Of Prophets and Messiahs 2


 * Of Prophets and Messiahs, Part 2
 * by Jonathan I. Edelstein
 * 29 October 2001

Jews, history of ... The turn of the third century was a turbulent time for the rabbinic Jews who remained in the Mediterranean world. By the early 190s, the sporadic warfare along the northern border of Christendom had begun to be recognized as a religious struggle between Christianity and Submission. Although the term "Hundred Years War" would not become current until much later -- the kings and armies who took part in the early battles thought of them as a series of small wars rather than a single large one -- the Christian world quickly saw itself as engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the heathen, both to regain the lost lands of Christendom and to preserve its very life. In such an atmosphere, it was hardly surprising that some Christian clergymen preached that Christendom should first purge itself of the enemy within, and that some lords and urban mobs would listen. The position of Jews in the Mediterranean kingdoms had become steadily worse during the second century, but the wave of persecution that began with the "Toledo Sermons" of SE 189 [961 CE] was more intense than anything that had gone before...

... One product of these troubled times was a generation of false messiahs. The majority of these were little more than wandering preachers, or even charlatans seeking to fleece the Jewish community out of what little wealth it retained. Two of them, however, were to have a more lasting effect on the Jews of the Mediterranean world.

The first of these was Yitzhak Reuveni, a rabbinical student in Massilia who had thus far shown little aptitude either for study or for work. In the spring of SE 192 [964 CE], however, he shocked the Jews of Massilia by striding into the synagogue during Saturday morning prayers and shouting the Name of God three times. Throwing the rabbi from the pulpit, he proclaimed that he was the Messiah, that the rule of Law had come to an end, and that he would soon redeem all Israel. He announced that in one year, he would sail to Jerusalem and take up his throne, after which he would gather all the Jews in the world to his side. The Massilian Jewish community, amazed that he had survived his pronunciation of the Name and that the rabbis were powerless to stop him, concluded that he was indeed what he claimed to be.

News of his advent spread like wildfire among the Jews of Europe and the Levant. The day of Reuveni's birth and that of his revelation became feast days on the Jewish calendar. Jews throughout the Mediterranean world flagellated themselves and mortified their bodies to purge themselves of sin and gave away the material goods that they would not need in the coming messianic age. Individual families began to drift into Jerusalem in anticipation of his promised arrival, arriving in greater and greater numbers as the winter of 192-93 turned to spring.

All this alarmed the King of Syria, who had no desire to see a massive influx of Jews to his domain and who was concerned about the violence that had already erupted between Christians and Jews in the Holy Land. When Reuveni indeed arrived at Antioch in April 193 [965 CE], accompanied by a hundred of his closest followers, he was met at the dock by a company of Syrian soldiers. Arrested and taken to Damascus, he was given the choice between death and conversion to Christianity. To the dismay of his followers, he became a Christian and lived out his life as a servant in the king's palace... FN1

... Reuveni's apostasy, even more than his advent, sent shock waves through the already-traumatized Jewish world. Thousands of his followers who had given away their earthly possessions found themselves suddenly destitute without the prospect of imminent messianic redemption. Many of them became apocalyptic preachers in their own right, only to be turned on by the Jews who had rejected Reuveni in the first place.

One of these was Solomon ben Yehudah, who had been a prosperous merchant in Toledo before the advent of Reuveni but was reduced to begging afterward. The Jews of Toledo, which was the site of the sermons of 189 and was among the cities where persecution was heaviest, had been among the first to embrace Reuveni, and many retained a stubborn faith in the coming redemption even after he embraced the Christian faith. In the autumn of 194, during the celebration of the Jewish New Year, ben Yehudah declared that he, not Reuveni, was the true Messiah and that he would redeem Israel where Reuveni had failed. The first step in this redemption, he preached, would be the razing of the citadel of unholiness from whence the Toledo Sermons had come.

What followed was one of the few instances in medieval history where Jews rioted against Christians. Mobs of armed Jews stormed through the streets of Toledo for three days engaging in pitched battles with the city guard, setting fire to the cathedral and burning churches wherever they could be found. The bishop of Toledo, who five years before had preached that the crusade against Submission must begin with the cleansing of the Jews, met a fiery end during the fighting.

In the end, however, troops from surrounding garrisons and hastily organized Christian militias put down the riots. The Jews defended themselves as fanatically as the Christians fought them, and not a single Jew of Toledo survived. Ben Yehudah's body was never found, however, and sightings of him were reported all over the Mediterranean world for centuries...

... In the wake of the Toledo riots, the Visigothic king decided that he could no longer tolerate Jews in his domain. On Christmas Day, 194, he declared that no Jew could remain in the Visigothic Kingdom after Easter. During the first months of 195, Jews streamed out of the kingdom, with most going only as far as southern Francia or North Africa. Some, however, went all the way to Babylonia and India, and others sought shelter in the House of Submission to the north...