whole community ?7
He received daily assurance of this and had no reason to
disbelieve it. When he traced this growing importance
to its causes, he became ever more firmly convinced that
the activities in which he was engaged were precisely
EARLY DAYS 25
those which guaranteed such an, access of value and
strength to a man. They were to be found in the Kabala,
with its doctrine of the world order, redemption from evil,
and the salvation of the world which was beginning to de-
velop and become effective in himself. Who could tell
whither it might not lead him if he probed more deeply,
far more deeply than he had done hitherto into this science
and its ramifications ? His labours might bring him rewards
hitherto undreamt of! |
From this time onward he began to separate himself
ever more from the crowd. Whereas formerly he had al-
lowed his followers to accompany him while he carried
out his ablutions in the sea, he now forbade them to do
so. Each time he performed the symbolic act of purifica-
tion, he insisted on being quite alone, alone with himself
and possibly with his God. And more ambitious expecta-
tions inevitably began to take shape in his heart. As a
young scholar, a Chacham, the leader of a band of disci-
ples, a man who had brought happiness to thousands, a
creature of great personal power of which he was fully
aware, he became convinced that all he had done hitherto
was not fulfilment but merely an earnest of greater things
to come, the first test of his ripening gifts. And he now
sought in solitude for the enlightenment, the message, or
the vision which would open up to him fresh paths to ef-
fective action.
Such paths were necessarily not numerous, for we must
not forget his spiritual ancestry. Man and God, a people
and a country—these constituted his starting-point and
goal, and the bridge between them was—the Messiah.
It was a daring, insensate, megalomaniac process of
26 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
reasoning. But it was nevertheless a conclusion which had
a meaning and which it was impossible to evade. What
\
}
other possibility could there be than this, that between |
these holy things which had become parted, the world and |
God, and between these realities that had become sepa-
tated, a people and a country, there stood as mediator, the
Messiah? There was only one other possibility—the exist-
ence somewhere of a humble and penitent man ready to
serve. There were certainly thousands of such men stand-
ing between the starting-point and the goal, but in every
Age there was always one who was chosen to be more than
a servant, and who by various signs and omens was ap-
pointed to be the leader. When Sabbatai examined all
that he had accomplished hitherto, he felt neither modesty
nor hesitation. On the contrary, he only expected to re-
ceive ever further confirmation of his power. But he
needed some nourishment for his hopes.
These expectations made him blind and deaf to every-
thing about him, and in the way in which he held himself
aloof from people there was a silent haughtiness, a tacit
insistence on his peculiar holiness. But this in no way
diminished his following. As his adherents, however,
knew nothing of the secret tenor of his thoughts, they still
did not place him above the sphere of ordinary life as a
creature to whom the usages and customs of the day and
their beliefs did not apply. On the contrary, his father
decided that as he was grown up and a man in the eyes
of the Law he must find him a wife. Early marriage was
a religious precept. Through the Kabala a mystic spirit
had been imparted to the ceremony, connecting it with
the salvation that was to come, which to be complete re-
sR OF
EARLY DAYS 27
quired that all the souls that had not yet been born should
come into the world. Any day the Messiah might appear,
perhaps tomorrow. Therefore it was incumbent upon a
man to get his children married as soon as possible.
In view of Sabbatai Zevi’s fame and the respected social
position which his father had won it was only natural that
the girl chosen to be his bride should be one of the richest
and most beautiful maidens in the city. The marriage was
celebrated with great pomp and ceremony and both fami-
lies were supremely happy.
A few weeks after the wedding, however, the young
wife presented herself before the Rabbinical court with a
strange plea, complaining that she was a wife and yet
not a wife. For Sabbatai Zevi had not taken her to him.
She was married to him, but he held aloof from her.
The Rabbis were dumbfounded. Never had they known
such a case! And they summoned Sabbatai Zevi to appear
before the court and answer the charge. He obeyed and ad-
mitted the facts, but could advance no plea of justification.
As the Rabbis were not competent to inquire into the
reasons why he kept aloof from his wife, and as the lat-
ter’s rights could not be contested, they were forced to pass
judgment, and decided that Sabbatai Zevi must either
fulfil the duties of a husband or present his wife with the
Get, the deed of divorcement, as she could not be expected
merely to live side by side with a man.
Sabbatai accepted the verdict and did as he was bid,
sending his wife a deed of divorcement; and he continued
to live his solitary life as before, surrounded by his disci-
ples. His family and friends could understand nothing of
all this. They were honestly distressed and could only ac-
28 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
count for his peculiar behaviour by supposing that he had
not been stimulated by this particular maiden. They
therefore set to work to find another possessed of all the
qualities expected in a good wife.
Before long such a bride was discovered, and a second
marriage was celebrated. But once again after a few weeks
had elapsed the second wife also appeared before the
Rabbis and like her predecessor complained that she was
still a virgin.
For the second time Sabbatai was summoned before the
judges and acknowledged the facts, but still offered no ex-
planation. He was ordered to send this wife also a deed
of divorcement. But suspicion and ill feeling began to
run rife. For a man to reject a woman after he had lived
with her and learnt to know her was comprehensible, since
he might have come to the conclusion that he could not
love her or that she possessed qualities that repelled him.
But to marry two women in succession and to refuse to go
near either of them gave rise to dark and sinister suspi-
cions. Sabbatai was aware of this and knew he would have
to justify his strange conduct, and he proceeded to give an
explanation which he knew would be accepted. He said
that the Holy Ghost, Ruach Ha’kodesh, had announced
to him that neither of his two wives had been the bride
destined for him by Heaven.
And they believed him, for nothing seemed to these
people more plausible than that divine voices should speak
to One so pious, and nothing was more remote from their
minds than to suppose that an excessively ascetic life
could sublimate the passions and destroy sexual potency,
/
EARLY DAYS 29
or that association with young disciples might lead to
sinful methods of sex gratification.
But this explanation was something more than mere
justification ; it constituted the first clear intimation that
his religious observances had brought him into touch
with the supernatural world, it was his first declaration
that tiis fate, whether actual or imagined, had been drawn
into close and vital connexion with the divine will. The
circle which he had for some time been drawing around
him began to close, but the fact that the circle was about
to be completed by the realization of his vague hopes and
aspirations and the enhancement of his self-esteem was
due to circumstances beyond his control and to influences
from the outside world which had hitherto been closed to
him.
Owing to the simple fact that an economic centre had
been transferred, another world had come into being in
the isolated little Jewish community in Ismir with its
narrow and confined outlook, a world of whose existence
it had hitherto possessed only an extremely inadequate
notion. Through their daily intercourse with the repre-
sentatives of this new world they began to be aware of
certain connexions hitherto unknown, connexions not
tangible realities, the inner not the outer mechanism of
this new world. The outer mechanism they witnessed
daily in the discharge of their business activities. As Jews
they were not concerned with it. Their own manner of life
was so much a matter of course to them that they pursued
it without observing it, and therefore without comparing
it with any other. A Jew never asked a man what he was
;
end
30 . THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
_ doing. All he wanted to know was what he was thinking.
Jewish inquisitiveness is not concerned with material
matters.
Mordecai Zevi’s newly acquired position brought him
into constant touch with the representatives of this strange
outside world, particularly with the Englishman whose
interests he was looking after. But it transpired that this
same Englishman was a Puritan and that in addition to
trading and money-making he was engrossed in spiritual
problems, matters of faith and of the morality based
upon it. Toa man like Mordecai this was familiar ground,
a familiar idea, and it brought home to him, moreover,
that with all his insular haughtiness this thorough Eng-
lishman possessed a considerable knowledge of the Bible
and of the religious foundations of Judaism. Thus it was
possible to reach an understanding with him.
In searching for the object of their faith and their hope
both Jew and Puritan came to the same surprising con-
clusion, though they reached it by different paths and by
means of totally divergent views. They both looked for
the advent of a Messiah and Saviour of the world. And
in this connexion the Puritan was so far ahead of the Jew
that he had already taken practical steps towards the reali-
zation of his object. In his native land battles were already
being fought, in which the Roundheads under Cromwell
were struggling against the intolerance of the Bishops
and an autocratic monarch to win freedom for their faith
and their mode of life in state and country. And in all
they did they showed extraordinary broad-mindedness,
aiming at freedom of thought and of faith, not for them-
selves alone but for every man and every community that
|
|
_——F, iam, ee
SALONICA
uy
sy
,
ms,
ees
SMYRNA
EARLY DAYS | 31
took religion seriously. They regarded this as all the more
necessary because with them, as with the Jews, everyday
life was actively permeated by the elements of their faith.
To them the Bible, and particularly the Old Testament,
was not merely a book to be read, it was the Divine Law
which men must strive to fulfil, and to them the Day of
Salvation was thrillingly near at hand. The whole struc-
ture of Puritanism with Cromwell at its head, in the di-
rectness of its actions and the profundity of its faith was
deeply rooted in the soil of the Old Testament. The Puri-
tans regarded themselves as characters from the Book of —
Judges entrusted with the task of setting free an oppressed
people. The historical events of the period had placed
them in a position very similar to that of the Jews, with
whom they accordingly felt themselves sympathetically
akin, only regretting that they expected a different Mes-
siah. Cromwell declared that he pitied from the bottom of
his heart the unfortunate people whom God had chosen
and to whom He gave His Law. For in not acknowledging
Him as the Messiah they had rejected Jesus. And he cher-
ished the hope that one day the Old and New Testament
would be reconciled and the Jews and Puritans united.
The Jewish Talmudist and the Puritan were led to
discuss coming events and while the Jew was able mys-
teriously to show how the religious exercises of his circle
and even of his household were working towards the bet-
terment of the Age, the Puritan, at once pious and prac-
tical, could triumphantly point to the fact that in his
country the application of his beliefs to actual life had
long been preached and discussed. For instance, the duty
of keeping holy the Sabbath Day was to be enforced and
32 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
it had even been suggested that the Jewish Sabbath in-
stead of Sunday should be the day chosen. Proposals had
also been made to reform Parliament along the lines of
the old Jewish Sanhedrim, while the ultra-Republican
group, the Levellers, attached such importance to the
Bible and the faith based on the Bible and so urgently
advocated the adoption of the Thora as a general code of
law that the cautious Cromwell was forced in one of his
speeches in Parliament to say: ““When they tell us, not
that we are to regulate the law, but that law is to be abro-
gated and subverted and perhaps wish to bring in Judaical
law instead of our known laws settled among us, this is
worthy of every magistrate’s consideration.”
Such was the state of affairs in England and thus far
had matters progressed. But the Jew had no need to feel
that the Puritan had outstripped him. He could smile.
True, he could not point to similar parliamentary meas-
ures, but he could show his English friend a far greater
and more important reality, a prophecy from the Zohar,
the great, fundamental work of the Kabalistic world. The
Zohar contained a prophecy that in the next millennium,
after the lapse of 408 years, all the inhabitants of the
underworld would awake to a new life. The Millennium
that was meant in this passage was the sixth in the Jewish
reckoning of time, hence the year meant was the year
5408, which corresponded to the year 1648 of the Chris-
tian era. In this year great and decisive events were to
take place. The Holy Book declared that in this epoch-
making year every man would enter into his inheritance.
“But 1s this the year actually mentioned and written
down?” demanded the Englishman. Gently Mordecai ex-
EARLY DAYS 33
plained to him that in the Hebrew language every letter
represented a number, and as the Kabala was concerned
with the mystery of promises revealed only to the seer
and to the seeker after truth, both letter and numeral,
word and hidden meaning, were intimately connected
with one another. Thus when the Zohar said “this” year,
it laid particular stress on the word “this” and further
investigation was indicated. Now the Hebrew for “‘this’’
was ha’soth, and the number corresponding to ha’soth was
5408. But this meant the year 1648 of the Christian era.
Thus the great year was indeed near at hand. According
to the interpretation of the seers the Messiah was expected
to appear in the year 5408.
Neither the alleged fact nor the way in which the Jew
communicated it brought any supercilious smile to the
lips of the Englishman. For he was in whole-hearted
agreement with the Jew, more particularly in regard to the
proximity of the great day. The only point on which he
persisted in disagreeing with him was as to the precise
year. According to him it would not be 1648 but 1666, for
though the Jew might have his Zohar, the Christian secta-
rian had the Revelation of St. John, according to which
many, including theologians, reckoned that Christ would
return in 1666 and that this year would inaugurate the
thousand years of His rule on earth. Nevertheless, this
was not to be the last and final salvation, but merely a
sort of interregnum. It was the millenarian idea of the
Fifth Monarchy referred to in the Apocalypse, and from
that day, in the words of the Book of Daniel, the rule of
the Holy One would begin. Extremely ancient sectarian
ideas were here revived. A large body of men in the Chris-
34 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
tian world were also awaiting this Messianic event which
was to take place in the old Holy Land and for which the
co-operation of the Jews was imperative. And thus two
worlds in conflict regarding matters of faith were to be
united in one common belief and, in both, men were to
hold their breath for a moment while they put ew ear
to the heart of the universe. oe
When, after such an exchange of ideas, Mordecai re-
turned home, his son must have marvelled to hear from
his lips that things were being talked about in other parts
of the world similar to those which for many a year had
lent significance to his every thought and action. He
seemed to be receiving confirmation from all sides and it
was full_of_a strange power. Dreams, expectations and
the creations of his heart and mind had apparently for some
time past assumed their own independent form in the out-
side world. Such things were after all tangible realities and
there was no longer any need for him to flee into solitude
with his tdeas which often filled him with strange and un-
accountable fear. Nay, there was no longer any reason
why he should not believe in their concrete reality and
openly express the faith that was in him, were it only by
parables. The main consideration was that he was con-
cerned with matters which were terrifyingly near at hand,
and not buried in the dim and distant future. His activities
were connected with the present. All that he was doing,
thinking and yearning for today might be a reality to-
morrow. The salvation of the world had been announced.
And it was for the man who took the leadership into his
hands, the Messiah, to give it to the world. The Age was
waiting for a Messiah,
CHAPTER IilI
Massacres
We those in Sabbatai Zevi’s immediate circle
grew ever more pious, smug and well-to-do, the
youth himself became filled with the most exalted hopes
and aspirations producing a condition of unprecedented
nervous tension. The Kabalistic books, doctrines, and pre- »
cepts had done their work. They had led him to prepare
himself. But for the moment they could do no more, for
he was waiting for the event, the great upheaval. Surely
it was high time for this momentous convulsion to occur,
to release forces that had long lain dormant and bring
about the desired end! But he was demanding the impos-
sible, because he wanted it for his own ends. Nevertheless,
were there not certain strange and unaccountable events
taking place, events of sufficient magnitude to be con-
nected with his own person and interpreted as a confirma-
tion of his own ideas about himself? Certainly there were!
Apparently in Europe, in Poland and the Ukraine, where
the mass of rich and cultured Jews had settled down, there
had been slight, spasmodic signs of restlessness. Reports .
to this effect had been brought in by the alms-gatherers
who had gone there to collect money for the poor in the
Holy Land. Among much that was vague rumour, certain
concrete incidents stood out. A Cossack, it seemed, had
35
36 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
killed a Jew and the Polish landlord for whom the Jew
was acting as steward had had the Cossack put to death,
too. Such tales were heard and consigned to oblivion with
the rest. But Sabbatai did not forget and stored them all
up in his heart.
Then one day by way of Constantinople there came
news which at first no one could even rightly understand.
It was said that the Crimea had offered to sell five hun-
dred Jews to the community in Constantinople. What?
Had the age of slavery been revived? Were people now.
trafficking not only in Moors but also in Jews? No, im-
possible! They were prisoners of war, Jewish prisoners of
war from Poland and the Ukraine. But that too was in-
conceivable, for where and since when had the Jews waged
war? War could be waged only by those who either pos-
sessed a land of their own or had no other means of acquir-
ing one. But the Jews in Galuth did not ask for land; they
asked only for breathing-space. They did not ask to live,
they asked to be allowed to exist. They asked not for war
but for peace. |
By slow and devious ways the truth became known. It
was not the Jews who were waging war, it was the small
‘Polish peasants who, in alliance with the Cossacks and
the Tatars, were fighting the Jews, or rather not the Jews
themselves but the Polish landowners, the nobility. And
in this conflict the Jew was the prize and was now being
held up by the conqueror for sale and ransom.
The Jewish world began to prick up its ears and it was
soon learned that not only were Jews carried off as booty
but actually massacred. They were said to number about
MASSACRES 37
a thousand. The deeper reasons for all this were not under-
stood, nor did they require to be understood. For when
Jews are killed God is angry, and all that need be known
is that He starts something moving; the means he uses are
immaterial. But this gives rise to an attitude of dull help-
lessness. Men fee] themselves at the mercy of the moment.
Meanwhile ever fresh news crept in to the Jewish prayers.
Ten thousand . Jews had been massacred, of many the fate
was still uncertain. Further offé7s 6fsale-had-come from
the Crimea, a thousand, two thousand, three thousand
Jews to be sold! And _ then it was heard that not ten but
thirty thousand Jews. had_been. slaughtered” ‘and 1io~one
could tell where it would end..
Then “suddenly the western Jews beheld terrifying
spectres in their midst, refugees from the east, hundreds
and thousands creeping through the streets of Frankfort,
Amsterdam, and Leghorn, terrified, harried, destitute and
in rags, horror still depicted on their faces and despair in
every movement. They refused to rest; they could not rest.
Terror dogged their footsteps. Who said thirty thousand ?
Why, the number far exceeded sixty thousand, and as the
weeks and months went by even that number was proved to
be ludicrous. For it could no longer be doubted that the
great colony of eastern Jews had been blown up with such
violence that its ruined fragments were being scattered
pers A te een ne me ano
Te
me
over the whole of the civilized world. The last hope and -
refuge of the Jews in Galuth had been annihilated! Its
ruins were swimming in blood! A hundred thousand dead!
A new dispersion was taking place. Two hundred thousand
dead! The people bowed their heads and groaned. And
38 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
through the blankness of this mute despair loomed a fan-
tastic, inconceivable figure, the more or less final estimate
——three hundred thousand dead!
What were the historic causes of this tragedy? Where
were they to be found? They lay in the fact of exile which
for over two thousand years had produced similar results—
exile which forces a people to endure not only their own
fate but also the fate of those about them. The densest
Jewish colony of this period was to be found in Poland. It
was a strictly organized, self-governing community enjoy- .
ing a semblance of independence. It settled its own affairs;
it had its own spiritual life, and managed its own religious
and judicial business. It also supplied the Jewish world
with interpretations of the Law and with Rabbis at a time
when the development of the Jewish spirit had been fatally
interrupted, and arrested the process of disintegration by
means of an intellectual activity which was a tonic to the
weary soul,
In view of all this, Polish Jews imagined that their
safety was more or less assured. They had insinuated them-
selves so early in the economic development of Poland
that they were able to increase and multiply with apparent
impunity. On the whole they were a flourishing commu-
nity. But in Poland as elsewhere they could maintain their
position only so long as they remained ahead of the rest
of the community in economic wisdom. This is an infallible
economic law. The moment that stage was passed their
qualities began to be regarded as something foreign to the
country and they began to be oppressed. This was now
happening in Poland. The Jews had led the way in the
economic development of the country and their pupils
MASSACRES 39
were now confronting them with merchant bodies, crafts-
men’s guilds and urban councils which were increasing day
by day in number and importance. It need hardly be added
that the Catholic clergy and more particularly the Jesuits,
who were becoming extremely powerful at the time, sided
with their opponents and oppressors.
For awhile they were able to meet this opposition with-
out being in any immediate danger, for they still supplied
a need. Two of the most important elements in the Polish
state still had an interest in them—the Crown and the
nobility. The Crown could not dispense with the Jew as
a factor in government, and the nobility required stewards
to manage and exploit their large estates and to produce
the wherewithal for their luxurious existence as feudal
idlers..
Thus the Jew was already acting as a bufter between
a growing bourgeoisie and the Crown and nobility. More-
over, he also had to endure the effects of the tension exist-
ing between Poles and Russians, nobles and serfs, towns-
men and small peasants, Polish Catholics and Russian
Orthodox Christians, all of whom were heading towards
a catastrophe. The outbreaks occurred in the Ukraine, the
basin of the Dnieper and the Dniester with Kiev as the
centre, Volhynia and Podolia in the west, and Chernigov
and Poltava in the east. This area had become Polish ter-
ritory only within the last hundred years, but was already
in a state of upheaval. In the political sphere the Polish
kings ruled as absolute monarchs while economically the
Polish nobility governed this new territory through the
medium of their estates and owing to the fact that all the
inhabitants on their property were given them as serfs.
40 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
To the Pole, the Russian’ was a contemptible Asiatic out-
sider. The Catholic hated and opposed the Little Russian
of the Greek Orthodox Church, whose religion he declared
to be one for slaves, and in the midst of all these differ-
ences, for which they cared nothing, the Jews were drawn
into the vortex owing to the fact that the nobility em-
ployed them chiefly as estate stewards and that conse-
quently, to the oppressed Ukrainians, they seemed to be
the real possessors of power. It did not matter to the peo-
ple that the Jews were merely agents. They were strangers
and therefore objects of hatred. They were the instruments
of a tyrannical power and therefore doubly hated. The
landlord, for instance, used to charge his serfs for the use
of the church. When a serf wished to get married, he
would therefore have to go to the steward, a Jew, and pay
him a certain sum to open the church door. If the dues
which the landlord imperiously demanded from his stew-
ard were not paid, it was the Jew who went to the serf
and took the last cow from his stable. The landlord re-
mained invisible. And although it was against the latter
that the oppressed rebelled and from whom he demanded
emancipation, it was against the Jew that the lust for
bloodshed and murder was turned.
Thus the battle-cry of the oppressed Ukrainians was
‘“‘Down with the Pans and the Jews!”’ In this slogan they
felt lay the only solution of their troubles. They had at
hand an organization which had long been in existence for
co-ordinating individual effort and rendering it effectual.
The proximity of the wild and boundless steppe which
reached as far as the Crimea, across whose wide open
spaces nomadic tribes, particularly Tatars, were con-
/
MASSACRES 41
stantly pouring and invading the cultivated lands on the
western banks of the rivers, had led to the formation of
a half-military, half-peasant caste for the protection of
the country against attack. The members of this body
were known as Cossacks and on the farther side of the
river Dnieper there were large free and independent Cos-
sack communities. To these Zaporozhian Cossacks the
oppressed Ukrainians looked up as to a sort of national
militia, or allied outposts, and it was they who organized
the first risings. Escaped serfs, criminals, and adventurers
formed the dangerous nucleus of this body.
The first uprising took place in the year 1637. The Cos-
sack leader, Pavlynk, invaded the district of Poltava at
the head of the peasants and laid waste the land, breaking
into Lubny and Lokhvitsa, burning the synagogues and
Catholic churches and killing the Catholic clergy and the
Jews. A Polish army marched out against him. His troops
were defeated and the insurrection collapsed. All it had
achieved was to make the institution of serfdom even
more rigorous than before.
Ten years later, in 1648, a second attempt was made.
It was better prepared and organized and was led by a
hetman named Bogdan Chmielnicki, called Chmiel for
short, whose personal grievances served only to fortify his
passion for the cause of freedom. He outlined a programme
for the fulfilment of which he proclaimed a holy war. His
aims were the spread of the true faith, the freedom of the
Cossacks, and the extirpation of Pans and Jews, and he
entered into alliance with his own and his followers’
former foes, the Crimean Tatars. In April 1648 the allied
army marched into battle; the Polish troops were routed
42 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
in two great battles, and at one blow the whole of the
eastern area of the Dnieper fell into the hands of the
insurgents. The towns and Jewish communities were
sacrificed without a chance of defending themselves.
Pereyaslavl, Piryatin, Lokhvitsa, and Lubny were de-
stroyed and plundered and the inhabitants driven out.
Only those were allowed to survive who consented to em-
brace the Orthodox Faith.
These successes inspired the insurgents with courage;
the movement spread to the region of Kiev, and a wave
of blood and terror inundated the land. In May 1648
Vladislav IV of Poland died and with his death the op-
position lost their leader and any organization they pos-
sessed. Volhynia and Podolia joined the insurgents. The
Jews fled from the plains and sought refuge in the fortified
cities. But the cunning of the Cossacks and the treachery of
Poles who by surrendering the Jews hoped to save them-
selves, brought about the fall and destruction of these
towns also. Thus Nemirov was captured by a ruse,
Tulczyn fell through treachery, while Bar, in spite of the
resistance offered by both Poles and Jews, capitulated
before overwhelming numbers. Polonnoya, too, owed its
downfall to treachery. More than twelve thousand Jews
had taken refuge in this place, and all who were not taken
prisoner by the Tatars, or refused to be baptized, were
put to the sword. The flight of the Jews became ever
more headlong and desperate. Ostrog, Zaslavl, and Dubno
became temporary havens of refuge for fifteen thousand
Jews. The country roads were littered with goods and
chattels, carts and exhausted fugitives. Any who were
caught in the towns or on the highroads were killed. There
MASSACRES 43
was a massacre in Constantinov. Separate armies were
formed to pursue their activities in Lithuania and White
Russia. The remnants of the fugitive communities of
Pinsk, Brest, Chernigov, and Starodub were extermi-
nated, while in Homel there was a regular holocaust. In
Zamosé, Lublin, Narol, Tomaszow, Szczebreszin, and
many other towns, massacres took place the like of which
have seldom been known in history.
For it was very much more than an ordinary war. It
was a display of passion in which thirst for blood was
gratified with unbridled fury. Religious fanaticism and a
bestial lust for murder were added to the other horrors
which usually darken the pages of history. No decalogue,
no law of “Thou shalt not kill” could prevent the assail-
ants from confronting their opponents with the alternative
—conversion or death. Here and there the Cossacks scored
at least temporary successes by insisting upon this alterna-
tive, for some of the Jews saved their lives by professing
to have been converted. But almost everywhere, by re-
maining steadfast and refusing to yield, they displayed
a heroism which if the enemy had found it in their own
ranks they would have cherished among the highest of
their traditions and sung pzans in its honour. But, seeing
that it was displayed by the odious and contemptible Jews,
it could be met only by death. Thus the history and fate
of the Jews led to the formation of a concept peculiar to
themselves, the Kiddush hashem, or sanctification of the
Divine Name, the proof of fidelity to their God, by martyr-
dom and death. True, other nations had their martyrs, but
no other people had endured martyrdom as a constant
factor in their life and history for two thousand years.
: s\ ie,
| fe
44 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR “= ww
The following are typical occurrences. In Nemirov, the
hetman Ganya called upon the Jews to adopt his faith.
But Jechiel-Michel ben Eliezer, the head of the Jewish
school, by way of retort, conjured his brethren to the
Kiddush hashem. And on the tenth of June 1648, six
thousand Jews accepted death by martyrdom.
Another incident of the kind occurred at Tulczyn in
Podolia, where the hetman Krivonoss made a similar pro-
posal. He had all the Jews collected in an open space and
summoned them to be converted; they refused, and fifteen
thousand Jews allowed themselves to be massacred.
In Polonnoya over ten thousand fugitive Jews had col-
lected. Weakened by privation and suffering, some of
them had recourse to conversion. But the vast majority
regarded fidelity as more binding and chose death. In
Ostropol, the Kabalist Simson collected about him three
hundred of his followers, who appeared in the synagogue
wrapped in shrouds. When called upon to be converted
they merely replied by reciting prayers. And they were
killed as they prayed.
In Homel, Chmielnicki himself tried to win the Jewish
community over to his faith. But the spiritual head of the
community, Rabbi Eliezer, merely had to remind them of
their brethren in the faith who had allowed themselves to
be massacred for the sake of His Holy Name, and that
was enough. They made their peace with one another and
commended their souls to God. Whereupon more than
two thousand of them were massacred.
The death that was meted out to them was by no means
merciful. Those who fell into the hands of the ill-famed
Tatars did not suffer so much, for they were merely taken
MASSACRES 45
prisoner and sold to other Jews in various parts of the
world. In consequence whole communities went over to the
Tatars and voluntarily surrendered to them. But for those
Jews who fell into the hands of the Cossacks there was no
hope. Nathan Hannover, a chronicler of repute, who is
almost disconcertingly precise regarding detail, describes
the following incidents among many others he witnessed.
“Some of the Jews were flayed alive by the Cossacks, who
threw their flesh to the dogs. Some were severely wounded
without being fatally injured and then thrown out into the
street to prolong their agony. Others were buried alive.
Sucklings were stabbed in the arms of their mothers, others
torn to bits like fish. Pregnant women were ripped open
and the foetus extracted and thrown in their faces. Other
victims had live cats sewn up in their bellies and were
fastened up with their arms above their heads so that
they could do nothing to help themselves. Sucklings were
hanged from their mothers’ breasts; others were impaled
on pikes, roasted and offered to their mothers to eat. In
some places Jewish children were thrown in heaps into the
rivers to even up fords. . . .”
In addition to these ghastly details there are also anec-
dotes of the Eshet chayil, the heroic woman. A certain Cos-
sack captured a beautiful Jewish girl and wished to make
her his wife. She joked with him and declared that she
was immune to bullet wounds and thus prevailed upon
him to shoot and kill her. Another girl whom a Cossack
tried to force into marriage with him agreed to become
his wife provided they were married in the church across
the river. On the way there she flung herself over the
bridge into the water.
46 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
But heroism in the individual and the mass could not
arrest the paralysis which crept over the Jewish world in
the face of these massacres. The terror lasted eight months,
from April to November 1648. Never, even during the
crusades or epidemics of plague, had Jews fallen in such
numbers. However much they might have sinned as the
result of the distress and difficulty of their lives, the price
they paid was heavier and more terrible than is usually
demanded of any sinner on this earth.
The whole of the Jewish world was aghast and it was
some ‘time before the extent of the tragedy was fully
grasped. ‘Tt had all happened with such terrific sudden-
ness and communications had been interrupted so swiftly
that it was impossible to form any idea of its full signifi-
cance. In those silent days of fearful expectation, wretched
figures appeared from all directions, appeals poured in and
written communications arrived. Fugitives flooded the
Jewish centres of western Europe and of Turkey, mes-
sengers travelled far and wide collecting not as heretofore
for the poor in Palestine but for the ransom of those Jews
who had fallen into the hands of the Tatars. Subscriptions
were raised in Ismir, Salonica, Constantinople, Venice,
Leghorn, Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Frankfort. Scholars
and men of light and leading organized the work of
mercy. The famous David de Carcassoni himself took the
lead in Constantinople, and even visited Venice with re-
ports and documents. Here he obtained letters of intro-
duction to Saul Morteira, the Rabbi of the Portuguese
community in Amsterdam. Everywhere he found the same
state of affairs. The Jews, in fear and trembling, were in-
terested only to know the full extent and significance of
MASSACRES 47
the tragedy. Their history had narrowed their outlook.
They understood nothing of the economic conditions or of
the political, religious and racial antagonism which had
placed the Polish Jews between the hammer and the anvil.
All they were concerned with was to discover how their
own lives would be affected, and as regards this there was
little room for doubt—their last stronghold in the Dias-
pora had been destroyed. A fresh dispersion had been
added to the long list of those that had preceded it and
had brought death on hundreds of thousands and incal-
culable distress and misery on those who survived. It was
an obvious and bloody proof that the chain of their mis-
fortunes had not yet ended, but when suffering becomes
the constant accompaniment of the life of a people, it also
acquires a deeper meaning. Indeed it. must do so if they are
not to become utterly brutalized and insensitive. Thus the
old interpretation was given to their sorrows in dispersion
all suffering was sent as a trial and a means of purifica-
tion; it was merely the preliminary step to their ultimate
salvation, in which they had believed for sixteen hundred
years. Time and again they had imagined they had suffered
enough, and would at last be found worthy. And, after
all, it had not been enough. Their misery and persecution
still continued. But this time the Jewish soul experienced
a deep feeling of revolt; the Jewish mind was filled with
rebellious anguish and indignation and an irrepressible cry
of supplication rose from the hearts of the Jewish people
to the very steps of the heavenly throne: “It is enough, O
Lord!” Nothing more could possibly happen except salva-
tion! If this were not the meaning of their misery it was
utterly devoid of meaning; it was merely insensate cruelty,
a
48 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
blind unreasoning fate; God had forgotten them and cast
them off. But this they could not bring themselves to be-
lieve; to entertain the idea for one moment would have
shaken the very foundations of their being. Thus their
invincible will to live and fulfil their mission rekindled
hope in their breasts; these were the last, the final blows
of fate. As these tortured souls could not endure the idea
of a fresh dispersion, they interpreted what had happened
only as the beginning of their reintegration.
This idea of ultimate salvation was not kindled into
fire by the . Polish massacres, the latter merely intensified
its undying flame. Events in Poland endowed latent Mes-
sianism with a thrilling reality, though in any case, as an
idea fraught with tense expectation, it was much in evi-
dence at this time. For was this not 1648, the year which
various authorities and mysterious sources of information
declared to be the year when the Messiah would come?
The advent of the Messiah was at hand! Yet what had
actually taken place? In his introduction to an elegy,
Rabbi Lippman Heller of Cracow says sorrowfully, “In
the year 408 (1648) to which we all looked forward as a
garden of heavenly glory, the year in which the Children
of Israel would return to their home, my blood was shed
in torrents.”” Rabbi Sheftel Horowitz of Posen, quivering
with emotion, indignantly asks whether it could really
have been God’s wish that the worst massacre should have
occurred in the month of Sivan, the very month in which
the Jews had.received the Thora. And referring to the
great promise, he complains: “In the very year 408, when
I hoped to recover my freedom once more, the evil-doers
gathered together to wipe out Thy people.”
MASSACRES 49
And these plaints and reproaches, repeated in innumer-
able hymns and penitential prayers, in Kinnoth and Seli-
choth, became part of the order of service, thus once more
uniting the suffering of the people with their liturgy. And
thus children of the tenderest years learnt in their morning
prayers how their history had been enriched, as it were
overnight, with fresh stories of suffering and hope. In this
way their living past was confirmed, and mourning for the
loss of the centre of their culture gave rise to a blasphemous
pun. Polonia was written po lon yah, meaning “‘Here God
slumbered.”’
Latent Messianism seemed to have gone beyond theory
and become translated into reality. The Jews were de-
termined to regard this ghastly year as the beginning of
the Messianic era. On the title page of his chronicles, Jeven
Mezula, The Deepest Abyss, Nathan Hannover writes the
words Be shnath biath ha’ moshiach, “in the year of the
advent of the Messiah.’’ Moreover, he discovered that the
name of the great tormentor Chmiel was merely an abbre-
viation of Cheble moshiach yabo le’ olam, “the labour pains
of the world which is bearing the Messiah.’”? Now Cheble
moshiach was what Jewish mysticism had long been dis-
cussing and though it had not occurred to any one else,
Rabbi Ephraim of Wreschen pointed out that the number
corresponding to this word was 1648, the current year of
grace.
Thus, with every fibre of their being, the Jews were
longing for the coming of the Messiah.
And this desire proceeded -to explore the realms of pos-
sibility and discovered that there was but one alternative
—to draw near to God. But this could be done only by
50 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
becoming more worthy and thus having a greater claim
upon Him. There were stages in this process of self-
discipline, purification and holiness to which the Kabala
provided the key. The teaching, dreams and aims of Ari
and Vital, those impassioned Kabalists of Safed, the
stronghold of Kabalism, and their words of wisdom were
no longer confined to the East, but were slowly, step by
step, spreading through the whole of the Jewish world. The
physical and spiritual agony of the Jews had made them
ripe for the doctrine and promises of the Kabala; it had
provided them with a weapon and a means of approach to
their God. Thus they fasted and repented, mortified the
flesh, purified and chastened themselves, animated not by
hope of personal advantage or individual salvation, but
desirous only for the good of all. The Messiah was bound
to come and they tried to make smooth the way before
him. Day and night, in every part of the world, in their
synagogues, their rooms and by the tombs of their great
ancestors, they prayed without ceasing, growing ever more
earnest and steadfast in supplication. They had begun
their general assault upon God’s attention. Surely He must
hear them! For many what was taking place both on the
physical and the spiritual plane was new and terrifying;
others were familiar with it. But one man at least had been
hoping, longing for and expecting it with all the ardour
of his soul, and that was Sabbatai Zevi. It was not that he
desired the misery of his people; but, since the world was
‘waiting for a Messiah, the suffering heralding his advent
was inevitable. But that it should have assumed such a
terrible form, involving not only spiritual but also dire
bodily anguish, and brutally assaulting the whole mass of
MASSACRES 51
the people came as a surprise even to him. And it intro-
duced a fundamental change into his attitude which had
hitherto been based entirely on ideas and spiritual specu-
lations. Of what avail was this promise of union with God
if the roads were crowded with fugitives who had not where
to lay their heads? Surely there was no need to force an
entrance into Heaven for the dead and the dying! All that
was wanted was a corner on earth for the living. Save
souls? Yes! But first of all people themselves must be
saved. Every day he met fugitives and men who had been
ransomed, fresh reports constantly found their way to the
commercial centre of Ismir, and pamphlet after pamphlet
giving ghastly details was printed and circulated. At the
same time descriptions of the penitential work and the
growing longing for a Messiah spread from community to
community throughout the world.
© For Sabbatai Zevi everything both within and without
re in a state of tumult and chaos. Could he not lend a
helping hand? Was it not his duty to do so? How could
he remain silent, seeing that all the activity and suffering
of the day was turned longingly towards those promises
which had been the subject of his daily thought and effort %
What was the use of his faith and his peculiar gifts, what
was the use of his secret knowledge of the road leading to
salvation, if he were not in a position to draw the conclu- va
sion and cry aloud: “I know how you could be helped!”
True, the ideas which had hitherto occupied his mind had
not been overmuch concerned with reality. They had been
concentrated on spiritual matters and the mysteries of re-
ligion. But suddenly he was confronted by men bleeding
from actual bodily wounds and people crying aloud for
52 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
redemption and a saviour to deliver them from falling
eternally into the hands of their enemies and being entirely
exterminated. Thus mystic. Messianism became perme-
ated with the actual distress of the day and developed into
a political and national question.
Eventually he saw that it was impossible to separate
these two forms of salvation, but that they must be re-
garded as one. Nevertheless, he felt that something more
. was required of him than the mere recognition of this fact.
Was he not called upon to act? Surely he was: He had
ceased to regard himself as other than one who had been
brought to the forefront by Fate, for he had been a con-
spicuous personality far too long to be able still to figure
as one of the masses. If everything that had happened
hitherto in his life had tended to isolate him, increase his
importance and make him perceive his unique position,
why should not these last decisive events serve a similar
purpose? The Age was crying aloud. Maybe the cry was
directed at him.
He became more isolated and reserved than ever, with-
drawing into himself and trying to find the connexion be-
tween himself and current events. The cry for salvation
rang in his ears and in his solitude assumed a tone of com-
mand. After all there must always be one man who re-
sponds to the call, and if it was sufficient for men to be
crying aloud for a Messiah, why should he himself, Sab-
batai, not be the man? But only God’s appointed could re-
spond! Before long he had ceased to doubt that his Age
and all that was taking place in it were clamouring im-
portunately for him. But he had not yet been given the
right to respond. Nothing and nobody had authorized
MASSACRES 53
him to do so. He was a candidate for the post of Messiah
on his own authority alone. Nobody had yet said to him,
“Thou art he?’
So he began cautiously to question his disciples, asking
them what rank they would fain give him in the world
and the Age. Like the Messiah of Galilee he asked,
““Whom say ye that Iam?” And they told him that he had
attained the highest rank in scholarship,-wisdom, and holi-
ness. But not one of them said, ‘“Thou art the Messiah!”’
This filled him with fear and stupefaction, Everything ©
that had happened hitherto had confirmed him in his be-
lief, but the final confirmation was not forthcoming. He
tried to procure it by other methods. When he returned to
his friends from his solitary orisons, descending to earth
as it were from a cloud, he would ask them whether they
had not observed that like the Messiah promised by Isaiah
he had descended out of a cloud. They were dumbfounded
and terrified and declared that they had not. But gradu-
ally they grew accustomed to his assertions and his ques-
tions and interpretations. When on nocturnal walks he
declared he saw lights shooting towards him, or heard
mysterious voices speaking to him out of the waves, they
said they saw and heard them too. When, overcome by hor-
ror and pity, and quivering with the secret conviction that
he had a mission, he told them the latest news received from
all parts of the world and applied to himself the verse
in Isaiah, “For the day of vengeance is in mine heart,
and the year of my redeemed is come,”’ they believed him.
Thus he led them step by step to put their faith in him
and believe things that were hidden from their eyes, and
at the same time he made his final preparations for having
34 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
himself announced as the Messiah. Soon all boundaries
between desire and actuality were obliterated. The future
appeared so certain that he felt no qualms at anticipating
it. He was like a man who already holds in his hands the
gift he is to be presented with only on the morrow. He be-
lieved that he had the power to succeed and was blind in
his self-confidence. It never occurred to him that he was
placing a terrible responsibility on his shoulders. It is such
an attitude that leads a man to become a criminal by omis-
sion rather than by commission.
Thus it inevitably came about that in the year 1648,\
after innumerable hints and mysterious innuendoes he one!
day told his most intimate friends that he was the Messiah
and bade them hold their peace.
This time they were not frightened, but eagerly be:
lieved him and accepted his claim. And as they were the
first to be regarded as worthy of the revelation, their de-
votion knew no bounds. They constituted his first secret
congregation.
CHAPTER IV
The Pronouncing of the Sacred Name
HE year 1648, for which the advent of the Messiah
had been promised, was drawing to a close. Far and
wide in every quarter of the globe people were becoming
ever more eager and expectant. But nothing happened
which could be interpreted as a response or a fulfilment.
Not a sign was to be seen. Apparently nobody knew that
at this time there was in Ismir a young Kabalist of
twenty-two who had assured his most intimate friends
that he was the Messiah. Meanwhile suspense was reach-
ing the breaking-point.
Sabbatai’s mind was also hovering between expecta-
tion and realization. There were only a few more weeks
to run; if nothing happened Fate would belie every hope
and every promise, and the dawn of the New Year would
deal the death blow to belief. But that was so inconceiv-
able that it simply must not happen! As the Messiah
had been promised, he must surely come; and since no one
else had risen up and declared, “I am he!” Sabbatai be-
came more than ever convinced that he must be the man,
and the question, “If it is not I, then who can it bee /
presented itself again more forcibly than ever to his mind.
If, as was quite possible, another had been called, why
was he not making himself known? What reason could he
55
56 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
have? Was he still awaiting the final confirmation from
above? In that case he could not be the true Messiah and
he himself, Sabbatai Zevi, must be the man. True, even
in his own case everything was not yet plain; he had not
yet been vouchsafed the final irrefutable sign. But at all
events he had already made an attempt; he had chal-
lenged his God and no thunderbolt had struck him down
as a blasphemer. To his own intimate circle he had pro-
claimed himself and had only acquired fresh confidence
thereby. Possibly all that was required to settle every-
thing was for him to proclaim himself publicly. Time was
pressing. Surely it could not be a crime to hearken to the
cry of distress and respond. The Age might turn and rend
him, but he must make the attempt.
Quivering with excitement and fear he staggered out
mechanically into the night and along the streets, his
faltering footsteps drawn irresistibly in the direction of
the synagogue where every day prayer and supplication
filled the air but received no response. And he stood look-
ing down on the covered heads of the worshippers, a ter-
rible battle raging in his heart between fear and an over-
whelming impulse to make the announcement that would
solve all problems. Then suddenly as the whole place and
the crowd of worshippers seemed to become a blur of
dazzling light, he stepped on to the Almemor, the dais
from which the Scriptures were read, and above the mur-
mur of prayer called out at the top of his voice the full
name of God which no Jew after the dispersion had ever
pronounced. In a moment all was silent as the grave. What
was that? It was surely the Shem ha’mforash, the full
name of God, which only the High Priest was allowed to
PRONOUNCING THE SACRED NAME 57
pronounce in Jerusalem on the site of the Temple, or a
man, who for the sake of the Holy Name, was dying a
martyr’s death. But this young Chacham was not such a
fool as not to know these laws. Was he then a blasphemer
of his God? Impossible! For he was the most pious in an
Age when all were pious. They also knew, however, that,
in addition to being pious, the Age was seething with ex-
citement. Possibly the young man on the Almemor had
been so overcome and carried away by the spirit of the
times that he did not know what he was doing and was
not responsible for his actions. But in any case, the mag-
nitude of the offence was well-nigh incredible, though in
an Age of such terrific upheavals perhaps it was not for
them to judge. If God’s name had been taken in vain and
He had been unjustifiably exorcized, surely He would
defend Himself. And He certainly had been exorcized.
For the utterance of God’s name in full summoned His
spirit and forced Him to become present—exorcized Him
in fact. The priest might do so because it was his function.
The martyr might do so, for he was on his last journey
home. And once but once only might the Messiah do so,
for then the utterance was his reply to God’s call. But
as this young man was not a priest, a martyr, or the Mes-
siah, nothing but evil could result. And the congregation
were terrified. The event must on no account be made
public. It must be hushed up to prevent fear and con-
sternation outside. They must pretend to be blind and
deaf and continue praying and forget what had happened.
And once again the worshippers raised their voices and
filled the synagogue with loud song. Nothing had hap-
pened. Nothing must be thought to have happened. One
38 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
or two of Sabbatai’s disciples raised their hands ex-
citedly and tried to cry out, but they were paralysed by
the deathly silence, followed by the loud singing of the
worshippers, and held their tongues.
But one of the congregation, a certain Isaac Silveira,
to whom the three alternatives had occurred exactly as
they had to all the rest, was seized by a sudden inspira-
tion when he turned the third over in his mind. The man
looked as though he had the right to utter the sacred
Name, and raising his eyes to him he whispered shyly,
“Messiah?’’ In the loud murmur of prayer his voice was
drowned, but Sabbatai, whose eyes were eagerly scanning
every face, saw from the movement of his lips that at
least one man had understood and correctly interpreted
the meaning of his cry. Possibly there were others who
would like to believe but were held back by fear. They
called aloud in prayer for a Messiah, and yet when he
ascended the Almemor and offered himself to them, they
shut their eyes! Sabbatai Zevi was very sore at heart.
Was all his self-discipline, all his prayer and mortifica-
tion of the flesh, all his sorrow, doubt, and striving to end
only in this unmistakable silence of rejection? It did not
occur to him to inquire whether this denial had not been
a response prompted by an unfailing instinct which he
must therefore humbly accept. He was not humble. He
was arrogant because he demanded recognition. He re-
garded himself as an unrecognized Messiah. He knew
that the true Messiah would be denied by men, and he
was therefore more than ever convinced that he was the
man. There was defiance in his attitude. He would force
them to recognize him as he had forced Isaac Silveira.
PRONOUNCING THE SACRED NAME 59
This man was his first adherent and as a reward would
in due course receive a crown.
A significant anecdote was current about this time. A
class of young men, sitting round a table in the school-
house, asked their teacher, a famous Rabbi, how they
could recognize the Messiah. Would they be able to do so
by the miracles he performed? The old Rabbi raised his
eyebrows in astonishment. ‘Miracles!’ he exclaimed.
“But Jesus of Nazareth performed miracles, and yet he
was not the Messiah. No! We shall recognize the Mes-
siah by the fact that all will believe in him and none will
doubt.”’
After his wild utterance in the synagogue of Ismir,
_Sabbatai devoted every moment of his day to petty
efforts calculated to achieve this end. His magnificent
gesture in the crowded synagogue had amounted to draw-
ing a bow at a venture, and he was perhaps never more
sincere and inspired than he had been at that moment.
But as, after such an act, there could be no drawing back,
and such exaltation could not be recalled at will, he was
compelled to confine himself to sober practical detail and
spadework drudgery. Silveira brought him two other
important supporters, Mose Calmari and Mose Pinheiro,
the brother-in-law of the great Italian Rabbi and Kabal- |
ist, Joseph Ergas. These men formed the nucleus of a
body who forthwith unhesitatingly recognized Sabbatai
as the appointed Messiah. Their object was gradually
to increase their circle by adherents who were absolutely
reliable and convinced, and for this it was above all im-
perative that nothing should happen to make them ap-
pear suspect or odd to the mass of the people. They
wor Mp
Ai > ci le
60 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
therefore made. a point of strictly observing all the pre-
cepts of the Law and at this period they might have been
taken for a group of particularly pious men, had not
various little commotions and disturbances repeatedly
been traced to them from time to time. They directed
their attention more particularly to the poor, for in that
Age of distress and. amisely... there were poor even in the
wealthy city of Ismir, since the indigent ‘and needy from
all parts poured into the town in order to share the pros-
perity of the Jewish community and the rest of the
inhabitants. Most of these refugees came from the neigh-
bouring country of Palestine which had not escaped the
troubles prevalent elsewhere. The alms that had hitherto
poured in from Poland had ceased to do so as the donors
were now beggars themselves, and the subscriptions
raised in the Jewish world were all devoted to the cause
of those who had fallen into the hands of the Tatars.
Famine had broken out in Jerusalem, the Holy City, and
it was to these people, hounded out by hunger, that
Sabbatai addressed himself. For they would surely be
the first to understand that a terrible calamity must have
occurred for Jews at this juncture to be driven out of
the very city whither they were supposed to return. Such
a diaspora could occur only before the ultimate settle-
ment, that is to say, the final gathering together of the
tribes.
He found adherents among them and occasionally,
when he was particularly eloquent in the promises he
made and the hopes he held out, disturbances on a small
scale would break out. The crowd invaded the synagogues
and schools and tried to rouse their brethren and prepare
arr,
PRONOUNCING THE SACRED NAME 61
them to recognize the Messiah. Disputes occurred, some-
times sufficiently serious to lead to blows, and this pro-
duced a state of tension and discord which endangered
the peace of the community.
The Rabbis kept a watchful eye on these events and
had everything that occurred in Sabbatai’s circle reported
to them. They could not forget that he had pronounced
the Shem ha’mforash, and Escapa above all, Sabbatai’s
former master, knew his pupil too. well not to be aware
that he would not be over-scrupulous in distinguishing
between fact and fiction, and that he was not only pious
but also ambitious. But ambition and piety are mutually
antagonistic. True, for. the moment Sabbatai’s conduct
was remarkable only for a more than customary display
of piety, and consequently Escapa felt he could do no
more than warn his former pupil with regard to the little
disturbances of which he was the focus. He told him to
keep quiet. The Age was sufficiently disturbed without
his adding his quota to the troubles all around.
And indeed there was no lull in the disturbances and
upheavals. When, in November 1648, Jan Kasimir, the
Cardinal Primate of Gniezno, was elected King of Poland
in succession to Vladislav IV, he opened negotiations for
peace with Chmielnicki, and for a short time the mas
sacres ceased. But they broke out again in the summer of
1649. True, Chmielnicki was defeated by the reorganized
Polish army, but in the following year he found a fresh
opportunity for attacking the Poles and the Jews. By.
slow degrees the number of Jewish victims rose to alarm-
ing proportions; but apparently the last phase of the
upheaval had been reached, and suddenly all was quiet.
62 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
With the tragic capacity for ‘adaptation which the Jews
had acquired during the course of their turbulent history
they once more raised their heads. They saw that the
decisive defeat inflicted by Jan Kasimir on Chmielnicki
had rendered the latter harmless at all events for the
time being. For the moment they were safe and could
look to the future with some degree of confidence. And
they immediately set to work to rebuild the system which
was the backbone of their existence. They summoned the
representatives of the four Polish divisions to meet in
Lublin in 1650 and renewed their shattered organization.
Furthermore they secured Jan Kasimir’s consent for all
those who had been forced to embrace Christianity under
threat of persecution to return to their own faith. They
succeeded in having their captive women and children
set free and spent their last farthing in ransoming those
who had fallen into the hands of the Tatars. They made
the twentieth of Sivan, the anniversary of the destruction
of Nemirov, another day of solemn fast and commemora-
tion, and in honour of their martyrs undertook not to
wear brocade, velvet or silk for a period of three years.
Again they felt they could look ahead, and began once
more to sublimate their sorrows in poems, dirges, and
prayers. Their gift for life was as great as their gift for
death. -
Something of this eager desire to live and to lay hold
of reality went out from them to the rest of the Jewish
world. ‘True, the idea of the Messiah was not forgotten,
and still lay dormant. But as the turmoil in the outside
world calmed down, the idea itself became spiritualized
and ceased its insistent demand for concrete expression.
PRONOUNCING THE SACRED NAME 63,
A man like Sabbatai Zevi, however, could not be satisfied
with such a state of affairs. For he had crossed the Rubi-
con and was not prepared to turn back. Moreover, he
clearly perceived that unique conditions prevailed which
might cause latent Messianism to raise its head at any
moment, and that, in spite of all, hundreds of thousands
were ready to accept a Messiah if he presented himself
in the flesh. The Age was seeking for a Messiah to save it,
and, confronting it, was a man seeking for an Age to accept
him. If the two met, a great movement might result, and
Sabbatai was prepared to do his share in bringing about
this consummation. |
But the people about him were not willing to accept
this solution. While they recognized that a Messiah must
come, they could not bring themselves to acknowledge
this young man who had grown up under their own eyes,
whose intelligence they admired and whose peculiarities
they met with an indulgent smile, but whom, in their
heart of hearts, they disliked for surrounding himself
with an air of mystery. Moreover, they could not forgive
him for the blasphemous utterance of the Holy Name
and they took it very much amiss that he was acquiring
power over the poor and creating unrest among them.
True, he had not yet publicly declared himself to be the
Messiah, but had confined himself to a symbolic gesture.
But that he would one day seriously advance his claims
was certain. This they wished to forestall, not merely
because they denied his personal assumptions, but also
because, with their fingers on the pulse of the Age, their
sound business-like instincts told them that it required
both internal and external peace, peace at any price, to
64 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
allow the gaping wounds to heal. Any one who interfered
with this healing process drew upon himself the enmity
of those whose duty it was to watch over the welfare of
the people—the Rabbis.
This was no secret to Sabbatai and he held his hand
and avoided every kind of public demonstration, but con-
tinued to work below the surface and add to the small
circle of his followers. He met with considerable success,
for those whom he had made up his mind to convince
found it extremely difficult to resist him. Moreover, he
had a strong ally in the state of expectation everywhere
prevalent, which he exploited to. add to the number of
his followers. Like a keen business man securing fresh
customers every day, he hoped that the time would come
when he would win sufficient support to proclaim himself
publicly without any risk of failure. But the passion which
had moved him to pronounce the Holy Name was now
lacking and his reserve gave the impression of cowardice.
He concealed himself and kept out of the way of the Rabbis
as much as possible, but they watched him so closely that
at last they collected sufficient evidence to deal him a stag-
gering blow.
They did not do him the honour of opposing his claim
to be the Messiah, but placed the Cherem, or ban, upon
him as a disturber of the peace and a teacher of false
doctrine, pronouncing the terrible curses which were but
the agonized cry of terror on the part of a threatened
community: “By command of the angels and the judg-
ment of the Holy One, we banish, cast out, curse and
condemn Sabbatai Zevi, wherein our Lord God consent-
eth and the whole of the community in accordance with
PRONOUNCING THE SACRED NAME 65
the holy Thora and the six hundred and thirteen rules
set down therein, and in accordance with the curse where-
with Elisha cursed the children and with all the curses
that are written in the Law. Cursed be he by day and
cursed by night, cursed when he lieth down, cursed when
he riseth up, cursed when he goeth out, and cursed when
he cometh in. God shall not forgive him. For the anger
and fury of God shall be kindled against him and bring
down upon his head all the curses that are written in the
Law. His name shall be blotted out from Heaven and his
memory shall die out from the host of Israel. No man
shall have aught to do with him, none shall speak to him
or write, none shall show him favour or tarry beneath
his roof or remain within four ells of his presence, and
none shall read aught written by his hand.”
Had the Rabbis of Ismir known what the result an é
their curse would be, it would have remained unuttered. 3
They would have left Sabbatai and his little conspiracies
‘alone until all his efforts had vanished in smoke. But, as
it was, they introduced into his life an element upon which
from that moment he proceeded to thrive and which helped
him to an ascent it was impossible 1 to - arrest. For a blow
from outside was met with the passivity which accepts
events with almost feminine ardour, and with craven en-
durance and submission gradually works them up and
converts them into power. The instigator of the action, his
teacher Escapa, was aware of this, for he was familiar
not only with his pupil’s intellect but also with his tem-
perament, and he had warned the Rabbis that the only
way to rid themselves of the nuisance was to get rid of
Sabbatai himself. And no one could blame him for this,
we
\
66 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
seeing that he had the support of Jewish law which laid
down that any man who took the Name of God in vain
should be punished with death. Escapa proposed that the
congregation should accept the penitential fine and that in
consideration of his good works the Rabbis should forgive
the sinner in advance. But to the others this seemed a disci-
plinary measure quite out of keeping with the crime and
they decided in favour of the ban, thus virtually inaugu-
rating the greatest Messianic movement Jewry was to
experience throughout the Diaspora.
The gravity of this ban did not in any way perturb
Sabbatai, though he perceived the danger that threatened
and knew that it was impossible for him to remain in
Ismir. He understood that the ban was only a mild form
of death sentence, but he had neither the will nor the
energy to defy it. He preferred to yield and take flight;
but even this decision infused fresh spirit into him. For
he knew that, whatever might be the ostensible reasons
for the ban, it was at his Messianic pretensions that
Escapa and the others were striking. It gave him great
satisfaction to see that people were reacting to his work;
it proved to him the importance of his actions. And, be-
cause it was so important, he would have to bear the
consequences of it—here we see how everything was
converted into a ground for satisfaction in his mind—and
the price of it was suffering, that suffering which from
time immemorial had been prophesied would be the lot
of the Messiah and was inevitably connected in men’s
minds with the idea of a Messiah. The Messiah would be
reviled, persecuted, and made to suffer. These were some
ae ee nae ee nanan oa ca cet erm
of the signs whereby he would be recognized. And these
PRONOUNCING THE SACRED NAME 67
signs were clearly manifesting themselves in the life of
Sabbatai Zevi. Thus did the curse become a blessing. ‘
_ Before he left Ismir he told his intimate friends that
the city which was driving him out would one day wel-
come him back as King. It might be years before he
returned, but return he certainly would; and with this
firm conviction in his mind, he appointed two of his dis-
ciples his representatives, bidding them await his return
in power. They were Chaim Dov of Salonica and Sha-
lom Israel of Ismir. In their presence he solemnly pro-
claimed himself the true Messiah appointed by God, and
conjured them to promote his cause in every possible way
during his period of exile.
Whereupon he set out on his travels, well provided
with funds by his father and brothers. The fresh blow
he had been dealt made him feel more than ever con-
vinced that he must persevere in his self-appointed task,
and his belief in himself grew hard as steel. The world
had at last really received a Messiah!
His life at this time was not guided by any clear or
well-thought-out plan, and the discrepancies in the vari-
ous accounts of his travels seem to indicate that he
wandered to and fro, backwards and forwards, as chance
and the acceptance or rejection of his mission determined.
But he never wearied in his efforts to acquire influence,
and win adherents to his cause, continually asserting his
claims and demanding recognition and support. Since his
father and brothers believed in him, his other relatives
could do no less. He accordingly went to Morea. The
people there had already heard of him and for the first
time he had the profound satisfaction of learning that
68 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
rumours and semi-legendary reports had heralded his
arrival. So he did not stop long in the district. If such
a remote and insignificant community had heard about
him, the more important centres of Judaism would surely
be even better informed. Jerusalem above all attracted
him like a magnet. But as the Holy City seemed to de-.
mand decisive action and far-reaching decisions, he pre-
ferred to start farther afield. Thus he visited a number of
Greek cities, but very little is recorded of his activities
there. In Athens he was at first welcomed as a scholar, but
on hearing that he was under a ban, the community
would have nothing more to do with him, and there was
no alternative but for him to leave the city.
He was not in any way discouraged, and since circum-
stances kept him constantly moving, his spirit also re-
mained active and alert. He felt quite rightly that he
would be remembered wherever he had been, and the
cumulative effect of all these memories would mean his
ultimate recognition. The pomp and ceremony with
which his wealth enabled him to enter one city after
another served him in good stead, and he exploited his
advantages to the utmost, when he decided to go to
Salonica, the capital of Macedonia, to put his fortunes
to the test.
Salonica was an exceedingly wealthy and cultured
Jewish city. In addition to 22,000 Jews, including
women and children, it had 10,000 Turks and 4000
Greeks within its walls. It contained thirty synagogues
and two large schools with thousands of pupils who
‘flocked to the place from all parts of the East. It was the
stronghold of Kabalistic lore, and here Sabbatai could
PRONOUNCING THE SACRED NAME _ 69
hope for a sympathetic hearing. But experience had made
him cautious, and he refrained from making any public
- announcement of his claims because he wished first to
ascertain to what extent the people would be ready to
accept the idea of a living Messiah. Thus when he visited
the Rabbis, he said nothing about his Messianic mission,
but presented himself merely as a scholar, with the result
that he was able to reckon on a good reception every-
where. Nevertheless he was far from being an unknown
quantity to the Rabbis of Salonica. Though they may not
have been aware of the ban, they certainly knew that
some years previously he had uttered the Shem ha’mfor-
ash aloud in the synagogue and they were anxious to
learn the reason from his own lips.
Thus a unique opportunity presented itself for him
to say that since he was the Messiah he had the right to
do so. But he refrained. He probably still felt too much
isolated. And so with a grave and deprecatory gesture he
evaded the question, and replied that it was a secret
which would be revealed all in good time.
But although he had not the courage to advance his
claim, he could not refrain from making a symbolic
gesture to find out whether they would not light upon
the truth of their own accord and spontaneously acclaim
him as the Messiah. He had done so once in Ismir and one
man had responded. Possibly here many would do so.
He accordingly invited the Rabbis of the city to a
huge and sumptuous banquet, and while they were eating
and drinking and ‘conversing learnedly together, he sud-
denly rose from the table and took a scroll of the Thora
from behind a curtain. They all gazed at him in aston-
7 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
ishment. What was he going to do now? He came for-
ward before them all, his face aglow, clasping the scroll
tightly to his side as though it were his bride, and called
upon the Rabbis to celebrate his marriage with the Thora.
Would they understand the symbol? Would they
spring to their feet and hail him as he hoped? Nothing
of the kind! He was met by embarrassed astonishment
and angry silence. At last from the end of the long table
an indignant and contemptuous voice cried out, ‘“The fel-
low is mad?” The others nodded and murmured, “‘Aye!”’
Then they all rose and tried to leave. But Sabbatai
laughed coldly and scoffingly at their backs, forcing them
to turn round. He was quite capable of dealing with the
situation and would not allow his guests to depart with-
out having put them in the wrong. Why, ‘he asked, did
they try to deny the prophets? Had not the prophets
declared that the Holy Script, the epitome of truth, must
be the wife of all who loved truth? This was all he had
meant when he invited them to witness the solemn cere-
mony.
Vexed and embarrassed and with the word ‘‘Mad!”
still on their lips, they shrugged their shoulders. But
again there was one, a relative of his teacher Escapa,
who had understood and grasped the symbol. When the
others took their departure he secretly remained behind
and with trembling confidence approached Sabbatai.
““‘What was the real meaning?” he asked. Sabbatai, aware
of the importance of even one who has been conquered,
dropped all restraint and, opening his heart, told the
man that he was the Messiah chosen and appointed for
the Age. But he conjured him to hold his tongue as long
PRONOUNCING THE .SACRED NAME 71
as he remained in Salonica and only to speak when he
had departed. Isaac Levi promised, and, as the sequel
will show, proved one of Sabbatai’s foremost and most
faithful and efficient supporters.
On the following day, Sabbatai, as he expected, was
advised by the Rabbis to leave the city as soon as possible ;
otherwise he would be driven out. He raised no objection.
After all, suffering and persecution were his appointed
lot as Messiah. Moreover, for the time being there was
nothing more he could do in the place; when he had
left, another would make his proclamation for him. Thus
it seemed as though his path were being mapped out for
him and all he had to do was to obey. On the following
day, when he set out for Constantinople, he really be-
lieved that this was so. :
For the Oriental Jews, in all their concerns, Constanti-
nople was then, as for the whole East, the principal city
of the Turkish Empire, and they readily acknowledged
the superior authority of the scholars and Rabbis who
lived there, particularly in the realm of jurisprudence.
But even the uneducated Jews benefited by the wealth
and culture of the capital, and a well-to-do and influen-
tial bourgeois class had come into being there which ruled
the Jewish community of the place. Whereas in Ismir
Sabbatai had addressed himself to the poor, in Constan-
tinople he turned to the wealthy, for, after all, without
their help, or in opposition to them, he could achieve
nothing. Once again he presented himself merely as a
scholar, a traveller and wealthy man of the world, in
which capacity he was certain to meet with a sympathetic
reception at the hands of the Jewish bourgeoisie.
72 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
Naturally he could not long remain satisfied with this
purely social position, as he never allowed himself for
one moment to lose sight of the object of his travels.
Wherever he could not produce an immediate effect, he
endeavoured at least to prepare for the great revelation.
Thus in the circle of the Kabalists, he sought for kindred
souls and found them. First and foremost was Eli Car-
cadchione, an old Kabalist recluse. True, he did not yet
reveal himself to him, but made of him a faithful and —
trustworthy friend and a believer in the idea that the
Age would produce a Messiah. Even more important and
lasting were his relations with the Kabalist, Abraham
Jachini, a pupil of the famous Joseph di Trani.
Jachini was a man of great versatility and his gifts
had made him famous in Constantinople and abroad.
In Constantinople he used to preach in the synagogues
and expound the Kabala. He also wrote Kabalistic es-
says, and if these proved incomprehensible to the Jewish
bourgeois of the city the latter modestly ascribed this to
their mysterious depths, never suspecting that it might be
due to the fact that they were full of confused mysticism,
arbitrary and fantastic conceptions and dream experi-
ences based on hidden eroticism. When Jachini was not
writing original compositions he used to copy foreign
texts, an art in which he achieved notable skill. His copies
were eagerly sought after by collectors and scholars all
over the world, and he found buyers for his calligraphic
masterpieces in a city as remote as Amsterdam.
Abraham Jachini and Sabbatai Zevi had so much in
common that they soon became fast friends. But Sab-
batai remained the leader, Although he was the younger
PRONOUNCING THE SACRED NAME 73
‘ he never allowed himself to be led away by wild-goose
schemes, and thus without Jachini being aware of it, he
- succeeded in making him a pliable instrument and a re-
liable helper in case he performed a third symbolic act,
and again tried to open the eyes of the indolent and
expectant masses who were looking for a Messiah. In
their joint studies they discovered that in the year 1460
a Jewish astronomer named Abraham had _ prophesied
that the Messiah would be born when the planets Jupiter
and Saturn were in conjunction in the sign of Pisces.
Probably neither Sabbatai nor Jachini understood any-
thing about astronomy, but Sabbatai was so deeply im-
pressed by this cosmic picture that he determined to make
use of it for his symbolic gesture. So he placed a fish in
a bassinet as though it were a baby and carried it through
the busy streets of the Jewish quarter. The people pressed
round and asked the meaning of this strange proceeding,
and he replied that it had been said that under the
zodiacal sign of Pisces Israel would be released from
bondage.
Many of those present were delighted by this outward
and visible sign and its mysterious interpretation. But the
Rabbinical authorities were highly incensed. How could
so agreeable and apparently so clever a young man be
guilty of such foolery? He must be made to understand
that he was behaving like a child, so that the inquisitive
and those who were always hankering after excitement
and sensation should make no mistake about his behav-
iour. They accordingly sent a schoolmaster to Sabbatai
to instruct him and bring him to reason. The man took
his duties very seriously and when Sabbatai dared to con-
74 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
tradict some of his assertions he availed himself of the
privileges of his office and thrashed his recalcitrant pupil.
Had Sabbatai not been obsessed by his idea he would
have left the city of his own accord after this humiliation.
But, utterly unmoved, he regarded the event merely as
another link in the chain of suffering and persecution
which as the Messiah he was bound to undergo. And when
the Rabbis, under threat of severe punishment, forbade
the Jews even to frequent Sabbatai’s company, he piously
* accepted the inevitable isolation. Constantinople was far
too important to him and the results he had achieved there
were still too insignificant for him to leave without be-
ing forced to do so. And subsequent events justified his
undignified sojourn.
Just about this time David Capio, the alms-gatherer,
came from Jerusalem. He was a clever man and a zealous
follower of the faith. He did not beg for alms, he de-
manded them. The Jews of that day regarded charity and
duty as synonymous; in fact in Hebrew there is only one
word for the two—Mitzvah. Now David Capio demanded
Mitzvah not only as part of the penance he was urging
the Jews to perform, for without penance and alms they
as a people could not be saved, but also because every-
thing seemed to be pointing to the fact that salvation was
at hand. Sabbatai pricked up his ears. He contributed
munificently to the fund for the poor in Jerusalem and
thus won Capio over to his side, with the result that a
conclave of four, Capio, Jachini, Carcadchione, and
Sabbatai used to meet to discuss the possibilities of the
future. There was an atmosphere of conspiracy about
their meetings, as though they were groping about a circle
PRONOUNCING THE SACRED NAME 75
with a mysterious centre, but before the mystery was
solved Sabbatai spoilt everything by his impetuosity.
One day while the four were conferring together,
several Rabbis presented themselves saying they wished
to know from Capio’s own lips what he thought about
the suffering of the Age and when he expected it to end.
Whereupon Sabbatai lost control. He shouted at them
and told them that they could not possibly understand
the Age, as they understood nothing whatever even about
God. God, he declared, had not created the world from
necessity but out of pure love, in order that men might
recognize Him as Creator and Master. But they knew
neither love nor reverence, nor were they ready to repent.
One day God would give then a terrible awakening.
His outburst was entirely one of rage, and even he him-
self did not know how soon his words would be fulfilled.
For in the following year, 1659, a terrible fire broke out
in Constantinople causing great havoc, particularly in the
Jewish quarter, so that more than one recalled the man
who had shown them the symbol and whom they had
thrashed for so doing.
But at the time this outburst of temper merely ex-
hausted the patience of the Rabbis, who without further
ado ordered Sabbatai to leave Constantinople immedi-
ately. On this occasion he yielded because he was threat-
ened with violence. But as usual the very act of yielding
provided him with an opportunity for a remarkable ex-
tension of his power.
Abraham Jachini had long been aware of Sabbatai’s
aim and object and felt that he was eagerly seeking for a
confirmation of his call. As a Kabalist Jachini knew that
76 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
a Messiah must come about this time. Perhaps Sabbatai
was the man, perhaps somebody else. The important point
was that a Messiah was due to come. The first man to
come forward and proclaim himself and win acceptance
would in truth be the Messiah. This was not blasphemy,
for all his reading told him that the Messiah would not
come on his own account but to fulfil a mission. So he
might confidently regard Sabbatai as the man. All that he
lacked for the part was recognition, and if he could pro-
vide him with this he would be performing a meritorious
act. It was inspiring to think that he might have a share
in revealing the Messiah and securing the salvation of the
suffering world, and he quivered with excitement as he
imagined himself the creator of the Messianic throne
whose occupant would one day point down at him and say,
“There stands the man who first recognized me!”
What could he do to achieve this end? He could only
interpret the Kabala and write beautifully. But stay, he
could do more! He could copy! He could write and copy
so well that no one could distinguish the copy from the
original. He could forge documents of which the paper,
the ink and the style of writing so accurately reproduced
those of another era that no one dared to say they were
the work of his hand and had been made only yesterday.
How many such “genuine”’ original documents had he not
already sold in the open market to rich Christian col-
lectors!
So when Sabbatai came to take leave of him he received
him with an air of mysterious solemnity and led him to a
remote chamber of his house. There he opened a chest and
took from it a roll of parchment. At the first glance Sabba-
PRONOUNCING THE SACRED NAME 77
tai could see that it was very old and had been rolled and
tied up for many a long year. The scroll was rather
creased, the writing was trembling and bleached with age;
it was an old, a very old manuscript. Jachini handed it to
Sabbatai. “Read!” he said.
Sabbatai read the title: ““The Great Wisdom of Solo-
mon,’’ and as he looked inquiringly up at Jachin1, the lat-
ter declared, “I found it some time ago in a cave. It con-
cerns you.”’ :
This was the burden of its contents. “J, Abraham Acher,
was shut up for forty years in a cave in sore distress be-
cause the great monster that dwelleth in the river of Egypt
still sat upon the throne. And I tried to solve the mystery
why the Age of miracles would not come. And lo! I heard
the voice of my God saying, ‘In the year 5386 there shall be
born to Mordecai Zevi a son, and he shall call his name
Sabbatai. And he shall overthrow the great dragon and kill
the serpent. He shall be the Lord’s Anointed and shall
sit upon My throne. His kingdom shall last for ever and
he and no other shall be the saviour of My people Israel.’ ”’
Sabbatai read to the end. An oppressive silence ensued,
full of mute understanding. In such a case there is neither
deceiver nor dupe, for the one provides the means, while
the other accepts them, because both are profoundly con-
vinced of the necessity of the object to be achieved. It was
this conviction that made the document genuine. All those
who believed its contents and in the Messiah, Sabbatai
Zevi, might refer to it with a clean conscience. Thus
equipped, Sabbatai left the capital to continue his wan-
derings, while Abraham Jachini remained behind to act
as his disciple and herald.
CHAPTER V
The Ploughed Field
=. had been travelling for eight years, never
settling down, but always obsessed by his object and
intent on gaining influence. He sowed his seed wherever
he went, though no one could tell as yet whether wheat
or tares sprang up behind him. But whatever the crop, the
soil must be prepared for the sower, and the history of re-
ligions proves that good rich soil has always been ready to
hand and never arid wasteland. On his travels Sabbatai
found the fields everywhere about him already ploughed
by the ploughshare of current events. After an interval of
barely five years, the second act of the Polish tragedy had
opened. Chmielnicki, not satisfied with the success he had
won, and intent on avenging his defeats, had found an
ally in the Tsar, Alexius Mikhailovich. The latter in-
formed the King of Poland that certain parts of White
Russia and Lithuania which were contiguous to his prov-
ince belonged to him, and in support of his claim a united
Muscovite and Cossack army invaded Poland in 1654. In
keeping with changed political cdnditions, the slogan was
now, “For Russia and the Orthodox Faith!’ But the re-
sult as far as the Jews were concerned was the same. For
even this slogan was directed against them, since they were
not Orthodox, and there was a fresh outbreak of devasta-
78
THE PLOUGHED FIELD 79
tion and massacre, Smolensk, Mstislavl, Bychov, Homel
and many other towns being destroyed. As had happened
- in the first upheaval the Cossacks massacred right and left,
while their allies confined themselves to either driving out
the Jewish communities or taking them prisoner. In the
autumn of 1655, in Mogilev, Vitebsk and Vilna, all Jews
who were unable to escape or refused to be baptized were
put to the sword, and in these holocausts the Greek popes
took the lead. Lemberg, which was strongly fortified and
defended, once again succeeded in evading capture. In
vain did Chmielnicki call upon the town to deliver the
Jews into his hands. ‘““The Jews,”’ he declared in support of
his demand, ‘‘are the enemies of Christ and of the whole of
Christendom and must therefore be delivered up together
with their wives and children and all their possessions.”
To atone for his failure at Lemberg, he forced his way
into Lublin, which his Cossacks entered on the eve of the
Feast of Tabernacles. They looted the city, drove all the
Jews into the synagogue and then set fire to it. Those who
were not burnt to death were massacred with such ap-
palling cruelty by the Cossacks, who scoured the streets
like ravening wolves, that we must refrain from quoting
the reports of eyewitnesses.
As if this were not enough, the Jews now became in-
volved in another conflict which likewise did not concern
them. In the autumn of 1655, Charles X of Sweden in-
vaded Poland and almost without a shot being fired oc-
cupied the whole of greater and lesser Poland. He did not
regard the Jews as war booty and therefore spared them,
and they naturally responded by loyal support. But this
made them suspect. Whereas in other parts of Poland their
80 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
brethren were being murdered, here they were exhorted
to be patriotic, and when the Polish War of Liberation
under the national “‘saviour” Stephen Czarniecki broke
out, the Jews became the victims of a lust of vengeance
which expressed itself with a brutality compared with
which even Chmielnicki’s outrages were mere child’s play.
Brest-Kuyavsk, Gniezno, Lezno, Plotsk, Lenczyka, Ka-
lisz, Sandomierz, Opatow, Chmielnik, Voidislav and many
other places became the scenes of martyrdoms unparalleled
in history. Even Polish and German chroniclers describe
the behaviour of the Poles as “barbaric and utterly un-
Christian.” It is impossible accurately to estimate the num-
ber of victims that fell in the widespread massacres. Con-
temporary estimates compute them at about half a million.
In any case, they outnumbered the Jews killed in the Cru-
sades and by the ravages of the Black Death together.
When the new taxation registers came to be compiled, it
was found that about seven hundred communities had com-
pletely vanished or had only a few survivors left, that not
a single Jew was to be found in eastern Ukraine, and that
in Volhynia and Podolia only a tenth of the Jewish popu-
lation had been spared.
When the first massacres had occurred the Jews had
been able to cry out indignantly and compile a martyr-
ology. But now they were dumb. The written records con-
sist almost exclusively of a catalogue of places and people.
In hopeless silence and abysmal despair, they kept watch
over the remnants of their people, who like shades tramped
listlessly along every road which offered them a chance to
escape. The great military highways were thronged with
them; close on to three thousand Lithuanian Jews went
THE PLOUGHED FIELD 81
by sea to Texel in the Netherlands. Untold numbers
streamed into Germany, Moravia, Bohemia, Austria,
Hungary, Italy, and the Turkish provinces. Wherever
they went they not only bore witness to the tragedy that
had befallen them and cried aloud for salvation, but, as
they acquired a foothold and settled down as merchants,
teachers and Rabbis, they also prepared the Age in their
own particular way for the acceptance of the Messianic
idea in the spirit of the Kabala. And where this did not
happen, they impregnated western Jewry with their
scholarship and their profound preoccupation with the
Talmud and the Kabala and thus added to the reputation
they already enjoyed. The Polish Jews represented the
aristocracy of intellect as far as Jewish scholarship was
concerned, and their co-religionists in western Europe pre-
ferred them to all others as teachers and students. True,
their intelligence had proved a handicap to them in their
former home, for it was prone to make them supercilious
and haughty towards their non-Jewish neighbours. But
whereas some people escape unpunished even for capital
crimes, others have to pay with their lives merely for be-
ing unloved. |
Thus events in Poland not only made the Jews who had
survived conscious of an ever greater need of salvation
for their people, but it also brought the hope and sorrow
of their lot vividly to their minds by hundreds of living
examples in their immediate environment and led them
once more to seek spiritual guidance in the Talmud and
the Kabala. For better, for worse, it forced them to isolate
themselves, to shut themselves off from the lure of a world
in which a Descartes and a Spinoza were trying to secure
82 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
greater freedom and self-consciousness for mankind. It
threw them back once more on themselves and their long-
ings, and as they always interpreted their faith historically,
they called the Polish catastrophe the third Churban, that
is, the third destruction of the Temple.
| While the Jews were exploring this mystic line of
thought along which exalted temperaments could grasp
the idea of a Messiah, they had forced upon their notice the
strange and gratifying fact that they were surrounded by
a wealthy society of believers who were not Jews. From
the middle of the sixteenth century onwards, one so-called
Messiah after another had appeared among the Christians
in Germany, France, Holland, England, and Poland.
Among them we must include the Anabaptists of Miinster.
In 1534, Charles V had a Spaniard named Solomon
Malcho burned to death for declaring that he was Christ
and the Messiah. In 1550, Jacob Melstinski appeared in
Poland and announced that he was Christ and chose twelve
apostles. A few years later, again in Poland, two other
men made a similar claim. In 1556, in Delft, David Jor-
ries proclaimed himself to be the true Christ. Three years
after his death his punishment was meted out to him. He
was exhumed and burnt at the stake. In 1614, in Langen-
salza, Ezekiel Meth proclaimed himself the Grand Duke
of God and the Archangel Michael. A year later Isaiah
Stieffel announced: “‘I am the Christ, J am the living word
of God.” In 1624, at Oppenheim in the Palatinate, the
secretary Philippus Ziegler prophesied that a Messiah of
the line of David would be born in Holland. In 1648,
Hans Keyl of Gerlingen declared that an angel of the
Lord had appeared to him and told him that Wiurttem-
THE PLOUGHED FIELD 83
berg would be devastated by the sword of the Turk and by
plague and pestilence, and at about the same time Chris-
tina Regina Buderin was prophesying in Stuttgart.
In.1654 in England, an extraordinarily impressive figure
appeared on the scene in the person of Jacob Naylor, the
Quaker. While he was following the plough he heard a
voice speaking the words the Bible tells us were addressed
to Abraham: “‘Get thee out of thy country, and from thy
kindred, and from thy father’s house.”? This convinced
him that he was the Messiah and he arrived in Bristol in
October 1657, already escorted by a band of disciples.
Two women were leading his horse and singing the old
Jewish chant, ““Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Israel.”
The examination to which the authorities then subjected
him is full of echoes of the Bible. “Art thou the King
of the Jews?” ““Thou sayest. My kingdom is not of this
world but of my Father.” “‘Art thou the Lamb of God in
whom lieth the hope of Israel?’ ““Were I not the Lamb of
God I should not have sought you that ye. might devour
me. And the hope of Israel lieth in the justice of the Father,
though it may be found by whomsoever chooseth to find
it.”
In this case the Messianic pretensions of a fanatic seem
to have been inspired by the power radiating from the
Jewish communities. It is not surprising to learn, there-
fore, that soon afterwards the Scandinavian, Oliger Pauli,
declared that he had had a vision in which God com-
manded him to proclaim himself King of the Jews. In
France, too, there were demonstrations supporting the
Jewish idea of a Messiah, but Richelieu, who was a ration-
alist and dreaded mysticism, swiftly and ruthlessly si-
84 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
lenced them. But to show how full the air was of such
ideas, we may quote the following letter from Augsburg.
It was circulated at a time when nothing had yet happened
and is dated September 24, 1642. ‘“The ambassador resi-
dent in Constantinople reports that a Jewess has given
birth to a new Messiah at Ossa in Turkey. He has won
over numerous towns and castles as well as the whole of
the land of Egypt and the province of Lower Syria. He
has sent a sword to Don Sebe, King of Persia, hinting
that he should abdicate and gracefully hand him over his
kingdom. He has acted in the same way towards the Sul-
tan and has summoned him to relinquish Jerusalem and
Damascus. The Sultan has taken fright and has moved
from Constantinople to Mecca. He calls himself Jesus Eli
Messiah, the Almighty God of Heaven and Earth. He was
born on September 24, 1641 in the village of Ossa near
Bassiliske, of a Jewess named Gamaritta, who is said to
be beautiful but quite common. When eight days later
he was circumcised, he straightway began to speak and
performed miracles and proclaimed himself the Messiah.
On the day of his birth terrifying signs appeared in the
sky ; the sun was blotted out for eight hours at midday and
a voice was heard over an area of a hundred miles crying,
‘Repent, for today is the true Messiah born.’ Many fiery
dragons and many devils were seen in the air. He already
looks like a man of twenty-four or twenty-five years of age.
Nobody knows his father. He is a big man with a fine neck
and shoulders, a long narrow head, a Turkish cast of coun-
tenance, a furrowed brow, terrifying eyes, long ears, and
pointed teeth . . .” etc.
Such reports, although not often as fantastic as this, are
THE PLOUGHED FIELD 85
after all merely signs of the general interest shown by
many of the spiritual representatives of the Age, if not in
the Jews themselves, at least in the ideas of Judaism and
its conception of ultimate salvation. We have already
mentioned England and the Puritans. In London, in 1648,
Edward Nicholas published a work which he dedicated to
the English Parliament, Apology for the Honourable Na-
tion of the Yews. In this book the author tries not only to
strike a blow at the Papists, but quite seriously sets out to
prove that the weal and woe of the nations of the world
depends on the treatment they mete out to the Jews. For
obviously God had made them survive all their misfor-
tunes for some secret purpose of His own, and there could
be no doubt that they would have a glorious future.
In France, a certain Isaac de Peyrére, a Huguenot in
the service of the Duc de Condé, published a book entitled
Concerning the Return Home of the Jews. He was con-
vinced that the Diaspora was at an end and that the Jews
would now return to the Holy Land. And as the King of
France was the eldest son of the Church, it was he who
should undertake to convey the oldest children of God,
the children of Israel, back to their home. There was also
Abraham von Frankenberg, a Silesian nobleman, a disciple
of Jacob B6hme, who categorically declared that true light
would come from the Jews, and that their time was at
hand. In Danzig, a man named Johannes Mochinger, a
member of an old Tyrolese noble family, was the leader of
a religious circle which included among its mystic expecta-
tions the return of the Jews to Jerusalem and the revival of
their national life, and gave eloquent expression to this
belief. About this time a Dutchman, Heinrich Jesse, pub-
“
86 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
lished his book Concerning the Coming Glory of Judah
and Israel, while the Bohemian mystic, Paulus Felgen-
hauer, although he did not actually believe in a worldly
Messiah, communicated his religious convictions to the
Jews in a pamphlet whose title reveals its contents: “Joy-
ful tidings for Israel concerning the Messiah, to wit that
the deliverance of Israel from all its tribulations and its
liberation from captivity and the glorious advent of the
Messiah are at hand, gathered for the comfort of Israel
from the Holy Scriptures by a Christian who, like the
Jews, is expecting the Messiah.”
Certainly many theologians, philologists and historians
were interested in the Jewish problem at this period. This
was partly because it was the fashion for scholars to be
polyhistors and to study three classical languages, Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew, which enabled them to know some-
thing of the Talmud and of Rabbinical lore and thus to
assume an authoritative attitude towards Jewish ques-
tions. Among them, for instance, were the Dutch
Protestant theologian, Joseph Scaliger, “‘the King of
Philologists,” and Johannes Buxtorf the elder of Basle, an
extremely learned Hebrew scholar. Nor must we forget
Hugo Grotius and Johannes Selden, and last but not least,
Christina of Sweden, the eccentric but talented daughter
of Gustavus Adolphus. All these people felt called upon
by the spirit of the Age to take an interest in Judaism, for
in addition to the religious and mystical reasons for so
doing, there was also the burning question of the re-
admission of the Jews into England.
Alike from the political, economic and religious point
of view, the efforts made to achieve this end are particu-
THE PLOUGHED FIELD 87
larly interesting. The instigator of the movement was Ma-
nasseh ben Israel, a Rabbi of Amsterdam, extremely well
read, eloquent, and enthusiastic, and a skilful compiler,
who was held in high esteem even among non-Jewish
scholars, and was accepted by them as the representative
of intellectual Judaism. In his discussions with his learned
friends, he was constantly being met by the argument that,
although the Jewish power must eventually be restored,
there were still two essential prerequisites to this end laid
down by Holy Script that had not yet been fulfilled—the
recovery of the ten tribes of Israel who had been led into
captivity by Shalmaneser and the appearance of a Messiah
who would give the signal for the return.
The fate of the ten tribes had obsessed the Jewish mind
quite as profoundly as the expectation of a Messiah, for it
was terrible to think that the major portion of a people
whose destiny was eternal should have been led away ina
day and have disappeared without leaving a trace and
without anybody being able to give the smallest clue
to their whereabouts. Eventually the imagination of a
people tires of this gap in their ranks, and following up in
their imaginations the faint traces that remained, the Jews
discovered the mysterious river Sabbation which rushed
headlong through unexplored regions in the wilds of
Arabia, and thought that their ten lost tribes were some-
where on the other side of it, living under the rule of their
great leader Moses, who had risen from the dead. He and
the people were all waiting there for the advent of the
Messiah. Until that day they were to remain hidden and
no mortal could approach them, for the Sabbation was a
raging torrent that none could cross. Six days in the week
88 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
it foamed along a gigantic, raging torrent, carrying great
blocks of rock down with it and preventing any attempt
at crossing. But on the seventh day, the Sabbath, the river
lay silent and still from bank to bank, and if on that day
any man chanced to cross he found on the opposite side a
race of brown, dark-haired men armed with bows and ar-
rows who killed the unwelcome stranger without mercy.
But as soon as the advent of the Messiah was announced
to them they would cross the river in the order of their
tribes, each with its banner bearing the symbol of the tribe,
over a hundred thousand heavily armed warriors, who
would conquer the world for themselves and their God. It
would not be a bloody conquest, for the other nations of
the world would recognize their divine mission. Against
one country alone—and here we find the cry of intolerable
suffering becoming articulate in the mind of this people—
against Germany alone would a real war be waged.
In addition to the theoretical discussions of the scholars,
the memory of these ten tribes was kept alive by all man-
ner of reports and unauthenticated accounts received from
travellers. People suddenly turned up who had seen or
heard something of the lost tribes, who, as it were, had
beheld in a vision or in fancy what had long lain dormant
in the mind of a whole people. One man declared that in
the hinterland of Morocco there was a powerful army of
eight hundred thousand Jews, who were marching on
Arabia. Letters from Leghorn, based on news from Cairo,
announced that the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half the
tribe of Manasseh were marching on Gaza and had almost
reached the city, while the Marrano, Antonio de Monte-
zinos, was able to give even more precise information. He
THE PLOUGHED FIELD 89
said he had witnessed what he described with his own eyes
and could swear to the truth of what he reported in the
_ year 1644 to Manasseh ben Israel when he took the name
of Aaron Levi on his return to the fold of Judaism. He
declared that on his travels he had gone as far as South
America, where he made the acquaintance of an Indian
mestizo named Francisco del Castillo who confided to
him the secret that he knew where the ten tribes were to be
found, or in any case where numbers of Jews were living
hidden away in an inaccessible part of the country. At
Levi’s request, Castillo actually took him to a settlement of
indigenous Jews who declared that they were descended
from the tribe of Reuben. Their ancestors had been in the
country even before the Indians, and they knew of the ex-
istence of two tribes of Joseph on an island in the vicinity.
Naturally legends circulate more readily than accurate
information, for the former are met by faith and not by
criticism. But Montezinos adhered to his story in spite of
all attack and went to South America again to confirm and
complete his report. On his death-bed he solemnly swore
to the truth of his contentions.
Thus to Manasseh ben Israel and his friends the facts
seemed to be beyond dispute, and Manasseh confidently
used them in the argument of his treatise Esperanga de
Israel published in Amsterdam in 1650, which he sent to
Oliver Cromwell in support of his plea that the Jews
should be readmitted into England. These various reports
and expectations of salvation combined with other argu-
ments resulted in the following curious process of reason-
ing: According to the theory advanced by Manasseh him-
self, the ten tribes had been scattered as far as Tatary and
go THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
China, whence one or two groups or tribes had found their
way to the continent of America. But as the remnants
might be regarded as having been discovered, their return
was a possibility, and if this were so the whole idea of sal-
vation had entered the realm of practical politics. So Eng-
land ran no risk in allowing the Jews to return to her
shores, for in view of the proximity of the Messianic Age,
they would stay there only for a very short period. More-
over—and this argument weighed most heavily with a man
as pious as Oliver Cromwell—salvation could come only
when the Diaspora was complete, and it could not be com-
plete as long as Jews were refused admittance into Eng-
land. Thus England would incur a heavy responsibility if
by refusing she opposed the divine plan of salvation and
postponed the completion of the Diaspora.
Manasseh did not live to see the success of his efforts;
too many obstacles remained to be overcome in England.
But it is certain that if only to relieve his conscience Crom-
well not only allowed but unofficially encouraged the slow
infiltration of Jews into his country and thus no longer
laid himself open to the charge of preventing the salvation
of the Jews.
Thus the expectations of the Jewish world received con-
stant support from the public discussions of its Christian
environment, which were undoubtedly based upon the ad-
vent of a Jewish Messiah. The only point of disagreement
was connected with the nature of the Messiah himself.
Those who believed in the Millennium regarded the ad-
vent of the Messiah and the return home of the Jews only
as a temporary solution. During the Millennium the Jews
would have an opportunity of acknowledging the true
it TAU OG CHAU ELCA AULA
b i
He
A
ui
ce |
OLIVER CROMWELL
THE PLOUGHED FIELD 91
Messiah, namely Christ, who would also appear again 1n
the Fifth Monarchy. Others who were less certain of such
a conversion of the Jews hoped that an agreement would
be reached between the Jewish and the Christian Mes-
siahs. Cromwell, an eminently practical saint, expected
that during the Fifth Monarchy, the Jews would embrace
Christianity in a mass.
Manasseh ben Israel.in his treatise, The Precious Stone,
sweeps aside all these ideas of a restricted Messianic king-
dom in favour of the Jewish conception—the four king-
doms typified by the Four Beasts of the Apocalypse had
already appeared and fulfilled their destiny, namely the
Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek and the Roman Em-
pires. Therefore the Fifth Empire must be that of the
Jews.
Enough of all this had reached the masses to make them
feel that their religious hopes and expectations need no
longer be concealed. Whereas hitherto their strange and
essentially hostile environment had been opposed to all
their impulses and utterances, they now suddenly found
every one in miraculous agreement with them, encourag-
ing and promoting their spiritual hopes. The part played
by the non-Jewish population in preparing the Jewish
world for what had happened and was still to come can
hardly be overestimated. Unless we understand this we
shall not be able to grasp the full significance of the events
about to be related, at least not in so far as the Occidental
Jews are concerned.
For in western Europe there was at that time in exist-
ence an institution which seemed to have been perma-
nently established for the last hundred and fifty years and
.
92 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
to which people were growing accustomed, but which the
Jews quite logically regarded as confirming the general
trend of events, that is, the Spanish Inquisition and its
attendant Marranism. Spanish Catholicism held simple,
almost primitive views regarding the propagation and
triumph of the true faith, and its methods differed from
those adopted by its Mohammedan predecessors for the
spread of Islam in Spain only in their greater intricacy
and the far greater cruelty of their application. Even from
the historical point of view the Inquisition was a psychical
phenomenon. With all the panoply of ecclesiastic law and
dogma it used the commandments, “Thou shalt not kill’.
and ““Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” to vilify
and exterminate people of other faiths. The method of
propaganda was to give the victim the choice between the
water of baptism and the fire of the stake, and between
these two extremes a subtle system of spiritual and bodily
torture had been developed. The Jews who fell victims to
this religious and intellectual attitude in Spain, where
they had once been a flourishing community, opposed this
psychological phenomenon by another. All who escaped
exile and death by torture or at the stake were baptized
either compulsorily or voluntarily, and outwardly, at
least, punctiliously observed the forms of the new religion
(not the new faith) though inwardly their fidelity to Juda-
ism remained unshaken. They led a double life, with the
suspicious eyes of the Inquisitors ever upon them, and
constantly threatened by exposure and death in the secret
exercise of their traditional religious practices and the
furtive celebration of their national festivals.
THE PLOUGHED FIELD . 93
This infused such intense vitality into their subter-
ranean existence that the attitude of mind engendered
thereby extended beyond their own lifetime to their de-
scendants, with the result that their children, grandchil-
dren and great-grandchildren were born with this dualism
in their blood, and like caged animals watching behind
their prison bars eagerly seized the opportunity when
supervision was for a moment relaxed to escape into the
freedom of foreign lands where, with the weight of a hun-
dred years lifted from their hearts, they could at last
breathe freely once more and profess their ancestral creed.
The Courts of the Inquisition were constantly filled, even
in this Age, with prisoners charged with Marranism, the
secret practice of the Jewish faith, and convicted. Day
after day the stake devoured Jews whose baptism had led
to no change of heart. There were solemn autos-da-fé, and
Marranos were burnt in Cuenca, Granada, San Iago de
Compostella, Cordoba, Lisbon, Valladolid, and Lima. The
Inquisition was seriously alarmed by the fact that as late
as the middle of the seventeenth century Jewish converts
of long standing continued to break away from the new
religion. A contemporary writer sums up the situation very
clearly: ‘“[There are in Spain and Portugal both monas-
teries and convents full of Jews, not a few of whom con-
ceal Judaism in their hearts and for the sake of this world’s
goods pretend to believe in Christianity. Some of them
suffer from pangs of conscience and escape when they find
an opportunity. In Amsterdam and many other districts
there are Augustinians, Franciscans, Jesuits, and Domini-
cans who are Jews, while in Spain there are Bishops and
94. THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
fervent monks whose parents and relatives live here and
in other towns in order to be allowed to profess the Jewish
faith.”
As there was constant communication both private and
commercial between the Iberian peninsula and the Nether-
lands at this time, the news of the burning of Marranos, or
Jewish Catholics, travelled and spread quickly. In the lat-
ter country, where they enjoyed exceptional spiritual and
material freedom, the Jews sought refuge at the very be-
ginning of the general dispersion from Spain in the year
1492 (when the world was enlarged by the discovery of
America ) and it was thither that most of the Marranos who
had escaped from religious bondage fled. Here the refugees
attempted, some timidly, others with fiery zeal, to return
to the forms of their ancient faith and to restore the old
Hebrew tongue. And yet with a mastery of a foreign lan-
guage of which we can have but little conception, they also
wrote lyrics and dirges of such consummate versatility and
power in Spanish that the Hispano-Portuguese Jews in
Amsterdam might well have founded a Spanish literary
academy there. This environment in which, after untold
suffering and danger, large numbers of Jews at last found
a home and freedom, naturally provided a soil extremely
favourable for the growth of the Jewish idea of salvation,
and this attitude of expectation together with the per-
sonal experiences of the Marranos made a profound im-
pression on the rest of the Jewish world. As had been the
case with the Polish Jews, this Jewish colony in the Neth-
erlands were eager to live and die for the sake of the Holy
Name, and further trials in Spain served only to feed their
imagination and foster their hopes.
THE PLOUGHED FIELD 95
As late as 1632, under Philip IV, the Inquisition had
held many important trials, particularly in Valladolid. In
1629, sixty-three Marranos were charged at Lima, seven-
teen of whom were burnt at: the stake, among them Dr.
Franzisco Maldonadda Silva, whose fate caused a great
sensation. He had had the daring publicly to proclaim his
adherence to the Jewish faith and to preach it, and, having
called himself Eli Nazareno, lived the life of the ancient
Essenes. He spent fourteen years in prison, during which
period the Inquisitors had endless discussions with him
and tried to break his spirit and bring him to reason. In the
end they abandoned their efforts and burnt him at the
stake.
But an even greater sensation was created by the fate of
Isaac de Castro-Tartas, a young Marrano who had escaped.
with his parents to Amsterdam and made up his mind to
inaugurate a movement for bringing back the Marranos
to the fold of Judaism. With this object in view he tried to
get to Brazil, but was recognized in Bahia, arrested and
taken to Lisbon, where he was arraigned before the Court
of the Inquisition, condemned and burnt at the stake.
While the flames were roaring about him, he shouted aloud
his profession of faith to the world: ‘Hear, O Israel!”
and it was said the world turned pale and trembled. Even
Christians were staggered by such a proof of faith. We are
also told of a certain Don Lupe de Vera y Alarcon, a young
Spaniard of noble descent, whom the study of the Hebrew
language and the examples in his environment led to be
converted to Judaism. He was cast into prison and till the
very moment when he was led to the stake the authorities
were obliged to gag him as they could not endure the per-
66 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
tinacity with which he kept constantly repeating the Name
of Jehovah. heh
The combination of all these circumstances, the spiritual
and material upheavals, the attitude of the Age, and con-
temporary events, whether inevitable or accidental, latent
tendencies and everyday happenings, conduced to make
the Jews ready and eager for the appearance of one who
with self-confident assurance would offer himself to them
as the fulfiller of their destiny. A whole Age and a man
were on the point of becoming ripe for one another.
et ed
CHAPTER VI
The Prophet and the Harlot
Hy Panes ftom Constantinople; which had
placed him in possession of Jachini’s invaluable
document, emboldened Sabbatai to make a new venture.
In spite of the ban upon him and the hostility awaiting
him, he made up his mind to return to Ismir. He was con-
vinced that the authorities would not put him to death,
for reports from friends for some time past had satisfied
him that the circle of his adherents and of those who be-
lieved him to be the Messiah had grown considerably.
Thus he was running no risks and it was imperative for
him to find out for himself what progress had been made
and on what support he could rely.
In making his plans he had come to the conclusion that
there were two places where he might meet with success
and make his final proclamation—Jerusalem and his na-
tive city of Ismir. But he did not dare to go to Jerusalem
for the ground was not yet ready, while he was forced to
confess that although his band of supporters had certainly
increased in Ismir he was still confronted by a high wall of
silence and hostility there. Nevertheless nobody seemed
to draw the logical conclusion from the fact that he had
been placed under a ban, and this in itself was a sign of im-
portant progress and encouraged him to stay in Ismir for
97
98 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
a few months. Thither he accordingly repaired and, sur-
rounded by his friends, spent his time in study and in
describing what he had seen and done. He showed them Ja-
chini’s ancient document, heard and circulated all the news
which, as a great trading centre, Ismir was constantly re-
ceiving, and maintained a temporizing attitude. Eventu-
ally, however, he was forced to recognize that the place
was not yet ready for a great manifestation and that he
was wasting his efforts by remaining there. Moreover, the
free and easy independence of a roving life attracted him. |
In Ismir nobody even raised a finger against him or did
anything to give him a fresh impetus and confirm him in
his calling. So he took his departure, amply provided with
funds by his father and brothers and once more resumed
his wanderings.
Some of the stages of his journey deserve special notice,
because of the events that occurred at them and the de-
tailed accounts that have survived. Sabbatai had already
become a conspicuous figure. In their doubly isolated
position off the main trade routes of the great world,
what topics of conversation had the Oriental Jews except
those provided by the exceptional men who happened to
pass through their communities? At least they knew that
this man, Sabbatai Zevi, was a great Chacham and a well-
known exponent and student of the Kabala. He had once
also actually uttered the Shem ha’mforash and the great
Cherem had been pronounced against him. In Salonica he
had celebrated his nuptials with the Thora, the daughter
of God, while in Constantinople an important and mys-
terious old document had been unearthed which he kept in
his possession, but the contents of which he took care never
THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT 99
to divulge. In addition to all this, when he entered the vari-
ous towns and penetrated into the Jewish quarters, his
personal appearance made a profound impression on the
people. A certain historian named Abraham Cuenqui de-
scribed him as follows: ‘“‘He was tall as a cedar of Lebanon,
his fresh, brown-complexioned face framed by a black
beard radiated beauty, and with his princely garments and
proud bearing he was a magnificent figure to behold.” Thus
he appeared in Hebron, where he taught and interpreted
the Scriptures and, with his ultimate object always in view,
collected adherents, impressing the people by the fanatical
_ devotion with which he prayed every night at the caves of
Machpelah, the historic burying place of the great Patri-
archs. Everywhere he went people felt that he was an ex-
traordinary man.
Then about the year 1660 Sabbatai appeared in Cairo.
Here he found or more probably sought a man who en-
joyed a great reputation among Oriental Jews and was in
every way typical of the Age, Raphael Joseph Chelebi. He
was the official representative of Egyptian Judaism and
by profession Zaraf bashi, or Master of the Mint and
farmer of taxes at the court of the Turkish Governor. He
was immensely wealthy and his establishment was con-
ducted with true Oriental splendour. When he appeared
in public he wore the gorgeous attire in keeping with his
lofty and exalted position. But all this was mere surface
show, for his intimate friends knew that beneath his stately
garments he wore a hair shirt, the garb of the penitent.
They also knew that he himself enjoyed none of the luxu-
ries of his household but led an ascetic life. He fasted,
mortified the flesh and performed the most rigorous peni-
100 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
tential exercises prescribed by the practical Kabala, and to
guide and direct him in so doing he engaged a famous
Kabalist, Samuel Vital, the son of the well-known Chaim
Vital Calabrese of Safed. His generosity to his co-
religionists knew no bounds and to make sure of doing
well in the sight of God, even when no opportunity to per-
form good deeds was at hand, he provided constant hos-
pitality under his roof and at his board for fifty Talmud
scholars and Kabalists. He did all this not by way of
penance for any personal sin or because he wished to win
salvation for himself. He belonged to the large body of
people who at that time had found a path to mysticism
through the physical and spiritual suffering of their race,
who confined their penitential exercises to a wrestling with
God for the salvation of the world and cared nothing for
personal power, influence and riches. Their real life was
lived outside their office—it was thus that Chelebi lived
—surrounded by a circle of adherents who agreed with
their point of view and were animated by an intense long-
ing for the “end of time”——Jewish Tolstoys free from
problems and world weariness.
The whole-hearted devotion with which they welcomed
Sabbatai fulfilled his most sanguine expectations. Chelebi
surrendered with such childlike faith to the guidance of
this man who was much younger than himself that Sab-
batai had no hesitation in openly revealing himself to him,
and thus secured a faithful, blindly devoted and wealthy
supporter who subsequently did much to smooth his path.
Sabbatai remained nearly two years in his house, during
which period Chelebi’s supporters, who now made Sabba-
tai their focus, sent constant reports into the outside
THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT iot
world. Though as yet they breathed no word of a Messiah
and certainly did not refer to Sabbatai Zevi in that capac-
ity, they prepared the way with such thoroughness that
gradually Sabbatai became the centre of an interest which
in due course would allow of almost infinite expansion.{)
But for his final venture he still lacked the firm foundaz, “Ua, LE
tion of popularity without which no leader or Messiah is *; —
ever accepted by the masses. And in order to winthat popu- |
larity Sabbatai at last made up his mind to move the scene 7 .
of his activities to the place which he had hitherto + 2
avoided—Jerusalem. The eyes of the world in which he ‘<”
hoped to achieve his end were focused on that city, and he / nif
felt that he might now venture to make it his head-
quarters.
On his way thither he passed through the town of Gaza.
Here fate placed in his hands a gift for which he could JG
hardly have dared to hope in his wildest dreams and which “ /“~ 7%
proved the turning-point in his life—he found a prophet
to announce the advent of the Messiah.
In this city lived a certain Nathan Benjamin Levi, also
known as Nathan Ashkenazi after his father’s native
country, Germany. Subsequently he became known all over
the world by the name of his own birthplace, Gaza, as
Nathan Ghazati. His father was busy in Europe collect-
ing alms for the community in Jerusalem, and all that he
could do for his son’s education was to send him to Jeru-
salem to study, that is to say, learn the Talmud and the
Kabala. Like the majority of Jews in Jerusalem, he lived
on charity, but as he was clever and had an impressive style
both in speaking and writing, his famous teacher, the
Rabbi Jacob Chagis, confided him to the care of the
H
we
102 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
wealthy Samuel Lisbona in Gaza. The latter did what was
generally done in those days in the case of a man of prom-
ise, even 1f he was as poor as a church mouse—he gave him
his daughter in marriage. She was said to be extremely
beautiful, though she was blind in one eye; and Lisbona
made such generous provision for his son-in-law that the
latter was able to continue his studies without anxiety.
Nathan Ghazati might be called a worldly scholar, a
happy contented young man, full of the joy of life. His ex-
haustive study of the practical Kabala did not unbalance
him. But suddenly, before he reached his twentieth year,
his attitude changed. He began seriously to take to heart
the precepts which hitherto he had learnt and taught only
theoretically, and started putting them into practice. He
became grave and reserved, taciturn and retiring, began
to do penitential exercises and mortify the flesh, and oc-
casionally, in the circle of his pupils and other scholars,
he would make statements on matters about which, as far
as they could tell, he could not possibly know anything, but
which subsequent investigation proved to be true. Thus
he came to be regarded as possessing special occult powers
and was accordingly held in peculiar reverence. Very soon,
a man’s name had only to be written on a slip of paper, for
him to be able to describe his life and all the good and
evil he had done.
In his role of clairvoyant he attracted large numbers of
people from far and wide. Lists of names were submitted
to him, against each of which he was asked to write the
particular sin the bearer of it had committed and the pen-
ance he should undergo. Once, to test him, the names of a
dead man and a new-born baby were written down, and
THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT 103,
against the dead man’s name he wrote, ‘‘Death hath re-
deemed him,” and against the baby’s, “He is free from
sin.” |
These were supernatural gifts which inspired faith in
the masses and suspicion among the scholars, and led toa
commission of five Rabbis being sent from Jerusalem to
investigate his claims. We do not know the result of this
investigation, but the mass of legend that grew up about
his name proves that the conclusion could not have been
unsatisfactory. A popular anecdote seems to be connected
with this Rabbinical inquiry. It relates that a great scholar
came to him from Jerusalem in order to investigate his
powers. Nathan Ghazati told him to go to the cemetery,
‘where he would find an old man with a skin about his
loins and a vessel of water in his hand. ‘““Take the water,”
he said, “‘pour it over his hands and say: ‘Forgive the chil-
dren of Israel!’ The scholar went to the cemetery but
found nobody. ‘““There is nobody there,” he said on his
return. ““Go again,” replied Nathan. This time the scholar
found an old man answering to the description he had been
given, and he did what Nathan had told him to do. Where-
upon the old man lifted up his voice and said: ““My blood
be forgiven thee!’ On returning home the scholar learnt
that the old man was the prophet Zechariah whom the
Jews had killed and that by this symbolic act among the
tombstones his blood had been washed away and the sin
against him forgiven.
But these dramatic displays of second sight were ap-
parently merely preparatory to a more forcible appeal to
the spirit of the Age and the belief in a Messiah. Nathan’s
father, who travelled all over the world, kept him very
104 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
well informed of all that was happening. He_ knew all
about Sabbatai Zevi and followed every stage of his wan-
derings and every detail of his activities. He even knew
about Jachini’s ancient document and perhaps actually
possessed a copy of it, for in later years Sabbatai Zevi de-
clared under oath before the Rabbis of Adrianople that
Nathan had persuaded him to proclaim himself the Mes-
siah by means of an ancient document in which his, Sab-
batai’s, name had been interpolated. If we judge Sabbatai
aright we may conclude that Nathan actually did possess
such a manuscript.
In the case of Nathan also, the spirit of the Age,
contemporary events, and his own disposition probably
combined to urge him to concentrate all his efforts on the
Messianic idea, He insistently preached the necessity for
repentance and reminded all who came to him or wrote for
his advice that the advent of the Messiah was at hand. And
he repeated this so often and with such eloquence and con-
viction, that he created around him an atmosphere of the
most tense expectation. All he said and did was imme-
diately believed, exaggerated, distorted, and circulated as
truth, embellished with all the fantastic features of the
miraculous and the legendary. In time, his sayings and
prophecies circulated throughout the East and reached
western Europe; we find them reproduced in contemporary
reports in some such form as the following communica-
tion from Parson Buchenroedern: “‘Letters from Jews
in Alexandria report that a prophet has appeared in
Gaza who is twenty-six years of age and does all manner
of signs and wonders. He calls upon the Jews to repent
for the coming of the Messiah, and tells them that they
THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT 10$
must gather together before Jerusalem. This they did, and
when several thousands of them were collected outside
the city oil poured out of a cloud above them on to the
head of the Messiah, and a voice was heard saying: “This
is the Messiah who will rid Israel of its enemies and will
gather its people together from the ends of the earth and
restore the worship of God.’ The Messiah’s name is said to ©
be Benhadad and his age about forty. At about the same
time a cloud of fire was seen over Mount Zion in Jeru-
salem, whereupon the prophet wrote to all the Jews all
over the world to gather together and come to Jerusalem
and he would show them where the Ark of the Covenant
was to be found and all the other things which Jeremiah
had hidden (as we are told in II Maccabees 2). On that
day an altar would come down from Heaven on which the
Jews would lay a sacrifice which would be lighted by fire
fromthe sky and burned up, and thus divine worship would
be restored as of old and endure to the end of the world.
Meanwhile, he has told the Jews to perform proper peni-
tential exercises and diligently to read the Prophet Jere-
miah. At the appointed hour the Turks and the heathen
would come forward of their own accord and deliver up
their empires to the new Messiah. They also say that at
the same time the prophet Nathan blew the horn which
was regarded as a good sign. The rest was to happen within
two months’ time. Meanwhile, some of the Jews are still
in doubt concerning the truth of the matter, since no letters
have yet reached them from Jerusalem and other places in
the neighbourhood. But others believe everything implic-
itly. Thus it is positively asserted that the Jews have
marched out in vast numbers towards Aleppo, to wage war
106 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
on the King of the Moors, but with the assistance of large
bodies of Turks the people of Aleppo sallied forth fifty-
one thousand strong, and inflicted a crushing defeat on the
Jews. Now all we hear is that the Jews are selling their
houses and preparing to depart.”
Reports and fantastic accounts of this kind nevertheless
unconsciously anticipated at least some of the events that
subsequently occurred and were quite in keeping with a
state of unusual exaltation. Once, about the time of
the Jewish Pentecost, Nathan Ghazati summoned. the
scholars of the town to him and searched the Scriptures
until far into the night. Towards midnight he was seized
with an overpowering desire to sleep and to overcome it
he walked up and down the room muttering prayers. But
his weariness only increased and he found it more and more
difficult to shake it off. He then asked one of his friends
to sing him a song, and when he had finished he asked an-
other to do likewise. But still his weariness was not re-
lieved. Gradually it developed into a state of distressing
feebleness ; he seemed alarmed and bewildered and began
to stagger round the room, helplessly clutching at his
clothes. His friends looked on terrified and. suddenly saw
him lose his balance and fall to the floor. They dashed to
him and tried to help him up but found to their horror
that he was lying stiff and still with his eyes closed.
They called in a physician, who after a brief examina-
tion declared Nathan to be dead. So they spread a shroud
over him, and broken-hearted and distraught squatted in
the corners of the room. After a while they heard a deep
hollow voice struggling to pronounce a few words. Terri-
fied, they tore the shroud from Nathan and listened. They
mT
——
—
——
=
Hit
INI
NATHAN GHAZATI
THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT 107
could hear him speaking but his lips did not move and the
words he was uttering seemed to be laboriously fighting
their way from his subconscious mind. He spoke of the
advent of the Messiah and of his prophet, and his soul
stammered forth glad tidings of salvation. Then as the
words and the sounds died away, a deep quivering breath
came from the stiff body, his breast heaved and, with a deep
sigh of relief, he opened his eyes. They helped him to
get up and besieged him with questions. What was the
matter with him? But he could remember nothing. They
told him what had happened; but, sad and absent-minded,
he remained silent.
Shortly afterwards news arrived that Sabbatai Zevi
would stop in Gaza on his way from Cairo to Jerusalem.
Great interest was aroused by the prospect of this visit.
but Nathan felt something deeper than interest. All the
hopes he had concentrated on this man were revived and
to crown all he received about this time a letter from Isaac
Levi in Salonica telling him that Sabbatai Zevi had
secretly revealed himself to him as the appointed Mes-
siah. ~<
From that moment Nathan Ghazati ceased to be agi-
tated and uneasy. All his groping expectations and pre-
monitions, all the promptings of his unconscious mind
and his vague hopes had suddenly been given a direction
and a goal. Every fibre of his being was now concentrated
on the mission to which his every word, impulse and
thought was devoted until his dying day. His one obses-
sion was to be the herald and forerunner of the man of
the future, the Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, to serve him and
help him, to bear witness to him, to be his prophet and
108 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
chattel, to suffer for him if need be, or sit on the steps of
his throne if that were possible.
He accordingly made immediate preparations for a
great reception. Without telling his friends and fellow-
students the real reason, or revealing what he knew, he
persuaded them to show special honour to the expected
guest. They eagerly listened to him and a luxurious ban-
quet was prepared. At the head of the table there was a
raised chair resembling a throne for the guest, and, worked
into the decorations, were insignia of quasi-royal design.
The banquet was a brilliant function accompanied by
general rejoicing. When the meal was ended and the guest,
according to custom, was to be toasted and have speeches
made in his honour, the company, almost as though it had
been arranged beforehand, handed the goblet of wine to
the youngest but most worthy among them—Nathan
Ghazati. With trembling hands he raised it aloft, held
it out towards the guest, and the words and blessing he
uttered irrevocably ushered in the Sabbataian movement:
“Baruch habah bashem adonai. . . . Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord. May the merciful God
bless our King, Sabbatai Zevi !”
There was great excitement at the head of the table
and Sabbatai sprang to his feet. with such violence that
_the vessels rang. “Silence!” he roared, pointing at Nathan
Ghazati. The latter put down the goblet and said no more,
and Sabbatai went slowly out of the room.
What did this signify? Was it one last grand gesture
of modesty, a final protest against the utterance of a bare
fact, an attempt to conceal his call? Was it genuine dif-
fidence that was forcing him to shrink from the pompous
THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT 109
title that was offered him? Was he perhaps afraid of as-
suming an office entailing multifarious duties and obliga-
tions, or was it merely a skilful move on his part which
would one day enable him to say, “It was not I who de-
sired it; you yourselves called me and forced the office
upon me. The responsibility therefore lies with you, not
with me!” And later on, at certain moments in his life,
Sabbatai did, in fact, adopt this attitude. But at the time
his passionate gesture of protest did not prevent him from
keeping in very close touch with Nathan Ghazati and mak-
ing unscrupulous use of his subsequent activities in pre-
paring the way for his Messiahship. And when he set out
for Jerusalem the two parted like friends closely bound
by a common belief.
He made a prolonged stay in Jerusalem—about three
years—although the results he obtained were altogether
incommensurate with the time spent. For how could he
hope to make any impression there and what was his object
in staying? True, from the standpoint of religious senti-
ment, Jerusalem was an extremely important city, but it
had become impoverished and now exercised but little in-
fluence on the rest of the Jewish world. The subscriptions
raised by the Jews on behalf of the victims of the Polish
catastrophe had been so heavy that there had been a serious
decrease in the alms sent to Jerusalem, with the result that
the poor were on the verge of starvation. Famine had
broken out and forced many of the inhabitants to leave
the city and seek refuge elsewhere. Moreover, the ‘Turkish
authorities were making unusually heavy demands on the
community and threatened reprisals if payment were not. .
forthcoming.
110 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
This also contributed towards the depopulation of the
city. In the end only those remained who had not the means
to move, or whose mastery of the practical Kabala enabled
them to reduce their requirements to a minimum; while
as for the scholars and Rabbis of the city, they had very
little authority among the Oriental Jews.
Yet it was in this environment that Sabbatai calmly
spent three precious years of his life. He was forced to do
so and made a virtue of necessity. He had good reasons for
his sojourn. The Zohar had prophesied that the year of
salvation would be 1648, but 1648 had come and gone and
nothing had happened! All Sabbatai’s efforts had ended
in smoke. And with a grandiose gesture he drew the logical
conclusion. As the Jewish prophecies had not been fulfilled,
he must turn to the Christian ones. If the year 1648 had
failed, the year 1666, which the Christians regarded as the
apocalyptic year, might nevertheless bring the fulfilment
of the prophecies. Sabbatai’s most memorable feat con-
sists in having insinuated this year into Jewish mysticism
and led the masses to regard it as the year of redemption
for the Jews, and to have done so with such conviction
that no one was given the chance of asking why one year
had been substituted for another or why and how it had
been possible for this to be done. Sabbatai insisted that
1666 was the year and carried his point. His whole energy
was now concentrated on preparing the way and it was
soon to be seen how brilliantly his plan was conceived.
Thus he bided his time in Jerusalem and based his popu-
larity on the support of the poor. Once again he was munifi-
cently financed by his brothers and his life presented a
strange contrast of magnificence and saintly piety which
THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT 111
he loved to exhibit openly and free from all restraint in
public. He would engage in spiritual devotions for hours
at a time at the tombs sacred to the men of old, praying,
singing and shedding burning tears. There was nothing
disreputable in this spiritual exhibitionism; it was sincere
and welled up from the deepest recesses of his being. He
lived in his deeds. His displays were expressions of his
personality and in addition to the reputation for sanctity
he won thereby, he acquired further popularity by taking
notice of the children everywhere he went and giving them
money and sweets. So the mothers adored him and the
women loved him because he not only sang hymns and
canticles but also songs full of secret eroticism, and when
he was asked to explain their meaning he gave them a
mystic interpretation. Among them there was in particular
the following Spanish love song which has been handed
down to us by Pastor Coenen in a Dutch version :—“O#-
klimmende op een bergh, en nederdalende in een valeye,
ontmoette ick Melisselde, de Dochter van den Kayser, de-
welcke quam uyt de banye, van haer te wasschen. Haer
aengesichte was blinckende als een deegen, haer ooghieden
als een stalen boge, haer léippen als coraelen, haer vleesch
als melck, etc.” It isa pity that Coenen concludes with this
“etc.” . . . In any case, the women believed the song bore
some relation to the Talmud and the Song of Solomon..
A certain obvious visionary named Baruch Gad proved
of great assistance to Sabbatai in preparing people for
coming events by means of a mysterious tale he had to tell.
He was a collector of alms for Jerusalem, and travelled
through Persia in connexion with his work. He happened
to return just about this time and described the extraordi-
112 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
nary predicaments he had been in, from which a Jew be-
longing to the lost tribe of Naphtali had rescued him. This
Jew had handed him a document purporting to have been
written by the Jews on the other side of the River Sabba-
tion, in which, in Kabalistic terminology, it was stated
that the ten tribes were only awaiting the appearance of
the Messiah in order to sally forth in their thousands. It
was regarded as genuine and copies of it were made and
sent after those who bore the glad tidings to facilitate their
efforts.
But what finally established Sabbatai’s popularity and
quite rightly confirmed it was the following incident. The
Governor of Jerusalem had again laid heavy financial
burdens upon the impoverished Jewish community, and
as they could not pay, he threatened to banish all the Jews.
In their distress they appealed to Sabbatai Zevi and asked
whether he could not use his influence to help them. Sab-
batai promised to do so. He knew where to turn, and im-
mediately set out for Cairo where he laid his request before
his friend Chelebi. Without a moment’s hesitation, Chelebi
placed the whole of the substantial sum at Sabbatai’s dis-
posal. But Sabbatai took all the credit. When he returned
he was hailed by the people as their saviour and the word
rose for the first time spontaneously from their lips. It was
said of him, “Halak shaliak wba mashiak’—‘‘He went
forth an ambassador and returned a saviour!”
But this journey was also fateful in another way. For
he returned from Cairo married for the third time. In
Jewry of that day, this was important only because mar-
riage constituted one of the most obvious religious duties.
The woman, the partner in the ceremony, was of no ac-
THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT 113
count. She was a good or a bad housekeeper, that was all.
The intimate duties of family life, the observance of the
ritualistic law and the bearing of children constituted her
sole functions and importance. But people imagined that
it could be no ordinary woman who was destined to be
the bride of the extraordinary man, Sabbatai Zevi, whose
two marriages had both been annulled. And Fate did not
fail him, for his third wife came into his life in the strang-
est manner. :
Sarah, the woman in question, was a native of Poland.
Who her parents were nobody ever knew. All that is cer-
tain about them is that they died when Sarah was about six
years old, after which she was shut up in a convent. She *
was probably picked up as a foundling after her parents
had been killed in a pogrom. Another theory, probably
invented for a special purpose, was that she had been kid-
napped and taken to a convent and that her parents had
died of sorrow, because they were unable to recover their
child. Be this as it may, her earliest childhood memories
were tumultuous and stormy and indelibly imprinted
on her mind, more especially, as being an Oriental Jewess,
she could not have failed to be impressed from her tender-
est years by lively recollections of her environment and
an early education concerned with the practical exercise
of religion. For such a child suddenly to be taken to a
Polish convent and delivered up to its atmosphere must
have had a profound influence on her character. For ten
years, that is to say, until she was fully mature, Sarah was
surrounded by saints’ images, candles, incense, hymns,
and prayers repeated in the isolation of her cell or in the
disastrous company of other nuns. At the end of that period
114 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
her nature must have been stamped for life with the virtues
and vices of her environment.
One day when the Jews from a.village in the neighbour-
hood of the convent went to their cemetery to bury one of
their dead, they found among the graves an extremely
beautiful girl in tattered clothes, who looked like a Jewess.
Surprised by her appearance, they asked her whence she
came and whither she wished to go. Sarah told them as
much of her life story as she thought fit to reveal or, at
least, as much of it as she knew. She may even have lied.
Possibly she was as much influenced by Jewish as by Cath-
olic mysticism. For she informed them that two nights
previously her father’s ghost had come to her and told her
that he could find no peace in death, because he knew his
daughter had embraced another faith. And he wept and
wailed. She had asked him what she should do. “Flee from
the convent!’’ he had replied: ‘Go to the Jewish cemetery
hard by and sit among the graves. In two days’ time some
Jews will come to bury their dead, and they will help you
to attain your goal.’’ What goal? inguired the astonished
Jews. But Sarah did not reply. She probably knew of no
goal or wished to keep it secret. But she told them that
she had jumped from the top-story window of the convent
that very night. Her father had helped her to leap into
the abyss by holding up her body and she showed the
women what she declared to be the marks of her father’s
nails on her skin. The women saw and believed and took
Sarah back with them to the village.
The discovery was at once disquieting and dangerous.
For the girl, although a Jewess by birth, belonged to an-—
other faith, and one day, when the affair became known,
THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT 115
the convent would claim her back. So the Jews kept her
presence among them a profound secret. She was hidden
in one place after another, but through all these vicis-
situdes she remained calm, thoughtful, and beautiful.
Inquiries were set on foot and it was discovered that,
when the community to which Sarah’s parents belonged
had: been dispersed, one of her brothers, named Samuel,
had escaped and drifted to Amsterdam, where he was mak-
ing a living as a tobacco merchant. Anxious to be rid of
their dangerous visitor Sarah’s rescuers decided to send her
to him, and taking all due precautions, they transferred
her from community to community, until she had crossed
the German frontier. Everywhere she went she was re-
garded as a mystery, and aroused considerable interest.
It.is impossible to say how long this journey with its end-
less stages lasted, for the records are singularly silent re-
garding the first days of her freedom, and all the more
legendary accounts relate merely her previous history and
the circumstances of her discovery. One story goes that she
was kidnapped by a Polish nobleman who tried to persuade
her to be baptized. Another describes her as living in a
Christian family who destined her to be their son’s wife.
But in both cases her father’s spirit appeared to her by
night and saved her. A religious variation of these legends
declares that at the time of her discovery in the cemetery
she had a label on her bearing the words, ‘‘This woman
will be the bride of the Messiah !”’
The poetic hand of legend does not seem to have touched
her later years and apparently a certain fear and timidity
paralysed the natural eagerness of people to interest them-
selves in the extraordinary fate of this eccentric, extremely
116 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
erotic, and vital creature. Thus they were obliged to leave
the field clear for the chroniclers, particularly to those who
were hostile to the Sabbataian movement and who, full of
suspicion, followed the track of this amazing and, from
the Jewish standpoint, somewhat disconcerting young
woman. These chroniclers state that Sarah did in fact live
with her brother in Amsterdam, but having reached her
destination after her adventurous journey, she was not
content. In the ordinary course of events her brother would
have arranged for her to marry some worthy Jew; but she
proceeded to break loose once and for all from such a
normal existence. As she had started life in an extraordi-
nary manner, she continued to conduct it along extraordi-
nary lines, declaring that a Messiah was coming into the
world and that she was destined to be his bride. And deaf
to all entreaties and persuasions, she set off on her wander-
ings round the world to discover the Messiah.
We are not told how she planned her wanderings, nor
is it likely that she knew of Sabbatai Zevi and his where-
abouts, for had she done so she would presumably have im-
mediately turned eastward to meet him. Instead she wan-
dered from Amsterdam through Holland, Germany, and
Switzerland and eventually reached Italy. Everywhere
her beauty excited wonder and determined her fate, while
everybody felt the greatest interest in the destiny to which
she felt herself called. But as though she already had royal
gifts to bestow, she did not shrink back at the excitement
she caused among the men she met, but picked out whom-
soever she desired, recklessly giving herself to all who
solicited her and meeting any man who made an appoint-
ment with her. Destined to be the bride of a holy man,
THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT 117
she lived the life of a harlot, although this did not in any
way disturb the certainty and determination with which
she pursued her goal. She did not remain long with any
man, but with the sure instinct of the somnambulist |
wandered from place to place, despising those who in-
sulted her, and explaining to those who marvelled at the
strange incompatability of her destiny and her way of
life, that since she could not marry until the Messiah took
her to him, God had authorized her to satisfy her pas-
sions how and where she could. Thus she contrived to give
expression to all that lust and religiosity have in com-
mon in the depths of the human soul. Reports from Amster-
dam, Frankfort, Mantua, and Leghorn describe her way
of life and her claims to be the bride of the Messiah. Schol-
ars and Rabbis came to her to examine the strange phe-
nomenon she presented and the alarm caused among them
by her beauty and her sensuous appeal is reminiscent of
the witch-trials of the Middle Ages. Carried away by their
faith and the spirit of the Age, they ascribed supernatural
qualities to her, but unlike their medieval religious op-
ponents, they did not make the inexplicable and mysterious
.an excuse for subjecting a fellow-creature to torture or
breaking her on the wheel. For the Christian persecutors
of witches hated Eros and stifled the weird sensations pro-
voked by witches by putting them to death. The Jewish
Rabbis and scholars were also afraid of Eros, but they
tried to circumvent him by sublimating his influence. The
former possessed a dogma and cut off the legs of all who
did not fit their Procrustean bed, the latter were free from
dogma but were dangerously susceptible to any religious
appeal. Thus in the end all they gathered from this bril-
118 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
liant creature was that she wished to be the bride of the
Messiah. But they could not help her, as no Messiah had
so far appeared.
At this time Sabbatai’s faithful follower, Pinheiro, was
staying in Leghorn and immediately grasped the possibili-
ties of the situation. Sabbatai was in Cairo begging for
money from Chelebi to help the Jews in Jerusalem. Pi-
nheiro sent him the news with as many details as he could
gather. Whereupon, strange to relate, Sabbatai immedi-
ately declared that the girl was his predestined bride. He
had been obliged to dissolve two marriages, because they
lacked the confirmation of Heaven. But this time there
could be no doubt. Sarah was certainly his predestined
bride as the Messiah. Thus to the joy of his followers and
the whole-hearted approval of Chelebi, he announced the
fact, and Chelebi immediately sent a messenger and an
escort to Leghorn to fetch Sarah to Cairo.
She received the messenger with regal calm and accom-
panied her escort without further ado. It is at this relatively
innocent and romantic point that legend once more takes
up the thread of the story. One version relates that, know-
ing nothing of Sabbatai’s existence, she wandered to Cairo
and to Chelebi, to whom she confided her history and her
destiny. His friends, to whom he told the girl’s tale, ad-
vised him to endow her and marry her. This he was quite
ready to do, but Sarah resisted, declaring that the man
she was to marry was at that moment in peril of his life on
the high seas, but that her father’s spirit would help him.
Eleven days later Sabbatai Zevi arrived and his followers
were able to describe the terrible dangers to which they
had been exposed on the journey. Pirates had pursued the
THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT 119
ship, but in answer to Sabbatai’s prayers, the Almighty
dispersed them. According to another version Sarah told
Chelebi that she must go to Jerusalem as her husband was
there. Chelebi sent her there in charge of a reliable escort.
On the outskirts of the city she met Sabbatai surrounded
by his followers, and called out, ““This wise man is my
husband,”’ and on seeing her Sabbatai replied, ‘“This
maiden is my bride.”
Meanwhile, pending Sarah’s arrival, Chelebi inade prep-
arations for the wedding with true Oriental pomp and
ceremony, and did not attempt to hide the fact that these
regal arrangements were being made for the Messiah.
Chelebi’s circle in Cairo regarded the wedding as an op-
portunity for publicly proclaiming his Messiahship to the
whole world, and Sabbatai raised no objection. The year
1665 had just opened and the path leading to his ultimate
revelation of himself had become extremely short. Once
again Fate had contrived an extraordinary conjuncture of
circumstances for him, and once again he accepted the
coincidence in such a way as to give the onlooker the im-
pression that the finger of God was at work.
Sabbatai had never expected to have a wife. Women
played no part in his emotional and imaginative life. His
spiritual and sensual needs were adequately satisfied in
the sphere of mysticism. His twofold failure in the past
pointed only to one conclusion and, as the sequel will show,
he did not cohabit with Sarah either before or after mar-
riage. In making the spontaneous declaration that this
girl was destined to be his bride, he was moved neither by
her beauty, her fate, nor her sensual appeal, but purely
by her own declaration that she was the chosen bride of
*
120 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
the Messiah. Was he animated only by cold calculation?
No! But he was incapable of regarding people and events
except from the standpoint of their relationship to him-
self. He had long ceased to be anything but the slave of
_ his idea, and it did not enter his head that it was neces-
sary to prove that what happened, happened on his ac-
count. He did not bear the idea aloft with mastery; it
had completely subjugated him and thus the human side
of him remained fallow and virginal. He did not feel a
spark of love for this woman. She was the Queen whom
the Messiah, the King, must have, and this constituted
her sole purpose and importance as far as he was con-
cerned. Nor was he in the least perturbed when subse-
quently he discovered that Sarah was obviously a magnet
to the young men about him, and that under the cloak of
religion and with the airs of a queen of ancient days, she
secretly pursued her old life with his youthful followers.
Truth to tell, the two creatures who met in this way were
bound by no sort of human tie; their destinies had made
credulous liars of them both. Exceptional external events
and their own peculiar personalities had brought them to-
gether, and they continued to live side by side for the rest
of their lives.
Thus the marriage celebrated in Cairo was not the union
of Sabbatai and Sarah, but of the Messiah and his Queen.
Furtive attempts were made to enlighten him regarding
the nature of her past life. Had he been concerned as a
husband with such reports, he would have been bound to
say that the woman of his choice must be a pure and spot-
less virgin; but as he regarded the matter only from the
standpoint of his obsession, he replied that God had once
THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT 121
told the prophet Hosea to take a harlot to wife. He was
trying to realize a great prophetic symbol in the flesh,
but as he found it impossible to live up to the reply and
make it a reality, his answer served only to add to his
wife’s degradation. However, he was not aware of this.
All he was able consciously to grasp was that predestined
events seemed to be bearing him along a further decisive
stretch of road towards his goal. So he returned to Jeru-
salem via Gaza, where Nathan, the fulfiller of his destiny,
was awaiting him.
CHAPTER VII
The Blast of the Trumpet
ATHAN Guazarti had not lost touch with Sabbatai
Zevi, neither spiritually nor in any other way. He
had understood his command to be silent at their first meet-
ing, but could obey it only so long as his enthusiasm did
not burst bounds and force him to speak. And recent events
in the outside world no doubt explained his exceeding
readiness to see visions and break out into prophecy. His
immediate circle suspected that he was on the point of
breaking out, for he had ceased searching the Scriptures
for some time past.
On the 25th of Elul, §425, which was a Sabbath Day :
in the late summer of the year 1665, Nathan Ghazati at
last had a great vision. He saw the light which at the: i
creation of the world had illumined the spheres and, like!
Ezekiel in his vision, he beheld fiery signs in the sky, and
read word for word the following message : ‘“And God said
unto me, thy Saviour, Sabbatai Zevi, cometh!’ And he
saw the Messiah walking across the sky in the garb of an
angel, and then he heard a mighty voice call out from
the heights, a voice that was not of this world, saying, “‘In
_ one year and a few moons from now there shal] be mani-
fested unto you and your eyes shall behold the kingdom
of the Messiah that cometh of the line of David.”’
I22
THE BLAST OF THE TRUMPET 123
After his vision, his friends found him foaming at the
mouth like a madman. When he had recovered, he could
still see the vision clearly and remembered the words that
had accompanied it, and told them everything. Nay more,
he eagerly spread the news and swore by the living world
that every word he said was true. And referring to Jachini’s
manuscript, he declared that he had read a similar prophecy
in an old document of the year 5386, that is to say, the
year of Sabbatai’s birth, and from the irresponsible posi-
tion of a clairvoyant he came out into the open and as-
sumed the responsible role of one called to be the prophet
of the Messiah.
And in this capacity he was more constant and faithful
than the man whose advent he heralded.
He set to work at once, and wrote a circular letter ad-
dressed to no particular individual but to the “Brethren
in Israel.’”’ With magic speed innumerable copies found
_ their way all over the Jewish world and within a few
weeks it was read in Salonica, Constantinople, Venice,
Leghorn, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Frankfort, Paris, Lon-
don, Posen, and Lemberg. It was like a trumpet blast amid
the slumber of expectation: |
_ “Hear ye, Brethren in Israel, that our Messiah is come
to life in the city of Ismir and his name is Sabbatai Zevi.
Soon he will show forth his kingdom to all and will take
the royal crown from the head of the Sultan and place
it on his own. Like a Canaanitish slave shall the King
of the Turks walk behind him, for to Sabbatai is the power
and the glory. But when nine months have passed, our
Messiah shall vanish from before the eyes of Israel and no
man shall be able to say whether he is alive or dead. But
124 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
he will cross the River Sabbation which, as all men know,
no mortal has ever crossed. There he will marry the daugh-
ter of Moses and our Messiah shall ride forth to Jerusalem
with Moses and all the Jews of old mounted on horses.
_ He himself shall ride on a dragon whose bridle rein shall
be a snake with seven. heads. On his way he will be at-
tacked by Gog and Magog, the enemies of Israel, with
a mighty army. But the Messiah shall not conquer his
enemies with ordinary weapons made by men. Nay, with
the breath of his nostril shall he rout them and by his
word alone shall he utterly destroy them. And when he ts
entered into Jerusalem, God shall send down a temple of
gold and precious stones from heaven, and it shall fill the
city with its brilliance, and in it shall the Messiah offer up
sacrifice as High Priest. And in that day shall the dead
throughout the world rise from their graves. I hasten to
tell you these tidings.”
In this prophecy secular and religious Messianism were
curiously intermingled in a way entirely in keeping with
the spirit of the Age. But it is characteristic of the Jewish
mind, so inured to suffering, that the act of redemption
should be postponed as a matter of course. Without one
last blow, one last crowning disaster, their salvation ap-
peared unthinkable, a fact which Nathan could not suf-
ficiently emphasize. A long and detailed message, which
the prophet addressed to Chelebi in Cairo, has come down
to us. In it he told him in terms similar to those used in
the first circular, that the salvation of the world was at
hand and how it would come, and dealt somewhat more
exhaustively with Sabbatai’s fourth marriage beyond the
Sabbation. Moses, who had risen from the dead, had a
THE BLAST OF THE TRUMPET 125
daughter Rebecca, a girl of fourteen, whom God had
chosen to be the true bride of the Messiah. Sabbatai Zevi
would marry her, and Sarah, who was now called Queen, —
would become the slave of Moses’ daughter. This was
the only time he ever referred to Sarah in his manifestoes
and communications, which seems to suggest that he was
never able to overcome a certain dislike of her.
He then proceeded to describe to Chelebi the manifold
sufferings the Messiah had undergone. “And that is why
all Jews have been placed in his hand, that he may do
with them as he will. Those whom he would condemn he
will condemn; those whom he would exalt he will exalt.
In a year and a few months he will wrest the empire from
the Sultan of Turkey without striking a blow, but merely
by singing hymns and songs of praise; and he will take
the Turk with him wheresoever he goeth, invading all the
countries of the world and conquering them, and all the.
kings thereof shall be the slaves of the Sultan, but the
Sultan himself shall be hzs slave. And there sh4ll be no
shedding of blood among the Christians, save in Germany.”
Salvation, however, was not to come immediately, but
only after the lapse of five years. Then only would Sab-
batai cross the mystic river, and hand over the rule of a
vastly improved world to the Grand Turk, bidding him
leave the Jews in possession of their property. But three
months later, at the instigation of his advisers, the Sultan
would rise up against the Jews. There would be terrible
suffering and misery throughout the world; the city of
Gaza alone would escape and form the foundation of
Sabbatai Zevi’s kingdom. For Sabbatai loved that city
as David loved the city of Hebron. And towards the end .
126 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
of this period the miracles prophesied in the Zohar would
occur. Then all who were still groaning beneath the yoke
would be set free and all who had performed special serv-
ices for the Holy Land would rise from the dead. Only
forty years later would all the dead rise from their graves.
Nathan had a twofold object in making this communica-
tion, which was also circulated by the thousand all over
the world, extremely detailed and circumstantial. After
the first spontaneous announcement, it was necessary, in
order that coming events might be made known and em-
phasized, to follow it up by further explanation. More-
over, this letter was Nathan’s reply to a question from
Chelebi, asking for details of the reports that had reached
him about Sabbatai and his activities in Jerusalem, which
to a Jew appeared somewhat disconcerting and terrifying.
For Sabbatai, with his Queen, had entered Jerusalem,
where he had allowed himself to be acclaimed as Saviour
of the Holy City. He had taken Nathan’s public announce-
ment quite naturally as a matter of course, and made no
sign of protest when his followers and the poor, who clung
round him as their liberator and apostle, hailed him as
King and Messiah as he made his public entry. He had al-
ready been behaving in an extremely autocratic way. Che-
lebi had given him 4000 thalers for the poor of the city,
and the Rabbis laid claim to the money and declared that
they ought to distribute it according to the usual scale.
Sabbatai took no notice of this but gave away the money
as he thought fit and, needless to say, thought of his own
followers and friends first of all. The Rabbis were furious
and threatened him with a ban; but by this time Sabbatai’s
position was so firmly established that he no longer cared
THE BLAST OF THE TRUMPET 127
for such threats. He did as he chose, and his friends, in-
cluding Chelebi, took it as a matter of course that he should
do so. But something else was giving them cause for de-
pression and alarm—Sabbatai, that model of piety, was
beginning to contemn and infringe the Law, and was be-
having as though its precepts had not remained sacred
and inviolable for over a thousand years. He no longer
adhered to the recognized hours and forms of prayer. He
performed his own orisons when and how he chose, and
disregarded all the regulations relating to vestments and
clothes, feast days and dietary laws, which in the eyes of
his friends constituted a crime so terrible that they were
at a loss to understand.
They were inclined to think that such blasphemous con-
duct could not possibly have originated in his own brain
and will, for a new figure had suddenly appeared at his
side, a man whose origin and aims were shrouded in mys-
tery—Samuel Primo. The Messiah referred to him as his
secretary, an appellation in which the fellow himself con-
curred. But it was obviously merely a cloak for concealing
the relationship of master and slave. Sabbatai could now
no longer lift a finger without the approval of his secretary
Primo. Not that he asked for his advice and followed it.
No! Primo would have an idea and lay it before Sabbatai
who would then proceed publicly to put it into action,
and his thoughts and utterances went beyond the narrow
circle of his friends and reached the outside world only
when Primo had put them into words that he considered fit
and desirable. Sabbatai could speak freely only to his own
immediate circle, everything beyond that was perforce
subjected to Primo’s editorship and supervision. Never-
128 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
theless, Primo never obtruded himself, and even when he
was making the Messiah dance like a marionette on strings
he remained silent and invisible in the background.
Primo held this office as long as Sabbatai himself con-
tinued to play the part of Messiah. He knew much better
than his master what was necessary for consolidating his
position and was also aware of the weak points in the
latter’s self-justification and way of life, and concealed
and covered them up. He was constantly discovering fresh
means for justifying Sabbatai’s claim to be the Messiah.
His instinct very rightly told him that an exceptional man
is entitled to behave in an exceptional manner and that
“the masses who were called upon to believe in him would
be far more deeply impressed by innovations that gave
offence than by obedience ‘to tradition and the common
rules of conduct. He believed in the Messiah, but regarded
Sabbatai as weak, and served the idea by making himself
the servant of its exponent. But in this capacity it was
imperative for him to keep the Messiah under his thumb.
Primo was the first to draw the logical conclusion from
all that had happened. Whereas Sabbatai was concerned
only with himself and his own influence, Primo saw that
Judaism was standing at the cross-roads and that some
momentous achievement must be attempted in the religious
sphere. He perceived that the whole of Rabbinical Judaism
in the form in which it had developed was merely the
result of the state of distress chiefly due to the Diaspora,
and that all its edicts and prohibitions were justified only
by this temporary state of affairs. They did not emanate
from God. The Jewish people had erected this complicated
system of defence about the Law of God for fear they
THE BLAST OF THE TRUMPET 129
might lose it altogether, separated as they were from their
own country, their Temple, and their national traditions,
and living among people whose civilization and faith
were different from their own. He also saw that this Rab-
binical Judaism had developed into a system of dangerous
complexity and constant fruitless hair-splitting, which
made it all the more necessary emphatically to declare that
with the dawn of the Messianic Age a fundamental change
must be made. The Jews were returning home. The laws
for the Diaspora were meant only for use in foreign lands.
They must be annulled. Thousands would not immedi-
ately grasp the full significance of the coming of the Mes-
siah, but they would be helped to understanding if the
conventional laws of religion and morality were doneaway
with, laws which from dawn till sunset had become woven
into the very tissue of their lives.
A Messiah must be in a position to attempt this test
of power, and Primo was able forthwith to justify his
attitude by appealing to the Zohar which said that when
the Messiah conjured up the Olam ha-Tzkkun, the World
of Order, a new system would come into being and the
old Jewish conceptions of right and wrong would be abol-
ished. The great Jewish code of ritual, the Shulhan Aruk
(The Covered Table), would also lose its binding force.
Thus in despising the Law the Messiah committed no
sin, but on the contrary proved himself to be the Messiah
by inaugurating a new order, for which purpose he had
been sent into the world. Somewhere in the infinite ether sat
enthroned the “Holy Father,” the ‘Ancient of Days,”’
whom in olden times people ignorantly called God. He
had made the universe perfect, but it had sunk into im-
130 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
perfection through the impurity of matter, and now from
His holy bosom He had sent forth the Messiah, another
divine personage, the Malka Kadisha, the “Holy King,”
the true and perfect archetypal man of the new world,
Adam Kadmon. To him He had given power and authority
to establish final order in the world, to abolish sin and
evil, to exorcize fallen spirits and to open up the way once
more for the grace of God to descend to earth. This was
what the Messiah was doing, and was guilty of no sin.
Sabbatai’s followers could readily understand this;
nevertheless it was hard to give up, as it were, in twenty-
four hours habits to which they had been accustomed all
their lives. Hence it devolved upon Primo and Nathan to
justify the abrogation of the Law by advancing ever
stronger proofs that the Messianic Age had dawned. And
in this they succeeded much better at close quarters than
at a distance. In Jerusalem opinion was divided regard-
ing Sabbatai and his activities. The Rabbis deeply re-
sented his autocratic distribution of alms and Nathan’s
circular gave rise to much vexation and unpleasantness.
The community of Jerusalem was undoubtedly in a most
embarrassing position. The city was administered by a
Turkish Governor who, far from regarding it as his duty
to be kind to the Jews, felt it incumbent upon him to secure
in the form of taxes, levies and arbitrary fines, his share
of the alms which poured in from every quarter of Jewry.
The news of Nathan’s circular and the tumultuous scenes
to which it led in the Jewish quarter, possibly, too, the
knowledge that Sabbatai had brought a large sum of
money from Cairo, provided him with a welcome excuse
for interference. But the fact that Sabbatai was aiming
THE BLAST OF THE TRUMPET 131
at dethroning the Sultan did not lead him to treat him as
a rebel or even to report him to Constantinople; all he did
was to levy heavy fines on the Jewish community.
With some justification the Rabbis regarded Sabbatai
as responsible for this further measure of oppression and
on pain of a ban demanded his immediate departure from
the city. The opposition was headed by Rabbi Jacob
Chagis, whose hostility may have been increased by the
fact that his own family circle were filled with enthusiasm
for Sabbatai.
Whether the ban was actually pronounced or not we
have no means of knowing. But in any case Sabbatai had
no need to fear it. For the first time in his life he was free
to decide his own course, or apparently free, for below
the surface we must always suspect the hand of Primo.
And it was not his fear of the ban, but his desire to reach
an immediate, definite decision that made him leave Jeru-
salem. His departure did not have the appearance of flight,
as it had done on previous occasions, but was attended by
extremely elaborate preparations. First, two messengers
were appointed to go out into the world and announce that
Sabbatai was the Messiah. They were Sabbatai Raphael
and Mattatha Bloch. One went to Europe and the other
to Egypt. Bloch was afterwards given a crown as a reward
for his services. |
Next a luxurious travelling train was got together.
Exasperated by these elaborate and unconcerned prepara-
tions, the Jerusalem Rabbis tried to level a further blow
at their enemy, and reported Sabbatai to their colleagues
in Constantinople, accusing him of having transgressed.
the Law of God and blasphemed His Name. Their com-
132 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
munication must have been couched in extremely emphatic
terms, for Constantinople felt impelled to send a letter
to the community of Ismir signed by twenty-five Rabbis,
headed by the Chacham Bashi, Yomtov ben Jazer, beg-
ging them to devise some means of rendering Sabbatai
innocuous should he happen to repair to their city.
Sabbatai heard of this, but cared not a straw. Nathan,
on the other hand, played the outraged prophet. He ad-
dressed an indignant letter to the community of Jerusalem,
telling them that, as a punishment for their treatment of
the Messiah, Gaza instead of Jerusalem would in future
be the latter’s headquarters. This so much perturbed the
community of Jerusalem that soon after receiving it they
sent a deputation to Sabbatai in Ismir apologizing for
what they had done.
Sabbatai now announced the goal of his journey. It
was Ismir. He felt more than ever drawn to the city of
his birth and of his early days. He was apparently ani-
mated by the desire to make the place which had witnessed
his first passionate start and its attendant failure the scene
of his success, since from the standpoint of policy, the city
was useless. For, to make a successful start in the East,
he should have staged his appearance in the historical city
of Jerusalem or in the real centre of the Jewish world—
Constantinople. But in neither place was he regarded with
favour. True, Ismir had banned him, but he could rely on
his old following there, and on the fact that its inhabitants
would be filled with a certain pride to think that it was
one of their own sons who had been chosen as the Messiah.
Moreover, as a great and growing mercantile city, it was
a particularly good centre for the circulation of news. And
aa a $
ei
aoe
THE BLAST OF THE TRUMPET 133
when some years previously he had secretly returned there
for the first time since the ban had been pronounced against
him, he had discovered that it was quite ineffective and
that nobody remembered anything about it. Nathan did
all he could to smooth his path and to make other places set
a good example to the inhabitants of Ismir. On his way
Sabbatai passed through Aleppo, whither the prophet sent
a warning letter, exhorting the people to give the Messiah
a good reception and not to follow the example of Jeru-
salem, lest they found that the fate which had over-
taken the latter was also theirs, for he interpreted the
fines imposed by the Governor on the community there
as punishment for their scandalous treatment of Sabbatai.
“Remember that the hour is at hand!’’ he conjured them.
And he succeeded, for the people he was addressing were
not only Jews but Orientals. And in this connexion it
should be borne in mind that there were two factors which
did much towards securing credence for the reports that
were circulated—in the East the eager receptivity and
vivid imagination of the Oriental mind, and in the West
the distance that lends enchantment, and the profound
respect people felt for the written word. ?
Sabbatai met with an enthusiastic reception at Aleppo;
although he had not yet proclaimed himself the Messiah
he was greeted as though he had. The people danced for
joy, intoxicated by the honour of having the Messiah with
them for one stage of his journey. And they wrote an en-
thusiastic letter to the community at Constantinople, say-
ing that the Messiah was with them and that God would
now fulfil the promises he had made by the mouth of
the prophets. They were not merely relying on what Na-
134 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
than had told them, but had with their own eyes beheld
signs and wonders performed every day in the vicinity
of this man. Furthermore, people had fallen down, over-
come by fits and spasms—a disconcerting phenomenon
which subsequently occurred wherever Sabbatai appeared
—and stammeringly proclaimed the advent of the Messiah
and Sabbatai’s appointment to that office.
They urgently begged him to remain with them, if only
for a couple of months. But he could not consent to do
so; for the welcome he had just received had revealed all
the possibilities of the hour to him, and he felt he must
turn them to account. Besides, apart from everything else,
time pressed. It was late autumn in the year 1665; only
a few weeks remained before the new year, when failure ~
must be out of the question. He was therefore constrained
to decline the invitation, though he accepted with thanks
the offer of an escort of honour as far as Ismir. Throughout
the journey Sabbatai wore a large white praying-shawl.
His escort from Aleppo, who were well acquainted with
the neighbourhood and its customs, tried to persuade him
to take it off, for it was conspicuous from a great distance
and showed that the procession was a Jewish one and was
therefore a lure for robbers. For in this district the Jews
were held to be rich, and were constantly being plundered.
But Sabbatai explained that he could not do otherwise,
as it was God’s order. When the members of the escort re-
turned to Aleppo, they were full of the wonders of the
journey and the magnificence of the procession. One and
all declared that every night they had seen a body of men
accompanying the procession on either side, but as soon
as the sun rose they vanished. This was duly reported to
THE BLAST OF THE TRUMPET 135
Constantinople, and from this fact the logical conclusion
was drawn that the day of redemption had dawned, and all
trade and work came to a standstill. The wealthy raised
a fund to enable the poor to cease working and in pious
retirement prepare their souls for the Day of the Lord.
The contradictory reports that reached Constantinople
from Jerusalem and Aleppo created indescribable excite-
ment there. Pricks of conscience were felt. Surely Sabbatai
was the young scholar from Ismir whom the Rabbis in
Constantinople had once had thrashed by a schoolmaster!
He was now travelling through the country as the Messiah!
Jachini set to work and by his preaching soon raised a
solid body of followers. The most acrimonious disputes
arose between them and their opponents, fostered by re-
ports, the origin of which it was impossible to discover.
Friends and foes alike neglected their work to join in the
arguments, trying to persuade their adversaries and in-
sulting and fighting each other. At last matters reached
such a pitch in the Jewish quarter that the Rabbis were
terrified. They had no wish to share the fate of Jerusalem!
They feared that while Jerusalem had been punished
by fines, they themselves, being at such close quarters to
the Sultan in Adrianople, might be subjected to some
physical punishment, or even condemned to death. So,
under threat of severe penalties, they forbade all discus-
sions about Sabbatai and Messianism.
But all to no purpose ! Such passions could not be seed,
for it was not a mere matter of academic dispute, as for
instance, whether nails should be cut for the Sabbath on
the Friday or the Thursday. The subject lay at the very
root of religious and everyday life. Sabbatai’s opponents
136 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
argued vehemently that the preliminary signs which the
Scriptures declared would herald the advent of the Mes-
siah had not occurred. For instance, the Messiah born of
the tribe of Benjamin should first have appeared as a fore-
runner. Where was such a man to be found? Moreover
‘Malachi had prophesied that the Temple must be restored,
but the only remains of the Temple which had not become
a Turkish mosque were a rubbish heap. Furthermore,
even the material conditions required for the appearance
of the Messiah were lacking, not to mention the spiritual
ones. He was to belong to the House of David, but no
proof of this had been advanced. The prophet Micah
had said that he was to be born in Bethlehem and both
Kimchi and Rashi confirmed this. But there could be no
manner of doubt that Sabbatai had been born in Ismir.
Nowhere in sacred lore was it laid down that the Messiah
was to be called Sabbatai Zevi. He might bear hundreds
of other names—the Prince of this World, the Prince of
God’s Countenance, the Protector of Israel, etc. He was
also to be the most beautiful of men by virtue of his
righteousness, but, in Jerusalem, Sabbatai had not even
distributed money fairly among the poor. Isaiah had de-
clared that he would be wiser than Solomon and greater
than Moses. But Sabbatai could not prove his wisdom by
a single sentence he had written. Indeed—and this was a
weighty argument—had he ever written a single line? And
what had he done to prove that he was greater than Moses?
But all these arguments, numerous and weighty though
they were, were of no avail against those who possessed
the strongest and most irrefutable of all arguments, the
will to believe. The prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah
THE BLAST OF THE TRUMPET 137
concerning the Messiah obviously referred to Sabbatai,
and the words of Ezekiel also seemed to them to apply to
him: “‘As a shepherd seeketh out his flock that are scat-
tered, so will I seek out my sheep and will deliver them
out of all the places where they have been scattered and
I will bring them to their own land, and I will set up one
shepherd over them, even my servant David.”’ And any-
thing they could not prove intellectually they proved by
signs and omens. A comet had appeared in the sky. What
could that mean but the beginning of a new era? There
were men in their midst who had seen visions, and beheld
Sabbatai with the triple crown of the Messiah on his head
ruling and conquering all the peoples of the world. Could
any one dare to deny this or say it was not true? And if
further proof were needed, there was the news that had
come from Aleppo where the prophet Ezekiel had ap-
peared in the synagogue clad in a white gown with a girdle
of black leather about his loins. This proved that the Mes-
siah had come. No, replied their opponents, the news from
Aleppo might be true, but all it proved was that. “the
great and terrible day of the Lord”? was at hand.
These disputes were kept alive by the constant influx
of letters which reached Constantinople and were passed
from hand to hand. In time their number became so enor-
mous and their contents were sometimes so absurd and un-
scrupulous that the Rabbis came to the conclusion that
somewhere there must be a body of people who either for
lofty or venal motives were forging them. They accord-
ingly made investigations and actually discovered a whole
factory of forgeries, the sole purpose of which was ap-
parently to commercialize the people’s belief in the miracu-
138 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
lous. They imposed heavy punishments upon the forgers,
but to no purpose. For suddenly the disputes were silenced
for awhile, and even the opponents of the Messianic idea
were forced anxiously to hold their tongues, on the receipt
of the news that Sabbatai Zevi had arrived in Ismir and
that the city was delirious with joy!
CHAPTER VIII
Tumult
ye Age is ripe for a great experience when it has the
| courage momentarily to abandon the woeful con-
trol of reason and respond to the call of the heart. The
value of an experience does not depend on whether it can
survive the test of reason, for reason fetters, experience
sets free, and even if in the end it prove disastrous, that
which it represents—the reply to a clear call—-constitutes
a definite gain. Reason is but a monologue on the part of
the individual. Experience is a duologue between God and
his creature.
Sabbatai Zevi had done comparatively little to prepare
the Age for his appearance. Its readiness, in so far as it
was not the work of the people at large, was due to decisive
measures taken by others than himself. All he contributed
was an infallible instinct for knowing where to appear and
where a harvest was to be reaped. It was this instinct that
made him set out for Ismir, where he found people far more
ready to receive him than he could possibly have expected.
For this he was chiefly indebted to his brothers. Their
trade had flourished and they had become wealthy men
and were generously disbursing their money in their
brother’s interests, distributing largess freely among the
poor and mean, the workers, fisherfolk and craftsmen.
139
140 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
They gave alms ostensibly with the pious object of en-
abling the recipients to prepare themselves for the new
Age in peace and comfort, but its practical result was the
purchase of votes for the Messiah. Possibly they knew
what they were doing and were animated by political
motives, regarding it as all-important to secure so large
a following for their brother from the beginning that from
the very day he appeared he would have no need to fear
opposition. True, Ismir had long since forgotten the ban
pronounced against Sabbatai. But here, as in Jerusalem
and Constantinople, it was the masses who were on his
side and the scholars who were opposed to him. This is
always the case in similar circumstances all the world
over.
But for the moment the peculiarity of the situation in
Ismir lay in the fact that although the scholars were
against Sabbatai they no longer enjoyed any authority.
The latent spirit of the Age, Nathan’s manifestoes cir-
culated by the thousand, the rumours from Cairo, Je-
rusalem and Aleppo, the eagerness of Sabbatai’s old
followers and disciples, and his brothers’ money, all con-
tributed to produce a state of eager expectation which
was further increased by the interest and sympathy of
the European merchants. Thus the ground was prepared
for an explosion on the slightest pretext, and it was in
this mood of tense excitement that the people received
the news that the Messiah was before the gates of their
city.
In a moment the streets were alive with people. The
crowd pressed forward to the outskirts of the city and
there beheld approaching them a gorgeous procession the
TUMULT 141
like of which they had never before set eyes on. Men
clad in magnificent garments covered with the dust of
travel were singing psalms at the top of their voices and
dancing in their excitement; the faces of young men and
venerable old men were distorted with eagerness, while,
here and there, grave countenances could be seen, lined
with the runic characters of wisdom. Everybody already
knew that men from the remotest corners of the East
had left their families to take part in this triumphal
entry; and in their midst strode a tall dark handsome
man with fanatical eyes—the Messiah. Beside him—and
for these Jews this constituted the strangest part of the
whole proceeding—was a woman in a cloak of white silk.
She was extremely beautiful and proud, as they im-
agined a Queen should be, and over the whole procession
a passionate murmur of excited voices hung like a cloud.
A fable had become reality and was presented to their
eyes in a form far surpassing anything they had ever im-
agined, for they could see and believe it without fear of
disappointment or of a rude awakening.
The ground seemed to slip from beneath their feet.
They lost their heads and shouted, ‘“‘Messiah! Messiah !”’
Whereupon Sabbatai stepped out from the ranks of his
followers and raised his hand. Every voice was imme-
diately hushed. The Messiah was about to speak! And he
spake and forbade them to call him Messiah. They were
not to do so until he gave them permission.
Those who a moment before had been shouting unre-
strainedly grew silent. If the Messiah so desired, they
could quell even their passions; and, entirely subservient
to his will, they accompanied him to his brothers’ house,
142 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
where he was to stay. On arriving there, he immediately
retired to a remote room and began a fast, while the crowd
stood outside and waited.
Why did Sabbatai not wish to be hailed as Messiah?
_ Surely he had come to Ismir with that object in view!
Why, when confronted by the enthusiasm of the masses,
who from the very first had been subjugated by him, did he
insist on this postponement, which gave the impression of
a subtle ruse calculated to increase their suspense? Ob-
\ viously because he wished to maintain control of the course
of events. As will be seen, he was expecting a special sign
of acknowledgment from without, for which he wished to
wait, and he therefore held the masses back. But it was for |
the last time! Even the most hostile witness of what fol-
lowed was bound to acknowledge that in the later stages
of his career he was completely at the mercy of the whims
of the crowd, and whatever presence of mind he may be
credited with, he was henceforward entirely under the
control of the suggestive power of a people in an exagger-
ated state of spiritual exaltation.
But for the time being the crowd was left to its own re-
sources and could obtain only meagre satisfaction from
the driblets of news that leaked out of the home of the
brothers Zevi. But even these scanty details they moulded
into legend and miracle. Possibly there had been some oc-
casion for dispute between Sabbatai and his brother Eli-
jah. In any case the following tale was circulated through
the streets. Elijah, it was said, did not believe in his broth-
er’s Messiahship. He was also afraid that the Turks would
punish the city for recognizing a Messiah who aimed at
depriving the Sultan of his. crown. Better, he argued, that
TUMULT 143
one man should die than that all the Jews should be hurled
to perdition. So one day, when he found his brother alone
in the room, he fell upon him with a sword. Sabbatai did
not stir, but merely kept his eyes fixed upon him, and Eh-
jah staggered back beneath his gaze and dropped to the
ground as though he were dead. But from that moment he
believed in the Messiah.
Forced to inactivity and eager to give proof of their de-
votion, the crowd selected from among themselves a body-
guard of a few hundred men and women, who day and
night kept watch outside the Messiah’s house. Though it
did not suffice to quell their growing impatience, at least
it provided them with something to do. They now reached
the conclusion that Sabbatai had had good reason for im-
posing silence upon them, and began to whisper to each
other that he was expecting an important event. And they
awaited it feverishly with him. At last, on the fourth of
Tevet, December 12, it occurred. Four men as brown as
Moors arrived in the town, with travellers’ staves in
their hands. ‘They marched through the streets inquiring
for Sabbatai’s house. Two of them were well-known fig-
ures—Moses Galante and Daniel Pinto. They had come
from Aleppo with news. The people showed them the way
and began to press about them with questions. What sort
of news was it and whence did it come? It was a message
from the community of Aleppo and from the prophet
Nathan of Gaza. They could say no more. They bore
sealed letters upon them. |
Surrounded by a crowd of people they arrived in front
of Sabbatai’s house and a message was taken in to say that
they were there. The reply came that Sabbatai was keep-
144 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
ing a solemn fast and could not be disturbed. But the peo-
ple demurred and grew impatient and began to shout out
that after all the message was addressed to the Messiah,
to their Messiah, and that it concerned them just as much
_as it concerned Sabbatai. He must break his fast and re-
ceive the messengers, open and read the letters, and com-
municate their contents to the people. At last, implying
that he had no wish to shut his ears to the appeal of the
people, Sabbatai gave in.
One letter contained a message of homage from the com-
munity of Aleppo. The other was a greeting from the
prophet Nathan, a fulsome letter full of beautiful senti-
ments addressed to him, but prolix and insignificant
compared with some of his other compositions. It was
merely a constant repetition of the theme, “Thou art the
true Messiah. In thee doI put my trust! Through thee will
salvation come!” But for the people the event was more
important than the manner of its presentation. They re-
garded it as decisive confirmation. Here were serious men
and scholars who had undertaker: a long pilgrimage to
Ismir in order to bear a message the tone of which was
much more comprehensible than its actual burden. It was
the first official deputation and act of homage paid to the
Messiah. They had waited so long that they were prepared
to accept anything which gave a free outlet to their joy.
Great excitement prevailed and the crowd once more
claimed him as their Messiah with such insistence that it
was impossible to resist them any longer.
They carried Sabbatai along with them. Regarding the
arrival of the pilgrimage as the decisive moment, he de-
clared that he would not merely break his fast but aban-
TUMULT 145
don it altogether. This was no time for fasting! On the
contrary, they should all rejoice; and he promulgated his
first decree concerning religious matters. From that mo-
ment to the end of the year there was to be no more fast-
ing, but in honour of that day a great festival was to be
celebrated. For the mass of the people this was indeed meat
and drink! Their festival had begun!
Sabbatai rewarded the messengers in princely fashion
and persuaded his friends to do likewise, and then sent
them forth on their homeward way as powerful advocates
in his favour. Within the confines of the city walls his
cause was won. Henceforward, whenever he allowed him-
self to be seen in the streets—and for various reasons he
was now anxious to do so as often as possible—he was al-
ways surrounded by hundreds of his bodyguard. Every step
he took outside his brothers’ house developed into a mag-
nificent procession. A banner was borne before him with a
device taken from the verse in the Psalms, “‘The right
hand of the Lord is exalted.” The people came out of their
homes with costly rugs and carpets and spread them out
before him in the streets. But with a grand gesture of hum-
ble modesty he refused to step on them and turned aside to
avoid them. But this did not prevent him from carrying
a large silver fan, with which from time to time he sol-
emnly touched one or other among the crowd, and those
thus picked out imagined they were consecrated to Heaven.
He also had a gold signet ring made, engraved with the
image of a serpent with its tail in its mouth;possibly in
vague reminiscence of the Egyptian symbol of eternity,
or perhaps, as he himself admitted, because the word
Nachash, serpent, had the same number value as the word
146 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
Mashiak. Supported by crowds of the faithful and sur-
rounded by torch-bearers, he also made nocturnal proces-
sions accompanied by much shouting and singing of songs.
According to the city regulations, this was a punishable
offence, for only the Frankish merchants were allowed
to show themselves in the streets by night with a lantern.
But the people no longer cared about these prohibitions.
Nor had they anything to fear from the Turkish watch-
men, who cautiously held aloof from the fanatical crowds.
But it gave Sabbatai’s supporters the opportunity of let-
ting the whole world know that the authorities did not
dare to interfere in any way with the Jews in their Mes-
slanic rejoicings.
Two days after the arrival of the messengers, on the
sixth of Tevet, December 14, 1665, Sabbatai marched
in solemn procession to the synagogue. Seventeen years
had elapsed since he had stood there and, as it were, tried
the handle of a closed door, thinking in his fiery and im-
petuous youth that it was sufficient for him to announce
himself symbolically to the people to meet with under-
standing and support. But now he was older and wiser and —
things had changed so fatefully that he was disposed to
fee] that he might with a clear conscience reap the harvest
of what he had sown so many years before. For now the!
people were actually knocking at his door, and although j
they were merely seeking a leader to set them free, Sab-
batai imagined that they were appealing to him as a man,
a personality, and an individual. He stood before them
ready to answer the appeal as he understood it, and he
did so standing on the Almemor, no longer a suppliant
but a benefactor, while the roar of the Shofar filled the
TUMULT 147
synagogue. The people shook with excitement as he cried
out, “I am the Messiah!” Once he had offered himself.
Now he-proclaimed himself. And he heard the response
which had not been vouchsafed in Jewish history for over
a thousand years and was never to be repeated: ““Long live
our King, the Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi!”
More like a King than a Messiah, he made his way from
the synagogue to his house, to hold a royal levee and re-
ceive the congratulations of his subjects and those who be-
lieved in him. For a whole day the people filed past him,
kissing his hand and the hem of his garment. Beside him on
a throne sat Sarah, beautiful and excited, even amid that
turbulent crowd of faces and colours providing a con-
spicuous personal note. Among those who came to con-
gratulate were many who only on the previous day were
known to be hostile to him but now bowed to the inevita-
ble. All who were not convinced at heart were nevertheless
bound to admit that he was a King holding his court and
that at least in his own circle he wielded sovereign power
and authority. And they bowed their heads. Nor was there
any need for them to be ashamed of so doing, for among
those who came to do obeisance to this King were many
who were not Jews. The ceremony lasted late into the
night.
The events that followed are crowded into the space
of sixteen days, from the seventh to the twenty-second of
Tevet, that is, from December 15 to 30, 1665, when Sab-
batai concluded his stay in Ismir. They form one of the
strangest chapters in history.
On the following morning, the seventh of Tevet, when
the people were again flocking to his house, they were
148 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
greeted by a strange piece of news. Sabbatai informed them
that during the night the Spirit of God had appeared to
him and told him that in order to become possessed of the
full dignity of a Messiah he must henceforth cohabit with
his wife. A similar divine command had been given to
Sarah, telling her to submit to her husband. They had
therefore fulfilled the behest of the Almighty and, in ac-
cordance with the popular custom in the East, the people
were publicly shown the sheet bearing the traces of virgin-
ity upon it. The crowd received the news and its visual
proof with loud rejoicings. .
What did this mean? Was it true? Or was it a fraud?
As far as the proofs of Sarah’s virginity are concerned, it
was undoubtedly a fraud. While we may make every ex-
cuse for Sarah’s manner of life, there can be no doubt that
she had had relations with innumerable men. Thus the
proof of her virginity was spurious and was intended to
serve a special purpose. Did Sabbatai wish to imply that a
miracle had taken place, and that, in spite of her previous
life, Sarah had become a virgin again? Or did he wish to
make a concession to the strict views of these simple folk |
who regarded it as essential for a Jewish maiden to be
chaste until she was married ? Or did he wish to confute the
charge of harlotry brought against Sarah by his enemies?
Possibly the whole affair was intended merely as an act
of self-justification of which the public demonstration was
a necessary part. The people, though not his opponents,
may have forgotten that he had been obliged to dissolve
two marriages under suspicious circumstances. At the time
he had justified his conduct by appealing to divine com-
mand. And now he advanced the last proof of his claim.
TUMULT 149
The people believed him and accepted the evidence he of-
fered. Not so his opponents! The contempt with which
they regarded his relations with Sarah may be gathered
from a contemporary non-Jewish authority who puts the
matter somewhat coarsely as follows: “Sarah ... how-
ever, was just as little satisfied with him as if she had mar-
ried a priest of Cybele or a eunuch, and he held aloof from
her, as he himself confessed, just as he had done in the case
of the others.” | ,
The importance that Sabbatai himself ascribed to this
proceeding may be gathered from the fact that 1mmedi-
ately afterwards he marched in solemn procession to the
synagogue, and on his way thither employed new symbols
of his own contrivance. In front of him marched a body of
men bearing vessels containing preserves and vases of
flowers and behind him came another holding a comb in a
sheath. He himself was accompanied by two Chachamim,
who walked beside him and held his white mantle. He car-
ried his silver fan, as Aaron carried a staff, and again hon-
oured people here and there by touching them with it.
Thus they reached the synagogue and he immediately be-
gan to make fresh demonstrations. Taking a stick, he
struck the tabernacle containing the Thora scrolls seven
times and in so doing pronounced the name of God in
full. Was this a symbolic repetition of the striking of the
tock by Moses in the desert to give water to the thirsty
Israelites? Was it a knocking at God’s door, an importun- |
ing of the Almighty? Or was it a proof of the invulner-
ability of the Messiah? In any case, it was a symbolic
act, the meaning of which was probably not clear even
to Sabbatai himself and has all the appearance of a
150 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
purely emotional proceeding. He then supplied the final
meaning of the whole ceremony by declaring that Sarah
had conceived a son that night but that the child would
not live. Here he was again obviously making a state-
ment which had a definite ulterior motive. If the one great
blessing of life according to Jewish ideas, the blessing
of offspring, were denied to the Messiah, the most blessed
of men, this must be regarded either as a punishment
or as a special dispensation of Providence. Otherwise
the world was left blasphemously to conclude that the -
Messiah was incapable of begetting children. Now, al-
though the people accepted this last announcement, as
they had accepted so many other things, they were nei-
ther able altogether to overcome a silent feeling of dis-
appointment, nor by their power of invention to fill
the void in their imaginary picture of the Messiah. Thus,
in his vindication of Sabbatai, Baruch de Arezzo declares
that the Messiah had both a son and a daughter. Other
authorities assert that after his apostasy a son was born to
him whom he named Ishmael Mordecai. But these are
pious inventions, for the Messiah died without issue.
Just as Sabbatai turned this proceeding to account to
perform yet other symbolic acts, he used the divine service
that followed to introduce drastic changes, from the Jew-
ish point of view, into the traditional order of prayers.
To prove that every ordinary day was now a feast day, on
entering the synagogue he sang a psalm which according
to the usual ritual was intended only for use at divine
service on the Sabbath. He also insisted that henceforward
God’s name should always be pronounced in full, and laid
particular stress upon this. He may have been induced to
TUMULT 151
take this step by the mystical significance attached to the
utterance of the Shem ha’mforash in the teaching of the
Kabala, where it says: ‘“God’s creation which was in-
tended to be perfect could not manifest itself as perfection
because mankind had fallen into sin. Thus the higher and
the lower world fell asunder, and as the order of .the world
was disturbed, so also was the perfection of God. So He
withdrew into the distance where none could reach Him
and his Name, like the two worlds, fell asunder. But when
the Messiah shall come to restore order in the world, then
shall the oneness of God and the perfect unity of His
Name also be restored. And for this reason the utterance
of the Name of God in full is one of the most potent signs
that a new period of grace has begun.”’
-An act which seventeen years previously had reduced
the congregation to terrified silence now filled them with
wild enthusiasm. One after the other rose, went up to the
Almemor, and did homage to the Messiah by murmuring
a blessing and offering alms for charity. Whereas hitherto,
in obedience to a long-established custom of the Diaspora,
the Jews had always asked in their prayers for a blessing
on the head of the country in which they happened to find
themselves, they now omitted all reference to the great
and terrible Sultan. At last they had their own leader for
whom they introduced a blessing full of profound and
simple faith. Thousands throughout the East and in Egypt
and Italy said the following Misheberak, or blessing, for
him: “May He who giveth succour to Kings, Potentates,
and Princes, whose kingdom is the kingdom of every
world, the great, just and terrible God, the Holy King
whom we adore and who hath not His like in heaven and
152 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
earth, who ruleth in the sky and sitting on the throne
maketh a covenant with His servant David, so that he
may ascend the throne in his kingdom, which shall endure
to all eternity—may He bless, protect, strengthen, uphold,
and exalt ever higher and higher our Lord and King, the
wise, holy, pious, and supreme Sultan, Sabbatai Zevi, the
divine Messiah, the Messiah of the God of Jacob, the
Heavenly Lion, the King of Justice, the King of Kings,
Sabbatai Zevi. O King of all Kings, keep him, we implore
Thee, through Thy mercy. Let him live, and protect him in
all his troubles and trials; lift up the stars of his kmgdom
and bow the hearts of all princes and rulers that they may
please him and us and all Israel. Amen!”’
In this blessing the people unburdened their hearts and
at the same time sacrificed some of their possessions and
each in turn received Sabbatai’s blessing: ‘“Thou who didst
bless our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, bless also
N.N., in that he hath freely given thesumof .. .” (The
specification of the sum need cause no surprise if we bear
in mind the important part played by alms and charity in
the life of the Jewish world at that time.)
The money thus contributed and the various other sums
Sabbatai received as presents, he turned to account in a
remarkable way. He did not touch a penny of it himself,
for he had wealthy brothers. Anything that was not dis-
tributed among the poor he used to purchase the freedom
of Jews working in the galleys, which were the prisons of
the period. Those he set free were not necessarily very hard-
ened criminals, for men were sent to the galleys for trifling
offences, perhaps for an unproved accusation or a small
debt. Nevertheless, here and there among them there were
TUMULT 153
undoubtedly individuals whose determined unscrupulous-
ness might prove profitable to the cause of a Messiah, and
in any case, they must one and all have been delighted to
be thus suddenly restored to freedom, and enabled joy-
fully to take part in the Sabbataian feast days. Later on
these people, together with other devoted adherents of the
Messiah, formed a sort of assault detachment, who by
means of anything but spiritual or logical arguments im-
posed silence on those who still wavered or were actually
hostile, and made them march to heel though they may
still have been rebellious at heart.
For Sabbatai had not yet secured the unconditional
support of the whole city. Isolated individuals, a number
of scholars, and the Rabbis almost to a man were against
him. Nor did they confine themselves to standing aloof
from the movement. They regarded it as a menace to the
people and a national calamity for the whole of Judaism.
Hence they felt called upon to do everything in their
power to oppose it, and in order that the people might
know nothing of their meetings and their resolutions, they
used to assemble secretly like conspirators, in the house of
Judah Murtia, who was above suspicion. The three most
prominent Rabbis, Aaron de la Papa, who was the religious
head of the community, Benveniste, and Solomon Algazi,
a Talmudist of repute, used to preside over these meetings,
at which all that had occurred was discussed and consid-
ered in detail. Sabbatai’s most insignificant success was
interpreted as fraud and blasphemy. Armed with copies
of all the letters that had been circulated, more particu-
larly Nathan’s manifestoes and his exhaustive report
to Chelebi in Cairo, they held long discussions and weighed
154 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
all the evidence and finally declared that the contents of
all the documents and reports were hopelessly in conflict
with the precepts and ordinances of Holy Writ. Thus they
not only had the right but it was actually their bounden
duty to take steps against Sabbatai.
But what could they do? What means had they still at
their disposal to put a stop to his activities? He certainly
would not obey them of his own free will. They could pro-
nounce another ban against him, but they might as well
beat the air. Nobody would take the slightest notice, least
of all Sabbatai himself; its only result would be to bring
down the wrath of the whole community upon their own
heads. The steps they would have to take against him must
be so drastic that he would not be able to exercise any
further influence. Drawing the inevitable conclusion from
this, one of the Chachamim, in agitated tones, pronounced
sentence of death against Sabbatai.
But confronted by this solution, which indeed promised
to be final, most of those present shrank back in fear. Per-
haps, after all, there was something to be said in his
favour, and one of them ventured to ask the Chacham why
he had pronounced so severe a sentence. True, Sabbatai
was not the Messiah, but had not his appearance led many
Jews to confess their sins and give proof of repentance by
the performance of penitential exercises? A man who had
accomplished that, even though he were a deceiver, surely
ought not to be put to death!
The conspirators were apparently moved by this argu-
ment, but Benveniste put his hand into the pocket of his
gown and took out a document. It was a letter from Con-
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TUMULT 155
of hatred, imploring them to put an end to Sabbatai’s ac-
tivities by the most drastic possible measure—death ! Old
Yomtov ben Jazer had written over his signature: ““The
man against whose innovations we are protesting must
be regarded as an unbeliever and any man who kills him
will be received by God as though he had won a large
number of souls. Aye, the hand that is raised to kill this
man will be blest by God and man.”
This letter, supported by Benveniste’s eloquence and
the knowledge that there were others outside who shared
the opinion of those present at the meeting, clinched the
matter, and with the approval of la Papa a resolution to
put Sabbatai to death was passed. As they could not count
on any support from the people, they decided, moreover,
to appoint one of their own body to carry out the sentence.
But the situation thus created secured a great triumph for
the Messiah who was not present and knew nothing of the
conspiracy. For there was not one among them who was
prepared to carry out the sentence, or who showed any
wish to be the first to raise a hand against him. And a sort
of subterranean feeling caused many of them to conclude
that since so many believed in him he might perhaps be
the Messiah after all.
Thus the conspirators adjourned, after having reached
a decision that could not possibly be put into action. But,
in spite of all, the fact that a secret conference had been
held leaked out, and with the speedy circulation of news
from mouth to mouth in the East, reached the ears of the
masses on the same day, the eighth of Tevet, or Decem-
ber 16. Sabbatai also heard it through them. No details
were given and he knew nothing of the death sentence. But
156 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
the fact that certain people had actually dared to declare
' themselves opposed to him and his idea filled him with
wild and quite unkingly rage. His authority both as man
and Messiah had been attacked, and he felt a burning de-
sire to vindicate both.
_ These people had declared that his Messianic activities
were opposed to Holy Writ, an extremely serious indict-
ment which might prove dangerous. It was therefore in-
cumbent upon him to prove that it was not a matter of the
sacredness of Holy Writ but of the recognition and bind-
ing force of his own actions. It was he who now had to de-
cide what religion was or was not, what was sacred and
what was profane. What the people believed for the time
being was always sacred and therefore true. The time had
come for him to deny all connexion between his own Mes-
siahship and Holy Writ. Thus full of defiance, secret fear
and creative enthusiasm he had a special day of prayer
proclaimed on which the Jews were to remain in the syna-
gogue. .
Everything took place precisely as he had arranged.
The people remained the whole day in the synagogue pray-
ing. With his silver fan in his hand, escorted by two schol-
ars, and with attendants marching ahead bearing vessels
of preserves and vases of flowers, he went to the synagogue,
and taking the stick again struck the Holy Tabernacle. The
people accepted the whole proceeding, convinced that se-
cret mysteries were being enacted in accordance with
God’s orders.
But Sabbatai was not satisfied with this proof of his
authority. He still felt he had to settle accounts with his
opponents, man by man. He did not yet dare to make a
TUMULT 157
direct attack upon them, for he was not certain how far he
could rely on his followers, or whether they would not fail
him when he summoned them to rise up against those who
had hitherto been their spiritual leaders. So he decided
upon a less dangerous course which both in itself and in .
the manner it was carried out was suspiciously undigni-
fied. He made up his mind to denounce his adversaries be-
fore the Turkish Kadi of the city.
As he was preparing to take this step, the news spread
through the town that Sabbatai was going to drive the
Kadi from his post, and crowds flocked together eager to
witness fresh miracles. Sabbatai came out of his house, and
gazed upon the multitude, and forthwith began to sing,
“The right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of
the Lord doeth valiantly,” and the people joined in. Then
the banner was unfurled and the solemn procession
marched through the streets until it reached the Kadi’s
house. While the crowd remained outside gazing on in
astonished silence, Sabbatai, accompanied by only one of
his brothers, entered and demanded an audience. Although
he could speak Arabic fluently, he addressed the Kadi in
Hebrew, employing his brother as interpreter. Apparently,
when the Kadi received him, Sabbatai showed some em-
barrassment and did not at first know what to say. But
soon he was able to give a list of the people whom he sus-
pected of being his enemies, accusing them of having in-
sulted the King. The Kadi made a note of the charges and
said he would punish the offenders. |
And, as a matter of fact, severe fines were imposed upon
the Jews whom Sabbatai had denounced. Even his own
friends, however, could not help feeling that such a de-
158 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
nunciation was a piece of infamy and accused him of hav-
ing borne false witness. But with a smile Sabbatai in-
formed them that those he had denounced really had
spoken slightingly of the King, namely himself, and de-
served to be punished for so doing. But even those who
accepted this cunning explanation could not forgive him
for having taken his private grievances to the Turkish au-
thorities, for it was a rigid custom among the Jews to settle
all differences between themselves before their own Jew-
ish courts. But for the time being Sabbatai had no reason
to trouble about this. For, as far as he was concerned, this
action based on petty spite merely led to an increase of
his power and prestige among the people. When he left
the Kadi’s house after the audience the crowd were still
waiting outside, and when they saw his radiant self-
satisfied expression, they greeted him with songs and
cheers. Before many hours had passed another legend was
passed from mouth to mouth. Who can tell how it came
into being? Is there, in every group of men bound by a
strong common belief, always one who is a liar, or does
the force of mass sensation always inspire one of them to
describe what has taken place in terms of poetic fiction?
Or were they merely following the example of their Mes-
siah and expressing their desires with so much firmness and
conviction that they might be recorded as truths?
Be this as it may, the new legend was to the following
effect: when Sabbatai entered the Kadi’s audience cham-
ber nobody was present. Without further ado the Messiah
took the Kadi’s place, and when the latter entered he did
not rise. Nay more, to show his contempt and superiority
he trampled the Kadi’s cloak underfoot. The Kadi did not
TUMULT 159
dare to retaliate, and when Sabbatai began to speak flames
issued from his mouth and singed the Kadi’s beard and
almost set fire to the room, while a pillar of flame rose up
between the two men. The Kadi then turned to Sabbatai’s
brother and implored him to take him away, for he was not
aman but an angel of God!
Those who could not bring themselves to lend full cre-
dence to this miraculous tale, nevertheless believed that the
- very fact that the Kadi had received Sabbatai, listened to
him and let him go without laying hands on him for his
Messianic presumptions, constituted a miracle. Those who
were of this opinion were the faithful realists.
On his return from this first attack on his enemies Sab-
batai continued to hold his royal court, and in so doing
again aroused immense astonishment among the Jews by
adding another innovation to the many he had already
introduced. He allowed women to enter, sat beside them at
table, and talked to them in wise and kindly paternal
tones. Though such association with women was not pre-
cisely forbidden, it broke with all tradition. For hitherto
moral custom and usage had segregated the sexes among
the Jews. But Sabbatai did away with this. He placed
women on an equality with men and even succeeded in
establishing the rule that they might also mount the Al-
memor when the Thora was read and have the blessing
pronounced over them. The emancipation he thus intro-
duced survived as long as his own influence lasted. Sarah’s
hand may also be traced in the matter. For she, too, un-
scrupulously broke the shackles of tradition, and was
responsible for the fact that men and women openly con-
sorted together in the streets and at processions and festi-
160 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
vals, and the nature of these festivals, at which the joys
of the table and spiritual and religious exaltation were
strangely mingled, suffered a marked change through the
presence of women. The pleasure they afforded thus be-
came more human, more genuine and full-blooded, and
the reform served to increase the belief of the masses that
they were witnessing the dawn of a new era. For the first
time within living memory men and women were to
be seen dancing together. A new spirit had been stirred to
life, and, casting all modesty and scruple to the winds,
Sarah set the example by entangling every man whom she
desired in the net of her sensuality. The charge brought by
his opponents that Sabbatai provoked and encouraged his
wife to behave in this way must by no means be regarded
as a spiteful invention. The significant silence regarding
the details of Sarah’s life in contemporary accounts which
otherwise eagerly report everything, can be explained only
on the assumption that those who were responsible for
their compilation felt ashamed and shrank from stating
the truth.
As far as Sabbatai himself was concerned, his attitude
towards women was not dictated by any personal satisfac-
tion he derived from it. It was merely the result of his de-
sire to acquire power. By his treatment of them he tried
to consolidate his influence over the men, as well as to add
a fresh element to his following. And he made a particu-
larly favourable impression by constantly associating
with the two women who had divorced him, disregarding
the Rabbinical law which forbade a man to speak to his
divorced wife or remain under the same roof with her.
His higher aim justified everything. And this aim, as Sab-
TUMULT 161
batai himself declared, was nothing less than the complete
emancipation of women as a sex. He pointed out to them
how they still lay under the stigma of their Mother Eve’s
original sin, and reminded them of the curse that had then
been pronounced against them:
‘Unto the woman he said: I will greatly multiply thy
sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring
forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and
he shall rule over thee.”
It was from this divine curse that the Messiah wished
to set them free. It was for this that he had come into the
world. Whereas he had redeemed and wiped out the sin of
Adam, he would also emancipate women and make them
happy like men. The women listened and possibly for the
first time in their lives the oppression and slavery of their
lot came home to them. With tears in their eyes and full
of hope they acknowledged the man who promised to set
them free even from the burdens imposed by Nature, just
as he had already removed the restraints from their every-
day lives and lent colour to their existence.
It soon became evident that the women were taking an
active part in the movement, as sometimes happens in the
case of revolutions when feminine instinct, added to the
deliberations and motives of men, acts as a liberating and
inciting factor. And indeed the events which now charac-
terized Sabbatai’s campaign against his opponents were
of a revolutionary nature. As by this ttme he had the whole
city in his power, every expression of disapproval or
avowed hostility inevitably reached his ears, and he re-
garded all means as justified in reducing his enemies to
_-silence. There was no longer any need for him to refer to
162 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
the Kadi or play the part of informer. He now had a body-
guard of fanatical adherents who undertook to slander his
enemies for him, and like a vindictive dictator, he egged
them on against all who seemed in any way suspicious or
were said to be hostile to him. The merchant, Nachman
Gaza, for instance, had expressed his disapproval of the
Messiah, and in a trice the mob was storming his house.
But, having been warned in time, he escaped to Alexan-
dria. Solomon Algazi, too, was able to escape from the dire
peril he was in only by taking flight.
Another opponent was the famous scholar, Aaron de la
Papa, who took no pains to conceal his rabid hostility,
which was apparently not due entirely to religious differ-
ences. He publicly proclaimed that Sabbatai was a curse
to Judaism, and that the best thing to do with him was to
have him poisoned. He compared him to Reuben, declar-
ing him to be a deceiver. He was perfectly ready to ~
welcome the Messiah when he came, but not this Mes-
siah. Sabbatai was most anxious to be rid of this adversary,
and felt that by exploiting the fury of the mob he might be
able to do so. This would also provide an opportunity of
testing whether he had the weapon of mass indignation
sufficiently under control to be able without fear of re-
action to direct it against the spiritual chief of the city. In
any case, what was now about to happen to the merchant
Chaim Pegna looked like a kind of dress rehearsal of a
drama of vengeance and spite.
In the midst of all this religious tumult, Chaim Pegna
had categorically declared that Sabbatai was not the Mes-
siah and that not a single one of the signs described in
Holy Writ applied to him. And he was quite inaccessible
TUMULT 163
‘to proofs or arguments. Sabbatai heard of this, and it re-
quired only a hint from him for the agents of his rage im-
mediately to set to work to convert Pegna by force or drive
him out. But Pegna was obstinate. He refused either to
enter into argument or to take flight. He fortified his house
and barricaded himself in, prepared to resist to the end.
But the people, too, were stubborn and began to lay siege
to Pegna’s house and to bombard it with stones. In their
pent-up fury they might even have stormed the house and
murdered Pegna. But it wasa Friday in winter. The sun set
early and as the Sabbath day had begun the people inter-
rupted the siege and went to the synagogue. Pegna
emerged from behind his barricades and also went to at-
tend divine service, but in the Portuguese synagogue. On
the following day also he went to prayers, thinking that on
this holy day peace would certainly be preserved within the
precincts of the city, as had been implied by the people’s
attitude when the Sabbath began. But he was mistaken.
He was no longer concerned only with the people, but with
a hysterical man, who was frenzied with rage. While Sab-
batai was solemnly celebrating divine service, he was in-
formed that Pegna was in the Portuguese synagogue, and
still maintained his attitude of hostility. Sabbatai straight-
way sent a messenger to the head of the Portuguese com-
munity ordering him to have Chaim Pegna turned out of
the synagogue. This dignitary, after holding a brief con-
sultation with his colleagues, sent a message to Sabbatai
refusing to do this and declaring that they had no right to
turn a man out from divine service.
When Sabbatai heard this he lost all control. That any
one should dare to meet him with a refusal sent him mad
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164 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
with rage. He sprang wildly to his feet and at the head of
five hundred people stormed up the street. The Sabbath
was holy, but the Messiah’s authority was holier! Like
maniacs they made for the Portuguese synagogue, and
those inside, hearing the uproar in the distance, had ‘the
doors locked. Sabbatai hammered with his fists upon them
and shouted madly to the congregation to deliver up
Pegna. From inside came the reply that Pegna was not
there. He had escaped over the roof of the synagogue.
Sabbatai waited and then declared that that was no reason
why they should not open the doors to him. He insisted on
entering. ““No,” came the reply, “we are holding divine
service and cannot enter into any dispute.”’
Pale with rage, Sabbatai turned to his followers, all
simple folk, fishermen, artisans, boatmen, egg chandlers,
and poulterers. They understood. Suddenly axes and
choppers appeared. The Messiah himself seized an axe,
and blows began to thunder on the door. It fell to bits and
the crowd surged into the synagogue.
Inside they were confronted by a congregation filled
with fear and horror at such a desecration of the day and
the place. But Sabbatai had no regard for such sentiments.
All he knew was that among these men who had refused
to deliver up Pegna there must be many a secret enemy,
and mounting the pulpit he began to storm and rave.
What sort of divine service was this? What prayers were
being said here? They could not be lawful prayers!
Henceforward, only hs prayers were to be said here. The
sacredness of tradition? He drew a volume of the Penta-
teuch from his pocket and held it up. This book was far
more sacred than the whole of the Thora. Putting his
TUMULT » 165
hands in the form of a trumpet to his mouth as though he
were about to blow a blast, he turned to the four quarters —
of the compass with his eyes raised to heaven. Then
suddenly, he grasped the situation and, putting a foolish
and wrong interpretation on it and gratuitously associat-
ing it with a great historical parallel, the thought of Jesus
flashed through his mind. Was he thinking of the scene
when Jeshu hanozri appeared in the Temple at Jerusalem
amid the money-changers ? Did he see in himself a parallel
to the figure of Jesus and his fate? Had one outsider sud-
denly understood the other? At that moment, at the
zenith of his power, he was overcome by the thought of
persecution and martyrdom. He had no wish to defend
Jesus, for it was precisely Jesus to whom those about him
who were not of the Jewish faith turned for refutation of
the Jewish expectations of the Messiah, declaring that
the true Messiah had already appeared. Nevertheless at
‘that moment one outsider stood face to face with the
other, one persecuted man felt himself united to the other
by sorrow and suffering, and the pathos of persecution.
Raising his eyes reproachfully to heaven he shouted to the
Jews, “What did Jesus of Nazareth do to you that you
should have treated him so badly? In spite of everything
I shall include him among the prophets!”
Then he was once more overcome with rage. He felt
he must give vent to his feelings and called out the names
of his enemies, more particularly the Rabbis, applying to
them such insulting epithets as swine, camel, hare, and
badger and the names of other animals mentioned in the
Pentateuch, in the Book of Leviticus, as unclean, and the
eating of whose flesh is forbidden as a sin. The fellows
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166 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
should be given only the meat of unclean animals to eat,
he shouted. Then he went to the Holy Tabernacle, took
out the Thora scroll, and carried it round the synagogue,
singing the song of the Spanish princess Melisselda. And,
when some of those present looked wonderingly at him,
he explained that the song was in the same category as the
Psalms and the Song of Solomon, but that he alone as
Messiah understood its secret meaning.
The only man who at last ventured to challenge him
was Benveniste. Stepping up to him he asked him what
irrefutable proofs he could produce that he really was the
Messiah. Sabbatai answered vaguely and avoided the
danger of becoming involved in a public dispute with one
of the cleverest scholars in Ismir. In any case what need
was there to do so seeing that he could answer by a show
of power? Proudly throwing back his head he answered
Benveniste with the same terrible curse that had been pro-
nounced against himself years before in the same place—
the great ban. Whereupon he had Benveniste thrown out
of the synagogue by his followers and shouted out that
he would have to apologize to him on the morrow, other-
wise he would make him eat camel-flesh. This incident
seems to have satiated for awhile his lust for excesses, and
he merely called upon a few individuals to pronounce the
name of God in full. Then he left the synagogue. His
followers accompanied him, deeply impressed by the
power of the Messiah and the mysterious significance of
his activities. They were not scholars. Proofs and quota-
tions were not the breath of life to them, and they were all
the more ready to accept what they could hear and see.
The incident in the Portuguese synagogue led to an enor-
TUMULT 167
mous increase in Sabbatai’s following, for he was now
joined by those who began to feel afraid of his power over
the masses. .
Aaron de la Papa was the first to grasp the trend of
events, and he fled by night from Ismir in order to carry
on. the struggle against Sabbatai from a distance. With
him Sabbatai’s last opponent in the city, at least as far as
the Jews were concerned, disappeared from the scene; for
if any still remained who were hostile to him they did not |
dare to show it. A long procession of people now presented
themselves before him with gifts and protestations of de-
votion, their main object being to curry favour with him
as one in possession of power.
Nevertheless there still remained the charge timidly
advanced against him by his friends that by his behaviour
in the Portuguese synagogue he had desecrated the Sab-
bath Day. And a letter addressed to the community ar-
rived from Ja Papa, who was staying somewhere in the
neighbourhood, in which he pointed out that it was the
Messiah above all who should uphold and fulfil the Law
and not in any circumstances infringe it. Thus, on this
ground alone, this native of Ismir could not be the Mes-
siah. Sabbatai merely shrugged his shoulders and categori-
cally announced that he stood wholly above the Law, and
that his actions possessed a significance beyond the com-
prehension of petty minds.
Among these petty minds he included la Papa, whom
he declared to be unworthy of his exalted post. On that
same day, the ninth of Tevet, December 17, 1665, he
issued a decree deposing Aaron de la Papa from his of-
fice and appointing as his successor Benveniste, the man
168 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
who had tried to persuade the secret conference to con-
demn Sabbatai to death and whom Sabbatai had in-
sulted by calling him a swine and a camel and against
whom he had pronounced the great Cherem. Was it a mis-
take 2? Or was it a grand and gracious gesture? No! It was
merely an odd example of Sabbataian policy. While he
may have been satisfied with the apparent success of his
storming of the synagogue, he nevertheless afterwards
had an uncomfortable feeling that the vulgar abuse of his
adversaries was hardly compatible with the dignity of the
Messiah and he was anxious to set the matter right 1f he
could. An opportunity occurred when his friends asked
him why he had insulted a scholar of such repute by call-
ing him a camel, a gamal. With a smartness which could
be accepted and tolerated only by an Age which, owing to
lack of real experiences, had made juggling with words
its main intellectual interest in life, Sabbatai. declared
that his friends were again putting a false interpretation
on what he had said. The word he had used was not
gamal but Ge’mul, meaning reward or recompense, a play
on the idea so familiar to the Jews of Ge’miéluth chassadim,
one who does good and is repaid according to his deserts.
Needless to say, his friends gladly accepted this far-
fetched explanation, and may have felt somewhat
ashamed of themselves for their limited powers of un-
derstanding. But still more surprising was the fact that
Benveniste should have resolved to forget the insults
hurled at him and to accept this interpretation of them.
Negotiations had taken place between him and Sabbatai,
the nature of which was not known. But the result con-
firmed Sabbatai’s extraordinary capacity for dealing with
TUMULT © 169
men and winning them over to his side. The next day
Benveniste took up his stand in the street and when Sab-
batai appeared at the head of the solemn procession which
daily marched through the city, he cried out, “Brethren,
behold the true Messiah!’ Thus was Sabbatai amply re-
warded for his diplomacy and a formidable opponent
was turned into a friend. The people cheered for joy when ~
they found that this religious leader had joined them and _
had restored peace to the community. The city was now
entirely in Sabbatai’s hands, and any who were still hostile
did not dare to show their faces. At a solemn public cere-
mony Sabbatai installed Benveniste in his ofice—a patent
proof of the absolute power he enjoyed.
Everything seemed to turn to his advantage, not be-
cause he deserved it, but because the Age and the people
in it were eagerly stretching out their hands for what he
had to give. Thus he scored another triumph when eventu-
ally his most bitter enemy, Chaim Pegna, came over to his
side. What threats, attacks and persecution had been un-
able to obtain from this determined opponent, was
secured by a shattering experience he underwent. On es-
caping from the synagogue, he entered his own house
and found his two daughters lying on the floor. They
were trembling and writhing in agony and foaming at the
mouth. At first he thought they were ill or had even been
poisoned, but he was eventually forced to the conclusion
that they were in the throes of a fit of religious ecstasy
and were prophesying as though they belonged to an Age
of miracles. One of them said quite plainly, “I see the
wise man, Sabbatai Zevi, sitting on a throne in heaven
with a crown on his head ?”’
1790 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
Confronted by this communication from the realm of
the unconscious, Pegna laid down his arms. Evidence
that surged up from such subterranean depths of human
emotion and feeling could not serve any other purpose
than to proclaim the truth, and on the following day he
went to Sabbatai’s house and standing before him cried
out, ‘“Sabbatai Zevi is the true Messiah!’ And they were
reconciled. The people were deeply impressed to think
that it should have been precisely the daughters of this
heretic who had converted him. Later on, when the inci-
dent had been considerably embellished, it developed into
a miraculous tale which falsely ascribed the conversion to
Sabbatai himself. The story ran as follows: Joseph Pynas,
a Jewish merchant from Leghorn, overheard some Turks
saying that they were going to make the behaviour of the
Jews an excuse for plundering them. Whereupon Pynas
went to his creditors and asked them to pay him before
the Turks took everything. But the fact that the fellow
had so little confidence in the Messiah vexed Sabbatai
and he ordered his followers to give him a good thrashing
and prove to him that the Messiah was not afraid of the
Turks. When Pynas saw the mob surging round his house,
he was overcome with fear and terror and fell to the
ground as though he were dead. The people thought he
really was dead and reported the fact to Sabbatai. The
latter, who meanwhile had regretted the order he had
given, went to the delinquent’s house and with a touch of
his silver fan restored Pynas to consciousness, or, as the
people maintained, brought him back to life. Even if this
story does not relate to Pegna and his conversion, it con-
risa
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TUMULT 171
firms the reports of the methods by which Sabbatai rid
himself of his enemies and won adherents.
The religious ecstasy into which Pegna’s daughters
fell was not an isolated incident. Many similar events are
recorded, as inevitably happens when in exceptionally
difficult circumstances the spiritual and material life of a
people is imperfectly fused, when the weight of centuries
begins to lift from the narrow confines of their faith and
when an unusually pronounced gift for the understanding
and experiencing of religious phenomena. is stimulated to
its utmost limits by the dazzling semblance of reality and
fulfilment. Men, women, and even children fell into a
state of rapture. Four hundred people are said to have
begun to prophesy and predict the future about this time.
Among them there were probably many in whom a hys-
terical desire to make themselves conspicuous played a
greater part than any genuine and profound feeling of
exaltation. The rest were probably the victims of a
spiritual influence which agitated and terrified not only
themselves but all their contemporaries. There are
numberless reports about such people, and it may pe to the
point to quote one or two.
Ricaut, for instance, who was at that time English
consul in Ismir, reports, “Over four hundred men and
women actually prophesied the advent of Sabbatai’s king-
dom. Even children who could hardly. lisp pronounced the
name of Sabbatai, the Messiah and Son of God, quite
clearly. Those advanced in years fainted away and, foam-
ing at the mouth, prophesied the redemption and ap-
proaching salvation of the Israelites and described visions
172 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
in which they saw Zion, and Sabbatai enthroned in
triumph.”
Very similar, though full of moralizing, is an anony-
mous German document of the period: “‘Aye, even
children who can hardly lisp have been known to pro-
nounce the name of Sabbatai, the Messiah and Son of
God, quite plainly. For the Lord seems to have decreed
and the Devil seems to have given the power so to deceive
these people, that for awhile their children were pos-
sessed and different voices could be heard issuing from
their bodies. But those who were grown up began to fall in
swoons to the floor and to foam at the mouth and to speak
of the salvation and future happiness of the Israelites,
and to declare that they had seen visions of the lion of
Judah and of Sabbatai Zevi’s triumph. If these things
were really so, they can have come about only through the
wiles of the Devil, as the Jews themselves subsequently
admitted. .. .”
Even Coenen, the interested eye-witness of all these
events in Ismir, could not help admitting that events were
taking place all round him which, as an evangelical theo-
logian, he could only regard as a fulfilment of the
prophecy in Joel: “‘And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; and your sons
and your daughters shall prophesy.’’ Where the ecstasies
seemed to him genuine he says, “Inder daet es is dit werck
niet anders geweest dan of een konst des Duyvels.” And.
where he has his suspicions he says, “Men koster ge-
moegsaem een gemaecktheyt in mercken, gelijk in de
Quakers van England.”
A prophecy of this kind was reported by Baruch de
TUMULT 173
Arezzo, and ascribed by him to a certain Jeshurun; it con-
sisted of a stammering, incoherent chain of words re-
peated again and again as if prompted by some internal
spasm, and interspersed with quotations from the daily
prayers: ““O God, I heard Thy call! The King, the King
of Kings shall rule to all eternity. Hear, O Israel, the
Lord our God is one Lord. The King has been crowned
with a crown, even our King, Sabbatai Zevi. God pro-
tect Israel! Our prayers have been heard. From the
depths have I cried. A great joy! Let. Him who now
liveth be praised! Bring forth the crown of our King.
Woe to him that believeth not that he is chosen! Blessed
be he that hath the good fortune to live in this Age! A
divine song of blessing to every man that believeth in
God! Hear us, O God, and deliver us! They have already
given him the crown. His kingdom shall endure for ever.
Thank God, for He is good! God the truth. Messiah the
truth. Sabbatai Zevi the truth. May great joy reign among
ye! Open thy hands! God is Master. As God returneth
from the captivity of Zion, may great joy reign among
the Jews! Thank the Lord of Heaven, for he hath given
us a King. Woe to him that believeth not in Him! The
divine Star of our Kingdom hath arisen. God, I and my
life stand before Thee. Like an angel have I called unto
Thee. Glory be to him that cometh in His name! God
will repay thee in the day of sorrow. Truth, truth, truth!
Help us, O God, in Thy mercy! There is no evil passion.
God heard my prayer. . . .”’ And so on endlessly, every-
thing four times, five times repeated, in the pregnant,
stirring idiom of the Hebrew tongue.
In the midst of these tumults in Ismir, the Jews lived
174 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
in such isolation among themselves, so lost in the contem-
plation of what seemed to them important, that with
grand indifference they neglected the ordinary concerns
of their daily life. Their enthusiasm did not make them
forget that the dawn of the Messianic era made special
important demands on their spiritual preparedness, and
as they were in earnest about their faith, they devoted
themselves with stupendous zeal to the fulfilment of their
religious duties. They knew that man’s sin against God,
his fellow-creatures, and the community, the sin which is
the embodiment of all that petty egotism which makes
him undignified and lacking in goodwill and love towards
his neighbour, his relations, and the world at large, is the
source and origin of all strife, unhappiness, and suffer-
ing. It had to be stopped, paid for, and expiated. The idea
lying at the root of the sacred festivals of that year, the
idea of atonement, for the understanding of which merely
as an idea these people deserve a special place in history,
was now to be translated into reality. And they strove for
it by all the means their traditions had taught them, by
penance in every shape and form. Men, women, and
children prayed and fasted, sometimes to such an exag-
-gerated degree that the body broke down and the penitent
died. They subjected themselves to every kind of priva-
tion and mortification of the flesh. They performed their
symbolic ablutions every day, even in midwinter in the
icy cold sea-water. And in order to make sure that all
souls still unborn should become incarnate, children were
married to each other in ever greater numbers, so that
the last obstacle to the dawn of the day of salvation
might be removed. Out of their poverty or out of their
TUMULT 175
abundance they gave to those who had less than them-
selves, or to the Messiah, or to Jerusalem. They neglected
their trades and callings. They did not wish to earn more
money, for everything material would henceforward cease
to have any sense or purpose. They began to sell their
houses, shops and utensils, since they could not take them
with them on the march to Jerusalem.
They struggled with all their might to win spiritual
salvation, and occasionally one among them would have
a sudden sense of freedom and of having been forgiven.
Their joy was unbounded. They seemed to have entered
a new sphere and to be standing on the threshold of a
world in which the ideas of good and evil hitherto preva-
lent no longer applied. In everything they now did they
were without sin, whether it was singing or dancing, lux-
uriously feasting or freely indulging their sexual appe-
tite, the gratification of which had hitherto been rigorously
hedged round by the law and made an act of re-
ligious sanctity. They were without law and therefore
unbridled. Salvation made them behave as later on they
behaved when the collapse of the whole movement re-
duced them to the depths of despair. Then, too, they be-
came dissipated and unbridled, because they imagined that
salvation could arise only from the abysmal depths of sin.
‘The other people of Ismir and the European merchants
were interested, though on the whole inactive, spectators of
all that was going on. Their religious sympathies with the
Jews compelled them to adopt an attitude of reserve. Nor
did they at first imagine that the movement would as-
sume a more serious form or last for any length of time.
But eventually they found their material interests af-
176 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
fected. Trade was suffering. Brokers, interpreters, artisans,
merchants, boatmen, fisherfolk, and craftsmen had ceased
to work, with the result that commerce was paralysed,
and as people could not be forced to work, means had to
be found to remove the cause of their idleness. The Turks
in particular feared that the movement might lead to
even more serious disturbances, more especially as the
deposition of the Sultan was already being openly dis-
cussed.
At last a deputation of the leading citizens presented
themselves to the Kadi and begged him to take steps to
restore trade and prevent disturbances. The Kadi was
well aware of all that was going on and disapproved, but
so far he had assumed a tolerant attitude because he did
not know what to do. The situation was extremely awk-
ward, for he could not have the whole of the Jewish popu-
lation arrested, and if he shut up their Messiah the Jews
would storm the prison. Nevertheless he promised to
summon the Rabbis of the community to appear before
him on the following day. They obeyed, with Benveniste
at their head, somewhat agitated and uneasy, but confi-
dent that the state of affairs allowed of their making a
stand. The Kadi was quick to perceive this, and it did not
conduce to make things any easier for him. He made a
long speech to the Rabbis in which he expressed all his
doubts regarding the popular movement. Possibly it was
justified, possibly not. In any case, he himself was not yet
convinced that Sabbatai Zevi was the Messiah, though
he did not wish lightly to dismiss his claims. For, after
all, the Turks, too, were believers, and had ancestors and
TUMULT 177
prophets in common with the Jews. ““We are not disobedi-
ent to God’s laws,” he declared. ““We know that at the
end of the world a Messiah must come to whom we shall
bow. Prove to us that it is he whom you have chosen, Then
we shall be ready to acknowledge him. Bring him here.
I will test him. I will even set him on the throne myself.
But if you do not convince me . . .” A number of lame
threats followed which he did not mean to be taken very
seriously. |
He did not expect Sabbatai to come any more than the
latter intended to answer his summons. The Rabbis were
somewhat embarrassed by the orders they had to convey to
their Messiah. The people, on the other hand, were filled
with enthusiasm, for they hoped an opportunity would be
provided for witnessing stupendous miracles. Sabbatai’s
secret opponents rejoiced also, but from different motives.
Large crowds gathered in front of Sabbatai’s house, among
whom the resolute working-folk, who were ready to serve
him as diligently with their hearts as with their heavy
fists, were again conspicuous. In these circumstances Sab-
batal was in a position to direct events as he pleased. But
he solved the problem in an extremely simple and, as the
sequel proved, enduring manner. Instead of obeying the
KKadi and repeating in his presence miracles which accord-
ing to hearsay he had long ago performed, he made a
long speech to the people hinting that behind the scenes
he was being persecuted by a ravenous devil whom it
would be necessary to appease before peace could be
restored.
This was a hint which his rich supporters readily un-
}
/
178 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
derstood and to which they quickly responded. Instead of
giving money to the Messiah they took it to the Kadi,
who accepted it. .
When this became known to the Turks, they were ex-
tremely angry and again presented themselves before the
Kadi and gave him their ultimatum, insisting that he
should take steps against the Jews. He defended him-
self by saying that his acceptance of money from the
latter did not necessarily mean that he would refrain
from taking steps against them. But he refused to embark
upon violent measures for which he could not accept
responsibility, since the Jews were in a majority in the
city, and he was afraid of provoking an insurrection with
which he knew he would be unable to deal. And he could
comfort himself with the reflection that for the time being
at least he had intimidated the Jews. Nevertheless he
promised the Turks to send a report immediately to Con-
stantinople and ask for instructions. And as a further
proof of good faith and at the same time to free himself
of all responsibility, he ordered Sabbatai to set out for
Constantinople within three days to answer in person to
the Grand Vizier.
Sabbatai took no notice of this order. His position with
regard to the Kadi had meanwhile been finally and un-
mistakably defined by fresh reports of miracles which
were circulated round the town. According to them, as
the result of the Kadi’s recent action against the Mes-
siah, the patriarch Abraham, the prophet Elijah, and
Mordecai, the nursing-father of Esther, had appeared to
the Kadi in the night. Elijah had been supported on
a pillar of fire. The Kadi had immediately risen from
TUMULT | 179
his bed and invited the three to be seated. They did so,
and the pillar of fire took up its position between the
Kadi and his visitors, radiating such a terrific heat that
it threatened to burn the Kadi, and he implored the
prophet to moderate the glow. Elijah immediately com-
plied, but solemnly warned the Kadi not to take steps
against the Jews or to allow them to be insulted. The
Kadi promised and he kept his word.
The people saw such strange and wonderful things
happening all round that miracles seemed to be taking
place everywhere. They were constantly seeing visions or
coming into contact with strange phenomena. One man,
for instance, saw a pillar of fire in a field in the middle of
the day; another saw the same thing at night. A third saw
the moon emerge from the clouds enveloped in flames.
Others saw the heavens open and reveal a fiery gateway in
which stood a man with a crown on his head and his
features were those of Sabbatai Zevi. As he was walking
along the beach another man saw a star fall into the sea
from the sky and then rise up and return whence it came.
But all these incidents seemed quite credible, for they
fulfilled the prophecies contained in Joel: “And I will
shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and
fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into
darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and
terrible day of the Lord come.”’ ;
This readiness to believe in the miraculous, and the
somewhat morbid state of mind engendered thereby, in-
evitably led to the appearance of a figure which is one of
- the most lovable ever created by the historical traditions
of a people and one most tenderly cherished in their im-
180 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
agination—that of the great prophet Elijah who lived in
the time of King Ahab. To the Jews Elijah was not dead;
he had merely been removed from earth and .taken in a
chariot of fire up to heaven, whence for centuries he had
-made his invisible presence everywhere felt. To this day
the Jewish child is fascinated by the allegory when on
the first two evenings of the Passover celebrations a place
is left empty at the table. A glass of wine is placed before
the seat, and in the middle of the singing and reading the
door is opened for Elijah to come in. He is supposed to
enter, drink the wine without being seen and bless the
feast by his presence, just as he is always present when a
Jewish child is accepted into the covenant through the rite
of circumcision. The Passover serves to commemorate the
emancipation from Egypt and is held in the hope of an-
other exodus to the Holy Land, to which brief reference
is made in the final words of the service: ‘““Le’shanah habah
b? jerushalaim—-Next year we shall be in Jerusalem.”
And for this great day of salvation, the day of the Mes-
siah, Elijah, according to tradition, is the forerunner.
When he appeared, the great day was at hand.
He was therefore due to appear now and numbers of
people declared they had met him. One woman had seen
him in a dream, another had met a strange old man ona
Friday and he had begged her for alms. It was Elijah!
He appeared in all manner of shapes and forms and was
often quite invisible, and only showed that he was present
by something that happened. But as people knew that he
was there every table had a seat left empty for him and
food put before him of which he partook without there
being any visible diminution in the amount. A certain
TUMULT 181
man, oppressed by this invisible presence, ordered the
table to remain laid overnight, and on the following morn-
ing was gratified to find that the wine had all been drunk.
By way of thanks Elijah had filled the goblet with olive
oil. The report of what had happened in Solomon Car-
mona’s house was spread far and wide. One day he invited
_some friends to the midday meal; as they were sitting at
table one of them looked up at the beautiful bright
pewter plates decorating the wall, and a beatific smile
illumined his features. He rose and made deep obeisances
in the direction of the wall. For in the shining surface of
the pewter plates he saw Elijah. The others also rose and
bowed.
Such incidents made an extraordinary impression on
the faithful, which was only increased by an equally
marvellous event reported from Constantinople which led
to tangible results. Apparently a Jew in that city was
walking through the streets when he met a man whom he
took to be a Turk. The stranger addressed him, whereupon
he recognized him to be Elijah. The prophet exhorted
him to observe the laws of the Thora more strictly, and
called his attention to the regulation in the Book of
Leviticus which reads, ‘“Thou shalt not trim the corners
of thy hair, thou shalt not spoil the points of they beard.”
It was one of those rules which prevented Jews from
imitating the people among whom they lived. He also
reminded him of the instructions laid down in the Book
of Numbers. “‘Bid them that they make them fringes in
the borders of their garments throughout their genera-
tions, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a
ribband of blue.’’? The garment was named after these
182 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
borders, the Arba kanforth, the sight of which was a
constant reminder to the wearers of God and His covenant.
‘The Jew went home and immediately wrote to Ismir
describing what had happened. Copies of the letter were
-sent all over the country and owing to the fact that it
had been inspired by Elijah immediately led to the law
being strictly observed. A detailed account is given of
the result in a contemporary document. “‘Since they had
shaved their heads after the Turkish fashion, they re-
garded it as not only vexatious but also injurious to health
to allow their hair to grow again. So they allowed a long
lock of hair to grow on either side of their head, the points
of which projected from beneath their caps, and dis-
tinguished them from the Kophrim (their unbelieving
opponents ).”’
Elijah now began to be present among the people at
every moment of the day. When the Sabbath was over the
people poured out wine for him in their houses because he
liked it and had the power to add to their prosperity. Some
secretly poured a few drops of this wine into their purses.
In preparation for the prophet’s arrival, the Rabbis or-
dered their flocks to set about cleansing their houses at
once, and to leave the Hebrew books lying about open.
A certain man had an extremely beautiful dog to which he
was much attached, but he turned him out because he did
not wish to have any unclean animal in the house when
Elijah came. On one occasion, when, as the custom was
in those days, Sabbatai was invited to attend a circumci-
sion, he begged the people on entering the house not to
begin the ceremony until he gave the sign. They obediently
waited half an hour, until he did so. Subsequently, when
TUMULT 183
he. was asked the reason, he replied that on first entering
the house, Elijah had not been present, but had appeared
half an hour later. |
Sceptical chroniclers of the day, and of a later genera-
tion, poured untold scorn on these people and their faith
in Elijah. They would have done better to refrain. For
to the Jews of the period the presence of their prophet
was a profound reality, just as sixteen hundred years
previously the drinking of wine at the marriage ceremony
in Cana of Galilee was a profound reality to those present.
It is only arrogant and petty minds that venture to judge
or explain miracles. They cannot alter a spiritual experi-
ence.
The events just described all occurred in Ismir within
the space of a week and, if we may speak of conscious
aims in such a connexion, served the purpose of officially
inaugurating the kingdom of the Messiah. The tenth of
Tevet arrived, the day which from time immemorial] had
been sacred to the memory of the siege of Jerusalem by the
Babylonians. On it Sabbatai confronted the people with
a great idea which they were able to grasp. The moment
when the Jewish people were coming into their own
again, he declared, was no time for mourning over the
destruction of Jerusalem, for they were on the point of
rebuilding the city. Thus the tenth of Tevet was no longer
to be observed.
In addition to this regal pronouncement on the part of
Sabbatai himself, and complementing it, were the decrees
and edicts promulgated by Primo, Sabbatai’s “secretary.”
To all the communities in Asia, Africa, and Europe he
announced the dawn of the Age of Salvation, and told
=
184 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
them how to prepare for it. He organized their devotions
as Ercole of Ferrara had done in the case of his city in
the days of Savonarola, with this difference, that Primo
introduced innovations and altered the traditional order
_ of prayers. He thus tried to direct the daily lives of the
people to fit the new state of affairs. The tenth of Tevet.
occurred only once a year, but people said their prayers -
three times a day. And thus to the stirring figure of the
Messiah he added what was even more stirring and dura-
ble, the reality of a daily routine.
But even this change was accepted with such alacrity
and speed, particularly in Ismir, that almost on the fol-
lowing day the people were ready for fresh developments.
They could not tolerate any standstill, and could not
understand why there should be any waiting. Such a
glorious beginning must surely continue on its fiery way
till it reached its consummation. The King of Kings was
among them and was expected to perform unheard-of
miracles in true kingly fashion. As soon as a miracle was
known and had become familiar it seemed insignificant.
To satisfy the people something that had never happened
before in their history was required, and lo and behold! |
their hope was gratified. For between the eleventh and the
twenty-second of Tevet (December 19-30, 1665), Sab-
. batai divided up the world, and distributed crowns and
kingdoms among his brothers and his closest friends.
Isaac Silveira, who had secretly responded the first time
Sabbatai pronounced the Holy Name in full, he made
King David. His great advocate, Abraham Jachini, to
whom he owed the discovery of the written prophecy con-
TUMULT 185
cerning him, he rewarded for his regal wisdom with the
crown of Solomon. His early friend and great benefactor,
Raphael Joseph Chelebi, was made King Joash. Solomon
Carmona, at whose table the prophet Elijah had appeared,
was given the title of King Ahab. His messenger Mat-
tatha Bloch, was made King Asa, while his erstwhile
adversary, Chaim Pegna, was dignified with the title of
King Jeroboam. He raised his brother Elijah to the rank of
King of the King of Kings, meaning King of Turkey. His
brother Joseph he appointed King of Kings in Judah with
the sub-title of Emperor of the Romans.
He maintained that this was no arbitrary distribution of
crowns and kingdoms. On the contrary, to every one who
received an honour, he explained just which soul it was
that, in the course of its wanderings, had entered into him
and become incarnate. Altogether he appointed twenty-six
kings and princes; not one of them entertained the smallest
doubt regarding the validity of the proceeding and his
eventual accession to power. Those who could not expect
the immediate realization of their hopes, added to their
names the honorary title they had been given and had
documents drawn up describing their appointments, and
seals made with which they sealed their letters. There was
one poor man, named Abraham Rubio, who lived on
charity and whom Sabbatai had named King Josiah, in |
acknowledgment of his faithful support, whose friends
and acquaintances were of opinion that money rather than
a future crown would have been a much more suitable
reward for his services. And they importuned him and
offered him large sums to sell his kingdom. But he re-
186 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
fused all these offers with a smile. Who would exchange a
certain glorious future that was near at hand for a few
gold pieces?
But even this division of the world, which was an un-
_ paralleled proceeding, was not regarded by the people as
the consummation but merely as a preparatory measure.
The allotment of these crowns amounted to so many
promises, which had to be kept if the whole business was
not to prove a delusion and a snare, a mere empty gesture.
But the sovereigns who belonged to the Age that was
passing away were still sitting on their thrones and ex-
ercising power. Therefore this power must be taken from
them that room might be made for the future kings, and
Nathan Ghazati’s prophecy be fulfilled. Consequently
Sabbatai Zevi’s first step should be to go to Constanti-
nople in person and depose the Sultan. Otherwise how
could history run its course ?
This was the most fateful and decisive moment in the
Messiah’s life. There was no internal or external force
that could enable him to escape this demand on the part of
the people or this logical sequel to his conduct. He had
accepted Nathan and his prophecies, and had not thrust
aside the people with their passionate desire for miracles
and salvation, but had made himself the centre of their
hopes. Thus he himself was responsible for their demands
which he was now called upon to satisfy. His fate had
mastered him and was forcing his footsteps, demanding
action and not merely resolutions. The resolutions had
been forced upon him, but his real obligation, which was
action, was fraught with grievous danger. In Ismir he was
supported by a large body of people, but Constantinople
TUMULT : 187
was a distant, strange, and hostile city. In Ismir crowds
approached him as suppliants; in Constantinople he him-
self would be a suppliant. In Ismir he was offered and
given power; in Constantinople he would have to wrest
it by his own personal efforts.
But whether danger lurked ahead or not, he no longer
had any choice, and therefore announced, as he could not
help doing, that he would go to Constantinople in the
course of the month. It was the last possible moment. The
year 1665 was drawing to a close. The year 1666, which
he himself had accepted as the Messianic year, was on
the threshold, and the Age which he himself had called
into being stood before him demanding decisive action.
The people heard the news with profound faith and
joy. But their joy was turned to tense expectation and
they held their breath when Sabbatai on the twenty-second
of Tevet, December 30, 1665, boarded a saic, a. small
sailing vessel, to set out for Constantinople.
CHAPTER IX
Echo
6 las news of events in Ismir gradually spread all
round like waves of sound. But the circulation of
the tidings had none of the medieval slowness that might
have been expected from the conditions prevalent at the
time. Jews were wandering all over the world bearing
letters and messages, and when a messenger stopped to rest
in one place another would set out with a copy of his
reports to the next. Moreover, Primo.-had taken care to
see that two official messengers should be sent out into
the world and they constituted ‘moving headquarters, so
to speak, for the dissemination and collection of news. In
this they were helped by the innumerable private letters
which found their way from the East to Europe, the con-
tents of which were reported both by word of mouth and
in writing, constituting another source of information.
And as the Jewish world in the East was affected not only
by the news itself but also by the movement as an actual
fact, another extremely valuable source of reliable in-
formation came into being in the shape of reports sent by
European merchants and the political representatives of
foreign states who were naturally concerned with the
economic interests of their respective countries.
At first they had not paid much attention to the move-
188
ECHO . 189
ment, but in a surprisingly short space of time what was
taking place began to affect their interests, not merely
because, as we have already shown, there was a shortage
of labour, but because even the Jewish merchants had
grown disinclined for business. They were reluctant to
enter upon any fresh undertakings, and were calling in
their debts and beginning to wind up their affairs. Even
those Oriental Jews who did not believe in the Messiah in-
evitably felt the force of the movement and were. ex-
tremely careful about committing themselves, with the
result that European trade in the ‘East was seriously af-
fected and merchants and diplomatic representatives
began to follow and study events, gathering data, which
they forwarded to Europe. A certain Herr Plettenberg,
who is described as the imperial representative in Dresden,
remarked, ‘““The reason why our merchants in Ismir have
not yet told us anything about this King is that, owing
to the fact that the Jews did not believe in him, he re-
mained for a long time in retirement both in Ismir and
Constantinople. But now he is going to Constantinople,
and next June the redemption of Israel will be proclaimed
to the whole world. Other reports have now come in from
Venice and Vienna to the effect that Sabbatai Zevi has
already reached Constantinople and has been respectfully
received there.”
Monsieur de Chaumont, the French Ambassador, also
informed his Government of the “excitement about the
Messiah who is shortly expected. It is said that the Sultan
has agreed to hand over the whole of Palestine to him.
The majority of the Jews have stopped work and are
preparing to migrate to Jerusalem. At first we laughed at
190 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
all this, but apparently the matter now threatens to be-
come serious.” The French consul in Ismir, writing to
Rosano in Leghorn on the subject of this Messiah, says,
“The Turks have great respect for him and our country
‘is still rather anxious about it. God grant the affair will
do us no harm!”’ The Signoria of Venice instructed Bel-
lario, their diplomatic representative, to keep them well
informed. The Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of
Savoy are also mentioned among those who had written
accounts of the matter sent to them. In due course, these
reports which had at first been compressed into the compass
of a letter, developed into regular treatises, small mono-
graphs, and eventually fair-sized books.
As a matter of fact, the Age already provided ample
material for such works if only owing to the effect of the
Sabbataian movement on the Jews in Turkey. The farther
away a place was from the centre of the movement, the
more exaggerated were the reports current in it, though
this in no way affected the intensity of belief. But the
opposition was also proportionately more violent, since
they were not immediately silenced by an overwhelming
majority of Sabbatai’s followers. But, in the excitement
and emotionalism that prevailed, it was impossible for
anybody to maintain a neutral attitude. The Jews in
Turkey were divided into supporters and opponents,
Meaminim and Kofrim, and bitter fights occurred be-
tween the two parties in which everything was regarded
as justified. Jacob Ashkenazi, whose descendants were
afterwards virulent anti-Sabbataians, is actually said to
have pronounced sentence of death on the opponents of
the Messiah. But, because they had something positive
ECHO ; 191
to defend and began with terrifying earnestness to pre-
pare for the fulfilment of their destiny, the Sabbataians
in the end gained the upper hand and forced the Kofrim
to keep silence and to be careful what they did.
First and foremost they practised penance—penance in
the special form and special sense given to it by the
Hebrew language, in which the same word, Te’shuvah,
means penance, return, and response. Thus what they did
was to respond to the call of conscience, and return to the
state of innocence; and, true to primitive custom, they
therefore mortified the flesh. The programme followed by
the Jews of Salonica was repeated everywhere and may be
regarded as typical. The majority of them there had long
been conversant with the teaching of the Kabala, and
particularly with the precepts and regulations of the prac-
tical branch of it. They were less enthusiastic than the
people of Ismir, but they were harder, stricter, and more
fanatical. They were tremendously in earnest about
penance and flocked to their teachers to confess their sins.
Four Chachamim were constantly occupied hearing these
confessions and deciding what penance should be inflicted.
But, as a rule, this did not satisfy the penitents, who did
far more by way of penance than was demanded of them.
They fasted until they reached the last extreme of physi-
ca] exhaustion. They had themselves buried in snow and
broken ice, and waded out into the sea and stood in the
water until they almost sank. They poured hot wax over
their bodies and allowed themselves to be buried up to
their necks and to remain thus until they swooned. In
frenzies of mysterious flagellantism, they beat each other
with scourges and nettles. They wore bunches of nettles
192 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
under their clothes against their naked skins. There was
such a demand for this form of self-mortification, that for a
wide area round the city no more nettles were to be found,
and they had to be brought in at great expense from a
distance. Their penitential exercises became ever more
gloomy and depressing. Thus some lay for hours with
heavy stones on their chests. Others had themselves stoned
as a sign that they deserved it, and by a hundred and one
symbolic acts of terrifying ingenuity, they gave expres-
sion to their sorrow for their sins and their hope of living
a pure and innocent life in future.
And they gave alms without ceasing, bestowing freely
of their plenty to an ever-growing circle of poor. They
kept their shops closed, or if they did open them it was
only to get rid of their goods and superfluous household
furniture at any price. They imposed a strict law upon
themselves not to enter into any commercial transactions
with Jews whether by buying or selling. Property was not
allowed to change hands among themselves. This was
forbidden under threat of a ban as well as fines and
corporal punishment, since it meant that the man who did
business in this way did not believe in the Messiah and
wished to collect wealth secretly in preparation for more
peaceful times. They also married their children in large
numbers; it is reported that as many as seven or eight
hundred such marriages took place. When the movement
reached its zenith the people of Salonica were reduced to
a state of abject poverty and final spiritual readiness.
Without adopting this gloomy form of preparation,
though filled with tense expectation and eagerness, the
next to respond to the inflammatory call were the Italian
ECHO 193
Jews. The city of Leghorn took the lead, and again con-
firmed its position as the chief centre for Jews coming
from the East and particularly for alms-gatherers from
Palestine. Moreover, as the city from which Sarah had
been summoned to become Queen, it regarded itself as
particularly important and the Sabbataians immediately
gained the upper hand in it.
They did not find matters so simple in Venice with
its highly intelligent, cultured and sceptical population,
and its entire absence of fantastic Oriental imagination.
Until 1649 Leon Modena had lived in the city and exer-
cised considerable influence. An infant prodigy, he became
a polyhistor when he grew up and his position as Rabbi
did not prevent him from earning money by means of all
kinds of intellectual activity, and squandering it cheer-
fully at cards or dice. And for this very reason he was an
opponent of the Kabala. Another enlightened Jew who
was extremely critical of his co-religionists, was Modena’s
friend and colleague Luzzatto. But at this period, the
spiritual life of the city was guided by a convinced dev-
otee of the Kabala, Moses Zacuto, who had been a fellow-
student of Baruch Spinoza. He had left Amsterdam with
the object of making a pilgrimage to Palestine, but had
remained in Venice on the way. He was deeply interested
in the Sabbataian movement, but the leaders of the com-
munity had no wish to be responsible for a blind faith in
it. So they decided to institute inquiries in Constantinople,
where they believed reliable information had already been
collected. The correspondence, as described by Baruch de
Arezzo, is a typical document of the period.
“When in our day the world from all the four corners
194. THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
thereof, from east to west, and from the north to the sea,
is split in two, and falleth into groups and parties, and a
great noise is heard and cometh to our ears, telling us of
our salvation, and the people are divided into those who
believe and those who do not believe, why should we not
come forward and ask to hear the truth from him who
knoweth it? Perchance he will be able to tell us whether
the matter is grievous and unworthy of attention. In any
case, the whole world is in travail and groaning in great
fear and tribulation, and that a calamity may not occur—
which God forbid !—we have hearkened to the voice of
our community and its great leaders, and hereby send these
humble lines to the camp of your holiness to discover
whether one day we may not have good news and learn
about the matter from head to foot. If the voices we have
heard are but a tower hanging in mid-air, we shall know
that we should do well to calm the people of our com-
munity and comfort them in their sorrow when their
dream falls like scales from their eyes. But if he is the man,
even though he may not hasten to come to us, we shall
wait with confidence, for such is our lot and our salvation
hangeth thereon. If, however, there is some doubt about
the matter, pray inform us why you think so. The eyes of
all Israel are directed on you in Constantinople. These
lines are written by the pupils of the holy school of Venice
on the eighth of Adar, 426.”
Constantinople replied under cover of a commercial
communication. This they did out of caution in case the
bearer of the letter was seized by the Turks. “The fair
words from your hands dictated by the Thora and the
Law, your sacred pages, have reached us. You ask for
ECHO 195
information concerning Nozath haisim, the goatskins
which Rabbi Israel of Jerusalem has bought. But Satan
fell among his brethren and said that as he had committed
a great sin the business would end badly; he would find
no purchaser for his goods and had already squandered
the wealth of his whole family. So we looked into the
matter and examined what Rabbi Israel had bought, for
his goods are displayed here under our very eyes. We have
come to the conclusion that they are very valuable; they
are being purchased in every country, and whoever speaks
ill of them will have to answer for it before the court.
According to the view of experienced merchants, who have
examined the quality and value of the goods, a great
profit will yet be made out of them. But we must wait
until the great fair-day comes. With God’s help it will
come next year, and then the goods will be sold for
precious blood; for the hand of God is in it. We have
examined the ultimate reasons and the cause of causes
have we gone into, and tested, and we say that the truth
is with Rabbi Israel. Our examination has proved this
beyond a doubt, and your duty as priests is to give effect
to this truth in a becoming manner and God will establish
peace between the contending parties so that you will
flourish in all you do and not doubt any longer about the
matter; for Rabbi Israel is devoted to God. In order that
the truth may be made known to all, we have written this
letter and endorsed it; everything in it is correct, true,
certain, and sure. Yomtov Chenaniah Niniakar, Moses
Sagis, Moses Galante, Abraham Jachini, Kelev Shemuel.”
The arrival of this letter in Venice was the signal for
fights to occur between the supporters and the opponents
196 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
of Sabbatai Zevi. They were violent but brief. Where
Zacuto’s authority was not sufficient, Sabbatai’s support-
ers disposed of their adversaries by having recourse to
violence. When Sabbatai heard this he ordered Primo to
express his thanks to the community and with astonishing
frankness both the Messiah and his secretary commended
the use of violence as an argument in favour of the move-
ment. To the messenger from Venice, Rabbi Moses ben
Nehemiah, Primo gave the following reply: “I heard sing-
ing from the ends of the earth when that man came to me,
and told me about the inhabitants of Venice, how strong
and reliable they were and how their hearts glowed with
fire.” And, referring to the striking of one of their op-
ponents on the Sabbath Day, Primo gives the Sabbataians
a special tribute of praise. “I hasten to praise you because
you have done good; for according to the word of Sab-
batai there can be no better way of keeping holy the Sab-
bath Day than the one these people have chosen.” In a
postscript to this letter, Sabbatai observes: ““You have
shown yourselves worthy. May you increase in might, for
you have made firm the foundation of your faith. I will
surely give unto you the full measure of reward which I
shall mete out to all believers. Ye shall be repaid by the
Lord of Peace and by me, Israel, your father, the bride-
groom who cometh under the canopy, the spouse of the
Thora.” This is signed: ““The man who is the divine Mes-
siah, mighty as a lion, strong as a bear, the Lord’s ap-
pointed, Sabbatai Zevi.”’
Sabbatai could allow himself the liberty of signing in
this way. He could do so without giving offence. The
movement had become so strong that it allowed of any
ECHO 197
experiment being made. A systematic gathering together
and leading of the masses would have had permanent -
results. To appreciate the compelling power of the idea,
we have only to examine its effect on the Polish Jews.
True, they were particularly interested in the movement,
since they were the greatest victims of the physical suffer-
ing of the Age, and therefore most eager for salvation.
Nevertheless, the alacrity with which they responded
bears eloquent testimony to the suggestive power of the
movement, They were enjoying a brief though anxious
period of respite, taking breath after a time of terrible
martyrdom. They had barely escaped with their lives, and
yet they were all suddenly able to raise their heads again.
They proclaimed the change in their destiny with such
truculent assurance, that the Christians about them were
impressed and began not only to believe in the imminence
of the change but also to feel anxious regarding the fate of
their own Christian Messiah. And it was chiefly to silence
these fears that Golyatovsky, a theologian of Kiev, wrote
his book The True Messiah, in which he quite uninten-
tionally became a chronicler of the existing state of affairs.
He says: ““They left their hearths and homes. They
abandoned their daily work and began to rave about a
Messiah who would shortly take them to Jerusalem on a
cloud. Many of them fasted for days at a time and even
prevented their little children from eating, while in the
severest cold of winter they bathed in the rivers murmur-
ing extempore prayers. They looked haughtily down on
the Christians and held their Messiah as a threat over their
heads, saying, ‘Only wait; soon we shall be your mas-
ters!?’’ Neither their Talmudic scholarship, nor their
198 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
habit of perpetually splitting hairs, nor their gradual es-
trangement from the primitive spirit of the Bible which
had been going on for generations, saved them from
credulously believing whatever they heard about the Mes-
siah. Possibly the undue exercise of their logical and in-
tellectual faculties had driven them to the other extreme
and had made them accessible only to the emotional side
of life, for among them the counter-movement against a
too pedantic Kabalism and a too consistent Sabbataianism
was founded on Hassidism.
Even France, with its comparatively small Jewish
population, welcomed the Sabbataian idea. In Avignon,
where the Jews were constantly exposed to the hateful, in-
tolerant mishandling of the Popes and their officials, the
community calmly and quietly drew the inevitable con-
clusions from the reports that had reached them, and in
the spring of 1666 were ready to emigrate bag and bag-
gage to Jerusalem.
In Paris, the excitement was not only great but also en-
during. A contemporary document describes the conditions
as follows: “They are gathering together under a man
who, contrary to report, does not claim to be the Messiah
but merely declares that he has been commissioned by God
to gather the scattered nation together. . . . Abraham
Perena, a rich Jew of this city, set out for Jerusalem with
his family last month. He is said to have sold a country
house valued at £3000 for a much smaller sum and
furthermore to have agreed that the purchaser should not
be called upon to pay a penny until he had convinced
himself that the Jews had a King.”
ECHO 199
In England, both Jew and Christian responded to the
movement, the former cautiously, the latter with some-
thing of the sporting spirit. The Jewish population of
London was still small and of recent origin; there had
been no official decision regarding their readmission, but
they existed there in some numbers and formed a com-
munity at the head of which was Sasportas of whom more
will be said. Hardly had they settled down in London,
when the news that the Diaspora would shortly be at an
end led to disputes between them. A contemporary re-
port describes their mental attitude in a few telling words:
““There are very few who believe in the movement though
many may wish it were true.” Truth to tell, the Puritans
had forestalled them by fixing the Messianic year as 1666,
and consequently the interest of the latter was limited
to estimating how long the realization of the Jewish ideal
would take. Regular bets were made, ten to one being laid
on Sabbatai Zevi being made King of Jerusalem within
two years. The settlement of such bets was, however, sub-
ject to the production of accurate documentary evidence
valid in law. .
There was no country in which the Jewish community
could remain unaffected by the wave of excitement. In
Vienna, where the Jews were protected and enjoyed a se-
cure and prosperous position, the state of expectation and
readiness was unusually great. In Moravia disturbances
among the Jews became so serious that the lieutenant of
the district, Count von Dietrichstein, was obliged to issue
public proclamations to calm the people. The Jews in
Hungary were said to be already removing the roofs from
200 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
their houses, while the Emir of Morocco was reported to
have ordered a persecution of the Jews for making a pub-
lic display of their eagerness to join their Messiah.
But the most enthusiastic and, in view of its spiritual
causes, the most vital and valuable response to the Mes-
sianic tidings came from the two great Jewish centres of
Amsterdam and Hamburg. In both places the material
and spiritual life of the Jews was to a great extent shaped
and influenced by the number of Spanish and Portuguese
Jews among them. In Amsterdam, in particular, the Jews
were no longer harassed by material anxieties and enjoyed
a fairly flourishing position, while in other parts of Hol-
land they were in possession of rights which put them
almost on an equality with the rest of the citizens. In
Hamburg they were still very far from reaching this ideal
and were obliged to accept constraints which were often
merely vexatious. On the other hand, in this city the
population consisted chiefly of merchants living by the
sea, a condition of affairs conducive to the production of
broadmindedness and that tolerance which is based on
reason. So here, too, the Jews found existence tolerable
and full of hope for the future.
Nevertheless, as the news from the East reached them,
they began to tremble and grow excited. For it resuscitated
their secret Marranism. Their suffering had not been so
cruel as that of the Polish Jews; it was more sublimated
and therefore more fully equipped with the weapons of
intellect. But in their heart of hearts they all believed in
the return, and thus the tidings of the Messiah merely
opened up a further stretch of the spiritual road along
which they were already travelling; it was the logical
ECHO 201
realization of their longing for home, the gratification of
their yearning for peace and rest amid their own people.
But in keeping with their spiritual past and their previous
history and evolution, they did not accept the Messianic
idea without its mystic implications, although they re-
garded it from a more worldly, concrete, and political
point of view than the Oriental and Polish Jews. To the
other Jews it was a fresh beginning; to them it was a con-
tinuation on a higher and more definite plane. And thus
in their response they showed passionate joy and open en-
thusiasm rather than a gloomy desire for painful peniten-
tial exercises.
For some considerable time Amsterdam had been a cen-
tre where men of fine brains and eager hearts had been
busying themselves with the ultimate meaning of the Jew-
ish question, and the yearning of the Jews to have a na-
tional life of their own had manifested itself here again
and again. They had by no means forgotten the fate of
Uriel da Costa. A member of an old Marrano family,
whose father was a strict Catholic, he one day awoke toa
full appreciation of his ancestry and spiritual heritage.
Whereupon he returned to Judaism of his own accord and
fled to Amsterdam. In this city, the name of which the
Marranos whispered under their breaths as almost synon-
ymous with Paradise, he hoped to fulfil his destiny. But
what he found there disappointed and troubled him. Was
this Rabbinical structure the Judaism which his reading
of the Bible had led him to expect? No! Impossible! And
he ignored a development which seemed to him false and
full of contradictions, and proceeded to live as his own
interpretation of the Bible made him think fit.
202 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
But under the rule of a man like de Herrera, this was
impossible, and a ban was pronounced against him. He
could not endure this exclusion from his community for
long, and, crawling back to the Cross, he was received once
more into the bosom of the Church. But the rebel in him
had not been subdued, and he began to doubt everything,
even the immortality of the soul. His thesis on the subject
was condemned and burnt. Once more he stood on the
verge of ostracism, and, with defiance in his heart, he re-
canted. But this attitude of defiance on the part of a lov-
ing child again exposed him to the threat of a ban. And
once more he bowed his head, but only because, as one
who had been forced by spiritual distress to return home,
he could not again face standing outside the gates. The
ceremonies he had to go through to be acquitted once more
were humiliating and debasing. He was forced to lie on
the step of the synagogue and allow the faithful to walk
over him one by one. This proved the last straw, and he
immortalized his fate, his defiance, and his doubt in an
essay entitled An Example of Human Life. Without wait-
ing for others to accuse him of being a liar and a renegade,
he shot himself in the year 1640.
A somewhat similar case is provided by Baruch Spi-
noza, though his scepticism took a somewhat different form
and he did not suffer a like fate. He too was a member of
a Marrano family and returned to the faith because he
found his father’s house too oppressively small and nar-
row. But he was not so much concerned with his own fate
as with that of mankind at large, with spirit and truth, and
it was not personal feeling that made him bow his head.
Whereas Marranos were constantly arriving in Amsterdam
ECHO 203
in order to be able to profess the Jewish faith, he renounced
_ it as too narrow and, in his opinion, lacking the binding
force of a universal religion. While Sabbatai Zevi was wan-
dering about the East trying to prepare the way for a Mes-
sianic kingdom which should be a literal fulfilment of ©
Jewish tradition, Spinoza was accused in 1656 of preach-
ing false doctrine inimical] to this tradition, and the great
ban was pronounced against him. While the news was
being spread in Amsterdam that Sabbatai had been pro-
claimed Messiah, he held aloof and maintained an objec-
tive and impartial attitude, and after an exhaustive ex-
amination of the pros and cons, declared that it might be
quite possible for the Jews to take advantage of this fa-
vourable concatenation of circumstances and restore the
Jewish kingdom.
The Amsterdam Jews were on this occasion in agree-
ment with him, but their temperament and lot in life pre-
vented them from emulating his cool objectivity. True,
they could boast of many distinguished and reputable
scholars, but the large leavening of Marrano poets among
them both in the past and at that time lent a definite colour
to their spiritual life, a decided tendency towards the
emotional, the romantic, and the dreamy, and an eager
acceptance of news and dramatic situations. The creations
of these poets were by no means great, but poetizing in
some shape or form was the breath of their nostrils. Ever
since Manuel de Belmonte had founded their Academy of
Poetry, they had prospered in every way. There were some
extremely interesting and vital men among them, as, for
instance, Fray Vicente de Rocamora, a monk of Valencia,
who had once been confessor to the Infanta Maria, after-
204. THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
wards Empress of Germany and a convinced anti-Semite.
At this time he was a doctor, a parish official and a con-
tented citizen of Amsterdam. There was also the Spanish
officer Enrique Enriquez de Paz, who was burned in effigy
because the authorities were unable to lay hands on his
person. He returned to Judaism and wrote comedies in
Amsterdam. There were many similar characters, and it
is quite comprehensible that from sheer exuberance of
spirit they should have responded to the advent of a Mes-
siah. Their joy was like David’s when he danced before
the Ark of the Covenant. Sasportas, the great opponent of
the movement, wrote as follows: “Amsterdam was in a
state of wild excitement. Crowds of people surged along .
the streets dancing to the beat of drums. Even the syna-
gogues were full of dancing people. They took the Thora
scrolls in their beautifully embroidered covers out of their
tabernacles and carried them into the streets, paying not
the slightest heed to the disapproval and hostility of the
Christian population, but everywhere proclaiming at the
top of their voices the news that was pouring in, with-
out being in the least discomfited by the mockery of the
Christians.” |
Owing to its important commercial relations with dis-
tant parts of the world, Amsterdam had become a centre
for the distribution of news, which was given out not only
in the synagogues but above all in the Exchange, where
the merchants used to meet daily and where all letters
dealing with commercial matters were addressed. Those
who were beginning to be anxious about developments and
had again applied to their representatives in the East for
inside information as to whether Sabbatai Zevi really was
ECHO 205
the Messiah, received the laconic reply: “Huh, velo acher
_——he and no other.”’ Letters such as this passed from hand
to hand in the Exchange. One merchant, a man named
Anatia, who was present, tried to pour cold water on their
excitement, referring to the Talmud as proof that it was
impossible for the Messiah to appear at this juncture, since
the prerequisites for his advent had not been fulfilled. But
the others met his arguments with stern disapproval. On
their return home for the midday meal they learned that
Anatia had had a stroke at table. This produced a deep
impression because they all felt they knew the reason for
it. Henceforward there were not many open opponents to
the idea.
The news and those who circulated it were not always
reliable; very often the wish was father to the thought.
But feeling ran so high that this made no difference. A let-
ter from the Rabbis of Jerusalem in which they expressed
their belief that the Temple would soon be restored was
quite enough to convince the people that it would be. And
this led to untold rejoicing. There were grand illumina-
tions and the synagogue and every corner of the houses
were bright with lights.
Thus in their way they took events perfectly seriously
and were prepared for the great day. Special feast days
were held, celebrated by illuminations and the singing of
psalms, and many who were not Jews attended the syna-
gogues. The printing presses were kept busy day and night
preparing a small volume in Hebrew, Spanish, and Por-
tuguese, giving all the rules for the preparation of the
soul for the Messianic Age. It contained descriptions of
penitential exercises, prayers, and formulae of address.
206 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
Another little book also appeared describing the ceremo-
nies and solemnities with which the Messiah should be re-
ceived and crowned. There were also changes in the order
of prayer. Whereas the great priestly blessing had hitherto
been uttered only on important feast days, it was now pro-
nounced every Sabbath, for the time of fulfilment was at
hand. And in Amsterdam as elsewhere some of the Jews
were beginning to sell their houses. Clever, enlightened, and
thoughtful people acted in this way and their conduct
seemed all the more justified owing to the fact that the
most distinguished members of the community, and schol-
ars like Abraham Pereyra, Isaac Naar, Benjamin Mus-
safia, de Castro, and others, joined the movement. Thus
the city of “‘scholars and poets” re-echoed far and wide to
the call of one man and one idea.
The presence of Marranos in Hamburg led to a similar
response in the sister-community there. The two were con-
stantly exchanging news, and their joy over events was
further accentuated by the fact that they turned them to
account to make open demonstrations against the vexa-
tious practices of their environment. The followers of
Sabbatai, the Sefardim, were in the majority in Hamburg
also. But the younger Ashkenazian community, consisting
of Polish and German Jews, was independent of them,
and their temperament and past history made them less
boisterous in their enthusiasm. But this did not in any way
enable them to abate the general rejoicing. The memoirs
of the Glickel family of Hameln give a picture of the
state of affairs. “‘It is impossible to describe the rejoicings
that occurred when letters were received from Turkey.
The Sefardim received most of the correspondence and
ECHO 207
immediately rushed with itto thesynagogue, where the news
was read aloud. Germans both young.and old also con-
gregated there. The young Portuguese always put on their
best clothes and wore broad green ribbons—Sabbatai
Zevi’s colours. And thus they all went ‘dancing and beat-
ing the drum’ to their synagogues, and with the joy ‘felt
by the Israelites when Moses struck the rock for water,’
they read the letters aloud. Many of them sold their homes
and houses and all they possessed and were expecting
salvation every day. My stepfather of blessed memory,
who lived in Hameln, left the place, together with his
house, his farm, and all his goods and chattels, and went
to Hildesheim.” The Gliickels’ stepfather was a cautious
man. He sent to his children in Hamburg a number of
boxes packed with linen and dried foodstuffs, as he took
it for granted that they would all travel direct to Palestine
from there. Many months afterwards when all was over,
the boxes were at last unpacked to prevent their contents
from rotting.
In Hamburg everybody had been already for some time
eagerly following Sabbatai’s career. They had always been
in doubt as to which of the expected Messiahs he would
declare himself to be, the final Messiah of the House of
David, or the latter’s forerunner who was to prepare the
way and then perish, and would come of the House of
Benjamin. But Sabbatai’s own proclamation in Ismir in
December 1665 dispelled all doubt. He declared himself
to be the final Messiah of the House of David. This news
was received with great satisfaction and rejoicing, and
men of high standing decided to join the movement,
among them Manuel Texeira, the representative and
208 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
banker of Queen Christina of Sweden, as well as Benedict
de Castro, her private physician, an extremely distin-
guished and able man. Sasportas alone, the unflinching
opponent of the movement, held aloof, and with impotent
rage declared that he was the only sober mind in a world
of drunkards. “‘And when I saw all these things happen-
ing,” he complained bitterly, ‘although the farce was
worthy of laughter, I shed silent tears full of anguish over
the credulity of these people from whose spirit all memory
of our true prophets and traditions had vanished.”
His complaint of the credulity of these people may be
justified, but it does not go to the heart of the matter. For
what determined their attitude was that the news which
was constantly arriving provided ever fresh sustenance for
expectations nursed and kept alive for generations with
passionate devotion. To people in such a state of mind,
the control of reason makes but an empty appeal. True, in
addition to authentic reports, false, fantastic, and exag-
gerated news also came in, but the fact that it was cir-
culated far and wide proves that there was a demand
even for these miraculous accounts and legends. They ap-
peared in ever fresh variations and, as a matter of fact,
emanated chiefly from non-Jewish sources. Fresh miracles
performed by Sabbatai were described. He had predicted
that certain people would die and they had immediately
done so! He had lighted a fire in a public place and walked
through the flames several times without being injured!
One night when he went out as usual to bathe, he met the
Turkish watch who tried to arrest him. Their leader was
on the point of striking him with his halberd, but sud-
denly he grew stiff and his right arm was paralysed! In
ECHO 209
Jerusalem, which but yesterday had been full of Sab-
_batai’s opponents, wonderful miracles were happening.
The Temple was slowly beginning to rise from its ruins.
Already the walls were standing. Rooms which hitherto
had lain in ruins were beginning to be visible. Vexed by
this the Turkish Governor had sent soldiers to pull down
these portions of Solomon’s structure, but as soon as they
reached the walls they were struck down by an invisible
hand. A second contingent met a similar fate. Overcome
with rage, the Governor armed himself with a hammer,
but just as he was about to strike the walls his arm was
suddenly paralysed. A Rabbi took pity on him and cured
him by prayer.
News of the ten lost tribes also appeared in various
forms. A report came via Jerusalem to the effect that “‘in
Persia, in the neighbourhood of Susa, nearly 8000 separate
groups, and in Barbary and in the wilderness of Tafilet
Over 100,000 Jews were ready to follow Sabbatai as their
king and prophet.” Other reports declared that a man
named Jeroboam had stirred up the Jews to rebellion, “‘in
the great city of Aden and in Arabia Felix, in the king-
dom of Elal.’? Their forces had already seized the cities
of Sidon and Mecca, stormed Mohammed’s grave and put
30,000 Turks to the sword. One of the chroniclers remarks
that if Mecca had been destroyed the least the Turks
would have felt bound to do by way of retaliation would
have been to impose heavy fines on the Jews, or more prob-
ably to wipe them out root and branch. And as nothing
of the sort had been reported, there was no proof that the
city had been destroyed.
But at that time the whole East was alive with miracles.
210 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
Scholars and holy men who had been dead for centuries
had begun to speak from their graves. The prophet Zecha-
riah had risen from the dead to add his word of forgive-
ness for the sins of Israel, and apparently a mysterious
light was to be seen constantly shining over Jerusalem.
The Jews responded in every possible way to the news
of their forthcoming redemption except that of poetical
expression. They sang, they danced, they rejoiced, but
they did not write poetry. The events that were taking
place were perhaps in themselves a page of poetry. In any
case, they came so thick and fast that there was no time
for the maturing of poetical works. And when the people
had time to reflect and once again form a mental image of
their past, their mouths were closed with shame. But for
litanies, which are of the nature of prayers, only one piti-
ful and primitively credulous song has come down to us.
The author was one of those men who had seen the worst
and who could therefore be quite light-hearted and full
of joyous hope, a man from the East, named Jacob Taussk.
He was not a real poet. Moreover, as the title tells us, his
song has reached us not even at second, but at third hand:
“A beautiful new song of the Messiah, who in the begin-
ning was held to be the last Messiah in the East, Schab-
basi Zebbi, by Jacob Taussk of Prague, set up in his
honour and printed in the year 1666 in Amsterdam in
Jewish type and now published, so that the blind stupid-
ity of the Jews may be better known among Christians,
from the Dutch Jewish copy, with the retention of all the
dialect, reprinted in Breslau in the year 1670 of the true
Messiah.”
Taussk’s poem is the clumsy work of an untutored man
ECHO 211
of the people, whose heart is overflowing and who finds
everyday language inadequate as a means of expression.
He believed everything that reached him in the way of
news and in retailing it wove into it stirring appeals to his
brethren to abandon their old manner of life. For what
purpose did trade and profits and the accumulation of
money serve now ?
‘““Tarry not, my brethren,” he sang, “nor think of hoard-
ing gold. When we enter the Holy Land we shall be born
again. For God Almighty will give unto us what he hath
promised.”’
And he tried to inspire courage in his brothers. “‘Do
not be afraid, dear brethren, the Turks will be our serv-
ants. They will rinse the glasses in which we shall drink
the health of the Messiah. We shall work no more. We
shall only read the Thora; God will protect us and we
need no longer fear.”
Whereupon this recluse, this bookworm, this scholar
and mystic suddenly begins to apostrophize the sun, moon
and stars, and to get into touch once more with Nature.
*‘Now shine, O Sun, and show thy face, and pour down
thy rays on us right diligently. For Joshua, too, didst thou
obey, when he vanquished thirty-one Mlochim (kings).
And do thou, O Moon, also come forth and light up the
heavens with the stars. When our fathers fled out of
Egypt right gladly didst thou give them of thy light.
Thou art all compassion and mercy and fillest our hearts
with great joy.”
Although verses such as these do not say much for the
quality of the poetical productions of the period, they
do reveal its mental attitude. Those who could think and
212 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
feel in this way were deaf to argument; nothing their op-
ponents could say reached their ears. As a matter of fact,
very few rejected Sabbatai, though here and there a few op-
ponents were to be found among the orthodox in the
strictest sense of the word. They did not for a moment
doubt Sabbatai’s existence or the fact that the Messianic
era would be inaugurated in their own day. But they were
so hidebound by law and tradition that they could not
bear to see any change, and were well aware that as soon
as the Messianic era dawned rules and regulations would
be abolished. And now that the time had come, they
shrank back in fear. To secure their own safety until the
day of redemption, they had hedged themselves in with so
many safeguards that they would not have survived the
loss of them, even if the salvation of the Jews had been
realized. Thus it was not their piety or instinct that saved
them, but merely their conservatism, though at that
juncture it provided them with no effective weapon
against the Sabbataians. They were so ruthlessly attacked,
persecuted and reviled that they were obliged to seek
refuge in silence. Those who had other reasons for opposi-
tion were also forced to hold their tongues, since reason
and scepticism are no match for credulity and enthusiasm.
But meanwhile they took steps to secure themselves
against the inevitable catastrophe by secretly hoarding
money and concealing their goods, which if they had be-
lieved in the forthcoming return to Jerusalem they ought
to have sold.
There was only one man at this time who regarded it
as his duty actively to oppose Sabbatai Zevi, to fight him
by every means in his power and constantly to warn the
ECHO 213
Jews against the movement. This was Jacob Sasportas.
He was born in Oran in 1610 and had already begun of-
ficiating as a Rabbi in his native place when he was twenty-
four years of age. He was at one time imprisoned on a
false charge, but managed to escape and fled to Amster-
dam. Here he made the acquaintance of Manasseh ben
Israel, whom he accompanied to London to support him
in his negotiations for the re-admission of the Jews into
England. He remained in this new unofficial home, acting
as Rabbi, until in 1665 the plague drove him from Lon-
don, and he went to Hamburg. It was here that he received
the first news of events in Ismir. He immediately pro-
tested against the whole business, against Sabbatai, Mes-
sianism, Sabbatai’s followers, believers in miracles, the
prophet Nathan, Primo, Sarah, and every statement and
incident that emanated from that quarter. He was a
benevolent kindly man, by no means combative by nature.
He acknowledged the purpose of the Kabala, if only be-
cause at that time it provided the sole means of gratifying
religio-mystic needs. But, on the other hand, he was not
only a distinguished Talmudist but also a trained ration-
alist, and possessed two qualities which above all were
bound to make him hostile to the Sabbataian movement.
He had grown up in the East and was familiar with Ori-
entals and their way of reacting to words and incidents;
he knew how their imaginations exaggerated everything
that happened and that the greatest caution was necessary
in believing a word they said. He was also a good judge
of men and in Sabbatai’s case a sound instinct was
strengthened by a growing hostility to the man who had
on his own initiative proclaimed himself the Messiah in
214 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
Ismir. He approached everything he did in a sceptical
spirit; for it was perfectly justifiable to be doubly critical
towards any man who put forward such extraordinary
claims. Thus there was very little capable of surviving
his searching scrutiny, and the final result of his investiga-
tions led him to regard the movement as a colossal spiri-
tual and political danger for the whole of Judaism. This
imposed a great responsibility upon him and he began
to write letters to the Rabbis all over the world imploring
them, as leaders of their communities, to resist the move-
ment in their own circles.
For the time being it was labour in vain. He received
evasive replies. Some categorically declared that they be-
lieved in Sabbatai and his movement. Others abused him
for his scepticism and he was even bombarded by threats.
In the end he was surrounded by enemies and was despised
and isolated. It was useless for him to protest any longer.
Nobody listened, much less troubled to answer. Thus he
impotently held his peace, and watched developments,
eagerly and conscientiously collecting all the evidence he
could about Sabbatai Zevi and his followers, and in the
year 16072 he completed in Hamburg his great work, Aniz-
Sabbataiana, a conception of a tragedy in which call and
answer failed to correspond.
Inasmuch as in this book Sasportas does not confine him-
self to a mere statement of fact, but discusses religion
and mysticism, the doctrine of faith and Sabbatai’s system,
he rendered an important service to the history of religion,
although at the time it could effect nothing. This is not
the place to discuss whether Sabbatai created a religious
system of his own or whether it was the most intellectual
ECHO 215
of his followers who put the words into his mouth and
attributed to him thoughts and conclusions which were
really their own. The great mass of the people were not
qualified to understand the theoretical side of the move-
ment, nor had they any wish to do so. They may possibly
have suspected that the Kabalistic world was standing at
the cross-roads and that the passionate logic of a man like
Abraham Cardozo was about to administer its death-blow,
but they were very far from seeing it as a fact. They could
not understand the religious controversy; all they were
capable of grasping at the moment was the idea of salva-
tion which had always permeated their faith. They had
never forgotten Hosea’s prophecy of the “‘day of Jezreel,”’
which meant not the city where Jehu had been guilty of
bloodshed, but the term signifying God winnows, or God
disperses. From the earliest days of their religious exist-
ence, they had been promised a radiant future, a future
which was bound to come if only they remained true to
their God and the faith of their fathers. But their lack of
faith had interfered with the natural course of events, and
they were now awaiting a gift of grace for which they
could hope but which they could not‘claim. Whether what
Sabbatai was offering them constituted this gift of grace
could only be accepted or denied whole-heartedly. It was
impossible to argue about it. They therefore felt abysmal
hatred and contempt for those who at that moment instead
of believing entered into disputations on the subject.
A little incident, which despite the seriousness of the
parties concerned is rather amusing, illustrates this at-
titude of mind. Thomas Coenen, the Protestant pastor in
Ismir, anxious to be clear about matters and to be in a
216 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
position to explain them, went one day, when Sabbatai
was already in Constantinople, to visit his youngest
brother. After conversing for a little while they entered
into a theological discussion, and Zevi, having listened in
silence to Coenen’s arguments, replied that religion was
not exactly his province but that he understood all about
textiles. The pastor was obliged to drop theology and ask
Zevi about the Messiah. To his annoyance the brother con-
fined himself to eulogizing the Messiah. Whereupon
Coenen advanced cogent arguments to prove that Sab-
batai could not be the Messiah. “If God has chosen my
brother,” replied Zevi, ‘“He will soon manifest Himself
through him.’ And there was nothing more to be said!
We must now refer to another form of contemporary
opposition, that of the non-Jewish chroniclers and par-
ticularly the theologians of whom there were many. They
eagerly seized on all this strange material and worked it
up, although as regards the actual facts they were wont as
a rule unscrupulously to copy whole pages almost word
for word from each other. They frequently distorted and
falsified passages, giving them a turn and a twist cal-
culated to excite the mocking laughter of the reader. Al-
though we may not approve of it, such conduct was at
least comprehensible, for these writers were not concerned
with being serious historians; all they cared about were
the religious questions which lay behind the tale. And
these were presented in an extraordinarily spiteful and
contemptuous spirit. A few quotations will make this clear.
‘That which was written over a thousand years ago of the
Jews (Augustine, Tractate 1rr3, In Johannem), “They
neglect the heavenly and yearn after the earthly,’ is and
, \
pment 4
se os.
ECHO 217
remains true to this day of the modern earth-bound Israel-
ite. . . . The Christian mind believes that Jesus Christ
was made flesh, wherefore the Christian is the spirit of
God. The modern Jewish mind, on the contrary, does not
believe that Jesus (as Christ or Messiah) was made flesh,
wherefore the Jew is not the spirit of God.” “There are
many Christians today who deliberately invent fairy tales
about the new Jewish Messiah, who write them down and
have them printed as genuine Messianic and prophetic
truths, and read and explain them to the Jews, who are
already sufficiently dazzled by their longing for a Mes-
siah.”” Another asks, “Why do people not accept the
miracles of our true Messiah? That not a few adherents
of the Jews are said to have been won over in the first
burst of enthusiasm, we do not deny. . . . The worst of
it is they are fiends incarnate. But apart from this, they
would rather, in spite of everything, be wretched Jews
than noble Christians, the reason being that their heads
are too full of their ancient history and the everlasting
Covenant.”
All this points to the fact that the theoretical acceptance
by Gentiles of the Jewish idea of Redemption had to a
large extent died out by the time matters began to look
serious. Forgetting the Jewish problem, the Christians
suddenly discovered one of their own in the discomfiting
fact that all their attempts at converting the Jews had
failed. The idea so incomprehensible to the Jewish mind,
that a man can be converted to another faith by argument
or violence had led to fiasco, and the various glaringly
conflicting views as to what constitutes faith were once
more brought to the fore. Meanwhile the opponents of the
218 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
Jews became unconsciously guilty of that blind injustice
which makes an understanding or settlement impossible
from the beginning—they regarded miracles differently
according to whether they happened to themselves or to
their adversaries. In the one case they were genuine, in the
other they were frauds. Thus the lack of respect shown
by one side for the religious experiences of the other in-
evitably added a further factor to the many causes for
strife and opposition already in existence.
At the time, the Jews overlooked this attitude. They
had no need to trouble their minds about the hostility
around them. Their eyes and ears, their hearts and minds
were in Constantinople, where their Messiah was going
to decide the fate of the world.
CHAPTER X
Migdal Os
w February 1666, when the winter storms were lashing
I the sea to fury, the little sailing vessels of the eastern
Mediterranean were struggling painfully northward along
the coast from Ismir, making their way towards the Bos-
porus. They were diminutive, insignificant merchant craft;
the great trade route taken by the vessels with heavier and
more valuable cargoes held a different course.
But among these small sailing vessels there was one
which would have heaved in every plank, if those spiritual
forces urging it forward and those opposing its progress
could have materialized. It was the ship bearing the Mes-
siah, Sabbatai Zevi.
He was squatting on deck, protected from the storm
by a canvas awning, and it is significant that he looked
neither ahead nor to the rear. He would certainly have
cast his eyes behind had he felt that in his rear there
was a united body of people, terrifying in their num-
bers and their faith, a living wall, who at every moment
and at every heart-beat, were sending out energy towards
him and on his behalf. But he doubted the existence of
such a body. True, he had countless followers, but his ad-
versaries had command of the dangerous weapons of in-
tellect and perseverance. As time had gone on and Sab-
219
220 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
batai had performed various petty spasmodic actions and
made various boastful assertions, the people had been
impelled to decide either for or against him. But they
could not tolerate any alteration in their traditions. From
time immemorial they had lived with the traditional treas-
ure of their faith. Nay more, they had actually discovered
in the four corners of the earth a superhuman way of dy-
ing for it. And suffering binds men, makes them reverent
and humble. Blood flowing from countless wounds or
painfully surging up in the breast forges imperishable
links with the past, for at any moment a man may be
struck down and robbed of tomorrow, of the future. Faced
with the alternative of choosing the sad commemoration
of yesterday or the delights of a day of rejoicing to-
morrow, they chose the sad commemoration as being more
certain, more concrete, more familiar. They mistrusted
joy and the morrow, for they had never been able to lay
firm hold on either. For such a permanent possession to
be theirs, it was necessary for some promise to be fulfilled,
some manifestation to take place, which would make a
final and unmistakable end of their painful existence.
But nothing of the kind had happened. True, Sabbatai
had drawn a pen through their laws and abolished their
commemoration days, those days of fruitful mourning,
and had told them to rejoice. But joy cannot be produced
to order and the voice behind the command was not im-
pelling. It had not the ring of the absolute, the inevitable.
So Sabbatai still had enemies.
Others, on the contrary, were more concerned about
concrete and everyday realities. For generations they had
known that they were living on a volcano, and some of
MIGDAL OS 221
them had contrived to flourish in spite of it. But even the
latter never forgot that it was imprudent to dig the spade
of will too deep into the treacherous soil about them, and
let loose the molten lava over their own homes. They
lived in a country, surrounded by a religion, and under a
rule, which their faith inevitably made them regard as
hostile. What mattered it that for centuries they had been
allowed breathing-space? They lived under a foreign
power. God had delivered them into the hand of their
enemies, and as long as this was the case, it was foolhardy
and mad to provoke them. But that was what they were
doing. A man had set out from their midst, not attempting
to conceal the object of his journey, which was to depose
the Sultan, the ruler of the land in which they lived. A
divine mission and the fulfilment of a divine call were all
very well, but meanwhile the scheme on foot was high
treason! It was possible that the man who had undertaken
it would succeed. And who would fail to rejoice if the
object for which they had prayed all their lives with pro-
foundest faith came to be attained, for they had not yet
learnt to pray with their lips alone. It was quite possible,
therefore, that this man might succeed in founding the
new kingdom. But it was more probable that the attempt
would fail. While some doubted the force and irresistible
might of the divine voice, others were dubious whether
any worldly weapons could overthrow the power of the
Sultan and put an end to his existence. And if the under-
taking failed, it would mean disaster for all the Jews living
in the Turkish Empire. There was an old law, incorporat-
ing the typical resistance of a strong power to a weak
group within it, which ran as follows: “The deed of the
222 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
individual becomes the crime of all if it be regarded as
evil. But the deed of the individual, if it be good, is held
to the credit of the individual alone.” If Sabbatai’s at-
tempt failed, all the Jews of the land would immediately
become traitors, and a new chain of affliction would be
forged for them. That was why he had enemies.
Sabbatai was well aware of this and so could not look
back with a feeling of confidence to the mass of his fol-
lowers. But neither did it help him to look ahead towards
his goal, and fire his imagination by the decisive action
with which he was faced. For here, too, everything was
vague and shrouded in uncertainty. He had not the faint-
est notion what he would do in Constantinople. For all he
had said and done had merely led up to the journey he was
taking, and had petered out in this final effort. He was
travelling towards his goal. He was approaching the place
where his destiny was to be fulfilled, but it was impos-
sible for him to know or to guess what was going to hap-
pen there or what he would do. He was in mid-ocean,
sailing before the wind. Something must surely happen to
show him the way, to whisper the words in his ear, and
place the weapon in his hand.
What does a man do who is thrown upon his own re-
sources amid February tempests in a small sailing vessel
with no visible means of escape and no goal whether he
looks back to yesterday or forward to tomorrow, whether
he turns his eyes backwards or forwards? He will try to
discover that mysterious intermediate plane, the realm of
dreams, where nothing is real, and anything and every-
thing may happen, where fairy tale, legend, and poetic
fancy have set up their fantastic sway, and from whence
MIGDAL OS 223
they will one day force their entry into life with all the
power of reality.
So he sat and dreamed on this journey, and when time
and again he had to seek shelter at night from the rag-
ing storm in some little seaport town, he reached solid
earth, it is true, but not solid reality. The wind remained
steadily against him, as if it were trying to keep him from
his goal. This was a bad omen, and his companions, four
scholars belonging to his most intimate circle, were in-
clined to dissuade him from continuing the journey. But
in the little ports in which he took refuge, he heard things
which made it impossible for him to turn back. Legends
had travelled far ahead of him. It was reported, for in-
stance, that Sabbatai had not set sail with four scholars,
but with an escort of four hundred prophets. The vessel
was said to have no crew and no captain but had hoisted
sail and set forth on its voyage alone and a cloud or a pil-
lar of fire had come down from heaven and completely
enveloped it. Presently a storm had blown up which
threatened to wreck it, but Sabbatai had risen up and put
his foot against the mast and in the twinkling of an eye
the ship had reached Constantinople.
Sabbatai was comforted to think that people believed
all this, for relying on a power which had never yet for-
saken him, he had foretold the precise day on which he
would reach Constantinople. Either people would never
know, or else they would soon forget that the wind had
upset all his arbitrary calculations. The faith and credu-
lity of his friends had soon found a reason for the fact that
his little nutshell was forced again and again to seek
refuge in port; in order to delay the ship’s progress, the
224 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
Messiah, they argued, had commanded it to enter ports
along its route, as he did not wish to reach Constantinople
before the twenty-first of January.
His various visits ashore convinced Sabbatai that it was
impossible to turn back. Apparently on hearing the news
that the Messiah was going to Constantinople, many Jews
had left their homes of their own accord, and were already
on their way to the capital from every part of the world
to witness the great things which were to take place there.
This news greatly encouraged him. Thus in this city,
which might be full of danger for him, he would not be
utterly friendless and forsaken. Moreover, he had taken
certain precautions, and had sent a faithful follower,
Rabbi Bune, ahead to Constantinople to make the neces-
sary arrangements for his arrival and reception.
He continued on his way, still dreaming.
On this dreamland plane there were many strange and
comforting resting-places. Not only did rumours and
legends emanate from Sabbatai’s own circle, but they also
came to him from outside. Just at this juncture a strange
story, brought by seamen from the Netherlands, reached
his ears. They declared that a ship was said to have been
sighted north of Scotland with silk sails and rigging; it
was manned by a crew who all spoke Hebrew and a huge
flag floated on the foremast bearing the names of the
twelve tribes of Israel.
Such miracles and apparitions, and realities of this
description, which no believer could doubt, fitted in well
with dreaming, and helped to shorten the long and try-
ing journey. Moreover, they helped to create little reserves
MIGDAL OS 225
of energy, with which to face the clash with actuality
which was bound to come.
Sabbatai’s opponents had seen to it that this clash
should occur immediately on his arrival. Having weighed
the pros and cons, and considered what was possible and
probable, they had come to the conclusion that while hope
was out of the question, there was every reason to fear
danger, and it was imperative to ward this off from the
community and also to protect themselves in good time
from any suspicion of being implicated in the proposed
act of treason. Consequently, before the ship had reached
the Dardanelles, the representatives of the Jewish com-
munity in Constantinople presented themselves before the
Grand Vizier, Achmed KG6prili, and made the following
statement: “There will shortly arrive from Ismir a cer-
tain vessel, upon which will be a man who declares him-
self to be the Messiah of the Jewish people. His intention
is to take the crown from the head of the Sultan and set
it upon his own. We do not believe he is the Messiah.
We think he is either a poor deluded creature or a char-
latan.’’ Having discharged this duty they took their leave,
possibly comforting themselves with the secret reflection
that, if after all he was the Messiah, God would not fail
to help him. If thou be the Son of God, save thyself!
But they need not have troubled to make this declara-
tion; for only a few weeks previously K6prili had received
a report from the Kadi of Ismir, in which the latter had
asked for instructions as to the attitude he should adopt
towards the leader of the new religious movement. De la
Croix, the French Ambassador to the Porte, an extremely
226 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
enlightened man, declared that K6prili was far from be-
ing a bloodthirsty man, but he had the reputation of being
a great statesman, who had taken thoroughly to heart the
lesson of recent events and had ruthlessly removed from
the Porte any one against whom he had the smallest sus-
picions. But he was impartial and incorruptible in the ad-
ministration of justice.
On the receipt of the Kadi’s report he had sent orders
for Sabbatai to be imprisoned. It was a harmless measure,
but would do much to secure the peace. But before the
measure could be carried out he heard that the new Mes-
siah was already on his way to fulfil his threat. And the
Jews confirmed the report. He therefore felt that more
energetic steps must be taken against the menace. Whoever
Sabbatai Zevi might be, the intention he had expressed
stamped him as a man conspiring to commit high treason.
Therefore he must be put out of the way before he could
foment disturbances. K6prili, who in addition to his other
functions, filled the office of Chief Justice of the Empire
with full power of life and death, sentenced Sabbatai to
be impaled before he reached Constantinople, and left it
to a Kaimakam to make the necessary arrangements. And
thus death, which had threatened Sabbatai in so many dif-
ferent forms, now lay waiting for him once more, though
he knew nothing of it. He sailed on and dreamed. The
ship had now been about forty days on its journey, an
exceptionally long time even for that season of the year.
But as soon as it was in sight of land, the Kaimakam’s
spies were already on their way, to seize its passengers as
they landed. Sabbatai probably knew what he had to ex-
pect, and might try to land at some deserted spot along
MIGDAL OS 227
the Dardanelles coast, with the object of suddenly making
his appearance in Constantinople. But to prevent dis-
turbances in the city he must be forestalled. And the spies
accordingly kept a sharp look-out all along the coast.
At last they espied a ship fighting its way through the
storm and hugging the coast with the minimum of sail.
A few people staggered down the gangway to the beach.
They were obviously Jews. The officer of the watch asked
them their names, their port of embarkation and their
destination. He heard one of them reply: ‘‘Sabbatai Zevi
—Ismir—Constantinople.”? He nodded, and without of-
fering either violence or explanation, a band of armed
men quietly closed round the little group.
Making no attempt to resist, Sabbatai and his friends
mounted the horses offered to them, and rode until night-
fall, when they reached Chekmese Rutshuk, a place near
Constantinople. There they rested for the night and the
whole of the next day, for it was the Sabbath, and the
Kaimakam. respected their wish not to desecrate it by
travelling. :
Meanwhile, however, somebody had heard of their ar-
rival, and either he or his news travelled faster than the
horses of the prisoners. By Friday evening some of Sab-
batai’s followers had already reached the spot, arriving
on foot, or else in carriages or on horseback. They spent
the whole night on the pavement outside the building in
which the Messiah was confined, so that they might see
him as early as possible on the morrow. When they were
at last admitted to his presence, they broke into loud
lamentations at his fate, asking bitterly how he could save
them when he himself was in chains. But Sabbatai rose
228 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
superior to it all; he was perfectly calm and pointed out
that they could not hope to see him free unless they had
first seen him in chains. Even Joseph had been taken as a
prisoner to Egypt, but had risen to power in the end. It
was all a divine secret which they did not understand.
Possibly the faithful were comforted by this. At all
events they did everything they could at the moment
to alleviate his lot and to make it worthy of him. They
slipped money into the Kaimakam’s palm, and in return
he took off the prisoners’ chains. They then constructed a
raised seat like a throne for the Messiah, and setting the
Rabbis beside him, celebrated the Sabbath with him in a
mood of mingled depression and excitement.
Meanwhile the whole of Constantinople rang with the
news. The Jewish Messiah was coming! The Turks did
not appreciate the full significance of this, though they
felt that something strange, menacing, and provocative
lay behind it, against which they must be on their guard.
Almost before they knew what they were doing, they were
already on the road in groups and parties, setting out to
meet this strange Messiah and to dispose of him. But the
authorities wished to avoid all disturbances and scandal.
The prisoners and their escort were accordingly sent along
by-ways and, after hiding in a customs house near the
coast during the day, they reached Constantinople secretly
by night under cover of a fog. The Messiah was taken
to the debtors’ jail and placed in custody there. He had
made his entry into the capital, but somewhat differently
from the way he had pictured in his imagination! Once
again in his life events took charge of him, as it were, and
led him along.
MIGDAL OS 229
Although neither he nor his companions had been able
to exchange many words with his followers, and although
the time that had elapsed between his landing and his
confinement in custody had been as short as possible and
there had been no fuss or disturbances, the whole city
knew on the very same day that the Messiah had arrived
and that he was in prison.
A half stifled sigh escaped from the lips of the faithful
and their opponents. In the streets the former looked sad,
the latter scoffed. “Gheldz m¢?—Is he coming?” cried the
Mohammedans scornfully, and drove off the Jews with
a hail of stones. But the latter returned, and crowded
round the prison walls. They were waiting for something
to happen, or to get even a glimpse of the man who,
whether a charlatan or not, was agitating the wor]d—their
world. But they waited in vain. The authorities did not
yet know what was happening or what course to adopt, for
Sabbatai had not been examined. He was not examined
until two days later, and the proceeding led to a scene
of which the people knew nothing as long as Sabbatai was
alive. Képrili sent one of his lieutenants to the prison. He
could not go himself, as his presence in person would have
lent the matter far too great importance, and his lieuten-
ant was well informed. Even if he had not had everything
explained to him by the Grand Vizier, he would have
been bound to know what had become.a common topic of
conversation all over the country—that the Jews were
expecting a Messiah.
Even a follower of Mohammed could not remain en-
tirely unmoved by such news; for all faith is founded on
the hope that in the far distant future all earthly troubles
230 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
will be ended by the advent of a Messiah at whose com-
ing the eternal chain of birth, death and recurrence will
be broken and all be peace. From time to time all the |
world over the cry had been raised that the Messiah was
at hand, and who could say whence it came, or how the
wind blew the seed of corn on to the little patch of earth
in the rock? )
Thus the question was put to Sabbatai Zevi: ““Who art
thou ? Art thou the Messiah of the Jews?” And the ground
seemed to be shaken by the subterranean rumblings of the
question which hundreds of years before the Governor of
Judea had asked. But the latter had put the query with
boredom and indifference, his mind full of fear the while
lest the accused and those who had brought the charge
against him might get him into trouble with a certain
gouty and suspicious old man in Capri, who would hold
him responsible for any disturbance. Whereas in Con-
stantinople the question was asked more irresponsibly, per-
haps, but with greater interest and suspense.
Different though the replies were in each case, they
have this in common, that neither bore the stamp of a
really frank avowal. A man might in his own heart, and
before his God, silently repeat again and again that he
was the Messiah, and this affirmation would confirm him
in his belief in his call. But confronted by an inquiry on
the part of an outsider, or by the hostile curiosity and in-
terest of those who put the question, not because they
wished to believe, but to test and judge the claimant, the
sense of irrevocability rises up like a great wall. The Mes-
siah of Galilee got out of the difficulty by means of an
ambiguous phrase, which gave some sort of reply but left
MIGDAL OS 231
the decision in the hands of fate. ‘“Thou sayest it.’ The
_Messiah of Ismir reached out with both hands for an
anchor by which to secure himself and lied. “‘I am a scholar
sent from Jerusalem to collect alms for the poor of Pales-
tine,’ he said.
He lied! He was not a fighter by nature. Just as he had
left the scene without defending himself when the Rab-
bis of Ismir had pronounced their ban, and when the Rab-
bis of Salonica had hurled their threats against him, so
now he retreated before a power which was trying to lay
violent hands on him and might prove dangerous. But,
after all, he knew his opponents and had to reckon with
the possibility of being attacked. He had had time enough
to decide what his attitude would be and to think out blow
and counter-blow. But just as reality had always failed
to offer him the fulfilment he expected, so he always
failed when confronted by reality. His belief in himself
and his mission was renewed only when some outside force
lent him confidence and support. If he met with opposi-
tion and power was not clearly on his side, he gave
way.
Thus he again had recourse to the petty human expe-
dient of falsehood. The Pasha’s lieutenant, also remaining
on a petty human plane, retorted by giving Sabbatai a
mighty slap in the face. It was meant for Sabbatai, not
the Messiah. It was the automatic reflex action of a man
giving expression to his feelings of relief after a moment
of fear and repression. But after it he had a tender spot
in his heart for Sabbatai, whom he had no further cause
to fear; for, after all, he was not the Messiah, but with
tare presence of mind had merely obeyed a strange com-
232 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
mand, frequently preached but rarely carried out, and
had of his own accord humbly turned the other cheek to
his adversary. And the Pasha’s lieutenant was touched.
Discussing the matter later on, he declared that the Jews
had obviously proclaimed Sabbatai Messiah against his
will, and that the blow he had struck him was really
meant for the Jews who had forced him into that position.
After this brief examination, no further steps were
taken. There was no need for them. For when a man
openly acknowledged his real calling there could be no
cause for further anxiety. Nevertheless, as an individual
capable of provoking disorder and excitement among the
masses it was thought advisable to keep him in prison
to prevent him from exercising his activities in this way
and promoting a Messiah movement though there was no
Messiah. This provided further reason for not treating
him with the severity usually meted out to malefactors in
custody, for he was merely the instrument of crime and
not himself a criminal.
But another outside factor was at work—a document
was passed from hand to hand which carried all the weight
an official political manifesto would in the present day. A
cool-headed diplomat, the “‘Bailo’”’ Giambattista Bal-
larino, Grand Chancellor of the Venetian Embassy at
the Porte, had sent it from Pera to his Government on
March 18, 1666, six weeks after the Messiah had been
cast into prison. The report was perfectly sober, yet the
mass of improbabilities it contained reflected the glamour
which still radiated from the fitfully iridescent figure of
the Messiah. The Ambassador felt this and therefore fore-
stalled any objection the reader might advance against
MIGDAL OS 233
the fantastic nature of his tale. “Chiudo quest? humilis-
sta lettera con racconto forse nell? apparenza vano e
souverchio, da me percid pretermesso net passaté dispacce,
ma altrettanto essentiale nel riflesso a vantaggi che van
récavando questé Barbari da qualunque nuovo emergente.”
He then proceeded to describe the origin and aims of
the movement and the confusion it caused among those
who joined it. He also knew that even before Sabbatai’s
landing the fate of the Messiah had been decided and that
he had been condemned to death. And now everybody was
wondering why the sentence had not been carried out.
For it was pointed out—and in view of K6prili’s policy
for securing the safety of the state the argument appears
cogent enough—that those who were a danger and a
menace to the Porte, or were even suspected of being so,
were given short shrift. They were quietly put out of the
way and all anxiety was.at an end. Why then did nothing
happen to Sabbatai? |
And indeed nothing happened, except that Sabbatai
Zevi asked for an audience of Achmed K6prili and his
request was granted. He played all the trump cards he
held—his appearance, his voice, his astonishing mastery
of the Arabic language, and the suggestive power of his
personality, with the result that the Grand Vizier spared
his life and did not pass judgment upon him, but confined
himself to limiting his freedom of action, and furthermore
treated him as a prisoner of distinction. Had Sabbatai im-
plored Képrili to spare his life? Had he proved himself
to be so harmless that it seemed unnecessary to carry out
the death sentence? Or had he talked the Grand Vizier
round and convinced: him? A contemporary remarks:
234 THE MESSIAH OF ISMIR
“What Sevy said or did at the interview I shall not dis-
cuss, as it is too uncertain. .. .”
Ballarino suggested a plausible reason for this extraor-
dinary turn of events. ‘““The Turkish statesman,” he de-
clared, ‘winked his eye at the movement so as to be able to
- extort money from its supporters.’’ And the Turks did
indeed profit financially by it. But was there any move-
ment or any helpless outlaw through whom the authorities
would have refused to enrich themselves? As the sub- _
sequent course of events proved, at first a sense of security _
made them careless and afterwards fear made them un-
certain what to do. Possibly, however, the solution of the
whole problem is to be found in the impression made on
the Grand Vizier by Sabbatai Zevi himself at their in-
terview; for indiscreet rumours emphatically declared
that Achmed K6prili had a soft place in his heart for
handsome men.
Thus Sabbatai remained in prison in Constantinople
and was treated with the utmost consideration. He was
not put in chains, but was given a comfortable room which
looked more like the apartment of a prisoner of state than
a cell, and his friend and secretary Primo was accom-
modated in a room next door. He was allowed to say which
of his more intimate friends he wished to have constantly
with him. Except for lack of freedom he wanted for noth-
ing. Indeed, in the peace that was forced upon him and
the involuntary isolation of his lot he found the strength
to prepare himself for a fresh and formidable advance
and struggle with God. He spent his time in the severest
self-mortification. Prayer alternated with fasting, and
his fasts often lasted three days. With profound faith he
tah
EL arraTtt 1366
URE RRB OAT
te
SABBATAI IN PRISON
Receiving a Delegation from the Jewish
Community of Constantinople
PENITENTIAL EXERCISES OF THE
SABBATAIANS IN SALONICA
ne ee eee Co ee a Re RE a ee Ea ee ene ee ee ge ee Cree ee ne OnE See
MIGDAL OS 235
once more staked everything on the hour of redemption,
and was determi
The Messiah of Ismir: Sabbatai Zevi
Joseph Kastein