ABSTRACT
In 1648, a kabbalistically significant year, Sabbatai Zevi began telling others that he was the messiah. For his messianic claims, Sabbatai lived an itinerant existence throughout the Ottoman Empire. In 1663 he travelled to Jerusalem, where his piety and asceticism attracted even more followers. The pamphleteer’s description of Sabbatai’s testimony before the Vizier continues his portrayal of Sabbatai as an extremely reluctant messiah, for he now claimed that the office had been forced upon him, and that he had only a negligible knowledge of Hebrew and the Torah. Essenius is clearly seeking to use the emotional crisis surrounding the Zevi disillusionment to convince the Jews to convert to Protestant Christianity. Later chroniclers of course referred to the Sabbatai Zevi incident as a historical lesson. The final false messiah was Sabbatai Zevi, about whom “so much has been written, that one scarcely knows what to believe.”
