The Sabbatean Prophets

100 The Sabbatean Prophets
pears the bulk of prophetic phenomena in his home was granted to women
—his wives, daughters, and other female relatives. He was aware of this and
explicitly warned the reader not to try to fathom it. At the same time, however,
Cardoso remained at the center as the interpreter, and in some obscure
sense the precipitator, of this spiritual activity. The only known precedent in
Jewish society since antiquity was the circle of R. Hayyim Vital in Damascus.
In both cases the women’s visions center on the concerns of the dominant
male figure, yet he needs them to channel divine messages. Both Cardoso
and Vital saw their respective female visionaries simply as conduits of messages
rather than significant spiritual figures in themselves—witness the anonymity
of important women in both instances. In the case of Vital, a major
mystical informant is called “the daughter of R. Raphael Anau”—her identity
is established only through her relationship to an important male. Cardoso
also received important prophetic input from a woman, his sister-inlaw,
who is never named, but is identified in terms of her relationship to
himself. Even when channeling a spirit, this individual does not speak—she
literally is allowed no voice. 29
The phrasing of some passages indicates Cardoso may have seen himself
in the role of the messianic harbinger, on the model of Isaiah as understood
in the Christian tradition. This is suggested by his prophecy of the birth of his
own male child, who would bear the light of the messiah. The prediction
strikes a note remarkably similar to the prophecy in Isaiah 9:5: “For a child is
born unto us, A son is given unto us, And the government is upon his shoulder;
And his name is called Pele-joez-el-gibbor-Abi-ad-sar-shalom.” In Jewish
exegesis this is not generally taken to refer to the messiah, but Christian
tradition takes it exactly that way, and this seems to be one model for Cardoso’s
vision. Shabbatai Zvi himself made an almost identical announcement—that
he would soon have a son who would not live—at the height of
the movement in Izmir. 30 Both episodes may be related to the story told in
the Prophecy of the Child, in which a son is born to a rabbi, begins speaking
right out of the womb, gives some cryptic hints about the coming of the
messiah, and dies. In any case Cardoso ultimately developed a whole messianic
persona himself, so the prophetic role may have been only part of a
larger identity-fashioning.
An interesting feature of prophecies from Cardoso’s household is the importance
of astronomic portents, especially those centering on the moon.
Astrological thought had a major impact on Sabbatean theology, though