The Sabbatean Prophets

24 The Sabbatean Prophets
itself will again seem deserving of worship and wonder, and with constant
benedictions and proclamations of praise the people of that time will honor
the god who makes and restores so great a work. And this will be the
geniture of the world: a reformation of all good things and a restitution,
most holy and most reverent, of nature itself, reordered in the course of
time. 92
The influence of Hermetic ideas in early modern thought can hardly be
overestimated, and this apocalyptic element was part and parcel of that impact.
Could there be any doubt in the mind of a sixteenth- or seventeenthcentury
thinker that the future restoration of the world of which the Thrice
Blessed Hermes spoke was occurring in his time Many of the great scientists,
philosophers, and physicians of the period were profoundly involved
with hermeticism, including the influential and controversial Giordano
Bruno, who was ultimately burned at the stake for heresy. 93
Hermes was also known as the father of alchemy, the proto-scientific
practice of transforming metals, also called “the Hermetic art.” Alchemy had
been practiced for over a thousand years before Shabbatai’s period, but its
particular spiritual, philosophical, and gnostic dimensions raised it into unprecedented
popularity at that time. Early modern alchemy sometimes focused
on gaining wealth by creating gold out of base metals; but more often
the transformation of metals was understood as an analogy for the transformation
of the self and the world. This process is often described in terms that
recall apocalyptic language: purification, putrefaction, transmutation, regeneration.
94 The emblematic representation of these activities is even more
explicitly Hermetic and apocalyptic, as exemplified in John Dee and other
contemporaries. 95 The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, a third Rosicrucian
work connected to the original two, illustrates this connection as
well. 96 In spiritual alchemy, God is seen as the Master Alchemist, creating,
destroying, and creating anew all that exists. The human alchemist imitates
God in seeking to destroy the impure old existence and create a pure, hopeful
new one. 97
It was natural that the alchemists should have been fascinated by the Jewish
mystical tradition called Kabbalah; they constantly used kabbalistic symbols
and language. 98 The Jews, after all, were traditionally viewed as bearers
of ancient secrets along with the Egyptians, and these were believed to be
embodied in the Kabbalah. 99 It is also no coincidence that several individuals
who figure prominently in the background of Sabbateanism were alche-