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Jewish Quarterly Review.
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THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, Vol. 94, No. 2 (Spring 2004) 300-317
We would like to thank Professor Matt Goldish of Ohio State University for
his interest and encouragement and, especially, for providing information about
the status of the Sabbatian movement in Jewish communities in Turkey, Egypt,
and Palestine.
1. Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah (Princeton, N.J.,
1973), 646, n. 145.
2. Jacques Basnage, HMstoiredes Jutif depuid Jesus-Christ jusqa'a present: Pour
servir de continuation a l'HIMtoirede Joseph (The Hague, 1716).
man Empire.3 After his death there were messianic claimants in Poland
and various parts of the Middle East, some declaring themselves to be the
reincarnation of Sabbatai. Cardozo probably represented the mainstream
group of survivors, hence Daniel Israel, as Cardozo's successor, could
call upon the significant following that was still loyal to Sabbatai Zevi
through Cardozo's interpretations.4
In his article on Cardozo for the Encyclopedia Judaica, Scholem writes
that Cardozo was part of a Sabbatian group that believed Sabbatai Zevi
would return forty years after his conversion to Islam.5 Following 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 people
from their suffering.6 Since Sabbatai Zevi died in 1676 this would put his
reappearance at 1721.
In his recent treatment of European reactions to the Sabbatai Zevi
story, 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 in
him by European millenarians in the Netherlands and Smyrna.
From 1703 until 1709 Heyman and Hochepied in Smyrna engaged in
a lively discussion with Cuper in the Netherlands about the Sabbatian
3. See Richard H. Popkin, "Two Unused Sources about Sabbatai Zevi and
his Effect on European Communities," Dutch Jewish History 2: Proceedingsof the
FourthSymposiumon the Historyof the Jews in the Netherlands,7-10 December-Tel-
Aviv-Jeruwalem,1986, ed. Jozeph Michman (Jerusalem: Institute for Research on
Dutch Jewry, Hebrew Univ., 1989), 2:67-74.
4. For more information about some of these other messianic prophets after
Sabbatai Zevi's death, see Harris Lenowitz, The Jewui,hMessiahs (New York,
1998), 168-97.
5. Gershom Scholem, "Cardozo, Abraham Miguel," Encyclopedia Judaica(New
York, 1972), 5:164-65. Cardozo had been the leading figure in the Sabbatian
movement after Sabbatai Zevi's death but seems not to have been completely
accepted because he was a Spaniard and not a Turkish Jew. (He also refused to
convert to Islam as Sabbatai had done.)
6. Jacques Basnage, TheHistoryof the Jewsfrom Jesus Chrit to thePresentTime,
trans. Thomas Taylor (London, 1708 ed.), 758.
7. See Michael Heyd, "The 'Jewish Quaker': Christian Perceptions of Sabba-
tai Zevi as an Enthusiast," HebraicaVeritas?ChristianHebraists,Jews,and the Study
of Judaim in EarlyModernEurope,ed. Allison Coudert and Jeffrey Shoulson (Phil-
adelphia, forthcoming 2004).
302 JQR 94:3 (2004)
movement and the state of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Cuper then
passed this information on to Jacques Basnage, who put it in the 1708
English 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 their
interest in the Jewish community of the Ottoman Empire. This corre-
spondence between Smyrna and the Netherlands generates a number of
questions. 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 Church
that provoked inquiries into the Sabbatian movement? Did the curiosity
about the Jews in Smyrna have a connection with the millenarian im-
pulses of the contemporary French Prophets movement in Europe? And
what does all of this tell us about Basnage's major work, Hi.itoire des Juf11?
Setting out to learn what we could about Gijsbert Cuper, we found a
massive trove of papers by this polymath at the Dutch Royal Library, of
which only a small part has been catalogued. Cuper was professor of
classics and headmaster of the Athenaeum at Deventer. He corresponded
regularly with some of the leading scholars both in the Netherlands and
abroad, including Johann Georg Graevius, Petrus Burman, Pierre Bayle,
Jean le Clerc, and G. W. Leibniz. There were also several letters to Cuper
from 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 no
longer legal to be a Protestant in France. Hundreds of thousands of refu-
gees poured into the Netherlands, Germany, and England. A remnant
remained in France, carrying on their religious beliefs in secret, hiding in
the woods and caves. Pierre Jurieu, the leader of the French Reformed
Church exiles in the Netherlands (and Basnage's brother-in-law), became
their contact with the outside world, sending them sermons and receiving
messages from them. When the persecutions in France became unbear-
able, these Protestants also fled. In England, they became known as the
French Prophets on account of their mystical practices and prophetic
revelations about the portent of their predicament. In the first decade of
ish developments in the Ottoman Empire. This seems to explain the con-
tacts being established between Herborn and Smyrna and the shift from
theorizing about the significance of the Sabbatian movement to traveling
in 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 the
Amsterdam synagogue to find out what he could about the rumors that
the Messiah had come in 1665. He sent John Dury a copy of Sabbatai
Zevi's letter to the Amsterdam synagogue. The Dutch newspapers of the
time 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, the
interest in Sabbatai Zevi and his movement was intense among Jews
and Christians; outside the Ottoman Empire, Amsterdam was one of the
principal centers of Sabbatianism.'3
Similarly, some of the French Reformed Church leaders in exile, such
as Jurieu, took an active interest in Jewish affairs. Jurieu was even given
a pension by the Amsterdam synagogue for promoting the welfare of the
Jews.'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 a
special religious role in the divine drama and sent supportive messages to
12. Jetteke van Wijk, in her interesting article on the spread of the Sabbatian
movement in Europe, traces the role the emerging mass media played. While
reports in pamphlets were often not taken seriously, a more objective newspaper
journalism was developing. The first report about the Sabbatian movement in
one of these more impartial Dutch newspapers appeared in the summer of 1665
and by the beginning of the following year the OprechteHaerle,nseCourantwas
covering the events in the Levant in great detail. Between late 1665 and the
beginning of 1667, thirty-nine articles in thirty editions of that particular newspa-
per dealt with Sabbatai Zevi and his movement. The coverage not only informed
the Dutch and other Europeans as to the events in Smyrna but also facilitated
the success of Sabbatianism in Europe. See "The Rise and Fall of Shabbatai Zevi
as Reflected in Contemporary Press Reports," StudiaRosenthaliana33:1 (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 Zevi
in Turkey (the Donmeh). He ended his account by stating that in 1808 a follower
of Sabbatai Zevi had appeared in Paris as a musician. See Gregoire, Histotredea
sectes religieudes: Qut sont nees, se sont modiJi/es, se sont iteintes dans Lesdiffirentes con-
tresi diuglobe, depumsle commencement du st'ecle dernt'erjusqu'a l'epoque actuelle (Paris,
1828-45).
14. It would be interesting to know if Jurieu also received material on the
continuation of the Sabbatian movement in the Ottoman Empire in the early
eighteenth century.
THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT-POPKIN AND CHASIN 305
15. Basnage, Hiitoire desJuf11, 1715-16 ed., 15:1105: "en comptant les Annees
lunaires 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 photocopies
of the letters that were found for us in the Dutch Royal Library. Most of them
are 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 Cuper
and 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 to
locate any of his letters.
17. Johannes a Lent, Schediasmahidtoricophi/ologicumde Judaeorumpseudo-mes-
s4il. A 1697 edition of this work is in the collection of the Center for Advanced
Judaic Studies library at the University of Pennsylvania. The work was the only
source 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.Bayle
could not read the most available sources -the account by Paul Rycault in John
Evelyn's The ThreeImpostersand the account by the Dutch consul of the time,
Thomas Coenen-since they were in English and Dutch, languages he did not
know. The dissertation by Johannes a Lent includes material from both Rycault
and Coenen. See Pierre Bayle, art. "Weile," in which he writes "faux Messir
Sabbathi Tzebbi qui avoit fait beaucoup de bruit en Turquie depuis peu de tems."
Dictionnairehistorique et critique,1740 ed., 492. On Rycault and Evelyn, see Rich-
ard H. Popkin, "Three English Tellings of the Sabbatai Zevi Story," Jeuwdh Hic-
tory 8:1-2 (1994): 43-54.
18. Paul Rycault had held the position of English consul during the time of
Sabbatai Zevi.
19. Abraham J. van der Aa, Biographcichuoordenboek derNederlanden(Haarlem,
1867).
306 JQR 94:3 (2004)
The second figure in our story, Heyman, was appointed to pastor to the
Dutch merchants in Smyrna after his graduation from Herborn. From
the time he arrived in the Ottoman Empire in the summer of 1700, Hey-
man began acquiring the tools he needed to understand the many cultures
around 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 a
book by a Huguenot refugee, Pierre Allix, who, according to his interpre-
tation of the book of Daniel, predicts the messianic era will begin in
1720.21 This, as well as a request from Hochepied, seems to have led
Heyman to investigate Jewish messianism among the Turkish Jews and
to send a treatise to Cuper a few months later with the results of his
research. This tract was sent via Hochepied. To date we have been unable
to 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 letters
reached Cuper, sending them on different boats from different ports with
instructions 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 of
Gaza, 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 sect
became known as the Donmeh, and over the next half century it slowly
lost touch with the more conservative Sabbatians who remained within
the Jewish fold. The same period saw a wave of Sabbatian prophetic
activity in Europe, particularly in connection with the circle of Abraham
Rovigo in Italy. In the Ottoman Empire, Abraham Miguel Cardozo con-
tinued his teaching and prophetic activities on behalf of the movement.
Daniel Israel Bonafoux, his student and fellow prophet, was possessed of
a maggid,a heavenly mentor who revealed secrets to him, including vari-
ous dates of messianic expectation. He saw visions of deceased Sabbatian
figures 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 studies
at the University of Leiden.
21. Gijsbert Cuper to Johannes Heyman, January 13, 1703, Cuper Collec-
tion, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague.
THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT-POPKIN AND CHASIN 307
him 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 and
Cardozo 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's
imminent reappearance. Judah he-Hasid died almost immediately upon
their arrival, as did many others who accompanied him. It appeared that
the enterprise would collapse as yet another failure of Sabbatian proph-
ecy; but a number of the believers held out, and they were reinforced in
1702 by a new group led by Abraham Rovigo and Mordecai Ashkenazi.
A study hall was established with survivors from the original group as
well as the newcomers. Cardozo was deeply distrustful of the entire proj-
ect. When representatives of the he-Hasid circle came to Turkey in 1701-
1702, Cardozo warned his disciples there not to get involved with them.
He was certain that the Jerusalem undertaking was doomed. He also
insisted that the two he-Hasid representatives in Smyrna came not to
learn certain secrets of Sabbatai's teachings from Cardozo's students as
they claimed, but to unmask Daniel Israel as a fraud. (The local rabbis
had long suspected Daniel; they had the local qadi expel him from the
city, and he was forced to live in the suburb of Kasaba.) On this occasion
Cardozo gave Daniel a secret ceremony to perform that would reveal the
true intentions of these visitors. They soon returned to Jerusalem. It
should be noted, however, that the he-Hasid group that came to Cardozo
himself in Constantinople impressed him favorably and left on good
terms.23
In his first letter on the subject of the Sabbatian movement, Heyman
explains that somebody was presenting himself as a prophet among the
Jews in Tiria, telling them that Sabbatai Zevi was still alive and would
return as promised. With scorn, Heyman describes the tricks and magic
being used to convince the gullible Jews of this message.24Cuper replies
a few months later that Hochepied had written to him about the same
Jewish 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 the
professed prophet is moving from one place to another.25
In the next several letters Heyman supplies more information about
what 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 these
false messiahs or magicians and convert to Christianity. Although dis-
dainful of the conjuring methods used by Daniel Israel, Heyman was
sufficiently involved with the Sabbatians to plan a trip to Jerusalem in
1704 with the prophet. Heyman asks Cuper if the latter could obtain
funds for the impecunious Daniel Israel to make the trip, but there is
nothing in the material we have looked through that indicates they made
such a joint voyage. Heyman, who wrote a book on his travels throughout
Europe and the Middle East, apparently went to Jerusalem at a later
date without Daniel Israel.26Daniel's desire to go to Palestine in 1704-5,
about which we learn from the Dutch correspondence, is instructive. The
anti-Sabbatian camp in Jerusalem had finally asserted itself exactly at
this point and had Hayim Malakh and his Sabbatian group expelled from
the city. Many converted to Islam. The entire movement was in crisis
with 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 an
entirely 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 Heyman
and Hochepied about the Jews who still expect Sabbatai Zevi to return
and 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 for
messianic events. Did they live in one community? Were they of one
opinion? He asks Heyman to forward such reports to him, the sooner the
better, so that he can be informed of this "unprecedented and scarcely
believable business."28
As 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 apparently
young enough to have an infant.29It was during this meeting that Car-
dozo told Heyman that Daniel Israel was his student and disciple and
cited a quatrain from Nostradamus to indicate the approaching messianic
event.30Heyman confides that he is skeptical of Cardozo's claims to be a
prophet, 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 felt
behind his own ears and found the beginnings of little horns, which he
believed 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 a
prophet, which he is also held to be by many Christians."'3' Heyman re-
plies that Cardozo probably learned of the French seer while in studying
in Spain, perhaps at Salamanca. Nostradamus' teachings would have
been more common in a Christian country than in the Muslim world.
Cuper was obviously unaware that Cardozo was a Spaniard. Cardozo
then transmitted the 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 movement
28. "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 moins
On attendra le siecle bien etrange
En l'an sept cens et trois (cieux en temoins)
Regner plusjeurs un a cinq feront change.
31. "dat by die natie weit aengesien als een prophet, waer voor hy ook by veil
Christenen weit gehouden." Cuper to Heyman, September 27, 1706.
32. Heyman to Cuper, January 29, 1707. Nostradamus himself in his letter to
the French king, Henri II, explained that his ability to foretell the future came
from his forebears. Elsewhere he clarifies this by claiming that he was a member
of one of the lost tribes. See Richard H. Popkin, "Predicting, Prophesying, Divin-
ing and Foretelling from Nostradamus to Hume," HMtoryof EuropeanIdeas 5:2
(1984): 117-35.
310 JQR 94:3 (2004)
concluded this section of his letter with the hope that he could go to
Constantinople in the coming year to learn more.35
Seemingly intrigued by these messages from Smyrna about the birth
of a messiah, Cuper relates to Heyman that he had been informed by
Hochepied about a "child that is supposed to be the Antichrist and the
true messiah" and that this Jewish child "could eat, walk and speak
within eight days after the circumcision." Cuper once more dismisses
such reports as fiction, commenting, "this poor and unhappy folk believes
everything that gives hope." The Jews, he continues, "suffer the judg-
ment of God, because [they are] a people that know not Christ.... I
wish from the bottom of my heart, that Christ, if it pleases him, converts
his brothers of the flesh, and that the plenitude of the heathens could
enter into his kingdom."36In this, Cuper seems to share Basnage's view
that it is up to the divine power to bring about the conversion of the
Jews.37
Another item of interest for these correspondents was the dispersal of
Jews throughout the world. The search for the lost tribes was intense
during this period, as it had been since the previous century. According
to millenarian beliefs based on passages from the books of Daniel and
Revelation, the ten tribes would reappear at the end of time, after the fall
of the world's empires. For both Jewish and Christian millenarians, the
Jews would be returned to the Holy Land, whereupon universal salva-
stories of the famous Sabbatian." Heyman vowed to find out more about
this.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 the
Jews. A series of letters between Cuper and Basnage in 1707 indicate
that Basnage, a leading pastor and journalistic figure among the French
refugees 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 to
the Roman destruction of the Temple in the first century. Subsequently,
there are accounts of Jewish developments in various parts of the world
but no complete or comprehensive history.42 Basnage, in exile in the
Netherlands, took up where Josephus left off. Basnage saw himself in
the same historical camp as those writing the histories of various coun-
tries and movements. His was an attempt to be objective and to structure
the 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 European
intellectuals could appreciate. In this sense, Basnage's is the first attempt
at a nontheological history.43 Basnage was very close to Pierre Bayle, in
friendship and in spirit, and he used much the same historical and critical
method.
The documents we have found from the Cuper collection show that
Basnage did not know about the Sabbatai Zevi episode while he was
writing the second edition. Basnage sent a manuscript copy to Cuper in
1707 and, in a series of letters, Cuper gave his opinion about various
points, evidencing a particular interest in the treatment of false messiahs
in ancient and medieval times. As Cuper worked through the manuscript
he realized there was no mention of Sabbatai Zevi. At this point, he rec-
ommended to Basnage that he read Johannes 'aLent and also forwarded
him the materials he had been sent by Hochepied and Heyman. This led
Basnage to include some of the Sabbatai Zevi story and part of one of
Heyman's letters on the last page of the English edition that appeared in
1708.44Out of order and unconnected to the preceding material, it looked
like what it was: a last-minute addition. In the third edition the material
was fully incorporated into the section on the Jews in the Ottoman Em-
pire.45
Basnage's Hiitoire des Juifs was extremely influential. The first edition
of 1706 was so successful that an abridged edition was actually appended
to an edition of Josephus, and a somewhat modified version was put
out in Catholic France. A Dutch version appeared in 1726 and Solomon
Maimon embarked upon a Hebrew translation in the late eighteenth cen-
tury, although it was never completed. Hannah Adams also relied heavily
upon the work in producing her own Hiitoly of the Jews (1812).46 Histoire
des Jtfs was used as a basis for two eighteenth-century histories of the
Jews in Danish and Yiddish.4 The Danish history by Ludvig Holberg
was translated into German, thus transmitting Basnage's history, includ-
ing his information about Sabbatai Zevi and his disciples, throughout
Europe. For unexplained reasons, Basnage reports that Sabbatai Zevi
was beheaded by the Turkish authorities. This account first appears in
the 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 reports
sent by Hochepied and Heyman to Cuper. At any rate, Holberg accepted
it at face value and reiterated it in his Dutch edition. This version does
not, however, appear in Menahem Mann Amelander's Yiddish history of
the Jews. Amelander instead discusses Sabbatai Zevi's conversion to
Islam and remarks that one year after the false messiah's death "another
imposter," 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 and
that only in the third edition (1715-16) was the Sabbatian movement placed in
historical context.
46. TheHidtoryof the Jewvfrom the Destructionof Jerusalemto theNineteenthCen-
tury, 2 vols. (Boston, 1812).
47. Basnage, Vervolgop FlavitusJosephusof AlgemeneHidtoriederJoodscheNaatsie
(Amsterdam, 1726); Ludvig Holberg, JodiskehiAtorie fra verdensbegyndelse,
fortsatt
til didsetider (Copenhagen, 1742); Menahem Mann Amelander, She'eritYidrael
(Amsterdam, 1743). See G. Cerny, Theology,PolitiscandLettersat the Crossroadsof
EuropeanCivilization:JacquesBadnageand the BayleanHuguenotRefugeesin theDutch
Republic (Dordrecht, 1987), 185. Cerny notes that Amelander's history was
printed seven times in Yiddish and ten times in Hebrew translation.
48. "You know, that [Sabbatai Zevi] pretended to be the Messiah; and that
he abjur'd his Religion, turn'd Mahometan, and thirty six or thirty seven Years
ago, lost his Head by order of Sultan Mfahomet" (emphasis in original), Historyof
the Jewv,1708 ed., 758.
49. "Eenige jaren na den dood van SabbathaiZebi, deed zich een andere be-
drieger op, DaniffIIsrad genaamd, die te Slnyrna het voorzangers-ambt bij zijne
geloofsgenooten vervulde" (emphasis in original). Amelander, She'erit Yidrael,
THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT-POPKIN AND CHASIN 315
that Daniel Israel's influence subsided after Cardoza's death to mean that
the movement came to a complete and final end with Daniel Israel in
1706.50 However, as we show, the letters about the Sabbatians continued
to arrive in the Netherlands from Smyrna, indicating that the movement
lasted at least until 1709, the year before Heyman's return to the Nether-
lands.
The letters concerning Daniel Israel and the return of Sabbatai Zevi
cease when Heyman returns to the Netherlands to take up his new post
at Leiden in 1710. There does not seem to be any further discussion of
the matter of Daniel Israel or Sabbatai Zevi. The last we hear of Daniel
Israel in Smyrna correlates well with the Dutch correspondence. Just at
the time Hochpied and Heyman were hearing reports about new messi-
anic stirrings connected with the reappearance of the lost tribes, Daniel
Israel was producing a forged letter, ostensibly from the tribes and the
"Childrenof Moses," announcing that the Messiah would come in 1710.51
Since 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 the
story 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 in
spirit possession that occur among the Quakers, the Alumbrados, the
French Prophets, and the dervishes in the Ottoman Empire, remarking
that they all have similar spiritual activities, even though there is little
evidence of direct interaction.52Initially, Quaker practice was some sort
glish and Dutch soil. The Dutch Sephardic community had, to a great
extent, accepted Sabbatai Zevi, so what happened after his conversion to
Islam became of great concern to those looking for signs of the end of
days. Sabbatianism, therefore, did not come to an abrupt end after the
death of Sabbatai Zevi, with vestiges to be found only in the Donmeh
sect. The letters from Cuper, Heyman, and Hochepied clearly indicate an
ongoing and active interest by Jews who continued to follow Sabbatai
Zevi and his disciples, stimulated by the millenarian and messianic fervor
that existed in both Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Perhaps further
research into Dutch sources will throw more light on what happened to
the Sabbatian movement in Turkey in the latter part of the eighteenth
century.