The Sabbatean Prophets

48 The Sabbatean Prophets
changed after 1578, when the young Portuguese King, Dom Sebastian, disappeared
in the Battle of Alcazarquivir, leaving no heir. Many Portuguese,
shocked and bitter at seeing their kingdom fall into the hands of the Spanish
King Philip II, became convinced that Sebastian would return to fulfill
the messianic role of Bandarra’s Hidden One. This movement is called
Sebastianism, and it was at the center of Portuguese messianism for centuries.
28 Portugal, then, like Spain, was infused with spiritual-political messianic
impulses emanating from converso circles.
Manuel Bocarro Francês (b. ca. 1593, Lisbon; d. 1662, Florence), later
known as Jacob Rosales, was among the most influential Sebastianist thinkers.
Bocarro-Rosales was a well-known physician and scientist, whose alchemy
and astronomy studies led him into prognostication. In 1624 he published
a work full of Bandarrian messianic overtones called Anacephalaeosis
de Monarchia Lusitana I (A Summary of the Lusitanian Monarchy, vol. I).
When he attempted to publish the continuation of this work, however, it fell
afoul of the Inquisition and the author fled for his life. Arriving in Rome, he
published his material in 1625 under the title Small Moonlight and Starlight of
the Lusitanian Monarchy. Among other things he explained the reason for
changing his name to Rosales. This name has a mystical Hebrew meaning,
discovered by the author’s ancestor, a kabbalist Spanish Jew of the fifteenth
century. Bocarro-Rosales claimed that hidden in his name was the prediction
that he would be the individual privileged to proclaim the name of the
king who would restore the Portuguese royal house. These works excited
much attention among the Sebastianists. 29
Having left Portugal, Bocarro-Rosales resumed his activities as a physician,
scientist, and prognosticator in Hamburg and Livorno, reverting meanwhile
to his ancestral Judaism. Indeed, he clearly kept up a secret Jewish
identity in Portugal, and, as can be seen from the centrality of his kabbalist
Jewish forebear, he connected this Jewish identity with his messianic prognostications.
But, paradoxically, the messianic figures in these writings are
the kings of Portugal! 30 Perhaps Bocarro-Rosales did not propose a Jewish
messiah because he thought the messiah’s current manifestation was only
temporary, and his soul might have been from the House of David. The important
point is that he brought his Sebastianist messianic proclivities into
the Jewish world in the period immediately preceding the Sabbatean outbreak.
Abraham Miguel Cardoso, one of the most important Sabbatean theologians,
knew Bocarro-Rosales and his work, and was clearly influenced by
them. 31
Manasseh ben Israel was a another converso messianist with great influ-