The Sabbatean Prophets

Opponents and Observers Respond 159
millenarian scenario of the immediate future. All Christians must now recognize
that they have been corrupted by vanity. It is this that has prevented
them from recognizing the truth from wherever it might appear. The stream
of God’s truth will now sweep away this vanity, overthrowing all temporal
powers so that Jesus can return and rule again with his saints. The expectation
of this cataclysmic apocalypse was “the opinion of Millenarians all over
Europe, especially the Fifth Monarchy Men in England, who demanded the
return of Jews to England for these reasons.” 95 The author emphasizes Serrarius’
certainty, based on calculations from the prophets and the New Testament,
that 1666 was destined to be the year that the kingdom of Heaven
would be restored.
It is clear, then, that Serrarius was ready for news like that of Shabbatai
Zvi at exactly this moment. He was not a believer in Shabbatai in the way
the Jews were, but because of his flexibility in imagining the pre-millenarian
scenario, he could absolutely understand these events as part of the process
of the Second Coming. In his vision of the future, the Jews would converge
on Jerusalem, rout the Muslims, usurp all temporal power in the
region, and thereby serve as the foot soldiers of Christ, saving Christians
from the exigencies of these wars. Afterward, of course, they would convert
and serve the real messiah, Jesus.
This conception, which becomes clearer in Serrarius’ subsequent responses
to the better informed Sabbatean reports, constitutes the apogee of
Christian Sabbateanism, for Serrarius was the central figure in the distribution
of Sabbatean propaganda in the non-Jewish world. To many Jews the
positive attitude of Serrarius and others like him was one of the wonders
proving the truth of Shabbatai’s mission. Hence European millenarianism
becomes directly relevant to the success of the movement among Jews.
The author of the letter, who took Serrarius seriously, is an example of the
type of neutral or wait-and-see response common among Christians until
Shabbatai’s apostasy. Numerous documents concerning Christian attitudes
toward Sabbateanism could be fruitfully examined here, but this example
clearly illustrates some of the ways in which the prophetic understandings
of European Christian millenarians and Jewish messianists interacted in
1665, effecting a profound influence on the Sabbatean movement.
One more case of a Christian Sabbatean deserves attention to complete
the picture. This is the amazing case of a Christian girl in Izmir who became
a Sabbatean prophetess. Though the case properly belongs to the previous