booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

perstition, and although he is said to have declined the Jews' offer to buy St. Paul's Cathedral and the Bodleian
Library because he considered the £500,000 they offered inadequate,[7] he exerted every effort to obtain
their readmission to the country. In this he encountered violent opposition, and it seems that Jews were not
permitted to return in large numbers, or at any rate to enjoy full rights and privileges, until after the accession
of Charles II, who in his turn had enlisted their financial aid.[8] Later, in 1688, the Jews of Amsterdam
helped with their credit the expedition of William of Orange against James II; the former in return brought
many Jews with him to England. So a Jewish writer is able to boast that "a Monarch reigned who was indebted
to Hebrew gold for his royal diadem."[9]
In all this it is impossible to follow any consecutive political plan; the role of the Jews seems to have
been to support no cause consistently but to obtain a footing in every camp, to back any venture that offered
a chance of profit. Yet mingled with these material designs were still their ancient Messianic dreams. It is
curious to note that the same Messianic idea pervaded the Levellers, the rebels of the Commonwealth; such
phrases as " Let Israel go free," " Israel's restoration is now beginning," recur frequently in the literature of
the sect. Gerard Winstanley, one of the two principal leaders, addressed an epistle to " the Twelve Tribes of
Israel that are circumcised in heart and scattered through all the Nations of the Earth," and promised them "
David their King that they have been waiting for." The other leader of the movement, by name Everard, in
fact declared, when summoned before the Lord Fairfax at Whitehall, that " he was of the race of the
Jews."[10] It is true that the Levellers were by profession Christian, but after the manner of the Bavarian Illuminati
and of the Christian Socialists two centuries later, claiming Christ as the author of their Communistic
and equalitarian doctrines: " For Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all Men, is the greatest, first, and truest
Leveller that ever was spoken of in the world." The Levellers are said to have derived originally from the
German Anabaptists; but Claudio Jannet, quoting German authorities, shows that there were Jews amongst
the Anabaptists. " They were carried away by their hatred of the name of Christian and imagined that their
dreams of the restoration of the kingdom of Israel would be realized amidst the conflagration."[11] Whether
this was so or not, it is clear that by the middle of the seventeenth century the mystical ideas of Judaism had
penetrated into all parts of Europe. Was there then some Cabalistic centre from which they radiated? Let us
turn our eyes eastward and we shall see.
Since the sixteenth century the great mass of Jewry had settled in Poland, and a succession of miracleworkers
known by the name of Zaddikim or Ba'al Shems had arisen. The latter word, which signifies " Master
of the Name," originated with the German Polish Jews and was derived from the Cabalistic belief in the
miraculous use of the sacred name of Jehovah, known as the Tetragrammaton.
According to Cabalistic traditions, certain Jews of peculiar sanctity or knowledge were able with impunity
to make use of the Divine Name. A Ba'al Shem was therefore one who had acquired this power and employed
it in writing amulets, invoking spirits, and prescribing cures for various diseases. Poland and particularly
Podolia-which had not yet been ceded to Russia-became thus a centre of Cabalism where a series of extraordinary
movements of a mystical kind followed each other. In 1666, when the Messianic era was still
believed to be approaching, the whole Jewish world was convulsed by the sudden appearance of Shabbethai
Zebi, the son of a poulterer in Smyrna named Mordecai, who proclaimed himself the promised Messiah and
rallied to his support a huge following not only amongst the Jews of Palestine, Egypt, and Eastern Europe,
but even the hard-headed Jews of the Continental bourses.[12] Samuel Pepys in his Diary refers to the bets
made amongst the Jews in London on the chances of " a certain person now in Smyrna " being acclaimed
King of the World and the true Messiah.[13]
Shabbethai, who was an expert Cabalist and had the temerity to utter the Ineffable Name Jehovah, was
said to be possessed of marvellous powers, his skin exuded exquisite perfume, he indulged perpetually in
sea-bathing and lived in a state of chronic ecstasy. The pretensions of Shabbethai, who took the title of "
King of the Kings of the Earth," split Jewry in two; many Rabbis launched imprecations against him, and
those who had believed in him were bitterly disillusioned when, challenged by the Sultan to prove his claim
to be the Messiah by allowing poisoned arrows to be shot at him, he suddenly renounced the Jewish faith
and proclaimed himself a Mohammedan. His conversion, however, appeared to be only partial, for " at
times he would assume the rôle of a pious Mohammedan and revile Judaism; at others he would enter into
relations with Jews as one of their own faith."[14] By this means he retained the allegiance both of
Moslems and of Jews. But the Rabbis, alarmed for the cause of Judaism, succeeded in obtaining his incarceration
by the Sultan in a castle near Belgrade, where he died of colic in 1676.[15]
This prosaic ending to the career of the Messiah did not, however, altogether extinguish the enthusiasm
of his followers, and the Shabbethan movement continued into the next century. In Poland Cabalism broke
out with renewed energy; fresh Zaddikim and Ba'al Shems arose, the most noted of these being Israel of
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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