who reincarnated him, even as he
had reincarnated King David. For the new Sabbatian doctrine of the
Godhead, according to which the central figure of its Trinity found
successive reincarnation in a divine man, had left the door open for a
series of prophets who sprang up, now in Tripoli, now in Turkey, now
in Hungary. I must do my grandfather the justice to say that his
motives were purer than those of many of the sect, whose chief
allurement was probably the mystical doctrine of free love, and the
Adamite life: for the poor old man became more a debauchee of pain
than of pleasure, inflicting upon himself all sorts of penances, to
hasten the advent of the kingdom of God on earth. He denied himself
food and sleep, rolled himself in snow, practised fumigations and
conjurations and self-flagellations, so as to overthrow the legion of
demons who, he said, barred the Messiah's advent. Sometimes he
terrified me by addressing these evil spirits by their names, and
attacking them in a frenzy of courage, smashing windows and stoves in
his onslaught till he fell down in a torpor of exhaustion. And, though
he was so advanced in years, my father could not deter him from
joining in the great pilgrimage that, under Judah the Saint, set out
for Palestine, to await the speedy redemption of Israel. Of this Judah
the Saint, who boldly fanned the embers of the Sabbatian heresy into
fierce flame, I have a vivid recollection, because, against all
precedent, he mounted the gallery of the village synagogue to preach
to the women. I remember that he was clad in white satin, and held
under his arm a scroll of the law, whose bells jingled as he walked;
but what will never fade from my recollection is the passion of his
words, his wailing over our sins, his profuse tears. Lad as I was, I
was wrought up to wish to join this pilgrimage, and it was with bitter
tears of twofold regret that I saw my grandfather set out on that
disastrous expedition, the leader of which died on the very day of its
arrival in Jerusalem.

My own Sabbatian fervor did not grow cold for a long time, and it was
nourished by my study of the Cabalah. But, although ere I lay down my
pen I shall have to say something of the extraordinary resurgence of
this heresy in my old age, and of the great suffering which it caused
my beloved Master, the Baal Shem, yet Sabbatianism did not really play
much part in my early life, because such severe measures were taken
against it by the or