Jacob Frank: The End to the Sabbatain Heresy

Jacob Frank is the second and last major exponent of apostate messianism, the concept that lead to the Sabbatain heresy. This text contains a study of his picaresque life by Alexandr Kraushar and features an editor’s note and annotations, which explores the sources, and the reasons for the disappearance of the Sabbatain heresy. These observations are reflected against aspects of early 20th-century European history. Also examined are affinities to the tenets of Sabbatian theology found in lines of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and in the role of the old Bolsheviks in Stalin’s purge trials.