The Sabbatean Prophets

Nathan of Gaza 57
Each claimed to be heir to an ancient secret tradition carried on by adepts
throughout the generations, which preserved some great knowledge revealed
to the wise men of ages past. The secrets themselves were in both
cases scientific and organizational; but they also carried no small measure of
mystical airs about them, and, in revealing hoary secret knowledge, incorporated
a messianic valence. These were the elements that gave the movements
their great appeal. It goes without saying that such a belief system,
both in the medieval and early modern worlds, bred an industry in false credentials
forged with guile or accepted with credulity.
Nathan of Gaza, the brilliant theologian behind the success of Sabbateanism,
was a past master in the understanding of ancient wisdom and its
uses in the Jewish context. He wielded a wide spectrum of tools for attaching
his ideas to Jewish traditions reputed to date from the greatest antiquity,
all in the service of Shabbatai Zvi’s messianic mission. We will examine texts
from his four earliest Sabbatean prophecies: a day-long prophetic trance, a
public spirit-possession episode, the pseudepigraphic apocalypse (The Vision
of Rabbi Abraham), and Nathan’s letter to Raphael Joseph Chelebi announcing
Shabbatai as messiah. Throughout, Nathan’s apparently sincere prophetic
calling overlays great sensitivity toward the issue of antiquity and
novelty in his time.
Nathan of Gaza—Abraham Nathan ben Elisha Hayyim Ashkenazi (ca.
1643/4–1680)—was born in Jerusalem of parents who had immigrated
from Poland or Germany. His father was a well-known rabbinic scholar who
spent many years as an emissary collecting funds all over Europe and the
Ottoman Empire for the poverty-stricken Jerusalem Jews. Nathan was a
highly gifted student at the yeshivah of Hakham Jacob Hagiz. He married the
daughter of the wealthy Samuel Lissabona of Gaza, presumably a Portuguese
Jew, and in 1663 joined the family in that city. Shortly afterward he
embarked on his many mystical adventures. 1
Nathan’s Prophetic Vision
Nathan’s first prophecy concerning Shabbatai Zvi is particularly significant
because it constitutes the conversion-event of the first real Sabbatean believer,
perhaps not excluding Shabbatai himself. 2 This prophecy, the Great
Vision, occurred in February or early March of 1665, though Nathan’s recollections
of the experience were recorded only much later, in documents