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GAL-ED
On the History and Culture of Polish Jewry
Volume 20
Editor: David Engel; Associate Editors: David Assaf and Elchanan Reiner
The Institute for the History of Polish Jewry and Israel-Poland Relations
The Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center
Tel Aviv University 2006
ARTICLES
Paweł 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 Lwów 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 advanced
during 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 Bałaban, 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 Moravian Archives in Herrnhut was made possible thanks to the generous
support of the Simon Dubnow Institute in Leipzig.
1 On the disputations see Majer Bałaban, LeToledot haTenu’ah haFrankit, Tel Aviv 1935,
pp. 137y50, 209y66.
2 Majer Bałaban, ‘Studien und Quellen zur Geschichte der frankistischen Bewegung in
Polen,’ in Livre d’hommage à la mémoire du Dr. Samuel Poznański, Warsaw 1927, p.
210.
13
Paweł Maciejko
14
Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
the morality of the Jewish religion. Third, they wanted to demonstrate the
Talmud’s 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 the Torah deserves death”’ — as an attack upon Christian theologians.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 term
akum 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 Relations in Medieval
and Modern Times, Oxford 1961, p. 107.
7 See Franciszek Kazimierz Kleyn, Coram judicio recolendae memoriae Nicolai de
stemmate Jelitarum a Dembowa Góra 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, Lwów 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 Zamość, 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 Be’er haGolah, Rabbi Moses Rivkes’s 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
Paweł Maciejko
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 (Katz’s 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 frankiści polscy, 1:78y79.
16
Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
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
Bałaban argued that the majority of the theses for the Kamieniec disputation
were based on the ideas of the Dönmeh.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.
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 Hälfte des vorigen
Jahrhunderts, Breslau 1868, p. 23.
12 Bałaban, LeToledot haTenu’ah haFrankit, 1:155; idem, ‘Studien und Quellen’, p. 29.
13 See Gaudenty Pikulski, Złość żydowska przeciwko Bogu i bliźniemu, prawdzie i sumieniu,
na objaśnienie talmudystów, na dowód ich zaślepienia i religii dalekiej od Prawa
Boskiego przez Mojżesza danego, Lwów 1760, p. 172.
14 Ibid., p. 327.
15 Ibid., p. 339; see Kraushar, Frank i frankiści, 1:177, 189.
16 Ibid., p. 329.
17 ASV, Nunz. Varsavia, 94, Relazione della Causa e Processo di Frenk, fo. 148r.
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Paweł 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 Lwów 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 in
personis, 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: ‘Bóg [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, że Bóg ieden iest bez pocza‚tku y końca, we trzech Osobach
sobie równych, y nierozdzielnych, y zgodnych’ (We believe that there
is one God, without beginning and end, in three persons, equal to each
other, 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 okoliczności nawrócenia do
wiary s. Contra-Talmudystów albo historia krótka ich pocze‚tki i dalsze sposoby
przyste‚powania do wiary s. wyrażaja‚ca, Lwów 1760, p. 16.
19 Graetz, Frank und die Frankisten, p. 42; see also idem, Geschichte der Juden von den
ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart, Leipzig 1897, 10:392y93.
20 See Kraushar, Frank i frankiści, 1:72.
21 Biblioteka Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, MS 85, Manifestacja żydów
kontratalmudystów w dniu 2 VIII 1756 w sa‚dzie biskupim w Kamieńcu Podolskim
złożona, fos. 247ry250v; see also Kleyn, Coram judicio, sig. M3.
22 Kleyn, Coram judicio, sig. N2.
23 Ibid., sig. P4yP5.
18
Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
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Paweł Maciejko
27 Emden, Sefer Shimush, fos. 38ry47r; cf. Kleyn Coram judicio sig. M7yN5.
28 Cf. Zohar III, 36a.
29 Zohar III, 162a.
20
Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
21
Paweł 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 Hayon’s 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 Cardoso’s theology,
notably the doctrine of the suffering Messiah and the messianic reading of
Isaiah 53, are in fact Christian ideas dressed in Jewish language. Although
Cardoso 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 beShabbeta’ut,’ in idem., Sod
haEmunah haShabbeta’it, 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 LiYdi’at Avraham Kardoso,’ in idem., Mehkarei
Shabbeta’ut, 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: A
Symposium, Cambridge, MA 1997, p. 28.
22
Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
further. Although Cardoso considered Christianity ‘the worst and most foolish
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 Sabbateanism
for 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 (or
confuse) 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 Dönmeh.
However, the issue is more complicated. The majority of scholars now
agree that Cardoso’s opponents, Isaac Cardoso and Isaac Orobio, were in
fact right: some crucial tenets of Abraham Cardoso’s 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 LiYdi’at Avraham
Kardoso,’ pp. 408y409.
23
Paweł Maciejko
24
Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
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 Dönmeh,
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 Church
first 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 sect’s 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 asked
a 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 Eibeschütz and
25
Paweł Maciejko
his son Wolf. Though admitting that the boundaries between the Eibeschütz
circle and the Frankists were often blurred, Liebes nevertheless juxtaposed
the two groups. In his view, the sectarians who gathered around Eibeschütz
‘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
Brüdergemeine. Dalman’s article purports to be a publication of these
originals.48 However, in the event the letters published by Dalman are not
the 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. Latrobe’s version purports to be a translation
from German, but the German versions housed in Herrnhut were executed for
the use of the governing body of the Church, the Elders’ Conference of Unity;49
the originals of the correspondence between Burgmann and the Jews are not
extant. All existing documents are in Latrobe’s 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
26
Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
of Latrobe’s 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 Dalman’s 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 sect’s Christian
leanings. Despite the seal of secrecy, Burgmann promised to pass everything
he learned on to Latrobe and suggested that the Brüdergemeine, and
especially the Moravian Church’s specialist for the mission to the Jews,
Samuel Lieberkühn, should become involved in the conversion effort.51
After receiving additional information, Latrobe described the sect as follows:
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 Dalman’s
publication are given here for comparison.
27
Paweł Maciejko
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. In
Dalman this passage is corrupted. The fragment refers, of course, to Jonathan Eibeschütz.
28
Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
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
Paweł Maciejko
30
Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
31
Paweł Maciejko
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, ‘Yedi’ot al ha-Shabbeta’im be-
Sifrei ha-Missionarim be-Me’ah 18,’ in idem., Mehkarei Shabbeta’ut, pp. 609y30;
on Eibeschütz, see especially pp. 618, 622y23. Cf. also Jan Doktór, W poszukiwaniu
żydowskich kryptochrześcijan: Dzienniki ewangelickich misjonarzy z ich we‚drówek po
Rzeczypospolitej w latach 1730y1747, Warsaw 1999, pp. 28y29. Doktór’s 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 Frankist
Movement,’, Journal of Jewish Studies 16 1967:189y91. I follow this edition.
32
Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
33
Paweł Maciejko
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 mission’s destination see Johann de Le Roi, ‘Judenmission-
sbestrebungen der Brüdergemeine,’ 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 Ksie‚ga Słów Pańskich, no. 2097, quoted in Kraushar, Frank i
frankiści, 1:322, otherwise lost, which mentions the Phlipovtsy (the Old Believers), the
Herrnhüter (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. [Lieberkühn], Einige Nachrichten von dem gegenwärtigen Zustand der
Juden und den Bemühungen der Brüder ihre Bekehrung zu befördern. A fragment of this
report is also quoted in De Le Roi, Die Evangelische Christenheit 1:341y43.
34
Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
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 Brüdergemeine. 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.
Kirchoff’s 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 of
publication; it does not refer explicitly to Jesus’s 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 New
Testament 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 Frank’s testimony at the inquisition in Warsaw, ASV, Arch. Nunz. di Varsavia, 94,
fo. 149v.
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Paweł 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, czynności, i anektody
Pańskie.84
84 Jan Doktór, ed., Rozmaite adnotacje, przypadki, czynności i anekdoty pańskie, Warsaw
1996. For an earlier edition of this manuscript and a Hebrew translation see Hillel
Levine, ed., HaKronika — Te’udah leToledot Ya’akov Frank uTenu’ato, Jerusalem 1984.
Levine’s transcription is often unreliable.
85 Doktór, 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 Frank’s 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 Doktór, ed., Rozmaite adnotacje, no. 71.
91 Ibid., nos. 102y109. The term kompania is commonly used in the texts from Brünn and
Offenbach.
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Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
37
Paweł Maciejko
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 Cardoso’s letter to his brother Isaac, quoted in Yerushalmi, From Spanish
Court, p. 327.
107 Tishby, ed., Sefer Tsitsat Novel Tsevi, p. 202.
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Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
39
Paweł 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 Frank’s 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 after
the official baptisms in Lwów 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 (Frank’s Łukasz (Luke) was
first 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 Doktór, ed., Ksie‚ga słów Pańskich, no. 504.
112 See, for example, references to crucifixes; Doktór, ed., Rozmaite adnotacje, no. 44.
113 Ibid., no. 72.
114 See Pikulski, Złość żydowska, p. 319; Kraushar, Frank i frankiści, 1:156.
115 See Doktór, ed., Rozmaite adnotacje, an unnumbered entry from Cze‚stochowa, p. 92.
116 Ibid., no. 43.
117 During the interrogation Frank argued for the divinity of the Messiah on the basis of
Isaiah 7:14; see Kraushar, Frank i frankiści, 1:187.
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Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine
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 Lwów 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 Frankism 122 — believed that they understood Jewish
tradition better than the Jews themselves, the Frankists seemed to believe that
they understood Christianity better than the Christians.
41