Anti-Sabbatean Documents and Their Influence on Historiography of Sabbateanism

• In Event: Sabbateanism, Anti-Sabbateanism, and Historiography

Abstract

In this paper I argue that anti-Sabbatean documents of the seventeenth and eighteenth century have exerted a certain impact on the scholarly historiography of Sabbateanism and its definition. Considering the former’s hostile attitude toward the latter, this relationship should be reexamined.
My main focus is on R. Jacob Emden’s Torat ha-Qenaot. R. Emden accused R. Jonathan Eibeschutz of writing Today I Have Come to the Spring, which implicitly expressed his belief in Sabbatai Tzevi, and making amulets in which Sabbatean symbols can be detected. In order to demonstrate the relationship between R. Eibeschutz and Sabbateanism, R. Emden diachronically enumerated the Sabbatean believers from the days of Sabbatai Tzevi and Nathan of Gaza until R. Eibeschutz.
This heresy-hunting document has been well known until today, and, in my opinion, the definition of heresy shown in this book determined the framework of Sabbateanism. R. Emden regarded it as a chain of the consistent messianic belief. Likewise the modern scholars emphasized more uniformity than variety of Sabbateanism. However, the inner diversity of this messianic phenomenon denies this scholarly assumption derived from R. Emden’s work.
I analyze how R. Emden and some modern scholars shared the similar method to define Sabbateanism. As examples, the cases of Sefer Hemdat Yamim and the writings of R. Jonathan Eibeschutz are to be argued. R. Emden attributed Hemdat Yamim, collection of kabbalistic precepts and practices, to Sabbatean authorship because it contains the poems of Nathan of Gaza and some seemingly Sabbatean practices. But the alleged elements occupy mere small a part of the whole book. I compare R. Emden’s claim with the studies of Abraham Yaari, Gershom Scholem and Moshe Fogel.
Though R. Jonathan Eibeschutz never confessed his belief in Sabatai Tzevi, he was the primary target of R. Emden’s criticism. Indeed R. Eibeschutz adopted kabbalistic ideas from the writings of Nathan, yet his messianic speculation was not that of the first generation. I examine the studies of Gershom Scholem, Moshe Arie Perlmuter and Yehuda Liebes. Through these two cases I clarify R. Emden’s impact on the studies of Sabbateanism and the difficulty in defining its framework.

author

• Shinichi Yamamoto, Kyoto University