settle in England starting in 1664. (Ben-Israel had passed away seven years
earlier, under the impression that his two-year mission in England had failed.)
There were alsoJewishmessianic overtones behind Ben-Israel’s wish.
Resettlement of the Jews in England would be the fulfillment of a prophecy
in the book of Daniel ( 12 : 7 ): “When he shall have accomplished to scatter the
power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.” Taking into
account that the ten tribes were considered to be in America, England was
the only location on earth with no Jews. A Jewish presence in the British isles
would fulfill a “necessary condition” for redemption. Ben-Israel was also
attentive to Jesuit reports in Europe about the discovery of Jews in China—at
one edge of the earth—which he combined with rumors about the ten tribes in
America, at a new edge of the earth. All this, together with prospects of Jewish
settlement in England, might indeed bring the redemption.^42
While Ben-Israel did not share the theological perspectives of his Christian
colleagues, he certainly believed that he was living in an age that might see the
beginning of the redemption of the Jews. His book’s title,Esperanc ̧a de Israel,
points to theEsperanc ̧a de Portugal, Quinto Imperio do Mundoby Antonio Vieira
( 1608 – 1697 ). Vieira, a Portuguese-born Jesuit who moved to Brazil, met with
Ben-Israel twice, in 1646 and 1648 , in Amsterdam. A prophetic figure in his
own right, he developed a messianic vision centered on the mystical figure of
the Portuguese king Sebastian ( 1557 – 1578 ), killed in a battle against Morocco.
After his death, Sebastian became the core of a messianic cult to restore
Portuguese power and unity. The slain young king was supposed to return
and unite all of humanity under Portugal’s rule. In Vieira’s upgraded formula-
tion, Portuguese Jews were to play a crucial first role in this process by
rejoining the Portuguese nation and embracing Jesus.^43 This was the back-
ground for his contacts with Ben-Israel, a leading Jewish figure of Portuguese
decent. While the two obviously disagreed on the role that the Jews were to play
in the coming messianic era, the similarity of the titles of their books suggests
a degree of mutual influence and dialogue. Vieira’s bizarre ideas were some-
what substantiated by his incarceration by the Inquisition as a “Judaiser,”
but his call to restore the Portuguese Jews to Portugal should be seen as yet
another variation on an idea that was on the minds of many at the time.
Restoring the Jews—to the body of the church, to the Portuguese people,
or to their land—was considered an important step in many millenarian or
messianic scenarios. Isaac La Peyre`re ( 1596 – 1676 ), a French millenarian of
Marranic descent who was famous for his pre-Adamite thesis (which claimed
that there was a human stage before the biblical Adam), called in 1643 for both
Jews and Christians to return to an old form of Christianity to be shared by
both.^44 Ben-Israel was certainly part of this restorative frame of mind. The
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