Hitch 22 & God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens 2 Books Collection Set by Hitchens Christopher

Author:Hitchens, Christopher [Hitchens, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Atheism, Religion, God
ISBN: 9789124045708
Amazon: 9124045705
Goodreads: 55684358
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Published: 2020-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

A Coda: How Religions End

It can be equally useful and instructive to take a glimpse at the closing of religions, or religious movements. T h e Millerites, for example, are no more. And we shall not hear again, in any but the most vestigial and nostalgic way, of Pan or Osiris or any of the thousands of gods who once held people in utter thrall. But I have to confess to a slight sympathy, that I have tried and failed to repress, for Sabbatai Sevi, the most imposing of the "false Messiahs." In the mid-seventeenth century, he galvanized whole Jewish communities across the Mediterranean and the Levant (and as far afield as Poland, Hamburg, and even Amsterdam, repudiator of Spinoza) with his claim to be the chosen one who would lead the exiles back to the Holy Land and begin the era of universal peace. His key to revelation was the study of the Kabbalah—more recently revived in fashion by a showbiz woman bizarrely known as M a d o n n a — a n d his arrival was greeted by hysterical Jewish congregations from his home base in Smyrna to Salonika, Constantinople, and Aleppo. (The rabbis of Jerusalem, having been inconvenienced by premature messianic claims before, were more skeptical.) By the use of Kabbalistic conjury that made his own name the equivalent of "Mosiach" or "Messiah" when unscrambled from a Hebrew anagram, he may have persuaded himself, 169

170 G O D I S N O T G R E A T

and certainly persuaded others, that he was the expected one. As one of his disciples phrased it:

The prophet Nathan prophesied and Sabbatai Sevi preached that whoever did not mend his ways would not behold the comfort-ing of Zion and Jerusalem, and that they would be condemned to shame and to everlasting contempt. And there was a repentance, the like of which has never been seen since the world was created and unto this day.

T h i s was no crude "Millerite" panic. Scholars and learned men debated the question passionately and in writing, and as a consequence we have a very good record of events. All the elements of a true (and a false) prophecy were present. Sabbatai's devotees pointed to his equivalent of John the Baptist, a charismatic rabbi called Nathan of Gaza.

Sabbatai's enemies described h i m as an epileptic and a heretic, and accused h i m of violating the law. They in turn were stoned by Sabbatai's partisans. Convocations and congregations raged together, and raged against each other. On a voyage to announce himself in Constantinople, Sabbatai's ship was storm-tossed yet he rebuked the waters, and when incarcerated by the Turks his prison was illuminated with holy fires and sweet scents (or not, according to many discrepant accounts).

Echoing a very harsh Christian dispute, the supporters of Rabbi Nathan and Sabbatai maintained that without faith, knowledge of the Torah and the performance of good works would be unavailing.

Their opponents asserted that the Torah and good works were the main thing.

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