408 A History of Judaism
Zohar and some other books, and travelled there to ask him about cer-
tain obscure passages in the Zohar, intending to remain until Passover.
I discovered the young man to be humble and God- fearing, possessor of
every good quality. When I told him, ‘I have come to learn from you the
incomprehensible mysteries of the Zohar,’ he replied: ‘I am astonished at
Your Worship! For my own part, I do not even know Rashi, and I do not
know even a single verse of the Bible beyond what is revealed to me.’ ... I
asked if it were true he is messiah son of Joseph. ‘That is what they tell me,’
he answered. Since birth he has had on his arm a mark shaped like a lily,
from the first join of his little finger to his forearm. I came from there, to
make a long story short, in the most excellent spirits. It was clear to us he
was not possessed by a ghost or a demon, God forbid, for his demeanour
was exceedingly calm and rational, and all his conversation was of the
divine Unity. Moreover, he fasts continually. I asked him to perform some
miraculous sign. ‘What could be more miraculous’, he replied, ‘than what
you now see? I once knew nothing even about the Bible, and now I speak
of the ten sefirot and the kabbalistic mysteries. I am not telling you to
anticipate a redemption that is one year away, or two years. Wait two
months only; then you will no longer need to ask questions.Joseph ibn Tsur died soon after this letter was written, but another contem-
porary claimant to the role of Messiah, son of Joseph, Abraham Miguel
Cardoso, was to last longer, and leave a greater impression on those who
continued in the hope that Sabbetai’s career had religious meaning.^44
This Cardoso was a converso who had studied Christian theology in
Spain before escaping to Venice in his early twenties and openly profess-
ing his allegiance to Judaism. In 1655 he became a follower of Sabbetai
Zevi, and he was not swayed from his belief by Sabbetai’s adoption of
the turban, although he opposed vehemently the conversion of other
Sabbatians to Islam. Defiantly observant of traditional Jewish custom
and opposed to antinomianism, Cardoso aroused opposition nonethe-
less from other Jews by expounding a new doctrine, related to the
Neoplatonic teachings in his university education, that the God of
Israel, who is the object of worship, is to be distinguished from the First
Cause, which has no relation to created things. He set out this thesis in
a treatise, Boker Avraham (‘Dawn of Abraham’), which he sent to Sab-
betai Zevi in 1673 (although he got no reply). He spent much of the rest
of his life defending it, disparaging the role of the hidden First Cause
and anything within the Sabbatian movement that might smack of the
Catholic dogmas he had left behind in Spain. Frequent travels in Italy,