False Messiahs, Part 2

Yesterday we started looking at some of the predictions about the Jewish Messiah appearing in the 12th century. The 13th century had its own claimants as well. Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia was one.

Born in Aragon in 1240, he was taught the Torah and Talmud by his father after the family moved to Navarre. When Abulafia was 18, his father died, and the young man began wandering the world, eventually deciding to go to Israel and find the Ten Lost Tribes. Unfortunately, the Crusades had made a journey to Israel dangerous, so he returned to Europe, studied the Guide for the Perplexed of Maimonides, and started having visions.

He studied Kabbalah, and immersed himself in the Sefer Yetzirah, finding in it the path to perfection for a human being. In 1280 he went to Rome to convert Pope Nicholas III to Judaism. Hearing of his intention, the pope gave orders to burn the heretic as soon as he arrived. Before Abulafia reached Rome, however, he heard that Nicholas died of a stroke, so he returned to Messina where he was imprisoned for a month by the Order of Friars Minor.

In Messina he is reported to have declared himself a prophet and the Messiah, which angered the local Jewish congregation. A letter against Abulafia written by the influential Shlomo ben Aderet of Barcelona—who was making it his life's work to speak out against the rise of false Messiahs—helped put an end to Abulafia's career. Up until 1291 he was in Malta and writing his own works on meditation and symbolism, after which he disappears from records.

The other major "Messiah" of this century was Nissim ben Abraham, whom we discussed in the story of Abner of Burgos.

It is interesting that there was enough concern about false Messiahs that Shlomo ben Aderet had a career about denouncing and disproving them. Let's take a look at Shlomo next, the "Rabbi of Spain."

(The illustration is from William Holman Hunt's 1860 "The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple.")

False Messiahs, Part 1

Yesterday's post explained how Abner of Burgos' conversion to Christianity from Judaism may have started with doubts after treating patients who were distraught after a promised Jewish Messiah failed to appear.

As it turns out, there were more than a couple claims about the appearance of the Messiah. The 2nd, 5th, 7th, and 8th centuries had their share. In the Middle Ages, there were quite a few, some documented, some not so much, like the one reported to have been simply killed by the French in 1087.

A teacher in Morocco, Moses ben Abraham Dar'ī, believed a Messiah would appear at Passover in 1127 to specifically free the Jews in the territories controlled by the Almoravid dynasty.

Menaḥem ben Solomon was born in Iraq. Growing up he studied the Torah and Talmud and, calling himself David Alroy or David el-David (meaning "David son of King/David") claimed to be the Messiah, calling on Jews to rise up against their caliph and then go to Jerusalem where they would free it from the Muslims. (Yes, a Jewish crusade in the 1160s!)

Stories of his results differ, but Benjamin of Tudela wrote that the sultan had David brought to him, asked him "Are you the king of the Jews?" to which David replied "I am." whereupon he was thrown into prison. Three days later he "rose again"; that is, he miraculously appeared in the midst of the sultan's council, then evaded arrest by turning invisible, making the 10-day journey back to his native town, Amadiya, in one day. The sultan threatened to put all Jews in his domain to death unless David surrendered. The governor of Amadiya bribed David's father-in-law to kill David.

Maimonides in his Iggeret Teman (Epistle to Yemen) tells the story of a Yemenite Messiah. Born in Fez in Morocco, he grew up at a time when the Muslims were trying to get all Jews to convert. The Yemenite Messiah claimed the troubles this caused were a sign that a Messiah would soon appear to liberate them. He started preaching that property should be distributed to the poor and people should start repenting for their sins. After a year of becoming a public nuisance the Muslims arrested him. He himself suggested that they kill him so he could prove himself by returning to life. He was beheaded, and his story ends there.

I'll tell you a more tomorrow.