early frankist doctrine

7/30/2019 Early Frankist Doctrine

1/31

Volume 20

Editor: David Engel; Associate Editors: David Assaf and Elchanan Reiner

GAL-EDOn the History and Culture of Polish Jewry

The Institute for the History of Polish Jewry and Israel-Poland Relations

The Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research CenterTel Aviv University 2006

Offprint from


2/31

ARTICLES

Pawe Maciejko

Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine

While the mature form of the Frankist doctrine expounded in The Book of

the Words of the Lord has elicited much scholarly attention, early Frankist

sources remain largely unanalyzed. The majority of these early sources were

composed during the public disputations in Kamieniec Podolski in 1757

and in Lwow in 1759.1 Because these documents were composed for the

use of the Christian public, part of the material has a clearly rhetorical,momentary character; it was meant to persuade an audience, not to express a

theological doctrine. Some of the theses put forward during the disputations

were promptly dropped as soon as the debates ended and were never really

professed by the Frankists. Moreover, it is not clear whether and to what

extent the manifestos and petitions presented in the name of the Frankists

were really composed by the people who signed them. All of the manifestos

were written in Latin or in Polish, and they exhibit traces of the knowledge

of Christian theology, which would not normally have been expected from

Jews.

Some scholars have claimed that the ostensibly Frankist theses advancedduring the disputations were not Frankist at all but were composed entirely

by Catholic theologians and rephrased only slightly so that they would

resemble Jewish documents. Majer Baaban, for example, assumed that the

points for the debate had been formulated by Polish priests and then given to

the Frankists, who filled in the gaps with quotations from Jewish sources. 2

* Research at the MoravianArchives in Herrnhut was made possiblethanks to the generous

support of the Simon Dubnow Institute in Leipzig.

1 On the disputations see Majer Baaban, LeToledot haTenuah haFrankit, Tel Aviv 1935,

pp. 137y50, 209y66.

2 Majer Baaban, Studien und Quellen zur Geschichte der frankistischen Bewegung in

Polen, in Livre dhommage a la memoire du Dr. Samuel Poznanski, Warsaw 1927, p.210.

13


3/31

Pawe Maciejko

Aleksander Kraushar went even further, claiming that Catholic theologians

who knew Hebrew and could work with Talmudic sources orchestrated the

entire debate in advance.3 However,there are several significant discrepancies

between the points raised in the disputations and official Catholic doctrine.

Observers also noted that the Frankists were less than explicit about their

acceptance of some articles of Christian belief.4 For instance, although the

Frankists stated that they believed the Messiah had already come, none of

the theses concerning the Messiah mentioned the name of Jesus. As Bernard

Weinryb has pointed out, had the theses really been formulated by the Lwow

clergymen, there would have been no reason for them to avoid mentioning

Christ or Jesus.5 In the analysis that follows, I shall argue that the manifestos

and theses do contain elements of the original Frankist doctrine and that at

least some of the points were formulated on the basis of Jewish tradition, both

orthodox and heterodox. However, as some tenets explicitly professed by

the Frankists were indubitably Christian, the status of the Christian elements

deserves more detailed attention.

Polemics and Beliefs

On the most obvious level, Christian ideas were used by the Frankists for

polemical purposes. The overt aim of the disputations was to demonstrate

the conformity of the position of the Contra-Talmudists with major tenets

of Christianity. The tactics employed for this purpose were threefold. First,

the Frankists mocked rabbinic Judaism, attempting to show that the Talmud

is full of obvious incongruities and irrationalities. Second, they challenged

3 Aleksander Kraushar, Frank i frankisci polscy, 1726y1816: Monografia historyczna

osnuta na zrodach archiwalnych i rekopismiennych, Krakow 1895, 1:150y51. An

English translation of Kraushars book entitled Jacob Frank: The End of the Sabbataian

Heresy, translated and annotated by Herbert Levy, appeared in 2001. The translation is

untrustworthy, and Levys introduction is preposterous. According to Stanisaw Zaaski,

Jezuici w Polsce, Krakow 1908, 3:674, the Frankists were supplied with theological

arguments against the Talmudists by Father Konstanty Awedyk and other Jesuits in

Lwow. The role of the Jesuits was often debated; see for instance Zygmunt Lucjan

Sulima [Walery Przyborowski], Historya Franka i Frankistow, Krakow 1893, pp. 113,

145. Jonathan Eibeschutz was also reportedly supported by the Jesuits in Prague.

4 See for example the reports of the Papal Nuncio in Warsaw: Bishop Serra to Cardinal

Torrigiani, 30 January 1760, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, the Vatican [hereafter: ASV],

Arch. Nunz. Di Varsavia, 94, Relazione della Causa e Processo di Frenk, fos. 155 v.

5 B. D. Weinryb, The Jews of Poland: A Social and Economic History of the JewishCommunity in Poland from 1100 to Recent Times, Philadelphia 1973, p. 378, n. 32.

14


4/31


the morality of the Jewish religion. Third, they wanted to demonstrate the

Talmuds anti-Christian character. In all three respects, the manifestos and

the live debate drew heavily upon standard tools of Christian anti-Jewish

polemics. As Jacob Katz has observed, a typical technique of Christian

apologetics was to take various dicta of the Talmud at their face value

and assert that all that is said in them about Gentiles applies, without

qualification, to Christians.6 In Kamieniec, the Frankists utilized the very

same technique. Good examples of this procedure are found in their reading

of Sanhedrin 58b R. Hanina said: If a heathen smites a Jew, he is worthy

of death as a statement proving that the Jews undermine the authority of

Christian rulers, and of Sanhedrin 59a R. Johanan said: A heathen who

studies theTorah deserves death as an attackupon Christiantheologians.7

Along the same lines, the Frankists argued that the Hebrew term akum (an

acronym for idolater, heathen) in rabbinic writings refers to Christians.

Hence they claimed, for instance, that the Talmud forbids Jews to save

Christians in danger or to take care of Christian sick. In the event, the termakum was sometimes used synonymously with Gentile, and the Shulhan

Aruch does list categories of people who are not to be assisted in danger,

including among them also the akum, idol worshippers;8 however, the very

same passage of the Shulhan Aruch was commonly used by halachists to

define the Christians as a specific group of Gentiles, to whom the Talmudic

statements against idolaters did not apply.9 It is clear that in these cases the

6 Jacob Katz,Exclusiveness and Tolerance:Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relationsin Medieval

and Modern Times, Oxford 1961, p. 107.

7 See Franciszek Kazimierz Kleyn, Coram judicio recolendae memoriae Nicolai de

stemmate Jelitarum a Dembowa Gora Dembowski... Pars III: De decisoriis Processus

inter infideles Judeas Dioecesis camenecensis, in materia judaicae eorum perfidiae,

aliorumque muto obiectorum A. D. 1757 expedita ac in executis pendens, Lwow 1758,

sig. O2yP3. The existing foliation is unreliable; I provide instead the numbers of the

signatures. Part I, De Praeparatoriis Processus, and Part II, De Instructoriis Processus,

were never published. For the Jewish response to this procedure, see letter of Abraham

haKohen of Zamosc, 3 Tevet 5517 [= 26 December 1756], reproduced in Jacob Emden,

Sefer Shimush, Amsterdam (Altona?) 1759, fo. 1v.

8 Shulkhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat 425, 5.

9 The locus classicus is a gloss from Beer haGolah, Rabbi Moses Rivkess commentary

to the Shulhan Aruch: The rabbis said this in relation to the pagans of their own times

only, who worshipped stars and the constellations and did not believe in the Exodus or

in creatio ex nihilo. But the people in whose shade we, the people of Israel, are exiled

and amongst whom we are dispersed do in fact believe in creatio ex nihilo and in the

Exodus and in the main principles of religion, and their whole aim and intent is to the

Maker of heaven and earth, as the codifiers have written (...) So far, then, from our not

15


5/31

Pawe Maciejko

Frankists deliberately misrepresented Judaism for the purpose of polemics

and that this kind of argument was simply part of the rhetorical layer of the

debate.

The debate also had a deeper layer, however, for the Frankist manifestos

reveal a substantial knowledge of Christian theological literature and employ

a very specific theological terminology. Here are some examples from the

Kamieniec disputation.

Thesis two reads: The books of Moses and the other books of the Old

Testament can be compared to a richly dressed Maiden, whose face is

covered and whose beauty cannot be seen. These books are full of the

hidden wisdom of God, they speak of things mysterious and of the future,

and therefore, they cannot be comprehended by human reason without the

assistance of Divine Grace. The thesis uses the technical notion of aska

Boska osobliwa (the standard Polish rendering ofgratia efficax, efficacious

grace) and alludes to the Epistle to the Romans. Similarly, thesis four (On

the basis of the Holy Bible of the Old Testament, we believe that there is OneGod, without beginning or end, maker of Heaven and Earth and all things

known and unknown) is a loose paraphrase of the Nicene Creed. Further,

thesis nine introduces the notion of Original Sin, while thesis six enunciates

not only the Incarnation, but also the sinlessness of the incarnated God.10 All

these are unquestionably Christian concepts, and it is unlikely that the Jews

would have been able to phrase them in such technical language on their own

accord. The question remains, however, whether these elements and terms

served only as a convenient linguistic costume adopted for the purpose of the

disputations, or whether some Christian tenets were genuinely incorporated

into the Frankist system of belief. Oddly enough, the very same scholars whomaintained that the theses for the disputations were composed by Christian

priests tended to prefer the first option and argued that many of the tenets

expressed during the debates were in fact Jewish heretical notions. Heinrich

Graetz stated, for example, that the Frankist manifesto was sufficiently vague

being forbidden to save them, we are on the contrary obliged to pray for their welfare.

Moses Rivkes, commentary on Shulhan Aruch, Hoshen Mishpat 425, quoted in Katz,

Exclusiveness and Tolerance, p. 165 (Katzs reference to section 525 is a misprint). Early

halachists in fact held Christianity to be a form of idolatry. Only in the thirteenth century

did Rabbi Menahem Meiri create a new halachic category standing between Jews and

idolaters, nations governed by religion. See Louis Jacobs, A Tree of Life: Diversity,

Flexibility, and Creativity in Jewish Law, Oxford 1984, p. 72.10 See Kraushar, Frank i frankisci polscy, 1:78y79.

16


6/31


in its explanation of the Sabbatean and kabbalistic doctrines to lead the bishop

to suppose that it was written in consonance with the Catholic Faith, 11 while

Baaban argued that the majority of the theses for the Kamieniec disputation

were based on the ideas of the Donmeh.12 Were Christian elements only a

useful weapon against rabbinic Judaism? Or did the Frankists really take

over some Christian notions into their own creed? In order to answer these

questions I shall turn now to the notion of the Trinity.

Trinitarian Notions in Frankism

Some form of the concept of the Trinity appears in almost all documents

from the early period of Frankism, and I believe that the emphasis put on

this notion by far exceeded the purely rhetorical needs of selling Frankism

to the Christians. The Kamieniec disputation opened with the reading of a

proclamation signed by Yehudah Leyb Krysa and Salomon Schorr on behalf

of the rest of the Frankists. The proclamation begins with the doxology to

the Trinity and mentions the unity of the three persons of God in a few other

places.13 The denunciation of Frank to the Christian authorities in Warsaw

begins with the invocation of the Trinity14 and quotes Franks followers as

stating, Following the teaching of the Zohar we reached some understanding

of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, but we doubted for a long time, and

concealed our understanding from the Talmudists and even from each other,

because the Talmudists persecuted those who believe in the Holy Trinity. 15

In the same denunciation Franks early activity is presented as going from

town to town and teaching kabbalah, which is [the teaching] that there is

one God in three persons.16 According to the protocol of the investigation

before the ecclesiastical court in Warsaw, Frank was initiated into the mystery

of the Trinity by a rabbi in Smyrna.17 Reportedly, Frank advised his followers

11 Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews, trans. Bella Loewy, London 1901, 5:297; cf. also

idem, Frank und die Frankisten; eine Sekten-Geschichte aus letzten Halfte des vorigen

Jahrhunderts, Breslau 1868, p. 23.

12 Baaban, LeToledot haTenuah haFrankit, 1:155; idem, Studien und Quellen, p. 29.

13 See Gaudenty Pikulski,Zosc zydowska przeciwko Bogu i blizniemu, prawdzie i sumieniu,

na objasnienie talmudystow, na dowod ich zaslepienia i religii dalekiej od Prawa

Boskiego przez Mojzesza danego, Lwow 1760, p. 172.

14 Ibid., p. 327.

15 Ibid., p. 339; see Kraushar, Frank i frankisci , 1:177, 189.

16 Ibid., p. 329.17 ASV, Nunz. Varsavia, 94, Relazione della Causa e Processo di Frenk, fo. 148r.

17


7/31

Pawe Maciejko

imprisoned in 1755 to present their beliefs in terms of two main points: the

acceptance of the Trinity and the rejection of the Talmud.18 Indeed, the belief

in the Trinity was considered the most important, constitutive element of

Frankism: an ecclesiastical privilege given to the Frankists in 1757 defined

the group as the Israelites believing in the Trinity. 19 The importance of the

notion is attested also by the reactions of the Frankists opponents: when the

sectarians arrived in Lanckorona, a Jewish mob chased them throwing stones

and yelling shilush, shilush! (the Trinity, the Trinity!).20 Characteristically,

the point concerning the Trinity was the only one the rabbis refused even to

discuss during the Lwow disputation. This refusal was not the result only

of the potentially contentious nature of the issue: the rabbis took up equally

controversial topics of the Incarnation and the coming of the Messiah.

In Frankist sources, the thesis concerning the Trinity has several different

articulations, which reflect interesting discrepancies. The first formulation

appears in the Latin manifesto submitted to the Kamieniec consistory on

2 August 1756. The relevant point reads as follows: Deus est trinus inpersonis, quae personae secundum divinitatem sunt individuae (God is in

three persons inseparable as to their divinity).21 The contemporary Polish

translation of this point, supplied by Franciszek Kazimierz Kleyn in Coram

Judicio, is phrased in a slightly different manner: Bog [iest] w trzech

Osobach natura nierozdzielny (God [is] in three persons inseparable in

one nature).22 The thesis put forward during the hearing at the Kamieniec

consistory in September 1756 was an expanded version of this formulation:

Wierzemy, ze Bog ieden iest bez poczatku y konca, we trzech Osobach

sobie rownych, y nierozdzielnych, y zgodnych (We believe that there

is one God, without beginning and end, in three persons, equal to eachother, inseparable, and [acting] in accord).23 Despite the discrepancies, these

three formulations reflect the same understanding, are based on Christian

18 Konstanty Awedyk, Opisanie wszystkich dworniejszych okolicznosci nawrocenia do

wiary s. Contra-Talmudystow albo historia krotka ich poczetki i dalsze sposoby

przystepowania do wiary s. wyrazajaca, Lwow 1760, p. 16.

19 Graetz, Frank und die Frankisten, p. 42; see also idem, Geschichte der Juden von den

altesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart, Leipzig 1897, 10:392y93.

20 See Kraushar, Frank i frankisci , 1:72.

21 Biblioteka Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, MS 85, Manifestacja zydow

kontratalmudystow w dniu 2 VIII 1756 w sadzie biskupim w Kamiencu Podolskim

zozona, fos. 247ry250v; see also Kleyn, Coram judicio, sig. M3.

22 Kleyn, Coram judicio, sig. N2.23 Ibid., sig. P4yP5.

18


8/31


theological literature, and were most likely prepared by a Christian. However,

the thesis presented during the actual disputation in June 1757 was phrased

in a completely different manner. The Polish version reads: Wierzemy, z e

sa trzy oblicza w Bogu, i nie ma w Niem zadnego podziau (We believe

that there are three faces within God, without him being divided).24 This

is paralleled by the Hebrew and Aramaic: Anachnu maaminim she yesh El

echad biTelat partsufin sheShavin da leDa beli shum perud (We believe that

there is one God in three countenances [partsufin], equal to each other, and

inseparable one from another).25

In order to appreciate the novelty of this formulation one has to look

at the way the notion of the Trinity was defined in earlier theological

literature and during the earlier Jewish-Christian debates in Poland. Polish

theological works routinely render the word persona as osoba; to the

best of my knowledge the Frankist thesis is the only document that talks

about three faces (oblicza) of God. During medieval disputations, the

hypostases of the Trinity were following the Aristotelian-Thomistictradition treated as the modi of divine substance. Only fourteen years

before the Frankist debates, during the public disputation in Brody in

1743, the point concerning the Trinity was posited by Bishop Kobielski

within the framework of the dialectic of substance and attribute, and

the Jews rejected it by pointing to the Aristotelian argument that the

understanding of the hypostases as attributes would lead to divisions within

the Godhead, which in turn could not have been reconciled with Gods

perfection: Deus caret distinctione propter excessum perfectionis; sin secus,

non esset perfectus.26 It might be assumed that if the point had indeed

been formulated by a Christian priest, he would have relied on the existingChristian sources just as the priests relied on the existing Polish and Latin

theological literature when describing other elements of the Frankist doctrine.

The explanation for the highly unusual formulation of the point in Polish can

be found in the Hebrew version of the thesis for the disputation. While the

24 Ibid., sig. T3.

25 Emden, Sefer Shimush, fo. 38r.

26 See List Jasnie W[ielmoznego] Xiedza Biskupa uckiego i Brzeskiego do Starszych

uczonych Caej Synagogi Brodzkiey in Franciszek Antoni Kobielski, Swiato na

oswiecenie narodu niewiernego, to iest Kazania w Synagogach Zydowskich miane,

Lwow 1746, pp. 3y4; N. M. Gelber, Die Taufenbewegung unter den polnischen Juden

in XVIII Jahrhundert, Monatsschrift fur die Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums68 (1924):233.

19


9/31

Pawe Maciejko

word oblicze is unprecedented in the earlier Polish literature on the Trinity, it

can be seen as a literal translation of the term Hebrew partsuf. The term is of

kabbalistic provenance and is usually rendered as face or countenance.

Doing away with the rationalistic tradition of earlier debates that took

place in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Frankists framed the

discussion in kabbalistic terms and phrased their thesis as a collection of

zoharic passages. Here is a section of the Frankist argument: 27

We believe that there is one God in three countenances (partsufin), equal

to each other, and inseparable one from another. The Old Testament

(haTorah haYeshanah), as well as the Prophets, taught us about this

truth. The Zohar says, The Torah commences with the letter bet; this

letter has two parallel lines and a third joining them. These represent

three supernatural essences, which are unified in one. 28 This belief in

the Trinity in God is grounded in the Holy Scripture and is proved in

numerous places. Here, we would like to summon only a few instances.

Moses said (Genesis1:2), And a wind from God (Elohim) moved upon

the face of the waters. If there was only one Person in the Godhead,

Moses would have said, a wind from the Lord, or a wind from El,

etc. But he wanted to state the Trinity of aspects unified in God already

at the beginning of his teaching. Further (Genesis 1:26), God says,

Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. On this the Zohar

comments, They are two and one is joined to them and then they

are three, and when they become three they are one. 29 And elsewhere

(Genesis 3:22): And the Lord God (Elohim) said, Behold, the man has

become like one of us. Had there been no three aspects, wouldnt it

have been said, the Lord said...? What is the reason for [the appearance

of the word] Elohim? This proves Gods Trinity. When [the Bible] says

(Genesis 11:5) And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower,

which the sons of men built and Come, let us go down, and there

confuse their language etc. To whom does the Lord speak? Not to the

angels, who are His servants, to whom he can give orders, and whom

he does not need to ask. But God said it to His coaspects, who are of

the same standing.... Another proof of multiplicity of aspects in God:

27 Emden, Sefer Shimush, fos. 38ry47r; cf. Kleyn Coram judicio sig. M7yN5.

28 Cf. Zohar III, 36a.29 Zohar III, 162a.

20


10/31


God said to Moses: Come up to the Lord. Concerning the passage

Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord (Deuteronomy 6:4),

the Zohar states: These three are one.30

Various tripartite formulations of the mystery of the Godhead are indeed

abundant in Jewish, especially kabbalistic sources. Already the Fathersof the Church claimed that the rabbis knew about the Trinity but hid

this knowledge from ordinary Jews.31 The references to a threefold division

within the Godhead are very common in the Zohar and in kabbalistic writings,

and the Frankist argument makes use of this tradition. The exact text of the

Jewish response to this point during the live disputation is not extant, but we

know for certain that the rabbis purported to show that the Trinityof which the

Frankists had spoken was not the Christian Trinity of God the Father, the Son,

and the Holy Spirit, but the Sabbatean Trinity of the three knots of faith.

Sabbateanism and the Three Knots of FaithThe concept of the knots of faith, kishrei deMehemnuta, appears in the

Zohar as an appellation of the sefirotand refers in particular to the symbolic

juxtaposition of the three sefirot Hesed, Gevurah, and Tiferet.32 The Zohar

encompasses also another triune notion, telat Dragei deMehemnuta (three

rungs of faith), referring to the configuration of the three aspects (partsufim)

of the Godhead: the Holy Ancient One (atika kadisha), the Holy King (malka

kadisha), and the Divine Presence (shechinah).33 Although the two concepts

initially functioned separately, in the Sabbatean writings of controversial late

seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century kabbalist Nehemiah Hiya Hayon

they became confused, and the knots of faith became identified with the threepartsufim.34

For Hayon, belief in the triune character of the Godhead became the central

30 Zohar II, 43b.

31 This idea appeared also during the hearing in Warsaw in 1760. See ASV, Nunz. Varsavia,

94, Relazione della Causa e Processo di Frenk, fo. 148r: the [concept of] the Holy

Trinity is well known among the Jews.

32 See Isaiah Tishby, Kudsha Brich Hu, Oraita veYisrael Kulo Chad Mekor haImrah

beFerush Idra Raba leRaMCHa"L, Kiryat Sefer50 (1975):669. For other appearances

in the Zohar, see Yehuda Liebes, Perakim beMilon Sefer haZohar (unpublished Ph.D.

dissertation, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1976), s. v. Kishra.

33 Tishby, Kudsha Brich Hu, pp. 669y70.

34 See Nehemiah Hiya Hayon, Oz leElohim, Berlin 1713, fo. 87vy

88r

, first mentioned inthis context in Tishby, Kudsha Brich hu, p. 670 n. 18. Cf. also ibid., fo. 79r.

21


11/31

Pawe Maciejko

article of the true faith of Israel: whoever does not accept the Trinity does

not have a share in the World to Come. 35 Obviously this position provoked

immediate accusations of infusing Judaism with Christian notions. Against

these charges, Hayon retorted that the similarity between the true kabbalistic

concept of the Trinity and the Christian Trinity is due to the fact that the

Christians confused the true notion. According to Hayon, it was only because

the Jews did not want to resemble Christians that the rabbis backed off from

acknowledging the triune character of the Godhead. As Yehudah Liebes has

pointed out, this understanding of the character of the Trinity in the Christian

religion, as well as the line of defence against the rabbinic accusation of

Christian leanings, is grounded in the strategy of Hayons teacher, Abraham

Miguel Cardoso.36

Already the first opponents of Abraham Cardoso, his brother Isaac and

Isaac Orobio de Castro, argued that some elements of Cardosos theology,

notably the doctrine of the suffering Messiah and the messianic reading of

Isaiah 53, are in fact Christian ideas dressed in Jewish language. AlthoughCardoso claimed to base his doctrine on the reading of traditional Jewish

sources and explicitly attacked Christianity, some similarities between his

teachings and those of the Christian theologians could not be denied,

and his opponents argued that his treatises could supply arguments for

Christian anti-Jewish writings.37 Cardoso decided to explain the parallels

by reference to the fact that the Christians received their traditions from the

sages of Israel and presented Christian theology as a kind of misreading of

the legitimate Jewish tradition; as Cardoso himself put it, The disciples of

Jesus were not proficient in the depths of theosophy [hochmat haElohut]

and therefore confused many issues.38

This line of thought, however, went

35 See Liebes, Al Kat Sodit Yehudit-Notsrit sheMekorah beShabbetaut, in idem., Sod

haEmunah haShabbetait, Jerusalem 1995, p. 225; cf. also idem., HaYesod haIdeologi

shebeFulmus Hayon, ibid., pp. 49y52.

36 See Liebes, Al Kat Sodit Yehudit-Notsrit, p. 226.

37 Y. H. Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto, Seattle 1981, p. 340; Yosef

Kaplan, From Christianity to Judaism: The Story of Isaac Orobio de Castro , Oxford

1989, pp. 214y215.

38 Gershom Scholem, Hadashot LiYdiat Avraham Kardoso, in idem., Mehkarei

Shabbetaut, Tel Aviv 1991, p. 407. A similar idea in mentioned in Sefer Toledot Yeshu:

Jesus and his disciples were kabbalists but their kabbalah was filled with mistakes. See

Gershom Scholem, The Beginnings of the Christian Kabbalah, in Joseph Dan, ed.,

The Christian Kabbalah: Jewish Mystical Books and their Christian Interpreters: ASymposium, Cambridge, MA 1997, p. 28.

22


12/31


further. AlthoughCardoso consideredChristianity the worst and mostfoolish

religion ever conceived,39 he admitted that there are certain tenets of the true

faith that were lost in mainstream Judaism but preserved in Christianity.

In particular, the Christian idea of the Trinity is only a corruption of the

secret of the divinity which the ancient sages had known but which had

subsequently been forgotten among most Jews.40 The very few Jews who

did not forget about the secret of the divinity were for Cardoso, of course,

Sabbatean kabbalists.

The discussion of the notion of Trinity in Cardoso and Hayon sheds

interesting light on the case of the Frankists. First, strategies of the polemics

employed by the rabbis against the Frankists are a flipside of the tactics used

against Cardoso and Hayon. For the adversaries of Cardoso and Hayon,

links between Sabbateanism and Christianity served as proof that Sabbatean

messianism was untrue. However, rabbinic opponents of the Frankists could

not invoke this line of argumentation: acting in the context of public

disputations before a Christian audience, they could not decry Sabbateanismfor its Christian elements. Accordingly, they attempted to dissociate the

two completely, showing that Sabbateanism is entirely incompatible with

the Christian religion. If Cardoso and Hayon aimed at demonstrating that

the idea of the Trinity in Christianity is in fact a distorted Jewish notion,

the Jewish opponents of the Frankists managed to turn the tables on their

adversaries, arguing that the thesis about the triune Godhead put forth

during the Kamieniec disputation did not in fact refer to the Christian but

to the Sabbatean Trinity. According to the rabbis, the Frankists were using

kabbalistic terminology in order to present the Sabbatean notion of the

three knots of faith, assuming that the Christian listeners would identify (orconfuse) the Sabbatean Trinity with the Christian one.

I am convinced that the source of the Frankist understanding of the

Trinity is Cardoso, probably mediated through the tradition of the Donmeh.

However, the issue is more complicated. The majority of scholars now

agree that Cardosos opponents, Isaac Cardoso and Isaac Orobio, were in

fact right: some crucial tenets of Abraham Cardosos theology were indeed

39 Abraham Miguel Cardozo, Selected Writings, trans. D. J. Halperin, New York 2001, p.

64. As Halperin has noted, according to Cardoso Jewish-Islamic monotheism is in some

respects inferior to paganism and perhaps also to Deism but not to Christianity.

40 Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court, p. 338 n. 80; cf. Scholem, Hadashot LiYdiat AvrahamKardoso, pp. 408y409.

23


13/31

Pawe Maciejko

derived from Christianity. Cardoso a former Marrano who received an

extensive Christian education and only subsequently returned to Judaism

never fully succeeded in divorcing himself from Christian notions, and

some Christian elements remained conspicuous in all his writings.41 Onemay

therefore argue that the Frankist notion of the Trinity was ultimately based

on Christian sources, which had earlier been incorporated into the Sabbatean

tradition and were no longer recognized as Christian by the Frankists.

Jewish Sectarians and the Trinity

Even more important is another aspect of the understanding of the Trinity

in the earlier Sabbatean literature. Abraham Miguel Cardoso used the term

partsuf not only in his discussion of the three countenances of The Holy

Ancient One, the Holy King, and the Divine Presence, which he understood

as the Sabbatean as opposed to the Christian Trinity. Characteristically, he

employed the very same terminology when describing beliefs that were

properly Christian. Given that the Jewish-Christian debate concerning

the Trinity was conducted with reference to the Aristotelian doctrine

of substance, Jewish authors describing the Christian trinitarian belief

tended to render the word persona as toar(attribute).42 In contrast, Cardoso

consistently used the term partsuf. For example, Cardosos treatise Zeh eli

veAnvehu includes a chapter on Christian doctrine entitled Mah hi emunatam

shel haNotsrim veOvdei avodah zarah. At the very beginning of this section

Cardoso offered quite an accurate presentation of the Christian doctrine of

the Trinity, stating, The Christians... posit that the First Cause [consists of]

three countenances (partsufim).43

41 Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court, p. 338.

42 See, for example, The Refutation of the Christian Principles by Hasdai Crescas, trans.

Daniel Lasker, Albany 1992, p. 37: The Christian belief posits that the divine substance

encompasses three attributes; cf. also Profiat Duran, Sefer Kelimat haGoyim, quoted in

Daniel Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages ,

New York 1977, p. 74: They all agree that their assumption of the Trinity refers only to

the attributes, which they call persons.

43 See Abraham Miguel Cardoso, Derush Zeh eli veAnvehu, in Gershom Scholem,

Mehkarim uMekorot leToledot haShabbetaut veGilgulehah, Jerusalem 1974, p. 348.

David J. Halperin translates this sentence as, The First Cause, they say, is one Deity

in three Persons; A. M. Cardozo, Selected Writings, New York 2001, p. 204. For the

unusual character of this formulation, see ibid., p. 31; cf. also E.R. Wolfson, Construction

of the Shekhinah in the Messianic Theosophy of Abraham Cardoso, Kabbalah: Journalfor the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 3 (1998):38, n. 86.

24


14/31


For Abraham Cardoso, the similarities between his own position and

that of the Christians did not play any important role; the issue came up

only in the context of refuting his Jewish adversaries. Having concluded

that the Christian beliefs derive, through multiple distortions, from the true

doctrine known to the kabbalists, he went on to use kabbalistic terminology

in summarizing Christian theology. I believe that the Frankists consciously

or unconsciously emphasized and elucidated the idea already present in

embryonic form in Cardoso and the teachings of the leader of the Donmeh,

Beruchiah: the conviction that not only some essential elements of esoteric

Jewish lore were preserved in Christianity as well as in Judaism but that other

elements were lost in mainstream Judaism and preserved only in Christianity.

This proposition leads to the hypothesis of the existence of a Judaeo-Christian

Sabbatean group put forward by Yehudah Liebes, who argued that in the

1720s the syncretic element of Sabbateanism became so pronounced that

the movement could have been seen as clandestine Christianity within

Judaism.44 On the basis of documents belonging to the Moravian Churchfirst published by Gustav Dalman at the end of the nineteenth century, 45

Liebes described a sect, reportedly established in the 1680s, that existed in

various European countries as well as in the Ottoman Empire. In 1772 a

follower of this sect by the name of Simon approached Pastor Burgmann,

one of the leaders of the Lutheran community in London, and asked how a

man can achieve redemption of the soul. Simon gave Burgmann some details

about the sects internal functioning and put him in touch with a certain

Baruch, a Hungarian Jew living in Amsterdam. Through Simon and Baruch,

Burgmann exchanged letters with the Amsterdam branch of the sect. The

pastor decided to work toward the conversion of the sectarians and askeda preacher of the Moravian Church in London, Latrobe, for help. However,

shortly after the Moravians sent a mission to Amsterdam, the Jews broke off

the correspondence, and all efforts to renew contacts proved unsuccessful.

After disclaimers that he had not seen the original documents and relied

only on five letters published by Dalman, Liebes concluded that the sources

are authentic, that the sect actually existed, and that it can be identified

with the Sabbatean circle gathered around Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschutz and

44 Liebes, Al Kat Sodit Yehudit-Notsrit, p. 221.

45 G[ustav] D[alman], Dokumente eines christlichen Geheimbundes unter den Juden im

achtzenten Jahrhundert, Saat auf Hoffnung: Zeitschrift fur die Mission der Kirche anIsrael 27 (1890):18y37.

25


15/31

Pawe Maciejko

his son Wolf. Though admitting that the boundaries between the Eibeschutz

circle and the Frankists were often blurred, Liebes nevertheless juxtaposed

the two groups. In his view, the sectarians who gathered around Eibeschutz

renewed either knowingly or unknowingly the ideology of the

Judaeo-Christians of the first centuries of the Common Era and located

themselves at the pole opposite the followers of Jacob Frank, who became

Christians officially and by appearance but not by conviction.46

On the basis of my research in the Moravian Church archives in

Herrnhut, I have become convinced that the documents reproduced by

Dalman and discussed by Liebes are actually a contemporary eighteenth-

century forgery.47 According to Dalman, in 1780, after the cessation of the

correspondence between Pastor Burgmann and the sectarians, the entire batch

of documents, including the originals of the letters sent by the Jews of

Amsterdam to the pastor, was forwarded to the archives of the Moravian

Brudergemeine. Dalmans article purports to be a publication of these

originals.48 However, in the event the letters published by Dalman are notthe letters of the Jews to Burgmann but German translations of documents

originally written in English, sent to Herrnhut by Latrobe, the preacher of the

Moravian Church in London. Latrobes version purports to be a translation

from German, but the German versions housed in Herrnhut were executed for

theuseofthegoverningbodyoftheChurch,theEldersConferenceofUnity;49

the originals of the correspondence between Burgmann and the Jews are not

extant. All existing documents are in Latrobes handwriting; names of towns

and people are given in a code, which was sent separately to the Conference.50

Dalman published more or less one-third of the material. He deciphered the

code, gave the appropriate locations and names, and transliterated fragments

46 Liebes Al Kat Sodit Yehudit-Notsrit, p. 213.

47 I have been informed that a similar conclusion was reached by Professor Sid Leiman

in a paper delivered at the Gershom Scholem memorial conference in Jerusalem (8y10

December 1997). I have not seen this paper and do not know if and to what extent our

research overlaps.

48 See Dalmans introduction to the letters, Dokumente eines christlichen Geheimbundes,

p. 19.

49 Herrnhut, Unitatsarchiv (hereafter UA), R.16.4, Protokolle der U[nitats]-

A[ltesten]k[onferenz] z[um]T[hema] Burgman und Latrobe.

50 The documents are currently stored in box R.16, Judenmission. The collection includes

the protocols of the debates of the Elders Conference of Unity (UAC) on the issue,

letters and reports of Latrobe, as well as German translations of some of Latrobesreports.

26


16/31


of Latrobes version that were written in Hebrew. He also heavily edited many

passages, switched (or left out) some paragraphs, and combined separate

letters into a single document.

Although Dalmans publication is unreliable, it is still true that Latrobe

wrote to his superiors in Herrnhut about the sect. In August 1773 Latrobe

reported to the Conference that he had been approached by Pastor Burgmann,

who had established contact with a Jewish sect and received, under the

most solemn seal of secrecy, information regarding the sects Christian

leanings. Despite the seal of secrecy, Burgmann promised to pass everything

he learned on to Latrobe and suggested that the Brudergemeine, and

especially the Moravian Churchs specialist for the mission to the Jews,

Samuel Lieberkuhn, should become involved in the conversion effort.51

After receiving additional information, Latrobe described the sect as follows:

There was at present a number of Jews in Amsterdam, in Germany &

in Hungary who believed in our Sav[iour] and rejoiced in his bleeding

wounds. That they were however convinced that they should remain

for the present in secret, and continue in fellowship with the Jews

till our Sav[iour] gave them an opening to make themselves publicly

known & they could be formed into a Congr[egation] consistent with

their principles. They have formed societies in which they privately

built one another up.... They correspond with one another but under

fictitious names. The rabbi in Amsterdam knows of it but is afraid to

meddle with it, lest a fire might break out among the Jews which he

will not be able to quench. It seems their plan is that our Sav[iour]

will form from them in his own time into a Congr[egation] of Israel

unmixed with the Gentiles.52

Shortly thereafter, Latrobe prepared a long report on the sects history.53 He

described how in the 1680s and 1690s three eminent rabbis Rabbi Chay

51 Latrobe to UAC, 24 August 1773, UA, R.16.6, Latrobes Verbindung mit den Juden

1773y1780, no. 8.

52 An undated letter (after September 1774) of Latrobe to the UAC, Herrnhut, UA, R. 16.6,

Latrobes Verbindung mit den Juden 1773y1780, no. 11.

53 UA, R.16.6.d; a German translation of this report was published by Dalman, Dokumente

eines christlichen Geheimbundes, p. 21y27. Dalman omitted the beginning of the report

(part of which he included in another document). At the end of the report he added a

paragraph from a different letter. I quote from the original; page references to Dalmanspublication are given here for comparison.

27


17/31

Pawe Maciejko

Chayon54 (= Nehemiah Hiya Hayon) from Constantinople, Rabbi Krokoffer

from Prague, and Rabbi Sender from Moravia had an identical dream, in

which they were told to go to the house of Rabbi Megalle Amukot [= Rabbi

Nathan Shapira of Krakow] in Pintschoff [Pinczow]. They arrived on the

very same day, Tisha beAv (the day on which the Messiah was supposed

to be born and the alleged birthday of Shabtai Tsvi). At the house of Rabbi

Megalle Amukot they engaged in a conversationon religiousissues. Suddenly

a heavenly voice was heard, saying in Hebrew, Go and baptize yourself in

the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.55 Although the rabbis

were initially apprehensive and worried that the order might have come from

the forces of evil, the voice repeated the order two more times, the last time

pronouncing the ineffable Name of God. Thus the rabbis became convinced

that the message indeed came from God, and they baptized themselves in the

mikveh. Here, Latrobe commented, the Church of Christ took its beginning

in Israel without any of them having ever read the New Testament. 56 The

three rabbis each went home, preached Christianity to some of their students,and converted around 100 people. However, they did not think that anything

other than baptism and sincere belief in the Holy Trinity was required of them;

they did not gather for prayer nor study the Gospels, and they did not know

of the communion.

On his deathbed Rabbi Megalle Amukot reportedly prophesied that a

child born in his family would be given the name Jonathan and would bring

salvation to Israel. The boy was born and secretly baptized; he was given a

traditional Jewish upbringing and told that he was a Christian only on his

fourteenth birthday. Thereafter he studied Christian doctrine (even attending

the University of Leipzig) while at the same time pursuing a successfulrabbinic career. Eventually he went to Prague, established the fundamental

doctrines of Christ, and administered the Sacrament [of communion].57

Thus, the sect in the proper sense was established in Bohemia and spread to

Hungary, Germany, and Poland.

Latrobes next report offers an insight into the inner functioning of the

54 I give the names of people and of places according to the code key attached to the

documents UA, R.16.4.e.

55 UA, R.16.6.d, fo. 4; cf. Dalman, Dokumente eines christlichen Geheimbundes, p. 22.

56 UA, R.16.6.d, fo. 4; cf. Dalman, Dokuments eines christlichen Gehemibundes, p. 22.

57 UA, R.16.6.d, fo. 8; cf. Dalman, Dokuments eines christlichen Gehemibundes, p. 27. InDalman this passage is corrupted. The fragment refers, of course, to Jonathan Eibeschutz.

28


18/31


sect. A candidate was first presented with rabbinic anti-Christian works,

Sefer Nitsahon and Sefer Hizuk Emunah. If he succeeded in refuting Jewish

apologetics and recognized the mystical truth of Christianity despite Jewish

counterarguments, he was allowed to progress to the next step, which

included a Christological exposition of the Old Testament and reading from

the Gospels in Hebrew translation. The candidate was taught the doctrine

of the Trinity and instructed about the atonement for sins through Christ.

If he completed all tests successfully he was baptized by three members of

the sect and allowed to take part in the Eucharist. The followers of the sect

were supposed to remain externally Jewish and were sworn not to reveal

their crypto-Christianity to any Christian.58 They did not permit rebaptism

in an official Christian church on the grounds that doing so would amount

to denying the validity of their own baptism.59 Similarly, the members of the

sect were forbidden to take Communion at official Christian churches.60

Latrobes third report describes the stories of the two brothers, Simon and

Baruch, who initially came into contact with Pastor Burgmann in London.It presents a dialogue between Simon and Rabbi Prossnitz during which

Simon expressed his intuition that Christianity might be the true religion.

Rabbi Prossnitz wrote about this conversation to Rabbi Jonathan in Prague;

on Simons arrival in that city Rabbi Jonathan took care of the young man

and taught him the doctrine of the Trinity, because this was the hardest

point for a Jew.61 Shortly thereafter Rabbi Jonathan died, reciting on his

deathbed the formula of the Trinity.62

Missionaries, Sabbateans, and Frankists

I do not intend to summarize here the full content of Latrobes reports,

which I am hoping to analyze in a separate publication. Instead I shall

concentrate on those aspects of the material that are most important for

58 UA, R.16.6.d, fos. 9y10; cf. Dalman, Dokumente eines christlichen Gehemibundes,

pp. 27y29.

59 UA, R.16.6.d, fo. 15.

60 Simon was expelled from the sect because he revealed its secret to Burgmann and took

communion at a Christian church.

61 UA, R.16.6.d, fo. 12. This fragment was omitted by Dalman.

62 The last paragraph of this letter, including the formula of the Trinity, was included

by Dalman in the first letter he reproduced; see Dokumente eines christlichen

Geheimbundes, p. 27. For analysis of the formula see Liebes, Al Kat Sodit Yehudit-Notsrit, pp. 229y231.

29


19/31

Pawe Maciejko

the discussion of Frankism. Contrary to what Dalman stated and Liebes

accepted, the documents preserved in Herrnhut are not the original letters of

the Jews to Burgmann, and the very existence of the Judaeo-Christian

sect in Amsterdam must be questioned. Because the members of the

alleged sect had not been urged to convert officially (in fact they had

been forbidden to do so), Liebes described the tendency of the reports as

antimissionary. 63 This characterization, however, is only partly accurate.

The aim of theJudenmission of the Moravian Church and of other Protestant

Churches was not to convert individual Jews, but to evangelize Jewry

as a whole, in preparation for a future mass conversion to Christianity.64

The missionaries attached much more importance to distributing Christian

books in Jewish languages and to acquainting Jews with selected Christian

notions (notably with the doctrine of the Trinity) than to actual conversions.

The concept of the evangelization of the Jews through the creation of

Jewish-Christian communities that observed some Jewish and some Christian

customs and remained separate from gentile Christians is well attestedin missionary literature. The idea of the gradual initiation of a Jewish

candidate into the Christian mysteries strangely overlaps with the method

of proselytizing designed by Samuel Lieberkuhn, to which I shall return

below. Several aspects of the reports clearly reflect the religious preferences

of the Moravians: the documents emphasize that the Christianity professed

by the alleged Jewish group fully agrees with Lutheranism, and it is said

of Rabbi Jonathan that he must have journeyed to a Protestant country in

order to get foundation in sound doctrine.65 Moreover, some of the sects

rituals and linguistic usages resemble the rites and terminology characteristic

of the Herrnhuter Bruder alone; they are absent in other Christian groups ordenominations. For instance, the alleged sectarians did not allow noninitiates

to be present when they prayed Pater Noster, and they expected newly-

admitted members to watch the Eucharist before they were allowed to take

part in it. Already Latrobe observed in his commentary that the sect seems

to have acquired some usages from the [Moravian] Brotherhood and tried

to explain these similarities by suggesting variously that its members might

have had knowledge of the old Moravian Brotherhood or had encountered

63 Liebes, Al Kat Sodit Yehudit-Notsrit, p. 213.

64 See C. M. Clark, The Politics of Conversion: Missionary Protestantism and the Jews in

Prussia 1728y

1941, Oxford 1995, p. 7.65 UA, R.16.6.d, fo. 7.

30


20/31


travelling missionaries, or that they had received direct inspiration from

the Holy Spirit.66 Whatever the case, the documents were composed by

someone who had intimate knowledge of the internal functioning of the

Brudergemeine, most likelyeither by Burgmann or by Latrobe, and theJewish

sect in Amsterdam seems to be a figment of the imagination reflecting the

missionary program of the Moravians.

However, Latrobes reports reveal knowledge of the world of mid-

eighteenth-century Jewish heretical movements far beyond the average.

The overt tendency of the reports is anti-Sabbatean; although some of the

members of the alleged sect were said to have been temporarily lured by

Sabbateanism, the sectarians made a clear distinction between themselves

and the followers of Shabtai Tsvi and mention that they suffered... because

they were remarked as having a particular fellowship together, therefore the

Jews believed that they were also Sabbateans [Sabsazebiten].67

Virtually all the major personalities of Bohemian, Moravian, and German

Sabbateanism are mentioned in the reports by name and are said to belong tothe sect.68 Many of these names and other specific details could not have been

gleaned only from the widely available printed accounts of the movement.69

Whoever was behind the composition of the documents must have been

personally acquainted with Sabbateans and must have relied on some oral

information regarding internal Jewish debates. Thus, we may assume at least

some of the elements present in Latrobes reports do in fact reflect discussions

among the Sabbateans if not the actual tenets professed by heretical Jewish

groups.

66 UA, R.16.6.e, fo. [1r].

67 UA, R.16.6.d, fo. 5; the fragment is also quoted by Liebes, Al Kat Sodit Yehudit-Notsrit,

p. 220, on the basis of Dalman.

68 Liebes devoted a large part of his essays to this issue; see the sections on Hayon,

Eibeschutz, and Meir Eisenstadt. Liebes, Al Kat Sodit Yehudit-Notsrit, pp. 223y37.

Because the relevant portion was not published by Dalman, the name of Leibele Prossnitz

was omitted.

69 See, for example, Karl Anton, Kurze Nachricht von dem falschen Messias Sabbathai

Zebhi und den neulich seinetwegen in Hamburg und Altona entstandenten Bewegungen

zu besserer Beurtheilung derer bisher in den Zeitungen und andern Schriften davon

bekandt gewordenen Erzalungen, Wolfenbuttel 1752; idem, Nachlese zu seiner letzteren

Nachricht von Sabbathai Zebbi worin zugleich das Ende dieser Streitigkeit erzahlt wird,

Braunschweig 1753. On Jonathan Eibeschutzs crypto-Christianity, see Friedrich David

Magerlin, Geheime Zeugnisse vor die Wahrheit der Christlichen Religion aus vier und

zwanzig neuen und selten judischen Amuleten oder Anhang-Zetteln gezogen, Frankfurt1756.

31


21/31

Pawe Maciejko

The upheaval surrounding Shabtai Tsvis messianic claims and his

subsequent conversion to Islam in 1666 affected Christian millenarian

speculations and led various Christian missions to the Jews to intensify

their efforts in European countries.70 Although a hundred years later many

of these missionary activities had subsided, emissaries of Christian churches

still travelled through Europe and had contacts with Sabbateans. For instance,

missionaries of the Institutum Judaicum et Muhammedicum from Halle,

who journeyed through Central and Eastern Europe in the 1730s and 1740s,

reported numerous encounters with Sabbateans, including with Jonathan

Eibeschutz in Prague.71 As a result, the news of the Frankist conversion

spread very quickly in missionary circles, reaching all the way to England.

In June 1759, immediately after the disputation in Lwow, an anonymous

correspondent of the well-known periodical The Gentlemans Magazine

published a letter entitled Friendly Address to the Jews. The author

of the letter stated,

I was surprised to see an account that some thousands of Jews in

Poland and Hungary had lately sent to the Polish bishop of Guesna

[Gniezno] to inform him of their desire to embrace the Roman Catholic

Religion.... If indeed you begin to think that the Christian religion is

true, if you believe the Messiah is already come the first time,

in his afflicted state, then embrace the Protestant religion, that true

Christianity which is delivered to us in the New Testament, or covenant,

without the false traditions and wicked intentions and additions of the

Popes, who have entirely perverted the truth, and corrupted primitive

Christianity.72

70 Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, the Mystical Messiah, 1626y1676, London 1973, pp.

94y102; 153y157; cf. R. H. Popkin, Christian Interests and Concerns about Sabbatai

Zevi, in Matt Goldish and R. H. Popkin, eds., Jewish Messianism in the Early Modern

World, Dordrecht 2001, pp. 91y106; Jacob Barnai, The Spread of the Sabbatean

Movement in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, in Sophia Menache, ed.,

Communication in the Jewish Diaspora, Leiden 1996, p. 322.

71 For a preliminary survey, see Gershom Scholem, Yediot al ha-Shabbetaim be-

Sifrei ha-Missionarim be-Meah 18, in idem., Mehkarei Shabbetaut, pp. 609y30;

on Eibeschutz, see especially pp. 618, 622y23. Cf. also Jan Doktor, W poszukiwaniu

zydowskich kryptochrzescijan: Dzienniki ewangelickich misjonarzy z ich wedrowek po

Rzeczypospolitej w latach 1730y1747, Warsaw 1999, pp. 28y29. Doktors work offers

much new and interesting material but suffers from an uncritical attitude to the sources.

72 The letter has been published by Kurt Wilhlem, An English Echo of the FrankistMovement,, Journal of Jewish Studies 16 1967:189y91. I follow this edition.

32


22/31


After the passage the author engaged in eschatological speculation

concerning the restoration of the Jews to their own land before the final

stage of Redemption. On the basis of numerological calculations and the

antipapal exegesis of Daniel (9:24y27), he pointed to the chiliastic year

1865, only a hundred years ahead, and promised that after their conversion

to Protestantism the Jews will be transported to the Holy Land on English

ships. Although there is no direct evidence that the report in The Gentlemans

Magazine was known to Latrobe or Burgmann in London, we must note

that its author shared the important assumption that informed the accounts

of the Moravian missionaries: the belief that pure Judaism, freed from

rabbinic superstitions and additions, confirms the truth of Christianity

uncorrupted by papal deformations. This assumption lay at the basis of the

Brudergemeines mission to the Jews and shaped the Moravians attitude

toward the Sabbateans and the Frankists.

There is evidence that the Brudergemeine had direct contacts with the

Sabbateans in general and the Frankists in particular. In 1743 the patronof the Brudergemeines compound at Herrnhut, Count Nicolaus Ludwig

Zinzendorf, preached that no pagan nation would accept Christianity until

the Jews were converted. In response to this sermon the missionary

Samuel Lieberkuhn was sent to Amsterdam, where he established firm

contacts with the Jewish community, probably including some Sabbateans.73

Lieberkuhns method consisted in avoiding discussing the divinity of Jesus

and concentrating instead on demonstrating the truth of the Trinity on the basis

of Jewish sources and showing that the Christian religion can save believers

from the consequences of sin. It was also assumed that the converted Jews

should, at least initially, form a community separate from gentile Christiansand be allowed to retain some Jewish customs after the baptism.74 Although

Zinzendorf eventually rejected Lieberkuhns method, accused the missionary

of being a Unitarian, and recalled him from Amsterdam, this last element

was accepted as a basic principle of the Moravian mission to the Jews.75 In

February 1746 Zinzendorf officiated at the marriage ceremony of a converted

Jew from Poland, David Kirchoff, and Magdalene Grundbeck. The marriage

73 See J. E. Hutton, A History of Moravian Missions, London 1922, pp. 146y50.

74 See UA, R.16.8, Lieberkuhn, Kurze Nachricht von der Methode.

75 UA, R.16.7, Einwendungen Zinzendorfs gegen die Methode Lieberkuhns und

Lieberkuhns Bemerkungen dazu; Zinzendorfs Antworten auf einige Satze uberLieberkuhns Arbeitsmethode und Lieberkuhns Gegenbemerkungen.

33


23/31

Pawe Maciejko

was conducted according to a Judaeo-Christian rite designed specially for

this occasion. The newlyweds were accompanied by twelve married couples

that were supposed to represent the twelve Tribes of Israel. The room

was decorated with Hebrew inscriptions, and Lieberkuhn gave a speech in

Hebrew. Zinzendorf also delivered a sermon hailing the establishment of a

new community of Jewish Christians.76

Initially, Zinzendorf intended to send Kirchoff to Amsterdam as a

replacement for Lieberkuhn. However, he soon changed his mind, and

after a few years Kirchoff went instead to Poland.77 It was during this trip

that the Moravian missionary encountered the Frankists.78 In his initial report

Kirchoff described the events surrounding Bishop Dembowskis death and

reported that he had encountered a large number of Jews who believed that

the Messiah had already come but did not believe that Jesus was a Messiah.

Althoughthe true identity of the Messiah was unknown to them, he reported,

they were convinced that the exile is drawing to an end. He also mentioned

that many Jews read the Gospels.79 The second report brought a change:Kirchoff stated that more than 15,000 Jews (including 50 rabbis) openly

declared that the true Messiah already has come and Jesus of Nazareth is

this Messiah. These believing Jews were ready to convert to Christianity

officially, but did not know in which Christian denomination they could find

the pure evangelical truth. They embarked upon the study of various Christian

books but were forced to take a shortcut and convert to Roman Catholicism

because of unrest among the Jews.80

Kirchoff s account refers to the baptism of the Frankists in Lwow in 1759;

there is also some evidence that the missionary witnessed the disputation

76 For the description of the rite see , UA, R.16.1.a.2, Esthers und Davids Trauung;

R.22.53.19, Lebenslauf Benjamin David Kirchoffs. Cf. also Johann de Le Roi, Die

Evangelische Christenheit und die Juden, Karlsruhe 1884, 1:371.

77 On the choice of the missions destination see Johann de Le Roi, Judenmission-

sbestrebungen der Brudergemeine, Dibre Emeth oder Stimmen der Wahrheit 5/27

(1871):65y85.

78 Interestingly, the Moravian Brethren are also mentioned in Frankist sources. See, for

example, a fragment of Ksiega Sow Panskich, no. 2097, quoted in Kraushar, Frank i

frankisci, 1:322, otherwise lost, which mentions the Phlipovtsy (the Old Believers), the

Herrnhuter (the Moravian Brethren), and the Ammonites (perhaps the Mennonites).

79 Report of 4 February 1758, UA, R.19.B.d.2.a.42, David Kirchoffs Diarium aus Pohlen,

fo. 17v.

80 UA, R.16.7. [Lieberkuhn], Einige Nachrichten von dem gegenwartigen Zustand der

Juden und den Bemuhungen der Bruder ihre Bekehrung zu befordern. A fragment of thisreport is also quoted in De Le Roi, Die Evangelische Christenheit 1:341y43.

34


24/31


itself.81 The number of converts is inflated, and it might be assumed that other

elements of the report were also manipulated in order to meet the expectations

of the leaders of the Brudergemeine. It seems that Kirchoff changed his

initial assessment that the Jews believed in the coming of the Messiah but

rejected the Messiahship of Jesus and replaced it with the statement that the

Jews had declared that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.

Kirchoffs report is much more a reflection of the missionary program

of the Moravian Church than a faithful account of the actual facts. The

missionaries were all too ready to find in Judaism material that confirmed

their assumptions, predispositions, and prejudices. Still, as far as Christian

observers were concerned, they offered unparalleled knowledge of Jewish

internal debates, and, in a backhanded way, they influenced the Jews as well.

It is well attested that Yiddish and Hebrew texts distributed by missionaries

were not always recognized as Christian by their Jewish readers. The case

in point is the brochure Or leEt Erev, circulated by the Halle Pietists.

The Yiddish text does not give the name of the author or the place ofpublication; it does not refer explicitly to Jesuss identity with the Jewish

Messiah until the final pages; and it bases much of its argument on Jewish

precepts. There are testimonies suggesting that some readers did not grasp

the understated Christian motifs or read the booklet through to the end. 82

Although the missionary propaganda did influence the Jews, the character of

this influence did not exactly fulfil the expectations of the missionaries. As

for the Frankists, there is evidence that well before the disputations Frank

read the Gospel either in Hebrew or in Yiddish,83 and it is extremely likely

that the copy in his possession was one of those printed and distributed by the

Institutum. It is quite doubtful, however, that his understanding of the NewTestament would have found appreciation among the missionaries.

All of these facts shed interesting light on the documents published by

Latrobe. I would suggest the possibility that through the encounters with

Kirchoff and other missionaries some Sabbatean and Frankist elements

indeed filtered through to the Moravians. There is no doubt that most of the

tenets and rites of the alleged Judaeo-Christian sect described by Latrobe

are projections of the expectations of the missionaries. Other elements,

81 See UA, R.19.B.d.2.a.42, David Kirchoffs Diarium aus Pohlen, fos. 32r-v, 35v.

82 Clark, Politics of Conversion, pp. 74y75.

83 See Franks testimony at the inquisition in Warsaw, ASV, Arch. Nunz. di Varsavia, 94,fo. 149v.

35


25/31

Pawe Maciejko

however, amazingly concur with what we know about the doctrines of the

Frankists. I shall now turn to the description of the ideas present in the

Frankist chronicle, Rozmaite adnotacyie, przypadki, czynnosci, i anektody

Panskie.84

Christian References in the Frankist Chronicle

Rozmaite adnotacyie is a collection of 109 short, numbered entries recording

the history of the sect from Franks birth until his arrival in Offenbach in

1786. Most of the entries cover the period up to Franks release from

Czestochowa in 1772.85 One of the most interesting features of the work

is a characteristic linguistic pattern. Frank, his wife, and his daughter (but

not his sons86) are never mentioned by name: Frank is always called Pan

(Lord, nobleman), his wife as Jejmosc s.p. (The late Lady); his daugther

Eve is normally referred to as Jejmosc (Lady) and once as Najswietsza

Panna (The Holy Maiden).87 Franks disciples are sometimes describedby the

standard Sabbatean termprawowierni (true believers).88 This word, however,

appears in only four of 109 entries 89 and denotes Sabbateans in general as

against Franks immediate followers.90 The word kompania (company, party)

appears in this sense only in the last few records, which were probably

added to the main body of the text much later.91 It seems that at the early

stages of the movement the Frankists lacked a collective term describing

themselves. Whenever it does not mention concrete names, the text prefers

to use collective pronouns (most frequently nasi, ours), the words ludzie

or osoby (people, persons), or numerals (three [people] heard...). The

84 Jan Doktor, ed., Rozmaite adnotacje, przypadki, czynnosci i anekdoty panskie, Warsaw

1996. For an earlier edition of this manuscript and a Hebrew translation see Hillel

Levine, ed., HaKronika Teudah leToledot Yaakov Frank uTenuato, Jerusalem 1984.

Levines transcription is often unreliable.

85 Doktor, Rozmaite adnotacje, nos. 1y84 and fragments of nos. 104y107.

86 Ibid., no. 35.

87 It is often difficult to distinguish when a Frankist source refers to Franks wife and when

to his daughter.

88 On this term see Gershom Scholem, Redemption through Sin, in idem., The Messianic

Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality, New York 1971, p. 79; idem.,

Sabbatai Sevi, pp. 749y65, passim.

89 Nos. 17, 32, 33, 71.

90 Doktor, ed., Rozmaite adnotacje, no. 71.

91 Ibid., nos. 102y

109. The term kompania is commonly used in the texts from Brunn andOffenbach.

36


26/31


term Kontratalmudystowie [Contra-Talmudists] appears only once, in the

context of the hearing at the Lwow consistory; it seems to have been devised

for the use of Catholic hearers rather than as an authentic expression of

Frankist self-perception: Our [people] said they were Contra-Talmudists,

and so they brought the hatred of the Jews upon themselves. 92 In turn, the

word Zydzi (Jews) is reserved for the rabbinic opponents of the Frankists

and is never used as a self-designation.93

The text treats the disputations in a very cursory way: the events in

Kamieniec are covered in three short entries,94 while the debate in Lwow is

mentioned in only one line.95 However, the text hints at Franks approval of

the Kamieniec disputation96 and ascribes to him the responsibility for sending

a few brothers to Lwow for disputations with the Jews.97 The attitude to

conversion also deserves special attention. According toRozmaite adnotacyie

Frank had a vision that he would enter the Christian religion together with

twelve followers already in 1755, much earlier than the encounters with

the Catholic clergy.98 Furthermore, he supposedly announced his intentionto convert to Christianity to the Aga in Bucharest in 1757.99 All of Franks

dealings with the Christians (including his ultimate acceptance of baptism)

are presented as a result of the assistance of the Holy Spirit.100 Even if all these

are later embellishments, they signal attempts to project Christian elements

back into the earliest phase of the development of the movement. In other

words, even if the conversions themselves were an unintended outcome of

the course of events or the effect of an external pressure, they certainly were

eventually incorporated into Frankist doctrine and presented as a result of

conscious planning and divine guidance.

In this context, the most interesting feature is the employment of the termWiara (faith) or Wiara Swieta (Holy Faith). The term was so widely

used in earlier Sabbatean literature that it often became synonymous with

92 Ibid., no. 22.

93 Ibid., nos. 22, 28, 47, 94.

94 Ibid., nos. 26y28.

95 Ibid., no. 61.

96 Ibid., no. 26: On 2 July there were famous disputations in Kamieniec Podolski and the

Lord said: Adonaini [sic!] is in Kamieniec among them.

97 Ibid., no. 47.

98 Ibid., no. 23. The point does not appear anywhere until the negotiations preceding the

Lwow debate of 1759.

99 Ibid., no. 37.100 Ibid., nos. 7, 20, 23.

37


27/31

Pawe Maciejko

Sabbateanism as such.101 This usage has attracted the attention of scholars,

who have pointed to striking similarities between the Christian and Sabbatean

understandings of the concept. For instance, when discussing the relationship

of Christianity and Sabbateanism in general terms, Gershom Scholem tended

to emphasize the influence exerted by Judaism upon Christian millenarian

movements rather than vice versa. Only when analyzing the concept of faith

did he acknowledge an opposite process. The concept of faith in Nathan of

Gaza has, according to Scholem, a distinctly Christian flavour102 and is

radically different from the traditional Jewish understanding of this notion:

pre-Sabbatean, traditional Judaism had never entertained the idea of a

pure faith, dissociated from specific works yet endowed with redemptive

power, as a supreme religious value.103 Nathan clearly stated that man is

saved only by his pure faith in the Messiah and not by merits or good

deeds.104 Moreover, Israel is expected to accept the redemptive mission of

the Messiah without any signs or miracles.105 Nathans understanding of the

notion of faith was further developed by Cardoso, who asserted that the veryessence of the Jewish religion hinges on faith in the coming of the Messiah:

Whoever does not believe that Shabtai Tsvi can be the Messiah, even if

he is not, does not believe in the Messiah of Israel! 106 The first Jewish

opponents of Sabbateanism already noted similarities between the Sabbatean

and the Christian understanding of the notion of faith; thus Rabbi Jacob

Sasportas commented on a letter of Nathan of Gaza: This is the faith of the

Christians.107

Scholems analysis shows that both for the Christians and for the

Sabbateans faith contradicts rationality and demands acceptance of an

unexplainable paradox. Although reverberating with Christian overtones,Sabbatean faith also possesses certain unique characteristics. In contrast to

the Christian notion, it refers not to the imminent redemption brought by the

101 The term Holy Faith as a technical reference to Sabbateanism was used as early as

1666; see Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, pp. 283y84.

102 Ibid., p. 211.

103 Ibid., p. 796.

104 Ibid., p. 212; cf. also Yeshayahu Tishby, ed., Sefer Tsitsat Novel Tsevi, Jerusalem 1954,

passim.

105 Ibid., p. 282y83.

106 Abraham Cardosos letter to his brother Isaac, quoted in Yerushalmi, From Spanish

Court, p. 327.107 Tishby, ed., Sefer Tsitsat Novel Tsevi, p. 202.

38


28/31


Messiah, but to the internally paradoxical nature of his mission. Whereas

a Christian has to believe in the redemptive value of Gods suffering and

death, a Sabbatean is confronted with a much more complex paradox of a

saint who sins. While Christianity demands a rejection of the traditional

(or rational) understanding of what is possible and what is not, Sabbateanism

leads to the obfuscation of the difference between what is good and what

is evil. Frankism is, in this interpretation, the result of drawing ultimate

consequences from such an understanding of the concept of faith. Drawing

the ultimate consequence leads not only to immoralism, but also to the

impossibility of reconciling true religious identity with an external social

role:

It was precisely at this point that Messianism was transformed into

nihilism. Having been denied the political and historical outlets it had

originally anticipated, the new sense of freedom now sought to express

itself in the sphere of human morality. The psychology of the radical

Sabbatians was utterly paradoxical and Marranic. Essentially its

guiding principle was: Whoever is as he appears to be cannot be a

true believer. In practice this meant the following: The true faith

cannot be a faith which men publicly profess.108

Accordingly, Sabbateanism opens up a possibility of being internally

Jewish while externally professing another religion. Indeed, late

Sabbateanism crystallised in two separate, if interconnected, sects

demonstrating this possibility: the Donmeh of Salonika (outwardly Muslim)

and the Frankists in Poland (outwardly Roman Catholic).

Scholems analysis is here extremely helpful, because it makes it possibleto delineate the boundaries not only between Frankism and Christianity but

also between Frankism and Sabbateanism and the tradition of the Donmeh. In

Rozmaite adnotacje, faith certainly does not mean Sabbateanism sensu largo:

there are true believers [Sabbateans], who are already in the Faith and true

believers, who are not yet in the Faith.109 The notion isusednot in the context

of Sabbateanism but with reference to Christianity as entering the Faith.

However, entering the Faith110 does not mean simply being baptized.

108 Scholem, Redemption through Sin, in Messianic Idea, p. 109.

109 Doktor, ed., Rozmaite adnotacje, no. 32.

110 Ibid., no. 71, which describes how Frank sent a letter ordering the followers to enter

the religion (in Kraushars version to enter the religion of Edom) and mentions the

39


29/31

Pawe Maciejko

Faith does not denote Christianity as such, but only Christianity as accepted

by the Frankists. Christianity, whose mystical sense was acknowledged in

Frankism, was not tantamount to Christianity as professed by the Roman

Catholic Church or by any other Christian denomination. The Frankists did

seem to believe that there is a mystery in Christianity, but they doubted that

Christians knew this mystery. Jesus was included in the Frankist creed but

communicated directly with Frank, without any Christian intermediaries.111

Ritual Christian objects were believed to carry magical energy that was often

not revealed to their Christian users.112 Christian sacraments were considered

to have real power and were not treated as only external ceremonies. One

of Franks followers was mistakenly given two wafers during a Communion;

later that night he saw in a dream two sources of wine opening in him,

and his wife saw a two-color rainbow.113 Sick Frankists were eager to

receive baptism and extreme unction and treated the healing powers of the

sacraments with the utmost seriousness.114 But the Frankists did not believe

that the Church had a monopoly on the bestowal of sacraments: long afterthe official baptisms in Lwow and Warsaw they continued to administer their

own, secret baptisms, sometimes more than once for one person.115 The names

of the closest followers were given by Frank himself: in 1759 Frank chose

twelve men as Brothers and gave them the following names: Peter (2), Jacob

the Greater, Jacob the Lesser, Bartholomew, Luke, Thaddeus, Matthew,

John (2), Andrew, and Paul. The list of names is obviously based on the

names of the Apostles. Philip, Thomas, and Simon the Canaanite are replaced

by an additional John, an additional Peter, and Luke (the Evangelist?). Only

in some cases do the names given by Frank overlap with names given to

the same people during their Catholic baptisms (Franks ukasz (Luke) wasfirst baptized under the name of Franciszek (Francis)).116 In a reference to the

Hebrew Bible (Isaiah 7:14) and the New Testament (Matthew 1:23),117 Frank

receipt of a letter from Germany expressing the will to enter the Holy Faith. No. 93

reads, All Jews who are true believers will enter the Faith.

111 Doktor, ed., Ksiega sow Panskich, no. 504.

112 See, for example, references to crucifixes; Doktor, ed., Rozmaite adnotacje, no. 44.

113 Ibid., no. 72.

114 See Pikulski, Zosc zydowska, p. 319; Kraushar, Frank i frankisci , 1:156.

115 See Doktor, ed., Rozmaite adnotacje, an unnumbered entry from Czestochowa, p. 92.

116 Ibid., no. 43.

117 During the interrogation Frank argued for the divinity of the Messiah on the basis ofIsaiah 7:14; see Kraushar, Frank i frankisci, 1:187.

40


30/31


gave his first-born son, who was called Leyb and baptized as Jan (John), 118

the name Emmanuel.119

I believe that the Frankists attitude to Christianity is in many respects

a mirror reflection of the missionaries attitude to Judaism. If Latrobe

and his like attempted to demonstrate that Christian notions are present

in esoteric Jewish lore, the Frankists seemed to have found elements of

the pristine Jewish tradition in Christianity. Both the missionaries and

the Frankists sought the establishment of separate communities of Jewish

Christians. In February 1759 the Frankists submitted to the Lwow consistory

a petition specifying the conditions for baptism. This petition (which,

in contrast to all other Frankist supplications and manifestos, was not

published contemporaneously and was suppressed in Christian accounts of

the movement) requested permission not to shave their beards, to wear Jewish

clothes, to marry only within the group, to observe Shabbat (aside from

Sunday), to keep Jewish names (alongside Christian ones), to refuse to eat

pork, and to study Hebrew writings, in particular the Zohar.120 Interestingly,most of the points overlap with what the missionaries were ready to grant

them. For instance, the Pietist missionary Johann Georg Widmann told his

Jewish interlocutors that the Institutum Judaicum allows Jewish converts not

to shave their beards, to avoid eating pork, to use Hebrew in the liturgy, and

to wear traditional clothes. The missionaries considered these customs as

purely ritual and therefore did not see any problems with retaining them after

conversion.121 For the Frankists, however, neither Jewish nor Christian rites

were theologically neutral. If Christian kabbalists whose works influenced

Christian perceptions of Frankism122 believed that they understood Jewish

tradition better than the Jews themselves, the Frankists seemed to believe thatthey understood Christianity better than the Christians.

118 Ibid. 1:209.

119 Doktor ed., Rozmaite adnotacje, no. 35. The name Emmanuel is not commonly used in

Polish.

120 Abraham Brawer, Galitsia veYehudehah, Jerusalem 1956, p. 207.

121 Excerpts of Widmanns and Manitiuss reports from the 1731 journey to Poland have

been published in Doktor, W poszukiwaniu zydowskich kryptochrzescijan, p. 162.

122 See Pawe Maciejko, Jewish and Christian Perspective on Frankism, Polin 19[forthcoming].

41


31/31

early frankist doctrine

Documents