the cities from an attack by the children of Israel, for if they could pass
the river they would destroy the world. The Israelites possess ten of the
cities. We make known to you that for these ten cities, and for other
expenses which we are obliged to make for the great King of Israel, he
gives us yearly a hundred camels, loaded with gold, silver, precious
stones and pearls; besides this he pays a tribute for our not ravaging
the land which lies between us and themselves. Know also, that the
great King of Israel has under his dominion 200 kings, who hold their
lands only with his permission. Besides these kings, there are 2 , 300
governors and princes. In his countries flow two rivers coming from
the Garden of Eden.^57
As historian Andrew Gow has convincingly shown, this was the first
instance of a potent medieval myth lumping together Prester John, the ten
tribes, and, occasionally, Gog/Magog—a forgery that became chiefly responsi-
ble for the rise of the anti-Semitic eschatological myth of the Red Jews in
fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Germany.^58 This is also the first clear in-
stance of Christian interest in the ten tribes as depicted in a postbiblical Jewish
source and of a dialogic process through which Jews and Christian fed each
other ten tribes knowledge. Of course, each side reserved the right to cast itself
in as positive a light as possible. Even if the “King of Israel” pays tribute to the
Christian Prester John, he heads a strong polity with “ 200 kings” against
which the Christians still need to gather a huge army.
Epstein comments that the purpose of the forgery was “to counter the story
of Eldad of which the Jews were proud”^59 —one man’s apocalyptic catastrophe
being messianic hope for another. In the Hebrew version of the letters, the ten
tribes are described as having still more power, and there is no mention at all of
their subordinate status vis-a`-vis the Christian king: “There are under the rule of
King Daniel 300 kings, all Jews, and all of them possess countries under the
power of King Daniel. And also under his governance are 3 , 000 dukes and
counts and great men and we know that his country is unfathomable.”^60 This is
another instance of the invocation of the ten tribes’ story for political purposes.
Whatever the reason for its composition, the story illustrates the extent to
which Eldad’s version of the militarized empire of the ten tribes, somewhere in
the “extreme Orient” and/or Ethiopia, had become popular in Europe. In the
wake of the letters, the ten tribes’ importance in the European Christian
imagination was certain. In many instances, a search for Prester John often
implied, or triggered, a search for the ten lost tribes themselves.
The clearest proponent of this military image, and a sign of its dissemina-
tion, is Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, the famous Iberian traveler with whom this
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