n so that all the unborn
souls which through the constant re-incarnations, necessary to enable
the old sinful souls to work out their Perfection, had not yet been
able to find bodies, might enter the world, and so complete the scheme
of creation. Seven hundred children were thus joined in wedlock.
Business, work was suspended; the wheel of the cloth-workers ceased;
the camels no longer knelt in the Jewish quarter of Smyrna, the Bridge
of Caravans ceased to vibrate with their passing, the shops remained
open only so long as was necessary to clear off the merchandise at any
price; whoso of private persons had any superfluity of household stuff
sold it off similarly, but yet not to Jews, for these were interdicted
from traffic, business being the mark of the unbeliever, and
punishable by excommunication, pecuniary mulcts, or corporeal
chastisements. Everybody prepared for the imminent return to
Palestine, when the heathen should wait at the table of the Saints and
the great Leviathan deck the Messianic board. In the interim the poor
were supported by the rich. In Thessalonica alone four thousand
persons lived on gifts; truly Messianic times for the Abraham Rubios.
In Smyrna the authority of the Cadi was ignored or silenced by purses;
when the Turks complained, the Seraglio swallowed gold on both sides.
The _Chacham_ Aaron de la Papa, being an unbeliever and one of those
who had originally driven him from his birthplace, was removed by
Sabbatai, and Chayim Benvenisti appointed _Chacham_ instead. The noble
Chayim Penya, the one sceptic of importance left in Smyrna, was
wellnigh torn to pieces in the synagogue by the angry multitude, but
when his own daughters went into prophetic trances and saw the glory
of the Kingdom he went over to Sabbatai's side, and reports flew
everywhere that the Messiah's enemies were struck with frenzies and
madness, till, restored by him to their former temper and wits, they
became his friends, worshippers, and disciples. Four hundred other men
and women fell into strange ecstasies, foamed at the mouth, and
recounted their visions of the Lion of Judah, while infants, who could
scarcely stammer out a syllable plainly, repeated the name of
Sabbatai, the Messiah; being possessed, and voices sounding from their
stomachs and entrails. Such reports, bruited through the world by the
foreign ambassadors at Smyrna, the clerks of the English and Dutch
houses, the resident foreigners, and the Christian minist