n the
chances of "a certain person now in Smyrna" being acclaimed King of the
World and the true Messiah.[467]

Shabbethai, who was an expert Cabalist and had the temerity to utter the
Ineffable Name Jehovah, was said to be possessed of marvellous powers,
his skin exuded exquisite perfume, he indulged perpetually in
sea-bathing and lived in a state of chronic ecstasy. The pretensions of
Shabbethai, who took the title of "King of the Kings of the Earth,"
split Jewry in two; many Rabbis launched imprecations against him, and
those who had believed in him were bitterly disillusioned when,
challenged by the Sultan to prove his claim to be the Messiah by
allowing poisoned arrows to be shot at him, he suddenly renounced the
Jewish faith and proclaimed himself a Mohammedan. His conversion,
however, appeared to be only partial, for "at times he would assume the
role of a pious Mohammedan and revile Judaism; at others he would enter
into relations with Jews as one of their own faith."[468] By this means
he retained the allegiance both of Moslems and of Jews. But the Rabbis,
alarmed for the cause of Judaism, succeeded in obtaining his
incarceration by the Sultan in a castle near Belgrade, where he died of
colic in 1676.[469]

This prosaic ending to the career of the Messiah did not, however,
altogether extinguish the enthusiasm of his followers, and the
Shabbethan movement continued into the next century. In Poland Cabalism
broke out with renewed energy; fresh Zaddikim and Ba'al Shems arose, the
most noted of these being Israel of Podolia, known as Ba'al Shem Tob, or
by the initial letters of this name, Besht, who founded his sect of
Hasidim in 1740.

Besht, whilst opposing bigoted Rabbinism and claiming the Zohar as his
inspiration, did not, however, adhere strictly to the doctrine of the
Cabala that the universe was an emanation of God, but evolved a form of
Pantheism, declaring that the whole universe was God, that even evil
exists in God since evil is not bad in itself but only in its relation
to Man; sin therefore has no positive existence.[470] As a result the
followers of Besht, calling themselves the "New Saints," and at his
death numbering no less than 40,000, threw aside not only the precepts
of the Talmud, but all the restraints of morality and even decency.[471]

Another Ba'al Shem of the same period was Heilprin, alias Joel Ben Uri
of Satanov, who, like Israel of Podolia, professed to perform miracles
by the use