It was the day of Messianic dreams. In the century that was over,
strange figures had appeared of prophets and martyrs and Hebrew
visionaries. From obscurity and the far East came David Reubeni,
journeying to Italy by way of Nubia to obtain firearms to rid
Palestine of the Moslem--a dark-faced dwarf, made a skeleton by fasts,
riding on his white horse up to the Vatican to demand an interview,
and graciously received by Pope Clement. In Portugal--where David
Reubeni, heralded by a silken standard worked with the Ten
Commandments, had been received by the King with an answering
pageantry of banners and processions--a Marrano maiden had visions of
Moses and the angels, undertook to lead her suffering kinsfolk to the
Holy Land, and was burnt by the Inquisition. Diogo Pires--handsome and
brilliant and young, and a Christian by birth--returned to the faith
of his fathers, and, under the name of Solomon Molcho, passed his
brief life in quest of prophetic ecstasies and the pangs of
martyrdom. He sought to convert the Pope to Judaism, and predicting a
great flood at Rome, which came to pass, with destructive earthquakes
at Lisbon, was honored by the Vatican, only to meet a joyful death at
Mantua, where, by order of the Emperor, he was thrown upon the blazing
funeral pyre. And in these restless and terrible times for the Jews,
inward dreams mingled with these outward portents. The _Zohar_--the
Book of Illumination, composed in the thirteenth century--printed now
for the first time, shed its dazzling rays further and further over
every Ghetto.
The secrets reserved for the days of the Messiah had been revealed in
it: Elijah, all the celestial conclave, angels, spirits, higher souls,
and the Ten Spiritual Substances had united to inspire its composers,
teach them the bi-sexual nature of the World-Principle, and discover
to them the true significance of the _Torah_ (Law), hitherto hidden in
the points and strokes of the Pentateuch, in its vowels and accents,
and even in the potential transmutations of the letters of its words.
Lurya, the great German Egyptian Cabalist, with Vital, the Italian
alchemist, sojourned to the grave of Simon bar Yochai, its fabled
author. Lurya himself, who preferred the silence and loneliness of the
Nile country to the noise of the Talmud-School, who dressed in white
on Sabbath, and wore a fourfold garment to signify the four letters of
the Ineffable Name, and who by permutating these, could draw down
spirits from Heaven, passed as the Messiah of the Race of Joseph,
precursor of the true Messiah of the Race of David. The times were
ripe. "The kingdom of heaven is at hand," cried the Cabalists with one
voice. The Jews had suffered so much and so long. Decimated for not
dying of the Black Death, pillaged and murdered by the Crusaders,
hounded remorselessly from Spain and Portugal, roasted by thousands
at the _autos-da-fé_ of the Inquisition, everywhere branded and
degraded, what wonder if they felt that their cup was full, that
redemption was at hand, that the Lord would save Israel and set His
people in triumph over the heathen! "I believe with a perfect faith
that the Messiah will come, and though His coming be delayed,
nevertheless will I daily expect Him."
So ran their daily creed.
In Turkey what time the Jews bore themselves proudly, rivalling the
Venetians in the shipping trade, and the Grand Viziers in the beauty
of their houses, gardens, and kiosks; when Joseph was Duke of Naxos,
and Solomon Ashkenazi Envoy Extraordinary to Venice; when Tiberias was
turned into a new Jerusalem and planted with mulberry-trees; when
prosperous physicians wrote elegant Latin verses; in those days the
hope of the Messiah was faint and dim. But it flamed up fiercely
enough when their strength and prestige died down with that of the
Empire, and the harem and the Janissaries divided power with the
Prætorians of the Spahis, and the Jews were the first objects of
oppression ready to the hand of the unloosed pashas, and the black
turban marked them off from the Moslem. It was a Rabbi of the Ottoman
Empire who wrote the religious code of "The Ordered Table" to unify
Israel and hasten the coming of the Messiah, and his dicta were
accepted far and wide.
And not only did Israel dream of the near Messiah, the rumor of Him
was abroad among the nations. Men looked again to the mysterious
Orient, the cradle of the Divine. In the far isle of England sober
Puritans were awaiting the Millennium and the Fifth Monarchy of the
Apocalypse--the four "beasts" of the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and
Roman monarchies having already passed away--and when Manasseh ben
Israel of Amsterdam petitioned Cromwell to readmit the Jews, his plea
was that thereby they might be dispersed through all nations, and the
Biblical prophecies as to the eve of the Messianic age be thus
fulfilled. Verily, the times were ripe for the birth of a Messiah.