In the gloom of the great synagogue, while the worshippers swayed ghostly, and the ram's horn sounded shrill and jubilant, Sabbataï, standing before the Ark, where the Scrolls of the Law stood solemn, proclaimed himself, amid a tense awe as of heavens opening in ineffable vistas, the Righteous Redeemer, the Anointed of Israel.
A frenzied shout of joy, broken by sobs, answered him from the vast assembly.
"Long live our King! Our Messiah!" Many fell prostrate on the ground, their faces to the floor, kissing it, weeping, screaming, shouting in ecstatic thankfulness; others rocked to and fro, blinded by their tears, hoarse with exultation.
"Messhiach! Messhiach!"
"The Kingdom has come!"
"Blessed be the Messiah!"
In the women's gallery there were shrieks and moans: some swooned, others fell a-prophesying, contorting themselves spasmodically, uttering wild exclamations; the spirit seized upon little children, and they waved their arms and shouted frantically.
"Messhiach! Messhiach!"
The long exile of Israel was over—the bitter centuries of the badge and the byword, slaughter and spoliation; no longer, O God! to cringe in false humility, the scoff ofthe street-boy, the mockery of mankind, penned in Ghettos, branded with the wheel or the cap—but restored to divine favor as every Prophet had predicted, and uplifted to the sovereignty of the peoples.
"Messhiach! Messhiach!"
They poured into the narrow streets, laughing, chattering, leaping, dancing, weeping hysterically, begging for forgiveness of their iniquities. They fell at Sabbataï feet, women spread rich carpets for him to tread (though he humbly skirted them), and decked their windows and balconies with costly hangings and cushions. Some, conscious of sin that might shut them out from the Kingdom, made for the harbor and plunged into the icy waters; some dug themselves graves in the damp soil and buried themselves up to their necks till they were numb and fainting; others dropped melted wax upon their naked bodies. But the most common way of mortification was to prick their backs and sides with thorns and then give themselves thirty-nine lashes. Many fasted for days upon days and kept Cabalistic watches by night, intoningTikkunim(prayers).
And, blent with these penances, festival after festival, riotous, delirious, whenever Sabbataï Zevi, with his vast train of followers, and waving a fan, showed himself in the street on his way to a ceremony or to give Cabalistic interpretations of Scripture in the synagogue. The shop-keepers of the Jewish bazaar closed their doors, and followed in the frenzied procession, singing "The right hand of the Lord is exalted, the right hand bringeth victory," jostling, fighting, in their anxiety to be touched with the fan and inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. And over these vast romping crowds, drunk with faith, Melisselda queened it with her voluptuous smiles and the joyous abandon of her dancing, and men and women, boys and girls, embraced andkissed in hysterical frenzy. The yoke of the Law was over, the ancient chastity forgotten. In the Cabalistic communities of Thessalonica, where the pious began at once to do penance, some dying of a seven-days' fast, and others from rolling themselves naked in the snow, parents hastened to marry young children so that all the unborn souls which through the constant re-incarnations, necessary to enable the old sinful souls to work out their Perfection, had not yet been able to find bodies, might enter the world, and so complete the scheme of creation. Seven hundred children were thus joined in wedlock. Business, work was suspended; the wheel of the cloth-workers ceased; the camels no longer knelt in the Jewish quarter of Smyrna, the Bridge of Caravans ceased to vibrate with their passing, the shops remained open only so long as was necessary to clear off the merchandise at any price; whoso of private persons had any superfluity of household stuff sold it off similarly, but yet not to Jews, for these were interdicted from traffic, business being the mark of the unbeliever, and punishable by excommunication, pecuniary mulcts, or corporeal chastisements. Everybody prepared for the imminent return to Palestine, when the heathen should wait at the table of the Saints and the great Leviathan deck the Messianic board. In the interim the poor were supported by the rich. In Thessalonica alone four thousand persons lived on gifts; truly Messianic times for the Abraham Rubios. In Smyrna the authority of the Cadi was ignored or silenced by purses; when the Turks complained, the Seraglio swallowed gold on both sides. TheChachamAaron de la Papa, being an unbeliever and one of those who had originally driven him from his birthplace, was removed by Sabbataï, and Chayim Benvenisti appointedChachaminstead. The noble Chayim Penya, the one sceptic of importance left in Smyrna, was wellnigh torn topieces in the synagogue by the angry multitude, but when his own daughters went into prophetic trances and saw the glory of the Kingdom he went over to Sabbataï's side, and reports flew everywhere that the Messiah's enemies were struck with frenzies and madness, till, restored by him to their former temper and wits, they became his friends, worshippers, and disciples. Four hundred other men and women fell into strange ecstasies, foamed at the mouth, and recounted their visions of the Lion of Judah, while infants, who could scarcely stammer out a syllable plainly, repeated the name of Sabbataï, the Messiah; being possessed, and voices sounding from their stomachs and entrails. Such reports, bruited through the world by the foreign ambassadors at Smyrna, the clerks of the English and Dutch houses, the resident foreigners, and the Christian ministers, excited a prodigious sensation, thrilling civilized mankind. On the Exchanges of Europe men took the odds for and against a Jewish kingdom.
Upon the Jews of the world the news that the Messiah had passed from a far-off aspiration into a reality fell like a thunderbolt; they were dazed with joy; then they began to prepare for the great journey. Everywhere self-flagellation, almsgiving, prophetic ecstasies and trances, the scholars and the mob at one in joyous belief. And everywhere also profligacy, adultery, incest, through the spread of a mystical doctrine that the sinfulness of the world could only be overcome by the superabundance of sin.
Amsterdam and Hamburg—the two wealthiest communities—receiving constant prophetic messages from Nathan of Gaza, became eager participators in the comingKingdom. In the Dutch capital, the houses of prayer grew riotous with music and dancing, the dwelling-houses gloomy with penitential rigors. The streets were full of men and women prophesying spasmodically, the printing presses panted, turning out new prayer-books with penances and formulæ for the faithful. And in theseTikkunim, starred with mystic emblems of the Messiah's dominance, the portrait of Sabbataï appeared side by side with that of King David. At Hamburg the Jews were borne heavenwards on a wave of exultation; they snapped their fingers at the Christian tormentor, refused any longer to come to the compulsory Christian services. Their own services became pious orgies. Stately Spanish Jews, grave blue-blooded Portuguese, hitherto smacking of the Castilian hidalgo, noble seigniors like Manuel Texeira, the friend of a Queen of Sweden, erudite physicians like Bendito de Castro, president of the congregation, shed their occidental veneer and might have been seen in the synagogue skipping like harts upon the mountains, dancing wild dances with the Holy Scroll clasped to their bosoms.
"Hi diddi hulda hi ti ti!" they carolled in merry meaninglessness.
"Nay, but this is second childhood," quoth the venerable Jacob Sasportas, chief Rabbi of the English Jews, as he sat in the presidential pew, an honored visitor at Hamburg. "Surely thy flock is demented."
De Castro's brow grew black.
"Have a care, or my sheep may turn dog. An they overhear thee, it were safer for thee even to go back to thy London."
Sasportas shook his head with a humorous twinkle.
"Yea, if Sabbataï will accompany me. An he be Messiah let him face the Plague, let him come and prophesy inLondon and outdo Solomon Eagle; let him heal the sick and disburden the death-carts."
"He should but lay his hands on the sick and they were cured!" retorted De Castro. "But his mission is not in the isles of the West; he establisheth the throne in Zion."
"Well for thee not in Hamburg, else would thy revenues dwindle, O wise physician. But the Plague is wellnigh spent now; if he come now he may take the credit of the cure."
"Rabbi as thou art, thou art an Epicurean; thou sittest in the seat of the scorner."
"'Twas thou didst invite me thereto," murmured Sasportas, smiling.
"The Plague is but a sign of the Messianic times, and the Fire that hath burnt thy dwelling-place is but the castigation for thine incredulity."
"Yea, there be those who think our royal Charles the Messiah, and petition him to declare himself," said Sasportas, with his genial twinkle. "Hath he not also his Melisseldas?"
"Hush, thou blasphemer!" cried De Castro, looking anxiously at the howling multitude. "But thou wilt live to eat thy words."
"Be it so," said Sasportas, with a shrug of resignation. "I eat nothing unclean."
But it was vain for the Rabbi of the little western isle to contend by quip or reason against the popular frenzy. England, indeed, was a hotbed of Christian enthusiasts awaiting the Jewish Millennium, the downfall of the Pope and Anti-Christ, and Jews and Christians caught mutual fire.
From the far North of Scotland came a wonderful report of a ship with silken sails and ropes, worked by sailors who spoke with one another in the solemn syllables ofthe sacred tongue, and flying a flag with the inscription, "The Twelve Tribes of Israel!" And a strange rumor told of the march of multitudes from unknown parts into the remote deserts of Arabia. Fronted with sceptics, believers offered wagers at ten to one that within two years Sabbataï would be anointed King of Jerusalem; bills of exchange were drawn in Threadneedle Street upon the issue.
And, indeed, Sabbataï was already King of the Jews. From all the lands of the Exile crowds of the devout came to do him homage and tender allegiance—Turkish Jews with red fez or saffron-yellow turban; Jerusalem Jews in striped cotton gowns and soft felt hats; Polish Jews with foxskin caps and long caftans; sallow German Jews, gigantic Russian Jews, high-bred Spanish Jews; and with them often their wives and daughters—Jerusalem Jewesses with blue shirts and head-veils, Egyptian Jewesses with sweeping robes and black head-shawls, Jewesses from Ashdod and Gaza, with white visors fringed with gold coins, Polish Jewesses with glossy wigs, Syrian Jewesses with eyelashes black as though lined with kohl, fat Jewesses from Tunis, with clinging breeches interwoven with gold and silver.
Daily he held his court, receiving deputations, advices, messengers. Young men and maidens offered him their lives to do with as he would; the rich laid their fortunes at his feet, and fought for the honor of belonging to his body-guard. That abstract deity of the Old Testament—awful in His love and His hate, without form, without humanity—had been replaced by a Man, visible, tangible, lovable; and all the yearning of their souls, all that suppressed longing for a visual object of worship which had found vent and satisfaction in the worship of the Bible or the Talmud in its every letter and syllable, now went outtowards their bodily Redeemer. From the Ancient of Days a new divine being had been given off—the Holy King, the Messiah, the Primal Man, Androgynous, Perfect, who would harmonize the jarring chords, restore the spiritual unity of the Universe. Before the love in his eyes sin and sorrow would vanish as evil vapors; the frozen streams of grace would flow again.
"I, the Lord your God, Sabbataï Zevi!"
Thus did Secretary Samuel Primo sign the Messianic decrees and ordinances.
The month of Ab approached—the Messiah's birthday, the day of the Black Fast, commemorating the fall of the Temples. But Melisselda protested against its celebration by gloom and penance, and the word went out to all the hosts of captivity—
"The only and just-begotten Son of God, Sabbataï Zevi, Messiah and Redeemer of the people of Israel, to all the sons of Israel, Peace! Since ye have been worthy to behold the great day, and the fulfilment of God's word to the prophets, let your lament and sorrow be changed into joy, and your fasts into festivals; for ye shall weep no more. Rejoice with drums, organs, and music, making of every day a New Moon, and change the day which was formerly dedicated to sadness and sorrow into a day of jubilee, because I have appeared; and fear ye naught, for ye shall have dominion not only over the nations, but over the creatures also in the depths of the sea."
Thereat arose a new and stranger commotion throughout all the Ghettos, Jewries, and Mellahs. The more part received the divine message in uproarious jubilation. The Messiah was come, indeed! Those terrible twenty-fourhours of absolute fasting and passionate prayer—henceforward to be hours of feasting and merriment! O just and joyous edict! The Jewish Kingdom was on the eve of restoration—how then longer bewail its decay!
But the staunchest pietists were staggered, and these the most fervent of the followers of Sabbataï. What! The penances and prayers of sixteen hundred years to be swept away! The Yoke of the Torah to be abolished! Surely true religion rather demanded fresh burdens. What could more fitly mark the Redemption of the World than new and more exacting laws, if, indeed, such remained to be invented? True, God himself was now incarnate on earth—of that they had no doubt. But how could He wish to do away with the laws deduced from the Holy Book and accumulated by the zealous labors of so many generations of faithful Rabbis; how could He set aside the venerated prescriptions of theShulchan Aruchof the pious Benjamin Caro (his memory for a blessing), and all that network of ceremonial and custom for the zealous maintenance of which their ancestors had so often laid down their lives? How could He so blaspheme?
And so—in blind passion, unreasoning, obstinate—they clung to their threatened institutions; in every Jewry they formed little parties for the defence of Judaism.
What they had prayed for so passionately for centuries had come to pass. The hopes that they had caught from theZohar, that they had nourished and repeated day and night, the promise that sorrow should be changed into joy and the Law become null and void—here was the fulfilment. The Messiah was actually incarnate—the Kingdom of the Jews was at hand. But in their hearts was a vague fear of the dazzling present, and a blind clinging to the unhappy past.
In the Jewry of Smyrna the Messiah walked on theafternoon of the abolished fast, and a vast concourse seethed around him, dancing and singing, with flute and timbrel, harp and drum. Melisselda's voice led the psalm of praise. Suddenly a whisper ran through the mob that there were unbelievers in the city, that some were actually fasting and praying in the synagogue. And at once there was a wild rush. They found the doors shut, but the voice of wailing was heard from inside.
"Beat in the doors!" cried Isaac Silvera. "What do they within, profaning the festal day?"
The crowd battered in the doors, they tore up the stones of the street and darted inside.
The floor was strewn with worshippers, rocking to and fro.
The venerable Aaron de la Papa, shorn of his ancient Rabbinical prestige, but still a commanding figure, rose from the floor, his white shroud falling weirdly about him, his face deadly pale from the long fast.
"Halt!" he cried. "How dare you profane the House of God?"
"Blasphemers!" retorted Silvera. "Ye who pray for what God in His infinite mercy has granted, do ye mock and deride Him?"
But Solomon Algazi, a hoary-headed zealot, cried out, "My fathers have fasted before me, and shall I not fast?"
For answer a great stone hurtled through the air, just grazing his head.
"Give over!" shouted Elias Zevi, one of Sabbataï's brothers. "Be done with sadness, or thou shalt be stoned to death. Hath not the Lord ended our long persecution, our weary martyrdom? Cease thy prayer, or thy blood be on thine own head." Algazi and De la Papa were driven from the city; theKofrim, as the heretics were dubbed, were obnoxious to excommunication. Thethunder of the believers silenced the still small voice of doubt.
And from the Jewries of the world, from Morocco to Sardinia, from London to Lithuania, from the Brazils to the Indies, one great cry in one tongue rose up:—"Leshanah Haba Berushalayim—Leshanah Haba Beni Chorin.Next year in Jerusalem—next year, sons of freedom!"
It was the eve of 1666. In a few days the first sun of the great year would rise upon the world. The Jews were winding up their affairs, Israel was strung to fever pitch. The course of the exchanges, advices, markets, all was ignored, and letters recounting miracles replaced commercial correspondence.
Elijah the Prophet, in his ancient mantle, had been seen everywhere simultaneously, drinking the wine-cups left out for him, and sometimes filling them with oil. He was seen at Smyrna on the wall of a festal chamber, and welcomed with compliments, orations, and thanksgivings. At Constantinople a Jew met him in the street, and was reproached for neglecting to wear the fringed garment and for shaving. At once fringed garments were reintroduced throughout the Empire, and heads, though always shaven after the manner of Turks and the East, now became overgrown incommodiously with hair—even thePiyos, or earlock, hung again down the side of the face, and its absence served to mark off theKofrim.
Sabbataï Zevi, happy in the love of Melisselda, rapt in heavenly joy, now confidently expecting the miracle that would crown the miracle of his career, prepared to set out for Constantinople to take the Crown from the Sultan'shead to the sound of music. He held a last solemn levée at Smyrna, and there, surrounded by his faithful followers, with Melisselda radiantly enthroned at his side, he proceeded to parcel out the world among his twenty-six lieutenants.
Of these all he made kings and princes. His brothers came first. Elias Zevi he named King of Kings, and Joseph Zevi King of the Kings of Judah.
"Into thee, O Isaac Silvera," said he, "has the soul of David, King of Israel, migrated. Therefore shalt thou be called King David and shalt have dominion over Persia. Thou, O Chayim Inegna, art Jeroboam, and shalt rule over Araby. Thou, O Daniel Pinto, art Hilkiah, and thy kingdom shall be Italia. To thee, O Matassia Aschenesi, who reincarnatest Asa, shall be given Barbary, and thou, Mokiah Gaspar, in whom lives the soul of Zedekiah, shalt reign over England." And so the partition went on, Elias Azar being appointed Vice-King or Vizier of Elias Zevi, and Joseph Inernuch Vizier of Joseph Zevi.
"And for me?" eagerly interrupted Abraham Rubio, the beggar from the Morea.
"I had not forgotten thee," answered Sabbataï. "Art thou not Josiah?"
"True—I had forgotten," murmured the beggar.
"To thee I give Turkey, and the seat of thine empire shall be Smyrna."
"May thy Majesty be exalted for ever and ever," replied King Josiah fervently. "Verily shall I sit under my own fig-tree."
Portugal fell to a Marrano physician who had escaped from the Inquisition. Even Sabbataï's old enemy, Chayim Penya, was magnanimously presented with a kingdom.
"To thee, my well-beloved Raphael Joseph Chelebi of Cairo," wound up Sabbataï, "in whose palace Melisseldabecame my Queen, to thee, under the style of King Joash, I give the realm of Egypt."
The Emperor of the World rose, and his Kings prostrated themselves at his feet.
"Prepare yourselves," said he. "On the morning of the New Year we set out."
When he had left the chamber a great hubbub broke out. Wealthy men who had been disappointed of kingdoms essayed to purchase them from their new monarchs. The bidding for the Ottoman Empire was particularly high.
"Away! Flaunt not your money-bags!" cried Abraham Rubio, flown with new-born majesty. "Know ye not that this Smyrna is our capital city, and we could confiscate your gold to our royal exchequer? Josiah is King here." And he took his seat upon the throne vacated by Sabbataï. "Get ye gone, or the bastinado and the bowstring shall be your portion."
Punctually with the dawn of the Millennial Year the Turkish Messiah, with his Queen and his train of Kings, took ship for Constantinople to dethrone the Grand Turk, the Lord of Palestine. He voyaged in a two-masted Levantine Saic, the bulk of his followers travelling overland. Though his object had been diplomatically unpublished, pompous messages from Samuel Primo had heralded his advent. The day of his arrival was fixed. Constantinople was in a ferment. The Grand Vizier gave secret orders for his arrest as a rebel; a band of Chiauses was sent to meet the Saic in the harbor. But the day came and went and no Messiah. Instead, thunders and lightnings and rain and gales and news of wrecks. The wind was northerly, as commonly in the Hellespont and Propontis, and itseemed as if the Saic must have been blown out of her course.
The Jews of Constantinople asked news of every vessel. The captain of a ketch from the Isles of Marmora told them that a chember had cast anchor in the isles, and a tall man, clothed in white, who bestrode the deck, being apprised that the islanders were Christians, had raised his finger, whereupon the church burnt down. When at last the Jews heard of the safety of Sabbataï's weather—beaten vessel, which had made for a point on the coast of the Dardanelles, they told how their Master had ruled the waves and the winds by the mere reading of the hundred and sixteenth Psalm. But the news of his safety was speedily followed by the news of his captivity; the Vizier's officers were bringing him to Constantinople.
It was true; yet his Mussulman captors were not without a sense of the majesty of their prisoner, for they stopped their journey at Cheknesé Kutschuk, near the capital, so that he might rest for the Sabbath, and hither, apprised in advance by messenger, the Sabbatians of Constantinople hastened with food and money. They still expected to see their Sovereign arrive with pomp and pageantry, but he came up miserably on a sorry horse, chains clanking dismally at his feet. Yet was he in no wise dismayed. "I am like a woman in labor," he said to his body-guard of Kings, "the redoubling of whose anguish marks the near deliverance. Ye should laugh merrily, like the Rabbi in the Talmud when he saw the jackal running about the ruined walls of the Temple; for till the prophecies are utterly fulfilled the glory cannot return." And his face shone with conscious deity.
He was placed in a khan with a strong guard. But his worshippers bought off his chains, and even made for him a kind of throne. On the Sunday his captors brought him,and him alone, to Constantinople. A vast gathering of Jews and Turks—a motley-colored medley—awaited him on the quay; mounted police rode about to keep a path for the disembarking officers and to prevent a riot. At length, amid clamor and tumult, Sabbataï set fettered foot on shore.
His sad, noble air, the beauty of his countenance, his invincible silence, set a circle of mystery around him. Even the Turks had a moment of awe. A man-god, surely!
The Pacha had sent his subordinate with a guard to transfer him to the Seraglio. By them he was first hastily conducted into the custom-house, the guard riding among and dispersing the crowd.
Sabbataï sat upon a chest as majestically as though it were the throne of Solomon.
But the Sub-Pacha shook off the oppressive emotion with which the sight of Sabbataï inspired him.
"Rise, traitor," said he, "it is time that thou shouldst receive the reward of thy treasons and gather the fruit of thy follies." And therewith he dealt Sabbataï a sounding box of the ear.
His myrmidons, relieved from the tension, exploded in a malicious guffaw.
Sabbataï looked at the brutal dignitary with sad, steady gaze, then silently turned the other cheek.
The Sub-Pacha recoiled with an uncanny feeling of the supernatural; the mockery of the bystanders was hushed.
Sabbataï was conducted by side ways, to avoid the mob, to the Palace of the Kaimacon, the Deputy-Vizier.
"Art thou the man," cried the Kaimacon, "whom the Jews aver to have wrought miracles at Smyrna? Now is thy time to work one, for lo! thy treason shall cost thee dear."
"Miracles!" replied Sabbataï meekly. "I—what am Ibut a poor Jew, come to collect alms for my poor brethren in Jerusalem? The Jews of this great city persuade themselves that my blessing will bring them God's grace; they flock to welcome me. Can I stay them?"
"Thou art a seditious knave."
"An arrant impostor," put in the Sub-Pacha, "with the airs of a god. I thought to risk losing my arm when I cuffed him on the ear, but lo! 'tis stronger than ever." And he felt his muscle complacently.
"To gaol with the rogue!" cried the Kaimacon.
Sabbataï, his face and mien full of celestial conviction, was placed in the loathsome dungeon which served as a prison for Jewish debtors.
For a day or so the Moslems made merry over the disconcerted Jews and their Messiah. The street-boys ran after the Sabbatians, shouting, "Gheldi mi? Gheldi mi?" (Is he coming? Is he coming?); the very bark of the street-dogs sounded sardonic. But soon the tide turned. Sabbataï's prophetic retinue testified unshaken to their Master—Messiah because Sufferer. Women and children were rapt in mystic visions, and miracles took place in the highways. Moses Suriel, who in fun had feigned to call up spirits, suddenly hearing strange singing and playing, fell into a foaming fury, and hollow prophecies issued from him, sublimely eloquent and inordinately rapid, so that on his recovery he went about crying, "Repent! Repent! I was a mocker and a sinner. Repent! Repent!" The Moslems themselves began to waver. A Turkish Dervish, clad in white flowing robes, with a stick in his hand, preached in the street corners to his countrymen,proclaiming the Jewish Messiah. "Think ye," he cried, "that to wash your hands stained with the blood of the poor and full of booty, or to bathe your feet which have walked in the way of unrighteousness, suffices to render you clean? Vain imagination! God has heard the prayers of the poor whom ye despise! He will raise the humble and abash the proud." Bastinadoed in vain several times, he was at last brought before the Cadi, who sent him to theTimar-Hané, the mad-house. But the doctors testified that he was sound, and he was again haled before the Cadi, who threatened him with death if he did not desist. "Kill me," said the Dervish pleadingly, "and ye will deliver me from the spirits which possess me and drive me to prophesy." Impressed, the Cadi dismissed him, and would have laden him with silver, but the Dervish refused and went his rhapsodical way. And in the heavens a comet flamed.
Soon Sabbataï had a large Turkish following. The Jews already in the debtors' dungeon hastened to give him the best place, and made a rude throne for him. He became King of the Prison. Thousands surged round the gates daily to get a glimpse of him. The keeper of the prison did not fail to make his profit of their veneration, and instead of the fiveaspreswhich friends of prisoners had to pay for the privilege of a visit, he charged a crown, and grew rapidly rich. Some of the most esteemed Jews attended a whole day before Sabbataï in the Oriental postures of civility and service—eyes cast down, bodies bending forward, and hands crossed on their breasts. Before these visitors, who came laden with gifts, Sabbataï maintained an equally sublime silence; sometimes he would point to the chapter of Genesis recounting how Joseph issued from his dungeon to become ruler of Egypt.
"How fares thy miserable prisoner?" casually inquired the Kaimacon of his Sub-Pacha one day.
"Miserable prisoner, Sire!" ejaculated the Sub-Pacha. "Nay, happy and glorious Monarch! The prison is become a palace. Where formerly reigned perpetual darkness, incessant wax tapers burn; in what was a sewer of filth and dung, one breathes now only amber, musk, aloe-wood, otto of roses, and every perfume; where men perished of hunger now obtains every luxury; the crumbs of Sabbataï's table suffice for all his fellow-prisoners."
The Deputy-Vizier was troubled, and cast about for what to do.
Meantime the fame of Sabbataï grew. It was said that every night a light appeared over his head, sometimes in stars, sometimes as an olive bough. Some English merchants in Galata visited him to complain of their Jewish debtors at Constantinople, who had ceased to traffic and would not discharge their liabilities. Sabbataï took up his quill and wrote:
"To you the Nation of Jews who expect the appearance of the Messiah and the Salvation of Israel, Peace without end. Whereas we are informed that ye are indebted to several of the English nation: It seemeth right unto us to order you to make satisfaction to these your just debts: which if you refuse to do, and not obey us herein, know ye that then ye are not to enter with us into our Joys and Dominions."
The debts were instantly paid, and the glory of the occupant of the debtors' prison waxed greater still. The story of his incarceration and of the homage paid him, even by Mussulmans, spread through the world. What! The Porte—so prompt to slay, the maxim of whose polity was to have the Prince served by men he could raise without envy and destroy without danger—the Turk, ever ready with the cord and the sack, the sword and the bastinado, dared not put to death a rebel, the vaunted dethroner of the Sultan. A miracle and a Messiah indeed!
But the Kaimacon was embarking for the war with Crete; in his absence he feared to leave Sabbataï in the capital. The prisoner was therefore transferred to the abode of State prisoners, the Castle of the Dardanelles at Abydos, with orders that he was to be closely confined, and never to go outside the gates. But, under the spell of some strange respect, or in the desire to have a hold upon them, too, the Kaimacon allowed his retinue of Kings to accompany him, likewise his amanuensis, Samuel Primo, and his consort, Melisselda.
The news of his removal to better quarters did not fail to confirm the faith of the Sabbatians. It was reported, moreover, that the Janissaries sent to take him fell dead at a word from his mouth, and being desired to revive them he consented, except in the case of some who, he said, were not true Turks. Then he went of his own accord to the Castle, but the shackles they laid on his feet fell from him, converted into gold with which he gratified his true and faithful believers, and, spite of steel bars and iron locks, he was seen to walk through the streets with a numerous attendance. Nor did the Sabbatians fail to find mystic significance in the fact that their Messiah arrived at his new prison on the Eve of Passover—of the anniversary of Freedom.
Sabbataï at once proceeded to kill the Paschal lamb for himself and his followers, and eating thereof with the fat, in defiance of Talmudic Law, he exclaimed:—"Blessed be God who hath restored that which was forbidden."
To the Tower of Strength, as the Sabbatians called the castle at Abydos, wherein the Messiah held his Court,streamed treasure-laden pilgrims from Poland, Germany, Italy, Vienna, Amsterdam, Cairo, Morocco, thinking by the pious journey to become worthy of seeing his face; and Sabbataï gave them his benediction, and promised them increase of their stores and enlargement of their possessions in the Holy Land. The ships were overburdened with passengers; freights rose. The natives grew rich by accommodating the pilgrims, the castellan (interpreting liberally the Kaimacon's instructions to mean that though the prisoner might not go out visitors might come in) by charging them fifteen to thirty marks for admission to the royal precincts. A shower of gold poured into Abydos. Jew, Moslem, Christian—the whole world wondered, and half of it believed. The beauty and gaiety of Melisselda witched the stubbornest sceptics. Men's thoughts turned to "The Tower of Strength," from the far ends of the world. Never before in human history had the news of a Messiah travelled so widely in his own lifetime. To console those who could not make the pilgrimage to him or to Jerusalem, Sabbataï promised equal indulgence and privilege to all who should pray at the tombs of their mothers. His initials, S.Z., were ornamentally inscribed in letters of gold over almost every synagogue, with a crown on the wall, in the circle of which was the ninety-first Psalm, and a prayer for him was inserted in the liturgy: "Bless our Lord and King, the holy and righteous Sabbataï Zevi, the Messiah of the God of Jacob."
The Ghettos began to break up. Work and business dwindled in the most sceptical. In Hungary the Jews commenced to demolish their houses. The great commercial centres, which owed their vitality to the Jews, were paralyzed. The very Protestants wavered in their Christianity. Amsterdam, under the infection of Jewish enthusiasm, effervesced with joy. At Hamburg, despite theepistolary ironies of Jacob Sasportas, the rareKofrim, or Anti-Sabbatians, were forced, by order of Bendito de Castro, to say Amen to the Messianic prayer. At Livorne commerce dried up. At Venice there were riots, and theKofrimwere threatened with death. In Moravia the Governor had to interfere to calm the tumult. At Salee, in Algeria, the Jews so openly displayed their conviction of their coming dominance that the Emir decreed a persecution of them. At Smyrna, on the other hand, aChachamwho protested to the Cadi against the vagaries of his brethren, was, by the power of their longer purse, shaved of his beard and condemned to the galleys.
Three months of princely wealth and homage for Sabbataï had passed. In response to the joyous inspiration of Melisselda, he had abandoned all his ascetic habits, and lived the life of a king, ruling a world never again to be darkened with sin and misery. The wine sparkled and flowed, the choicest dishes adorned the banqueting-table, flowers and delicate odors made grateful the air, and the beautiful maidens of Israel danced voluptuously before him, shooting out passionate glances from under their long eyelashes. The fast of the seventeenth of Tammuz came round. Sabbataï abolished it, proclaiming that on that day the conviction that he was the Messiah had been borne in upon him. The ninth of Ab—the day of his Nativity—was again turned from a fast to a festival, the royal edict, promulgated throughout the world, quoting the exhortation of Zephaniah: "Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for lo I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord." Detailed prescriptions as to the order of the services and the psalmody accompanied the edict.
And in this supreme day of jubilation and merrymaking, of majesty and splendor, crowned with the homage andbenison of his race, deputations of which came from all climes and soils to do honor to his nativity, the glory of Sabbataï culminated.
(Here endeth the Second Scroll.)
In the hour of his triumph, two Poles, who had made the pious pilgrimage, told him of a new Prophet who had appeared in far-off Lemberg, one Nehemiah Cohen, who announced the advent of the Kingdom, but not through Sabbataï Zevi.
That night, when his queen and his courtiers were sleeping, Sabbataï wrestled sore with himself in his lonely audience-chamber. The spectre of self-doubt—long laid to rest by music and pageantry—was raised afresh by this new and unexpected development. It was a rude reminder that this pompous and voluptuous existence was, after all, premature, that the Kingdom had yet to be won.
"O my Father in Heaven!" he prayed, falling upon his face. "Thou hast not deceived me. Tell me that this Prophet is false, I beseech Thee, that it is through me that Thy Kingdom is to be established on earth. I await the miracle. The days of the great year are nigh gone, and lo! I languish here in mock majesty. A sign! A sign!"
"Sabbataï!" A ravishing voice called his name. He looked up. Melisselda stood in the doorway, come from her chamber as lightly clad as on that far-off morning in the cemetery.
There was a strange rapt expression in her face, and,looking closer, he saw that her laughing eyes were veiled in sleep.
"It is the sign," he muttered in awe.
He sprang to his feet and took her white hand, that burnt his own, and she led him back to her chamber, walking unerringly.
"It is the sign," he murmured, "the sign that Melisselda hath truly led me to the Kingdom of Joy."
But in the morning he awoke still troubled. The meaning of the sign seemed less clear than in the silence of the night; the figure of the new Prophet loomed ominous.
When the Poles went back they bore a royal letter, promising the Polish Jews vengeance on the Cossacks, and commanding Nehemiah to come to the Messiah with all speed.
The way was long, but by the beginning of September Nehemiah arrived in Abydos. He was immediately received in private audience. He bore himself independently.
"Peace to thee, Sabbataï."
"Peace to thee, Nehemiah. I desired to have speech with thee; men say thou deniest me."
"That do I. How should Messiah—Messiah of the House of David, appear and not his forerunner, Messiah of the House of Ephraim, as our holy books foretell?" Sabbataï answered that the Ben Ephraim had already appeared, but he could not convince Nehemiah, who proved highly learned in the Hebrew, the Syriac, and the Chaldean, and argued point by point and text by text. The first Messiah was to be a preacher of the Law, poor, despised, a servant of the second. Where was he to be found?
Three days they argued, but Nehemiah still went about repeating his rival prophecies. The more zealous of the Sabbatians, angry at the pertinacious and pugnaciouscasuist, would have done him a mischief, but the Prophet of Lemberg thought it prudent to escape to Adrianople. Here in revenge he sought audience with the Kaimacon.
"Treason, O Mustapha, treason!" he announced. He betrayed the fantastic designs upon the Sultan's crown, still cherished by Sabbataï and known to all but the Divan; the Castellan of Abydos, for the sake of his pocket, having made no report of the extraordinary doings at the Castle.
Nehemiah denounced Sabbataï as a lewd person, who endeavored to debauch the minds of the Jews and divert them from their honest course of livelihood and obedience to the Grand Seignior. And, having thus avenged himself, the Prophet of Lemberg became a Mohammedan.
A Chiaus was at once dispatched to the Sultan, and there was held a Council. The problem was grave. To execute Sabbataï—beloved as he was by Jew and Turk alike—would be but to perpetuate the new sect. The Mufti Vanni—a priestly enthusiast—proposed that they should induce him to follow in the footsteps of Nehemiah, and come over to Islam. The suggestion seemed not only shrewd, but tending to the greater glory of Mohammed, the one true Prophet. An aga set out forthwith for Abydos. And so one fine day when the Castle of the Dardanelles was besieged by worshippers, when the Tower of Strength was gay with brightly clad kings, and filled with pleasant plants and odors and the blended melodies of instruments and voices, a body of moustachioed Janissaries flashed upon the scene, dispersing the crowd with their long wands; they seized the Messiah and his queen, and brought them to Adrianople.
The Hakim Bashi, the Sultan's physician, who as a Jew-Turk himself, was thought to be the fittest to approach Sabbataï, laid the decision of the Grand Seignior before him on the evening of his arrival at Adrianople. The released prisoner was lodged with mocking splendor in a commodious apartment in the palace, overlooking the river, and lay upon a luxurious divan, puffing at a chibouque with pretended calm.
"What reverences is it customary to make to the Grand Seignior?" he asked, with affected nonchalance, when the first salutations with the physician had been exchanged. "I would not be wanting in the forms when I appear before his exalted majesty."
"An end to the farce, Sabbataï Zevi!" said the Hakim Bashi, sternly. "The Sultan demands of thee not posturings, but a miracle."
"Have not miracles enough been witnessed?" asked Sabbataï, in a low tone.
"Too many," returned the ex-Jew drily. "Yet if thou wouldst save thy life there needs another."
"What miracle?"
"That thou turn Turk!" And a faint smile played about the physician's lips.
There was a long silence. Sabbataï's own lips twitched, but not with humor. The regal radiance of Abydos had died out of his face, but its sadness was rather of misery than the fine melancholy of yore.
"And if I refuse this miracle?"
"Thou must give us a substitute. The Mufti Vanni suggests that thou be stript naked and set as a mark for the archers; if thy flesh and skin are proof like armor, weshall recognize thee as the Messiah indeed, and the person designed by Allah for the dominions and greatnesses to which thou dost pretend."
"And if I refuse this miracle, too?"
"Then the stake waits at the gate of the seraglio to compel thee," thundered the Hakim Bashi; "thou shalt die with tortures. The mercy of decapitation shall be denied thee, for thou knowest well Mohammedans will not pollute their swords with the blood of a Jew. Be advised by me, Sabbataï," he continued, lowering his tone. "Become one of us. After all, the Moslem are but the posterity of Hagar. Mohammed is but the successor of Moses. We recognize the One God who rules the heavens and the earth, we eat not swine-flesh. Thou canst Messiah it in a white turban as well as in a black," he ended jocosely.
Sabbataï winced. "Renegade!" he muttered.
"Ay, and an excellent exchange," quoth the physician. "The Sultan is a generous paymaster, may his shadow never grow less. He giveth thee till the morn to decide—Turk or martyr? With burning torches attached to thy limbs thou art to be whipped through the streets with fiery scourges in the sight of the people—such is the Sultan's decree. He is a generous paymaster. After all, what need we pretend—between ourselves, two Jews, eh?" And he winked drolly. "The sun greets Mohammed every morn, say these Turks. Let to-morrow's greet another Mohammedan."
Sabbataï sprang up with an access of majesty.
"Dog of an unbeliever! Get thee gone!"
"Till to-morrow! The Sultan will give thee audience to-morrow," said the Hakim Bashi imperturbably, and, making a mock respectful salutation, he withdrew from the apartment.
Melisselda had been dosing in an inner chamber after thefatigue of the journey, but the concluding thunders of the duologue had aroused her, and she heard the physician's farewell words. She now parted the hangings and looked through at Sabbataï, her loveliness half-framed, half-hidden by the tapestry. Her face was wreathed in a heavenly smile.
"Sabbataï!" she breathed.
He turned a frowning gaze upon her. "Thou art merry!" he said bitterly.
"Is not the hour come?" she cried joyously.
"Yea, the hour is come," he murmured.
"The hour of thy final trial and triumph! The longed-for hour of thy appearance before the Sultan, when thou wilt take the crown from his head and place it on—"
Instead of completing the sentence, she ran to take his head to her bosom. But he repulsed her embracing arms. She drew back in consternation. It was the first time she had known him rough, not only with her, but with any creature.
"Leave me! Leave me!" he cried huskily.
"Nay, thou needest me." And her forgiving arms spread towards him in fresh tenderness.
He looked at her without moving to meet them.
"Ay, I need thee," he said pathetically. "Therefore," and his voice rose firm again, "leave me to myself."
"Thou hast become a stranger," she said tremulously. "I do not understand thee."
"Would thou hadst ever been a stranger, that I had never understood thee."
"Sabbataï, thou ravest."
"I have come to my senses. O my God! my God!" and he fell a-weeping on the divan.
Melisselda's alarm grew greater.
"Rouse thyself, they will hear thee."
"Let them hear. God hears me not."
"Hears thee not? Thou art He!"
"I God!" He laughed bitterly. "Thou believest that! Thou who knowest me man!"
"I know thee all divine. I have worshipped thee in joy. Art thou not Messiah?"
"Messiah! Who cannot save myself!"
"Who can hurt thee? Who hath ever hurt thee from thy youth up? The Angels watch over thy footsteps. Is not thy life one long miracle?"
He shook his head hopelessly. "All this year I have waited the miracle—all those weary months in the dungeon of Constantinople, in the Castle of Abydos—but what sure voice hath spoken? To-morrow I shall be disembowelled, lashed with fiery scourges—who knows what these dogs may do?"
"Hush! hush!"
"Ah, thou fearest for me!" he cried, in perverse triumph. "Thou knowest I am but mortal man!"
The roses of her beautiful cheek had faded, but she spoke, unflinching.
"Nay, I believe on thee still. I followed thee to thy prison, unwitting it would turn into a palace. I follow thee to thy torture to-morrow, trusting it will be the crowning miracle and the fiery scourges will turn into angels' feathers. It is the word of Zechariah fulfilled. 'In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf.'"
His eyes grew humid as he looked up at her. "Yea, Melisselda, thou hast been true and of good courage. And now, when I am alone, when the shouts of the faithful have died away, when the King of the World lies here alone in darkness and ashes, thou hast faith still?"
"Ay, I believe—'tis but a trial, the final trial of my faith."
She smiled at him confidently; hope quickened within him. "If this were but a trial, the final trial ofmyfaith!" he murmured. "But no—ere that white strip of moon rises again in the heavens I shall be a mangled corpse, the feast of wolves, unless—I have prayed for a sign—oh, how I have prayed, and now—ah, see! A star is falling. O my God, that this should be the end of my long martyrdom! But the punishment of my arrogance is greater than I can bear. God, God, why didst Thou send me those divine-seeming whispers, those long, long thoughts that thrilled my soul? Why didst Thou show me the sin of Israel and his suffering, the sorrow and evil of the world, inspiring me to redeem and regenerate?" His breast swelled with hysteric sobs.
"My Sabbataï!" Melisselda's warm arms were round him. He threw her off with violence. "Back, back!" he cried. "I understand the sign; I understand at last. 'Tis through thee that I have forfeited the divine grace."
"Through me?" she faltered.
"Yea; thy lips have wooed mine away from prayer, thine arms have drawn me down from the steeps of righteousness. Thou hast made me unfaithful to my bride, the Law. For nigh forty years I lived hard and lonely, steeped my body in ice and snow, lashed myself—ay, lashed myself, I who now fear the lash—till the blood ran from a dozen wounds, and now, O God! O God! Woman, thou hast polluted me! I have lost the divine spirit. It hath gone out from me; it will incarnate itself in another, in a nobler. Once I was Messiah, now I am man."
"I?—I took from thee the divine spirit!"
She looked at him in all the flush of her beauty, grown insolent again.
He sprang up, he fell upon her breast, he kissed her lips madly.
"Nay, nay, thou hast shown it me! Love! Love! 'tis Love that breathes through all things, that lifts the burden of life. But for thee I should have passed away, unknowing the glory of manhood. I am a man—a man rejoicing in his strength! O my starved youth! why did I not behold thee earlier?" Tears of self-pity rolled down his ashen cheek. "O my love! my love! my lost youth! Give me back my youth, O God! Who am I, to save? A man; yea, a man, glorying in manhood. Ah! happy are they who lead the common fate of men, happy in love, in home, in children; woe for those who would climb, who would torture and deny themselves, who would save humanity? From what? If they have Love, have they not all? It is God, it is the Kingdom. It is the Kingdom. Come, let us live—I a man, thou a woman!"
"But a Mussulman!"
"What imports? God is everywhere. Was not our Maimonides—he at whose tomb we worship in Tiberias—himself once a Mussulman? Did he not say that if it be to save our lives naught is forbidden?"
He moved to take her in his arms, but this time it was she that drew back. Her eyes flashed.
"Nay, as a man, I love thee not. Thou art divine or naught; God or Impostor!"
"Melisselda!" She ignored his stricken cry.
"Nay, this ordeal hath endured long enough," she replied sternly. "Confess, I have been proof."
"I am neither God nor Impostor," he said brokenly. "Ah! say not that thou canst not love me as a man. When thou didst first come to bless my life I had not yet declared myself Messiah."
"Who knows what I thought then? A wild girl, crazedby the convent, by the blood shed before my childish eyes, I came to thee full of lawless passions and fantastic dreams. But as I lived with thee, as I saw the beauty of thy thought, thy large compassion, the purity of thy life amid temptations that made me jealous as a woman of Damascus, then I knew thee a God indeed."
"Nay, when I knew thee I knew myself man. But as our followers grew, as faith and fortune trod in my footsteps, my blasphemous dream revived; I believed in thy vision of the Kingdom. When I divided the world I thought myself Messiah indeed. But as I sat on my throne at Abydos, with worshippers from the world's end kissing my feet, a hollow doubt came over me, a sense of dream, and hollow voices echoed ever in my ear, asking, 'Art thou Messiah? Art thou Messiah? Art thou Messiah?' I strove to drown them in the festive song; but in the stillness of the night, when thou wast sleeping at my side, the voices came back, and they cried mockingly, 'Man! Man! Man!' And when Nehemiah came—"
"Man!" interrupted Melisselda impatiently. "Cease to cozen me. Have I not known men? Ay, who more? Their weaknesses, their vanities, their lewdnesses—enough! To-morrow thou shalt assert the God."
He threw himself back on the divan and sighed wearily. "Leave me, Melisselda. Go to thy rest; to-night I must keep vigil alone. Perchance it is my last night on earth."
Her countenance lit up. "Yea, to-morrow comes the Kingdom of Heaven." And smiling ineffable trust, she stooped down and lightly kissed his hair, then glided from the room.
And in his sleepless brain and racked soul went on, through that unending night, the terrible tragedy of doubt, tempered by spells of spasmodic prayer. A God, or a Man? A Messiah undergoing his Father's lasttemptation; or a martyr on the eve of horrible death? And if the victim of a monstrous self-delusion, what mattered whether one lived out one's years of shame as Jew or Mussulman? Nobler, perhaps, to die, and live as an heroic memory—but then to leave Melisselda! To leave her warm breast and the sunlight and the green earth, and all that beauty of the world and of human life to which his eyes had only been unsealed after a lifetime of self-torturing blindness?
"O God! O God!" he cried, "wherefore hast Thou mocked and abandoned me?"