The Sabbatean Prophets

90 The Sabbatean Prophets
excommunicated, and his first two human marriages were annulled when
he failed to consummate them. His third wife, Sarah, to whom he was married
during the height of the movement, was a most unusual prophetess
with a unique history. By all accounts she had been lost or kidnapped during
the Chmielnicki uprisings of 1648–49, when so much of Polish Jewry was
devastated, and was raised by Christians. When she approached adulthood
she found her way back to the Jewish community, where she was noted for
three traits: her beauty, her unchaste reputation, and her prophetic claim
that she would marry the messiah. The discrepancies in the order and events
of this tale probably derive partly from Sarah’s own variations in the retelling.
One report about her origins comes from the anti-Sabbatean agitator
R. Jacob Sasportas, who claims he had known her around 1656 when she
arrived in Amsterdam:
Before [Shabbatai’s] conversion she would write to her women friends
promising them favors, and signing herself “The Matrona Queen Rebecca.” I
myself had been acquainted with her in the city of Amsterdam (may God
preserve it!) when she arrived from the Polish expulsion about fourteen
years ago, a heartless [that is, fatuous] young lady who would claim in her
madness that she would wed the king messiah. Everyone laughed at her.
She went to the city of Livorno, where she behaved promiscuously with everyone,
as was reported to me by the sage Rabbi Joseph ha-Levi (long may
he live!). And since she would make ridiculous statements [about marrying
the messiah], and she was beautiful, it was conveyed to Shabbatai Zvi, who
was then in Egypt with Raphael Joseph, the warden over the Alexandria
harbor. [Shabbatai] revealed some of his secrets to him, including the fact
that he was the king messiah and that this woman in Livorno was his
[heavenly ordained] mate. He sent for her and married her, and she was his
third wife. 2
A second version of her story was recounted by Baruch of Arezzo.
In the land of Ashkenaz [Germany/Poland] lived a Jewish man to whom
was born a woman child. While she was still small the Gentiles came,
took her by force and converted her. They gave her over to a certain very
wealthy Gentile woman who had but one son. When this son and the
[adopted] daughter grew up she wished to marry them to each other and
give them all her money, property, and belongings.
It happened one night, on the eve of the day they were to go to their