The Sabbatean Prophets

CHAPTER 4
From Mystical Vision to
Prophetic Eruption
It cannot be posited that the diffusion of complex mystical theories
within certain cloistered circles may sufficiently explain a mass
movement.
—Moshe Idel, Messianic Mystics, p. 184
In December of 1665 Shabbatai Zvi took his leave of Nathan
of Gaza, the principal Sabbatean prophet and architect of the movement,
and set sail for Turkey to pursue his messianic mission. The two would
not see each other again until after Shabbatai’s apostasy. While Nathan remained
in Gaza and wrote prophetically inspired Sabbatean treatises, Shabbatai
traveled through the Levant playing his role to the hilt. He arrived in
his home town, Izmir, and was relatively quiet for some months until a new
wave of euphoria struck him, and he again began announcing his mission
stridently in public. During these travels and sojourn in Izmir, over a period
of several weeks, an immense outbreak of Sabbatean prophecies by ordinary
Jews of all classes occurred, more or less along the path that Shabbatai and
his retinue traveled. 1 The particulars of this outbreak were almost unique
in Jewish history up to that time, yet there were certain precedents, and
they were closely related to contemporaneous phenomena in other cultures.
Within the Sabbatean movement the mass prophecies of the winter of
1665–66 served functions critical to the spread of the faith. The development
of Sabbatean prophecy also owed much to Sarah, Shabbatai’s third
wife, and Abraham Miguel Cardoso, the second great theologian of the
movement.
Sarah, Wife of the Messiah
Shabbatai Zvi stood under the marriage canopy at least five times in his
life—four with women and once with a Torah scroll. The latter stunt got him
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