The Sabbatean Prophets

30 The Sabbatean Prophets
to control vast multitudes of Christians and untold wealth somewhere in the
uncharted lands of India. Although the earliest stories about Prester John
did not explicitly discuss his role in the Second Coming, a famous letter attributed
to him that appeared in the mid-twelfth century, at a critical time in
the history of the Crusades, does carry messianic connotations. In it Prester
John expresses his wish to visit the Holy Land with a huge army and chastise
the enemies of Christianity—a message with clear apocalyptic intent. 130 The
Red Jews were a mythical horde of fanatic Christian-hating Hebrews described
in German literature over many centuries. According to the stories,
they would constitute the bloody legions of the antichrist in the wars preceding
the Second Coming. 131 Gog and Magog are the violent nations which
will be the enemies of the forces of good in the cataclysmic final wars
(Ezekiel 38–39). The Lost Tribes were those Jews of the Northern Kingdom
of Israel who were exiled in the eighth century b.c.e. and were not found by
their brethren of the Southern Tribes when they in turn were exiled in the
sixth century to the same general region. In ancient times their presence
was reported in various terrestrial locations, as well as behind the mythical
Sabbatical River, the Sambatyon, which flowed with rocks rather than water
and was supposed to prevent the discovery of the Tribes until messianic
days. Their return is an integral part of Jewish messianic expectations. 132
Throughout the Middle Ages, when these legends were proliferating, Europeans’
lack of geographical knowledge about most of the world prevented
attaching any specific location to each group—all remained safely ensconced
in their unknown, mythical lands. But this was changing under the impact
of the voyages of discovery, when the world’s geography was coming into
clearer focus. Credible reports that the legendary nations had been discovered
abounded. They were turning up in Africa, India, America, and the Far
East. Contact was actually made between Europeans and both Jews and
Christians in Abyssinia. 133 This was not only scientific proof that biblical
prophecies had been validated, but also a powerful indication that the messianic
age was nigh. What reason could God have in bringing together the
known world with these remote kingdoms, if not to join forces for the apocalyptic
denouement
Renaissance Jewish and Christian thinkers were deeply focused on the
new discoveries and their implications for messianic history. 134 They spoke
to each other, and sometimes even evinced a willingness to ignore doctrinal
differences because they were more interested in what was about to happen
than what had happened in the first century. 135 In other cases, mutually in-