The Sabbatean Prophets

Notes to Pages 73–79 197
67. The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, trans. and ed. C.W.R.D. Moseley (New York:
Penguin, 1983), 50.
68. See Book of Mormon, passim; John L. Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of
Mormon Cosmology, 1644–1844 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994),
ch. 7.
69. Scholem (Sabbatai àevi, 232) claims that Joseph Almosnino was aware of the
forgery (though not bothered by it) because he refers to it as “a vision that
[Nathan] beheld.” However, if Almosnino heard Cuenque’s version of the
apocalypse’s origin (ibid., 230 n88), that it was given directly to Nathan by Elijah,
his comment would not indicate a belief that Nathan was the original visionary,
but only that Nathan had a vision in which he was given the “Vision
of R. Abraham.”
70. Grafton, Forgers and Critics. A detailed discussion of early modern pseudepigrapha
and forgery can be found in K. K. Ruthven, Faking Literature (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2001). Ruthven makes the important argument
that the disparagement of literary forgery is really an attempt to mask the fact
that literature and forgery are equally creative constructions.
71. I do think Funkenstein goes too far in completely denying a genuine Jewish
humanism. See Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1993), 208–19.
72. This is the view of Scholem, Sabbatai àevi, 229–33.
73. This letter is discussed in detail in ibid., 267–90; Elqayam, “The Mystery of
Faith,” part II, ch. 2.
74. Scholem, Sabbatai àevi, 269.
75. Ibid., 272, with my minor modifications to the translation.
76. See Benayahu, Toledoth ha-AR”I, 158–59, 169–71, 178–79, 217–24;
Werblowsky, Joseph Karo, 141–45.
77. Scholem points out (Sabbatai àevi, 280) that Nathan saw himself as a reincarnation
of Luria, and that this was what gave him the authority to modify or eliminate
Lurianic practices.
78. See Lenowitz, “Insertion of R. Hayyim Vital.”
79. See Scholem, Sabbatai àevi, 276.
80. See Benyahu, Toledoth ha-AR”I, 168–69.
81. See, e.g., Gershom Scholem, “The Story of R. Joseph della Reyna,” [Hebrew]
Zion 5 (1939–40): 123–30; Scholem, Sabbatai àevi, 175–76; Zalman Shazar,
“The Story of Joseph della Reyna in Sabbatian Tradition,” [Hebrew] Eder ha-
Yakar: S. A. Horodetsky Jubilee Volume, ed. E. Bin-Gurion (Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1947),
97–118.
82. Aescoly, Jewish Messianic Movements, 330.
83. Scholem astutely points out that “even” in this case really means “especially.”
Scholem, Sabbatai àevi, 284–85.
84. This is a major theme in the researches of Yehuda Liebes and Avraham
Elqayam. Scholem was convinced, for reasons not entirely clear to me, that
Nathan’s fascination with Christian images and doctrines, as well as his interest