Popkin Sabbat e Ans

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Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania

The Sabbatian Movement in Turkey (1703-1708) and Reverberations in Northern EuropeAuthor(s): Richard H. Popkin and Stephanie ChasinSource: The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 94, No. 2 (Spring, 2004), pp. 300-317Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1455429 .

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THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, Vol. 94, No. 2 (Spring 2004) 300-317

The SabbatianMovementin Turkey(1703-1708) and ReverberationsnNorthern EuropeRICHARD H. POPKIN AND STEPHANIE CHASIN

WE DISCUSS IN THIS ESSAY some hitherto unknown documents thatrecently came to our attention. Our investigation started from a simpleexamination as to whether Gershom Scholem had used Jacques Bas-nage's Hi#toiredesJtuti in his book on Sabbatai Zevi. We found that Scho-lem cites one item from Basnage's work, namely, the study of some ofNostradamus'sprophecies by the Sabbatian leader AbrahamMiguel Car-dozo.' When we looked up the reference in the fifteen-volume 1715-16edition of Basnage, we found a much larger text concerning SabbataiZevi and his disciples.2 The information on the Sabbatian movementcame from early eighteenth-century letters by Johannes Heyman, aFlemish pastor in Turkey, and Baron Daniel Jan de Hochepied, theDutch consul at Smyrna. These letters were sent to the burgermeisterofDeventer, Gijsbert Cuper. Basnage apparently cites from the actual let-ters rather than from any printed source.

In his history of the Jews, Basnage mentions Heyman's meeting withCardozo, who informed him of a former pupil of his, Daniel Israel Bona-foux, living in Smyrna at that time, and was destined to become Car-dozo's successor as leader of the Sabbatian movement. The phenomenalexcitement generated by Sabbatai Zevi's prophetic announcements of1665-66 led to the appearanceof prophets all over Europe and the Otto-

We would like to thank Professor Matt Goldish of Ohio State University forhis interest and encouragement and, especially, for providing information aboutthe status of the Sabbatian movement in Jewish communities in Turkey, Egypt,and Palestine.1. Gershom Scholem, SabbataiSevi: The Mystical Messiah (Princeton, N.J.,1973), 646, n. 145.

2. Jacques Basnage, HMstoiredes Jutif depuid Jesus-Christ jusqa'a present: Pourservir de continuation a l'HIMtoire e Joseph (The Hague, 1716).

The Jeuwis Quarterly Reviue (Spring 2004)Copyright (? 2004 Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. All rights reserved.


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THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT-POPKIN AND CHASIN 301man Empire.3After his death there were messianic claimants in Polandand various parts of the Middle East, some declaring themselves to be thereincarnation of Sabbatai. Cardozo probably represented the mainstreamgroup of survivors, hence Daniel Israel, as Cardozo's successor, couldcall upon the significant following that was still loyal to Sabbatai Zevithrough Cardozo's interpretations.4

In his article on Cardozo for the Encyclopediaudaica,Scholem writesthat Cardozo was part of a Sabbatian group that believed Sabbatai Zeviwould return forty years after his conversion to Islam.5Following Car-dozo, Daniel Israel claimed that Sabbatai Zevi was still living and would,after forty-five years in hiding, return as promised to deliver his peoplefrom their suffering.6Since Sabbatai Zevi died in 1676 this would put hisreappearanceat 1721.

In his recent treatment of European reactions to the Sabbatai Zevistory, Michael Heyd discusses the anonymous text "The Devil of Del-phos, Or, the Prophets of Baal," which lists false messiahs and prophets,naming Sabbatai Zevi as the most famous imposter.7While Heyd identi-fies the text as a comparison of Sabbatianism and the French Prophets,he makes no historical connection between what was going on in London,Rotterdam, and in the Ottoman Empire. Neither Scholem nor Heyd men-tion Daniel Israel, his connection to Cardozo, or the interest shown inhim by European millenariansin the Netherlands and Smyrna.

From 1703 until 1709 Heyman and Hochepied in Smyrna engaged ina lively discussion with Cuper in the Netherlands about the Sabbatian

3. See Richard H. Popkin, "Two Unused Sources about Sabbatai Zevi andhis Effect on European Communities," DutchJewish History 2: Proceedings f theFourthSymposium n theHistoryof theJewsin theNetherlands, -10 DecemberTel-Aviv-Jeruwalem,986, ed. Jozeph Michman (Jerusalem: Institute for Research onDutch Jewry, Hebrew Univ., 1989), 2:67-74.4. For more information about some of these other messianic prophets afterSabbatai Zevi's death, see Harris Lenowitz, The Jewui,hMessiahs (New York,1998), 168-97.

5. Gershom Scholem, "Cardozo,AbrahamMiguel," Encyclopediaudaica(NewYork, 1972), 5:164-65. Cardozo had been the leading figure in the Sabbatianmovement after Sabbatai Zevi's death but seems not to have been completelyaccepted because he was a Spaniard and not a Turkish Jew. (He also refused toconvert to Islam as Sabbatai had done.)6. Jacques Basnage, TheHistoryof theJews romJesusChrit to thePresentTime,trans. Thomas Taylor (London, 1708 ed.), 758.7. See Michael Heyd, "The 'Jewish Quaker': ChristianPerceptions of Sabba-tai Zevi as an Enthusiast,"HebraicaVeritas?ChristianHebraists,Jews,and theStudyofJudaim inEarlyModernEurope, d. Allison Coudert and Jeffrey Shoulson (Phil-adelphia, forthcoming 2004).


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302 JQR 94:3 (2004)movement and the state of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Cuper thenpassed this information on to Jacques Basnage, who put it in the 1708English edition of his history of the Jews. Each of these men was a mem-ber of either the Dutch or the French Reformed Church in the Nether-lands, and it was clear from their letters that Calvinism lay behind theirinterest in the Jewish community of the Ottoman Empire. This corre-spondence between Smyrna and the Netherlands generates a number ofquestions. Why did events concerning the Jews, the Sabbatian move-ment, and its principal figures so intrigue these men? Was there a conver-sionary and millenarian impulse stemming from the Reformed Churchthat provoked inquiries into the Sabbatian movement? Did the curiosityabout the Jews in Smyrna have a connection with the millenarian im-pulses of the contemporary French Prophets movement in Europe? Andwhat does all of this tell us about Basnage's major work, Hi.itoiredesJuf11?

Setting out to learn what we could about Gijsbert Cuper, we found amassive trove of papers by this polymath at the Dutch Royal Library, ofwhich only a small part has been catalogued. Cuper was professor ofclassics and headmaster of the Athenaeum at Deventer. He correspondedregularly with some of the leading scholars both in the Netherlands andabroad, including Johann Georg Graevius, Petrus Burman, Pierre Bayle,Jean le Clerc, and G. W. Leibniz. There were also several letters to Cuperfrom the Flemish pastor Heyman and the consul Hochepied.8

Cuper's correspondence with Heyman, Hochepied, Basnage, and oth-ers coincided with the arrival in 1707 in England of the Huguenot refu-gees.9 After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 it was nolonger legal to be a Protestant in France. Hundreds of thousands of refu-gees poured into the Netherlands, Germany, and England. A remnantremained in France, carrying on their religious beliefs in secret, hiding inthe woods and caves. Pierre Jurieu, the leader of the French ReformedChurch exiles in the Netherlands (and Basnage's brother-in-law), becametheir contact with the outside world, sending them sermons and receivingmessages from them. When the persecutions in France became unbear-able, these Protestants also fled. In England, they became known as theFrench Prophets on account of their mystical practices and propheticrevelations about the portent of their predicament. In the first decade of

8. We thank Professor Wiep van Bunge of Erasmus University of Rotterdamfor putting us in touch with a Dutch graduate student, Ruben Buys, who wentto the Royal Library and copied the letters in which we were interested andcarried on a further search for related materials, both there and in Leiden. Weare most grateful to Mr. Buys for his invaluable help in our research.9. We thank Matt Goldish for pointing out this coincidence.


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THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT-POPKIN AND CHASIN 303the eighteenth century, they attracted much attention. Nicolas Fatio deDuillier, Isaac Newton's most important mathematical disciple, becameone of the movement's leaders, and various members of English nobilityjoined the group. Great expectations were generated, followed by greatpersecutions. Some left England for the Netherlands and started mille-narian ferment among the French Reformed and Dutch ReformedChurch. It was to the leaders of the movement in Rotterdam that PierreJurieu provided both shelter and money.'0

Both Jacques Basnage and Gijsbert Cuper were extremely interestedin the French Prophets and in the possibility that this group was theharbinger of an imminent millenarian development. The last decade ofthe seventeenth century and the first of the eighteenth was a period ofserious millenarian expectation. In England, scholars like Newton weretrying to figure out when the Messiah would appear from the propheciesin the books of Daniel and Revelation. In his Boyle lectures, WilliamWhiston showed how many of the prophecies had already been fulfilled,how many remained to be fulfilled, and mathematically how long itshould take to get to the end point in time. In the Netherlands, the DutchReformed Church kept up its millenarian hopes. Many of its leaderstrained at Herborn, a Calvinist seminary in Germany with millenariantendencies, which held the Jews to be of critical importance in the culmi-nation of human history." Some of them supported the contemporaryJews of Amsterdam and watched their activities both inside and outsidethe synagogue for signs that the crucial end events were about to begin.From the seventeenth century, the premillennial theory offered by Jo-seph Mede at Cambridge and Johann Heinrich Alsted at Herborn in-cluded the conversion of the Jews as one of its crucial steps. SuchCalvinist scholars tried to ascertain the date when this conversion wouldoccur, with many calculations centered on 1655-56, although the datingproved to be flexible. There was some question whether all Jews wouldbe expected to convert, just some, or, in Mede's theory, just one, like Saulof Tarsus. In light of this, the significance of the Sabbatian movementwas of immediate theological concern. After 1665, when Sabbatai Zevimade his announcement that the messianic age had begun, Protestantmillenarians learned as much as possible about the Sabbatians and Jew-

10. Hillel Schwartz, The FrenchProphets:The History of a MillenarianGroup nEtqhteenth-Centaryngland(Berkeley, 1980), 170-71.11. On the history of Herborn, see Paul Dibon, "Le fonds neerlandais de la

bibliotheque de Herborn," Regardsar la Hollandeda siecled'or (Naples, 1990),191-220.


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304 JQR 94:3 (2004)ish developments in the Ottoman Empire. This seems to explain the con-tacts being established between Herborn and Smyrna and the shift fromtheorizing about the significance of the Sabbatian movement to travelingin the Ottoman Empire to learn about the state of the Jews first-hand.

In Sabbatai Zevi's time, Peter Serrarius testified that he rushed to theAmsterdam synagogue to find out what he could about the rumors thatthe Messiah had come in 1665. He sent John Dury a copy of SabbataiZevi's letter to the Amsterdam synagogue. The Dutch newspapers of thetime contained numerous stories about Sabbatai Zevi, apparently to sat-isfy the curiosity of non-Jews in the Netherlands.'2 Even though the pro-claimed Messiah had never been seen or heard in the Netherlands, theinterest in Sabbatai Zevi and his movement was intense among Jewsand Christians;outside the Ottoman Empire, Amsterdam was one of theprincipal centers of Sabbatianism.'3

Similarly, some of the French Reformed Church leaders in exile, suchas Jurieu, took an active interest in Jewish affairs. Jurieu was even givena pension by the Amsterdam synagogue for promoting the welfare of theJews.'4 Basnage, unlike his brother-in-law, had no patience for the ec-static and mystical methods that the French Prophets used in their mille-narian practices. Nonetheless, he regarded these people as having aspecial religious role in the divine drama and sent supportive messages to

12. Jetteke van Wijk, in her interesting article on the spread of the Sabbatianmovement in Europe, traces the role the emerging mass media played. Whilereports in pamphlets were often not taken seriously, a more objective newspaperjournalism was developing. The first report about the Sabbatian movement inone of these more impartial Dutch newspapers appeared in the summer of 1665and by the beginning of the following year the OprechteHaerle,nseCourantwascovering the events in the Levant in great detail. Between late 1665 and thebeginning of 1667, thirty-nine articles in thirty editions of that particular newspa-per dealt with Sabbatai Zevi and his movement. The coverage not only informedthe Dutch and other Europeans as to the events in Smyrna but also facilitatedthe success of Sabbatianism in Europe. See "The Rise and Fall of Shabbatai Zevias Reflected in Contemporary Press Reports," Studia Rosenthaliana 3:1 (1999):7-27.13. The interest was not confined to the Netherlands and the Ottoman Em-pire. In 1810 the Abbe Gregoire discussed the secret followers of Sabbatai Zeviin Turkey (the Donmeh). He ended his account by stating that in 1808 a followerof Sabbatai Zevi had appeared in Paris as a musician. See Gregoire, Histotredeasectes religieudes: Qut sont nees, se sont modiJi/es, se sont iteintes dans Lesdiffirentes con-tresi diuglobe, depumse commencement du st'ecledernt'erjusqu'al'epoqueactuelle (Paris,1828-45).

14. It would be interesting to know if Jurieu also received material on thecontinuation of the Sabbatian movement in the Ottoman Empire in the earlyeighteenth century.


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THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT-POPKIN AND CHASIN 305his beleaguered coreligionists trapped in France, rushing to support themwhen they emerged in England and the Netherlands. Basnage also madeclear in his Hitoire desJuifj that he expected the messianic age to beginin the very near future and awaited the conversion of the Jews as a pre-lude to the Second Coming, which the 1715-16 edition predicted wouldoccur in 1716.15

In disentangling the various threads from Cuper's correspondence,16 itbecomes evident that Heyman and Hochepied had developed a specialinterest in the Sabbatian movement. Both were students at Herborn, andboth studied under Johannes a Lent, doctor of theology and professor ofOriental languages and Church history, who had published a work onJewish messiahs in 1683 in which he discussed Sabbatai Zevi's career.17Hochepied was appointed Dutch consul in Turkey in 1688.18With thesame zeal with which he championed the interests of the ReformedChurch in Smyrna, Hochepied also vowed to give protection to the Jewsof the Ottoman Empire, a community he considered to be oppressed.19

15. Basnage, HiitoiredesJuf11,715-16 ed., 15:1105: "en comptant les Anneeslunaires a la maniere des Chaldeens, comme faisoit Daniel, qui etoit en ce Pais-la, cet Avenement doit s'accomplir l'An 1716."16. Over the course of a couple of months we received packets of photocopiesof the letters that were found for us in the Dutch Royal Library. Most of themare in Dutch. A graduate student at UCLA, Christine Sellin, translated the mate-rial for us. We were also helped by a visiting Dutch professor, Elly van Gelderen.All the letters we received were between Cuper and Heyman or between Cuperand Basnage. The content of some of these letters clearly indicates that Hochep-ied was a correspondent with Cuper as well, but so far we have been unable tolocate any of his letters.

17. Johannes a Lent, Schediasma idtoricohi/ologicum eJudaeorumseudo-mes-s4il. A 1697 edition of this work is in the collection of the Center for AdvancedJudaic Studies library at the University of Pennsylvania. The work was the onlysource of information that Basnage's good friend, Pierre Bayle, had about Sabba-tai Zevi, who is mentioned just once, very briefly, in Bayle's Dictionary.Baylecould not read the most available sources -the account by Paul Rycault in JohnEvelyn's The Three mpostersand the account by the Dutch consul of the time,Thomas Coenen-since they were in English and Dutch, languages he did notknow. The dissertation by Johannes a Lent includes material from both Rycaultand Coenen. See Pierre Bayle, art. "Weile," in which he writes "faux MessirSabbathi Tzebbi qui avoit fait beaucoup de bruit en Turquiedepuis peu de tems."Dictionnaire istorique et critique,1740 ed., 492. On Rycault and Evelyn, see Rich-ard H. Popkin, "Three English Tellings of the Sabbatai Zevi Story," Jeuwdh ic-tory8:1-2 (1994): 43-54.18. Paul Rycault had held the position of English consul during the time ofSabbatai Zevi.19. Abraham J. van der Aa, BiographcichoordenboekerNederlandenHaarlem,1867).


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306 JQR 94:3 (2004)The second figure in our story, Heyman, was appointed to pastor to theDutch merchants in Smyrna after his graduation from Herborn. Fromthe time he arrived in the Ottoman Empire in the summer of 1700, Hey-man began acquiringthe tools he needed to understand the many culturesaround him. He learned Turkish,Arabic, and Hebrew, among other lan-guages, and he translated Turkish documents for the Dutch govern-ment.20In 1703, Cuper mentions in his letters that he has been reading abook by a Huguenot refugee, Pierre Allix, who, according to his interpre-tation of the book of Daniel, predicts the messianic era will begin in1720.21This, as well as a request from Hochepied, seems to have ledHeyman to investigate Jewish messianism among the Turkish Jews andto send a treatise to Cuper a few months later with the results of hisresearch. This tract was sent via Hochepied. To date we have been unableto locate it but much of its content seems to be repeated in the letters.Heyman and Hochepied embarked on a series of reports to Cuper, at-tempting to learn as much as possible about the messianic Jewish activi-ties in Smyrna and its environs. Heyman made sure that his lettersreached Cuper, sending them on different boats from different ports withinstructions for their delivery to the Netherlands.

At the time Heyman and Hochpied were writing to their Dutch corre-spondents, the Sabbatian movement itself was at something of a cross-roads. Sabbatai Zevi had died in 1676, and his chief prophet, Nathan ofGaza, died in 1680. During the decade after Nathan's death, a consider-able number of Ottoman Jews, convinced of the imminent return of Sab-batai, converted to Islam in his footsteps. This Muslim Sabbatian sectbecame known as the Donmeh, and over the next half century it slowlylost touch with the more conservative Sabbatians who remained withinthe Jewish fold. The same period saw a wave of Sabbatian propheticactivity in Europe, particularlyin connection with the circle of AbrahamRovigo in Italy. In the Ottoman Empire, AbrahamMiguel Cardozo con-tinued his teaching and prophetic activities on behalf of the movement.Daniel Israel Bonafoux, his student and fellow prophet, was possessed ofa maggid,a heavenly mentor who revealed secrets to him, including vari-ous dates of messianic expectation. He saw visions of deceased Sabbatianfigures and performed tricks with a globe of fire that appeared behind

20. This led Cuper later to recommend him to be in charge of language studiesat the University of Leiden.21. Gijsbert Cuper to Johannes Heyman, January 13, 1703, Cuper Collec-tion, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague.


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THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT-POPKIN AND CHASIN 307him as a sign of his bona fides. He also received instructions from Car-dozo on certain mystico-magical activities he was to perform.22

When Heyman and Hochpied reported on Daniel Israel, Israel andCardozo were in the middle of a deep imbroglio with other Sabbatians.The background was this: In 1700, two leaders of the Ashkenazi believ-ers, Judah he-Hasid and Hayim Malakh, had organized and led a size-able movement of Sabbatians to Jerusalem in expectation of Sabbatai'simminent reappearance. Judah he-Hasid died almost immediately upontheir arrival, as did many others who accompanied him. It appeared thatthe enterprise would collapse as yet another failure of Sabbatian proph-ecy; but a number of the believers held out, and they were reinforced in1702 by a new group led by Abraham Rovigo and Mordecai Ashkenazi.A study hall was established with survivors from the original group aswell as the newcomers. Cardozo was deeply distrustful of the entire proj-ect. When representativesof the he-Hasid circle came to Turkeyin 1701-1702, Cardozo warned his disciples there not to get involved with them.He was certain that the Jerusalem undertaking was doomed. He alsoinsisted that the two he-Hasid representatives in Smyrna came not tolearn certain secrets of Sabbatai's teachings from Cardozo's students asthey claimed, but to unmask Daniel Israel as a fraud. (The local rabbishad long suspected Daniel; they had the local qadi expel him from thecity, and he was forced to live in the suburb of Kasaba.) On this occasionCardozo gave Daniel a secret ceremony to perform that would reveal thetrue intentions of these visitors. They soon returned to Jerusalem. Itshould be noted, however, that the he-Hasid group that came to Cardozohimself in Constantinople impressed him favorably and left on goodterms.23

In his first letter on the subject of the Sabbatian movement, Heymanexplains that somebody was presenting himself as a prophet among theJews in Tiria, telling them that Sabbatai Zevi was still alive and would

22. On Daniel Israel Bonafoux, see Sefermerivatkode4h, n Aron Freimann,'InyeneShabtai Tsevi (Berlin, 1912; reprint: Jerusalem, 1968), 10-11; HeinrichGraetz, GeschichteerJuden vondenaltestenZeitenbkizur GegenwartBerlin, 1890);Sefunot14 (= TheBookof GreekJewvry: TheShab6ateanMovementn Greece, ubileeVolume resentedo Gershom cholembyMeirBenayabu) (Jerusalem, 1971-77), 197,and n. 85 there; Basnage, History of theJews, 757-59.23. Meir Benayahu, "The 'Holy Brotherhood' of R. Judah Hasid and theirSettlement in Jerusalem," Sefunot3-4 (1960): 133-82, esp.161-63. See also D. J.Halperin, trans. and ed., AbrahamMiguel Cardozo: electedWritings (New York,2001), 243, 248-49.


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308 JQR 94:3 (2004)return as promised. With scorn, Heyman describes the tricks and magicbeing used to convince the gullible Jews of this message.24Cuper repliesa few months later that Hochepied had written to him about the sameJewish prophet, Daniel Israel,who was in the valley of Magnesia, south-east of Smyrna, and asks Heyman if this is close to Tiria or whether theprofessed prophet is moving from one place to another.25

In the next several letters Heyman supplies more information aboutwhat the Jews are doing and believing and Cuper in turn raises ques-tions. Cuper is dubious about the reports concerning new prophets, cer-tain that the Jews would at some point see the error of following thesefalse messiahs or magicians and convert to Christianity. Although dis-dainful of the conjuring methods used by Daniel Israel, Heyman wassufficiently involved with the Sabbatians to plan a trip to Jerusalem in1704 with the prophet. Heyman asks Cuper if the latter could obtainfunds for the impecunious Daniel Israel to make the trip, but there isnothing in the materialwe have looked through that indicates they madesuch a joint voyage. Heyman, who wrote a book on his travels throughoutEurope and the Middle East, apparently went to Jerusalem at a laterdate without Daniel Israel.26Daniel's desire to go to Palestine in 1704-5,about which we learn from the Dutch correspondence, is instructive. Theanti-Sabbatian camp in Jerusalem had finally asserted itself exactly atthis point and had Hayim Malakh and his Sabbatian group expelled fromthe city. Many converted to Islam. The entire movement was in crisiswith the collapse of this mission of great hope for the believers.27It ap-pears that either Cardozo and Daniel had made peace with the he-Hasid/Malakh group by this time and hoped to revive it, or they sought anentirely separate movement to the Holy Land under their own auspices.In 1705 Cuper writes to Heyman for more information about the ev-eryday life of these Jews. Although he has learned much from Heymanand Hochepied about the Jews who still expect Sabbatai Zevi to returnand celebrate his birthday (and also follow the prophet Daniel Israel),Cuper keeps probing to find out if there are signs that anything is happen-ing within the Jewish community that would indicate preparation formessianic events. Did they live in one community? Were they of one

24. Heyman to Cuper, April 13, 1703.25. Cuper to Heyman, August 3, 170326. Heyman to Cuper, June 23, 1704. On Heyman's travels throughout the

Middle East, see his Reizen door eengedee/te van Europa, kletn Asien, verscheide ilandenvan de archipel, Syrien, Palestina of het H. Land, Aegypten, den berg Sinai, enz (Leiden,1757).

27. Benayahu, "The 'Holy Brotherhood,"' 3-4.


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THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT-POPKIN AND CHASIN 309opinion? He asks Heyman to forward such reports to him, the sooner thebetter, so that he can be informed of this "unprecedented and scarcelybelievable business."28As cited in Basnage, in 1706 Heyman met the leader of the Sabbatians,Abraham Miguel Cardozo, in Cairo. Heyman writes to Cuper that Car-dozo is about a hundred years old and has two wives, one apparentlyyoung enough to have an infant.29It was during this meeting that Car-dozo told Heyman that Daniel Israel was his student and disciple andcited a quatrainfrom Nostradamus to indicate the approachingmessianicevent.30Heyman confides that he is skeptical of Cardozo's claims to be aprophet, saying that his predictions of future events only proved his de-ceit. To indicate that he was in fact the Messiah, Cardozo showed Hey-man the pair of horns that he had behind his ears, which, Heyman relates,he touched and thought were about a finger in length. Heyman then feltbehind his own ears and found the beginnings of little horns, which hebelieved to be a sinister omen.

Cuper expresses surprise that Cardozo would have known of Nostra-damus, of whom he says that he "is seen by that [Jewish] nation as aprophet, which he is also held to be by many Christians."'3' Heyman re-plies that Cardozo probably learned of the French seer while in studyingin Spain, perhaps at Salamanca. Nostradamus' teachings would havebeen more common in a Christian country than in the Muslim world.Cuper was obviously unaware that Cardozo was a Spaniard. Cardozothen transmittedthe prophecies of Nostradamus to the Jews in the Otto-man Empire, who otherwise would not have known of them.32

Heyman remarks that a change occurs in the Sabbatian movement28. "wat van dese ongehoorde en haast ongelooflycke saake magh wesen."

Cuper to Heyman, December 19, 1705.29. Heyman to Cuper, May 29, 1706.30. Heyman to Cuper, May 29, 1706:

En l'an cincq cens octante plus et moinsOn attendra le siecle bien etrangeEn l'an sept cens et trois (cieux en temoins)Regner plusjeurs un a cinq feront change.

31. "datby die natie weit aengesien als een prophet, waer voor hy ook by veilChristenen weit gehouden." Cuper to Heyman, September 27, 1706.32. Heyman to Cuper, January 29, 1707. Nostradamus himself in his letter tothe French king, Henri II, explained that his ability to foretell the future camefrom his forebears. Elsewhere he clarifies this by claiming that he was a memberof one of the lost tribes. See Richard H. Popkin, "Predicting,Prophesying, Divin-ing and Foretelling from Nostradamus to Hume," HMtoryof European deas 5:2(1984): 117-35.


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310 JQR 94:3 (2004)after Cardozo's murder by his nephew in the summer of 1706. DanielIsrael carried on the movement, although, as Heyman writes, he did notperform his rapturous miracles as he had done previously. His powerseemed to have ceased completely, and he carried on his work in silence.33Yet even as Daniel Israel lost some of his influence, the Calvinists'interestin Sabbatianism and the Ottoman Empire's Jewish community did notdiminish.

Heyman and Hochepied gathered information about the attentiongiven to the disciples of Sabbatai Zevi and any messianic activity. In1707, Cuper writes to both Hochepied and Heyman that "from Aleppoto Marseilles, letters have been received" that tell of the "birth of a child,called the messiah and the antichrist,"and that Jews are recounting howcertain miracles and celestial signs appeared on the day of his birth.Cuper comments that the belief in such things is so indecent that he can-not imagine how the grand master of Malta could be taken in by thereports. The Jews, on the other hand, are so credulous, Cuper writes,that they "take everything for a messiah." Nevertheless, Cuper urges hiscorrespondents in Smyrna to find out where these stories come from andwhether Jews, or other Oriental peoples, believe in them.34In the following summer, Heyman writes to Cuper that he had beentaken by the Jews of Smyrna to a nearby village named Sjobarto see thesynagogue that stood above the cave of the prophet Elijah. There theDutch pastor spent the whole time disputing with his hosts and discuss-ing the coming of the Messiah. The Turks, Heyman learned,were expect-ing the arrival of the Antichrist, a giant who could straddle hills half amile apart and whose voice could be heard around the world. Hearinghis call, the Jews would then gather from all parts of the world. TheMuslims expected that Jesus would then descend from heaven, and onthe wings of angels be set down on the towers of the white mosque inDamascus. At this point men would take up daggers and kill the Anti-christ. One of the Jews, who had recently been in Constantinople, relatedto Heyman that he had a letter in High German which told of the birthof a Jewish child in Baghdad who could speak eight days after his cir-cumcision. Heyman asked whether the child was the Messiah, to whichthe answer was no but that the child was sent by the Messiah. Heyman

33. Heyman to Cuper, January 29, 1707.34. "Van Aleppo zyn tot Marseillen brieven vekoomen dewelke Schynen de

geboorte van een kindt, die Messias ende de AntiChrist genaemt wert.... Ickkenne de lightgeloofdigheyt der Jooden, ende dat die natie, een exempel vanGodts reghtveerdighe toorn, alles voor eenen Messias aenneemt." Cuper to Hey-man, March 12, 1707.


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THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT-POPKIN AND CHASIN 311concluded this section of his letter with the hope that he could go toConstantinople in the coming year to learn more.35

Seemingly intrigued by these messages from Smyrna about the birthof a messiah, Cuper relates to Heyman that he had been informed byHochepied about a "child that is supposed to be the Antichrist and thetrue messiah" and that this Jewish child "could eat, walk and speakwithin eight days after the circumcision." Cuper once more dismissessuch reports as fiction, commenting, "thispoor and unhappy folk believeseverything that gives hope." The Jews, he continues, "suffer the judg-ment of God, because [they are] a people that know not Christ.... Iwish from the bottom of my heart, that Christ, if it pleases him, convertshis brothers of the flesh, and that the plenitude of the heathens couldenter into his kingdom."36 n this, Cuper seems to share Basnage's viewthat it is up to the divine power to bring about the conversion of theJews.37

Another item of interest for these correspondents was the dispersal ofJews throughout the world. The search for the lost tribes was intenseduring this period, as it had been since the previous century. Accordingto millenarian beliefs based on passages from the books of Daniel andRevelation, the ten tribes would reappearat the end of time, after the fallof the world's empires. For both Jewish and Christian millenarians, theJews would be returned to the Holy Land, whereupon universal salva-

35. Heyman to Cuper, July 10, 1708.36. "De H. de Hochepid heeft my geschreven van het fabulens kind, dat den

Antichrist soude zyn, en den waaren Messias maer syn Wel G. [his honor] seydtniet, dat dit een verdightsel is van de Venetiansse Jooden.... Het Joods kinddat binnen 8 daghen nae de besnydenis wandelde, ensprak is sekerlyk een ver-dightsel, ende dit arm en ongeluckigh volk gelooft alles wat maer hoop geeft totde komste van haaren noeyd sullende koome Messias.... Het gheen V-Eern[your honor] seydt van de kleynaghtinge die de Mahometaanen voor de Joodenhebben, is al mede een klaar teeken van haare verwerpinge en groote blintheyt,ende siet men daer nyt, dat het oordeel van Goot op haer leyt om dat een volkdat Christus niet kend of ten hooghsten maar aght een prophet te zyn haar sooqualyk handle daernoghtans gheen deel heeft aen den twist die tusschen de Chris-tenen en haar is of den Messias gekoomen is of niet. Ick wensche nyt grond vanmy herd dat Christus eens belief de te beekeeren syne broederen nae het vleeschende dat de volheyt der Heydenen al moghte ingegaen zyn in syn Coningryk."Cuper to Heyman, February 16, 1709.

37. The Amsterdam Jewish community was important in this regard. If theJews were beginning to see the errors of their ways and beginning to convert, itwould be visible to their Christian friends. The Amsterdam Jewish communitywas free and the choice that the Jews would make would not be coerced, as ithad been in Spain and Portugal, but would be most meaningful.


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312 JQR 94:3 (2004)tion would be achieved, although for Christians the conversion of theJews to Christianitywas a vital factor in bringing about the Second Com-ing.38Reports from explorers and colonizers gave rise to theories that thelost tribes were in both North and South America. The opening up ofcommerce to India and China and the discovery of Jewish activities thereled to rumorsthat the lost tribes were in Asia. Similarly, the contact with"judaized" Ethiopians, or Abyssinians, also led to speculations alongthese lines.

The correspondence between Heyman and Cuper clearly reveals theinterest in the millenariantheory of the lost tribes. The conquest of Meccaby the ten tribes of Israel, a recurrent theme circulating in Europe sinceat least the 1640s, was supposed to be a sign that the messianic age wasabout to begin. John Dury gives a picture of this in his introduction toThomas Thorowgood's Jews in America, or Probabilities, that those Indiandare Judaitca1.39 A thousand or more years after Mohammed's conquest ofMecca in 630 C.E., the Jewish recapture would precede their return tothe Holy Land and the messianic events that would then ensue. Someseventeenth-century reports, detailed by Scholem, even claim that Meccahad been conquered by the ten tribes of Israel and it was just a matter ofdays until other events would take place.40

In a letter to Cuper written in 1705, Heyman mentioned a group ofArabs known as the Jews of Chaibar, who lived around Mecca; both heand Cuper attempted to determine the genealogy of this group. Theywere still exchanging information about this community in 1708. Heymannoted that he had asked many people about them. He discovered that inthe time of Mohammed they had an army of twenty-four troops, eachcomprising a thousand men, and that they fought against Mohammedand his followers. They were also called "Anas," Heyman informs Cuper,but when he asked the Jews about this community they told him thatthey were unaware of such a group and that only Arab Muslims were tobe found in that land, possibly "because they were taken with the fanciful

38. See Clarke Garrett, RespectableFolly; MZ/fllenartandnd the French Revolutionin FranceandEngland(Baltimore, 1975), 185; Henri Mechoulan, introduction toMenasseh ben Israel,Esperanced'idrad Paris, 1979), esp. 55-61; Richard H. Pop-kin, "Christian Jews and Jewish Christians in the Seventeenth Century,"JewidhChristians and Christian Jewvs,ed. R. H. Popkin and G. M. Weiner (Dordrecht,1994), 57-72; and Richard H. Popkin, "The Lost Tribes, the Caraites and theEnglish Millenarians,"Journal of JevidhStudies 37:2 (1986): 213-27.

39. See Richard H. Popkin, "The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Indian Theory,"AfenadsehBen Israel and Hid World, ed. Yosef Kaplan, Henry M6choulan, and Rich-ard H. Popkin (Leiden, 1989), 67.40. See Scholem, Sabbatai Sev4 335-36.


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THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT-POPKIN AND CHASIN 313stories of the famous Sabbatian." Heyman vowed to find out more aboutthis.41

The letters from Hochepied and Heyman to Cuper are the reason Sab-batai Zevi and his disciples are to be found in Basnage's history of theJews. A series of letters between Cuper and Basnage in 1707 indicatethat Basnage, a leading pastor and journalistic figure among the Frenchrefugees in the Netherlands, was working on a second edition of his his-tory. Josephus had provided an account of the history of the Jews up tothe Roman destruction of the Temple in the first century. Subsequently,there are accounts of Jewish developments in various parts of the worldbut no complete or comprehensive history.42 Basnage, in exile in theNetherlands, took up where Josephus left off. Basnage saw himself inthe same historical camp as those writing the histories of various coun-tries and movements. His was an attempt to be objective and to structurethe material in a meaningful form. He sought to encompass what hap-pened in Jewish communities all over the world and to deal with impor-tant Jewish theories, such as the kabbalah, in terms that Europeanintellectuals could appreciate. In this sense, Basnage's is the first attemptat a nontheological history.43 Basnage was very close to Pierre Bayle, infriendship and in spirit, and he used much the same historical and criticalmethod.

The documents we have found from the Cuper collection show thatBasnage did not know about the Sabbatai Zevi episode while he waswriting the second edition. Basnage sent a manuscript copy to Cuper in1707 and, in a series of letters, Cuper gave his opinion about variouspoints, evidencing a particular interest in the treatment of false messiahsin ancient and medieval times. As Cuper worked through the manuscripthe realized there was no mention of Sabbatai Zevi. At this point, he rec-ommended to Basnage that he read Johannes 'aLent and also forwardedhim the materials he had been sent by Hochepied and Heyman. This ledBasnage to include some of the Sabbatai Zevi story and part of one ofHeyman's letters on the last page of the English edition that appeared in1708.44Out of order and unconnected to the preceding material, it looked

41. Heyman to Cuper, July 10, 1708.42. Menasseh ben Israel had said that he was going to undertake such a his-tory. He included this venture in the list of books he intended to publish, whichhe appended to various writings. He died before accomplishing the task.

43. See Adam Sutcliffe, Judaidm and Enlihtenment (Cambridge, 2003), espe-cially the chapter "The Limits of Erudition: Jacques Basnage and Pierre Bayle,"79-99.

44. Basnage to Cuper, October 8, 1707.


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314 JQR 94:3 (2004)like what it was: a last-minute addition. In the third edition the materialwas fully incorporated into the section on the Jews in the Ottoman Em-pire.45

Basnage's Hiitoire des Juifs was extremely influential. The first editionof 1706 was so successful that an abridged edition was actually appendedto an edition of Josephus, and a somewhat modified version was putout in Catholic France. A Dutch version appeared in 1726 and SolomonMaimon embarked upon a Hebrew translation in the late eighteenth cen-tury, although it was never completed. Hannah Adams also relied heavilyupon the work in producing her own Hiitoly of the Jews (1812).46 Histoiredes Jtfs was used as a basis for two eighteenth-century histories of theJews in Danish and Yiddish.4 The Danish history by Ludvig Holbergwas translated into German, thus transmitting Basnage's history, includ-ing his information about Sabbatai Zevi and his disciples, throughoutEurope. For unexplained reasons, Basnage reports that Sabbatai Zeviwas beheaded by the Turkish authorities. This account first appears inthe 1708 English edition and is repeated in French in the 1715-16 edi-tion.8 We do not know whether Basnage heard this story from reportssent by Hochepied and Heyman to Cuper. At any rate, Holberg acceptedit at face value and reiterated it in his Dutch edition. This version doesnot, however, appear in Menahem Mann Amelander's Yiddish history ofthe Jews. Amelander instead discusses Sabbatai Zevi's conversion toIslam and remarks that one year after the false messiah's death "anotherimposter," Daniel Israel, appeared.9 Holberg took Basnage's comment

45. It was Professor Matt Goldish who first apprised us of the fact that Bas-nage did not discuss anything about Sabbatai Zevi until the English edition andthat only in the third edition (1715-16) was the Sabbatian movement placed inhistorical context.

46. TheHidtoryof the Jewvrom the Destruction f Jerusalemo the NineteenthCen-tury,2 vols. (Boston, 1812).

47. Basnage, Vervolg pFlavitus osephusof AlgemeneHidtoriederJoodscheNaatsie(Amsterdam, 1726); Ludvig Holberg, JodiskehiAtoriera verdens egyndelse,ortsatttil didse ider (Copenhagen, 1742); Menahem Mann Amelander, She'erit Yidrael(Amsterdam, 1743). See G. Cerny, Theology, olitiscand Lettersat the Crossroads fEuropeanCivilization:acquesBadnage nd the BayleanHuguenotRefugeesn the DutchRepublic (Dordrecht, 1987), 185. Cerny notes that Amelander's history wasprinted seven times in Yiddish and ten times in Hebrew translation.48. "You know, that [Sabbatai Zevi] pretended to be the Messiah; and thathe abjur'dhis Religion, turn'd Mahometan, and thirty six or thirty seven Yearsago, lost his Head by order of Sultan Mfahomet"emphasis in original), HistoryoftheJewv,1708 ed., 758.49. "Eenige jaren na den dood van SabbathaiZebi, deed zich een andere be-drieger op, DaniffI srad genaamd, die te Slnyrnahet voorzangers-ambt bij zijnegeloofsgenooten vervulde" (emphasis in original). Amelander, She'eritYidrael,


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THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT-POPKIN AND CHASIN 315that Daniel Israel's influence subsided after Cardoza'sdeath to mean thatthe movement came to a complete and final end with Daniel Israel in1706.50 However, as we show, the letters about the Sabbatians continuedto arrive in the Netherlands from Smyrna, indicating that the movementlasted at least until 1709, the year before Heyman's return to the Nether-lands.

The letters concerning Daniel Israel and the return of Sabbatai Zevicease when Heyman returns to the Netherlands to take up his new postat Leiden in 1710. There does not seem to be any further discussion ofthe matter of Daniel Israel or Sabbatai Zevi. The last we hear of DanielIsrael in Smyrna correlateswell with the Dutch correspondence. Just atthe time Hochpied and Heyman were hearing reports about new messi-anic stirrings connected with the reappearance of the lost tribes, DanielIsrael was producing a forged letter, ostensibly from the tribes and the"Children of Moses," announcing that the Messiah would come in 1710.51Since Hochepied remained in Smyrna until his death in 1723, it is possi-ble that, were his letters to be found, scholars could determine what hap-pened to the remnants of the Sabbatian movement.

The material we have uncovered so far opens up a new chapter in thestory of the Sabbatai Zevi movement and poses some interesting ques-tions as to the links between the Sabbatians and other, non-Jewish mille-narian movements in Europe. Matt Goldish identifies the similarities inspirit possession that occur among the Quakers, the Alumbrados, theFrench Prophets, and the dervishes in the Ottoman Empire, remarkingthat they all have similar spiritual activities, even though there is littleevidence of direct interaction.52 nitially, Quaker practice was some sort438. We were informed by Professor Yosef Kaplan that Amelander's descriptionof the Sabbatai Zevi story is based on Thomas Coenen's book via the abridgedHebrew version published by Rabbi Jacob Emden in his anti-Sabbatian an-thology.

50. "no one thinks about [Sabbatai Zevi] anymore. Only a single Jew, DanielIsrael, who lived in Smyrna, said that he still lived and would emerge from hidingafter 40 years . . . he confirmed this from a passage in the book of the ProphetDaniel.... Many took him for a prophet, and believed that Sabbatai was stillalive; so they celebrated his birthday . . . on the 18th of December. Neither theTurks nor the Christiansin Smyrna knew about this. When they found out, Dan-iel had to leave the city. This was the end of the impostorship of Sabathai Tzevi,which was one of the most noteworthy happenings in Jewish history." Holberg,Hidtoryof theJewv,2:647. We would like to thank Professor Chris Laursen at theUniversity of California,Riverside for this information on Holberg.51. Benayahu in Sefunot14, 197, n. 85.52. Matt Goldish, "Vision and Possession: Nathan of Gaza's Earliest Prophe-cies in Historical Context," Spirit Possession in Judaidm: Cases and Contextsfrom theMiddle Ages to the Present, ed. Matt Goldish (Detroit, 2003), 230-32.


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316 JOR 94:3 (2004)of spiritualized Judaism, and its founder, George Fox, traveled aroundEngland, crying out, "To be a Jew externally is nothing, to be a Jewinternally is everything." The Quakers were merchants all over Europe,the Ottoman Empire, and the new colonies. Similarly, Alumbrados, six-teenth-century Spanish mystics who claimed to have direct communica-tion with God, appeared among the clergy that sought spiritual contactwith the American Indians and the natives of various Asian communities.A more extreme form of this type of mysticism appeared in the preachingof Miguel de Molinos. In his spiritual guide he advocated a form of devo-tion called Quietism, whereby the practitioner tried to extinguish all de-sires and allow the soul to become completely absorbed in God. Thisdoctrine was very popular at the end of the seventeenth and the begin-ning of the eighteenth century, especially in northern Europe. The der-vishes seem to have appeared in many centers of the Ottoman Empire,including Constantinople, Tirana, and Cairo, where travelers were ableto witness public performances in which the dervishes' ecstatic activityinduced a state of exhaustive intoxication and sometimes unconscious-ness. The French Prophets were first known through reports of theirspiritual activities carried on secretly in France and then through theamazing reenactments in England and the Netherlands. Reports aboutthe followers of Sabbatai Zevi from 1665 onward tell of similar behaviorpatterns. All these groups produced believers who made prophecies, par-ticipated in inspirational spiritual possession, and predicted glorious fu-ture events.

The letters in the Cuper archive document how an important Europeanaccount of Sabbatianism, that of Jacques Basnage's Hitoire des Jutfs,came out of the reports by two Dutchmen who were in Turkey in theearly eighteenth century. Basnage's history provided the basic story ofthe Sabbatian movement for the next century. Projects like Basnage'swere undertaken to provide an account of Judaism from the fall of theTemple to the present day. Undoubtedly, one major reason for his studywas to inform a non-Jewish audience about the current state of the Jews,as well as their possible conversion in the near future. Other tasks, likethose undertaken by the Dutch consul and minister in Smyrna, were con-ducted to discover the present state of Jewish existence in the OttomanEmpire and send reports back to the Netherlands. Hochepied and Hey-man applied their millenarian Calvinist outlook to the situation of theJews in the Ottoman Empire and especially the Sabbatian movementwith its promise of an imminent messianic culmination. This fit with thegeneral expectation of northern Protestants coming from works like thoseof Pierre Allix and from the emergence of the French Prophets on En-


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THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT-POPKIN AND CHASIN 317glish and Dutch soil. The Dutch Sephardic community had, to a greatextent, accepted Sabbatai Zevi, so what happened after his conversion toIslam became of great concern to those looking for signs of the end ofdays. Sabbatianism, therefore, did not come to an abrupt end after thedeath of Sabbatai Zevi, with vestiges to be found only in the Donmehsect. The letters from Cuper, Heyman, and Hochepied clearly indicate anongoing and active interest by Jews who continued to follow SabbataiZevi and his disciples, stimulated by the millenarian and messianic fervorthat existed in both Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Perhaps furtherresearch into Dutch sources will throw more light on what happened tothe Sabbatian movement in Turkey in the latter part of the eighteenthcentury.

Popkin Sabbat e Ans

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