Manasseh was greatly impressed by the story told to him in 1644 by Antonio De Montezinos (Aaron Levi), who claimed to have discovered during his travels in Peru natives who recited the Shema', who said that they were descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and who observed the Jewish faith. Whether Montezinos was himself deluded,108 or the deliberate fabricator of a legend for personal gain, it is difficult to say. Manasseh clearly believed his account: "I, myself, was well acquainted with him for six months together that he lived here, and sometimes I made him take an oath in the presence of honest men that what he had told was true. Then he went to Farnambuc (Pernambuco, in Brazil) where two years after he died, taking the same oath at his death. Which, if it be so, why should not I believe a man that was virtuous, and having all that which men call gain."109 Manasseh offers other arguments to prove that the Indians belonged to the Lost Ten Tribes: "The West Indies were anciently inhabited by a part of the ten tribes which passed thither out of Tartary by the Strait of Anian."110 = In the approaching restoration these "sons from afar "111 are to be gathered "from the Islands of the sea" (i. e. West Is. 11.11), and brought to Palestine.112 They will be the first to return113. They shall assemble together with the others of the Ten Tribes in Assyria and Egypt114 under the leadership of Messiah ben Joseph, who shall come out of the tribe of Ephraim and shall be the captain of the Ten Tribes. From there they will go to the Jerusalem, where they will be joined by the returning exiles of the other two tribes. Then the "twelve tribes shall be joined together under one Prince, that is under Messiah, the son of David."115 108 Cf. Wahlman, o'n пwy, p. 79. 109 Mikweh, Sect. 13, p. 28. 110 Bering Strait (ibid., p. 53). 111 Is. 43.6. 112 Op. cit., p. 42. 113 Ibid., p. 44. 114 Is. 27.13. 115 Op. cit., p. 53. A fellow countryman of Manasseh's, Jacob Judah Aryeh de Leon, prompted by the thought of the imminence of the Restoration and by the solicitations of the Dutch mystic Adam Boreel who was deeply interested in the restoration,116 made a model of the Temple of Solomon, and in 1642 published tracts in Spanish and Dutch, describing it. 9. Samuel Ha-Kohen, of Pisa, wrote a commentary on Ecclessiastes and Job in 1640117 in which he states his belief that the Jews of his day were living in the "End of Days," and that the advent of the Messiah was near at hand. The Jews are now scattered everywhere to the extreme ends of the earth. The prophecy118 has therefore been fulfiled and the Redemption must now come. "I, myself," he writes, "call heaven and earth to witness that I once found myself in a place whose very name meant the end of the earth.119 "We find ourselves in the sixth millennium," he writes. "More than a third of it has already passed. It is quite possible that the men now living will live 600 years until the close of this millennium, when they will die and be resurrected. For if in Messianic times a man of 100 years will be accounted a lad,120 then an old man in those times may very well be 600 years old." 116 See Walther Schneider, Adam Boreel, Giessen, 1911, p. 43. .1656 ,Venice ,צפנת פענח 117 118 Deut. 28.64. 119 ¡′¶¶′ v'rð, probably Finisterre (=the end of the world) in Spain, the most westerly point of the continent of Europe (op. cit., 10b). CHAPTER VIII A. TALMUDIC Messianic calculation did not go unchallenged in Israel. In fact, it was consistently and vehemently opposed right through the ages. This opposition varied in intensity as the need for it changed, but it was never missing. The opposition was largely inspired by the fear that such calculations might awaken false hopes, which, if defeated, would tend to demoralize the people. This is forcibly expressed in the malediction which Rabbi Jonathan (2-3 c.) hurled against all those who calculated the end. "Perish all those who calculate the end, for men will say, since the predicted end is here and the Messiah has not come, he will never come." In the Mekilta de R. Simeon this thought is further elaborated. Following up the declaration that the sons of Ephraim miscalculated the end and left Egypt thirty years before the appointed time and were therefore killed, the writer says: "The matter may be deduced a minore ad majorem. In the case of the Egyptian exile, the duration of which was definitely revealed, they nevertheless erred in their calculation and left sooner than they should and perished. How much more so in the case of our exile, concerning which it is written, 'For the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end;" must the calculators err. Hence it was said, 'Perish all those who calculate the end; rather let a man wait and believe, and the good is bound to come.' There was also constantly present the fear that some • "A" 13 11997 *n, ed. Hoffmann, Frankfurt, 1905, pp. 37-38. See also Shir R. 2.18. |