History of the Jews, Vol. 5 (of 6). Graetz Heinrich
with long strides. His whole conduct was out of the ordinary groove. He was also wont to sing coarse love songs in Spanish, with a mystical meaning, about the emperor's fair daughter Melisselda, with her coral lips and milk-white skin, as she rose out of the bath. Sabbataï used another means to win hearts. When he showed himself in the streets he distributed sweet-meats of all sorts to the children, who in consequence ran after him, and he thus gained the favor of their mothers.
An incident brought his eccentric ideas nearer their realization. The community at Jerusalem was sentenced by one of the pachas or some minor official to one of those oppressive exactions which frequently carried torture or death in their train. The impoverished members rested their hopes solely on Raphael Joseph Chelebi at Cairo, known to have the means and inclination to succor his afflicted brethren, especially the saints of Jerusalem. A messenger was to be sent to him, and Sabbataï Zevi was universally regarded as the most fitting, particularly as he was a favorite with the Saraph-Bashi. He undertook this task willingly, because he hoped to get the opportunity to play the part of saviour of the Holy City. His worshipers date from this journey to Egypt the beginning of his miraculous power, and assert that he accomplished many miracles at sea. Sabbataï however traveled not by water, but by land, by way of Hebron and Gaza, probably joining a caravan through the desert. He excited so much attention that all the Jews of Hebron, in order to observe him, refrained from sleep during the night of his stay. Arrived at Cairo, he immediately received from Chelebi the sum required for the ransom of the community at Jerusalem, and, besides, an extraordinarily favorable opportunity presented itself to confirm his Messianic dreams.
During the massacre of the Jews in Poland by Chmielnicki, a Jewish orphan girl of about six was found by Christians, and put into a nunnery. Her parents were dead, a brother had been driven to Amsterdam, the whole community broken up and put to flight, and no one troubled himself about the forsaken child, so that the nuns of the convent regarded the foundling as a soul brought to them and gave her a Christian conventual education. The impressions received in the house of her parents were so lively, that Christianity found no entrance into her heart; she remained faithful to Judaism. Nevertheless, her soul was nourished by fantastic dreams induced by her surroundings, and her thoughts took an eccentric direction. She developed into a lovely girl, and longed to escape from the cloister. One day she was found by Jews, who had again settled in the place, in the Jewish cemetery. Astonished at finding a beautiful girl of sixteen lightly clad in such a position, they questioned her, and received answer that she was of Jewish extraction, and had been brought up in a convent. The night before, she said, she had been bodily seized by her father's ghost, and carried out of bed to the cemetery. In support of her statement, she showed the women nail-marks on her body, which were said to come from her father's hands. She appears to have learnt in the convent the art of producing scars on her body. The Jews thought it dangerous to keep a fugitive from the convent in their midst, and sent her to Amsterdam. There she found her brother. Eccentric by nature and excited by the change in her fortunes, she continually repeated the words, that she was destined to be the wife of the Messiah, who was soon to appear. After she had lived some years in Amsterdam under the name of Sarah, she came – it is not known for what purpose – by way of Frankfort-on-the-Main to Leghorn. There, as credible witnesses aver, she put her charms to immoral use, yet continued to maintain that she was dedicated to the Messiah, and could contract no other marriage. The strange history of this Polish girl circulated amongst the Jews, and penetrated even to Cairo. Sabbataï Zevi, who heard of it, gave out that a Polish-Jewish maiden had been promised to him in a dream as his spiritual wife. He sent a messenger to Leghorn, and had Sarah brought to Cairo.
By her fantastical, free, self-confident behavior and by her beauty, Sarah made a peculiar impression upon Sabbataï and his companions. He himself was firmly convinced of his Messiahship. To Sabbataï and his friends the immoral life of this Polish adventuress was not unknown. This also was said to be a Messianic dispensation; he had been directed, like the prophet Hosea, to marry an unchaste wife. No one was so happy as Raphael Joseph Chelebi, because at his house the Messiah met his bride, and was married. He placed his wealth at the disposal of Sabbataï Zevi, and became his most influential follower. The warm adhesion of so dignified, respected, and powerful a man brought many believers to Sabbataï. It was rightly said, that he had come to Egypt as a messenger, and returned as the Messiah. For, from this second residence at Cairo dates his public career. Sarah, also, the Messiah's fair bride, brought him many disciples. Through her a romantic, licentious element entered into the fantastic career of the Smyrna Messiah. Her beauty and free manner of life attracted youths and men who had no sympathy with the mystical movement. With a larger following than when he started, Sabbataï returned to Palestine, bringing two talismans of more effective power than Kabbalistic means – Sarah's influence and Chelebi's money. At Gaza he found a third confederate, who helped to smooth his path.
At Jerusalem there lived a man named Elisha Levi, who had migrated thither from Germany. The Jews of the Holy City dispatched him to all parts of the world with begging letters. Whilst he was roaming through northern Africa, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Poland, his son Nathan Benjamin Levi (1644–1680) was left to himself, or the perverse education of that time. He developed, in the school of Jacob Chages, into a youth with superficial knowledge of the Talmud, acquired Kabbalistic scraps, and obtained facility in the high-sounding, but hollow, nonsensical Rabbinical style of the period, which concealed poverty of thought beneath verbiage. The pen was his faithful instrument, and replaced the gift of speech, in which he had little facility. This youth was suddenly raised from pressing poverty to opulence. A rich Portuguese, Samuel Lisbona, who had moved from Damascus to Gaza, asked Jacob Chages to recommend a husband for his beautiful, but one-eyed daughter, and he suggested his disciple Nathan Benjamin. Thus he became connected with a rich house, and in consequence of his change of fortune, lost all stability, if he had had any. When Sabbataï Zevi, with a large train of followers, came to Gaza on his way back from Cairo, posing as the Messiah, and accepted as such by the crowds gathering about him, Nathan Ghazati (i. e., of Gaza) entered into close relationship with him. In what way their mutual acquaintance and attachment arose is not explained. Sabbataï's disciples declared that Nathan had dug up a part of the ancient writing, wherein Zevi's Messiahship was testified. It is probably nearer the truth, that Sabbataï, to convince Ghazati of his mission, palmed off on him the spurious document received from Abraham Yachini. At any rate Nathan became his most zealous adherent, whether from conviction or from a desire to play a prominent part, can no longer be discerned in this story, in which simple faith, self-deception, and willful imposture, border so close on one another.
After Nathan Ghazati and Sabbataï had become acquainted, the former a youth of twenty, the latter a man of forty, prophetic revelations followed close upon one another. Ghazati professed to be the risen Elijah, who was to pave the way for the Messiah. He gave out that he had received a call on a certain day (probably the eve of the Pentecost, 1665), that in a year and a few months the Messiah would show himself in his glory, would take the sultan captive without arms, only with music, and establish the dominion of Israel over all the nations of the earth. The Messianic age was to begin in the year 1666. This revelation was proclaimed everywhere in writing by the pretended prophet of Gaza, with the addition of wild fantasies and suggestive details. He wrote to Raphael Joseph acknowledging the receipt of the moneys sent by him, and begging him not to lose faith in Sabbataï; the latter would certainly in a year and some months make the sultan his subject and lead him about as a captive. The dominion would be entrusted to Nathan, until he should conquer the other nations without bloodshed, warring only against Germany, the enemy of the Jews. Then the Messiah would betake himself to the banks of the river Sabbation, and there espouse the daughter of the great prophet, Moses, who at the age of thirteen would be exalted as queen, with Sarah as her slave. Finally, he would lead back the ten tribes to the Holy Land, riding upon a lion with a seven-headed dragon in its jaws. The more exaggerated and absurd Nathan's prophetic vaporings were, the more credence did they find. A veritable fit of intoxication took possession of nearly all the Jews of Jerusalem and the neighboring communities. With a prophet, formerly a shy youth, proclaiming so great a message, and a Messiah, more profoundly versed in the Kabbala than Chayim Vital, who could venture to doubt the approach of the time of grace? Those who shook their heads at this rising imposture were laughed to scorn by the Sabbatians.
The rabbinical leaders of the Jerusalem community were unfavorably struck by this Messianic movement, and