he indulged perpetually in sea-bathing and lived in a state of chronic ecstasy. The pretensions of Shabbethai, who took the title of "King of the Kings of the Earth," split Jewry in two; many Rabbis launched imprecations against him, and those who had believed in him were bitterly disillusioned when, challenged by the Sultan to prove his claim to be the Messiah by allowing poisoned arrows to be shot at him, he suddenly renounced the Jewish faith and proclaimed himself a Mohammedan. His conversion, however, appeared to be only partial, for "at times he would assume the rôle of a pious Mohammedan and revile Judaism; at others he would enter into relations with Jews as one of their own faith." By this means he retained the allegiance both of Moslems and of Jews. But the Rabbis, alarmed for the cause of Judaism, succeeded in obtaining his incarceration by the Sultan in a castle near Belgrade, where he died of colic in 1676.
This prosaic ending to the career of the Messiah did not, however, altogether extinguish the enthusiasm of his followers, and the Shabbethan movement continued into the next century. In Poland Cabalism broke out with renewed energy; fresh Zaddikim and Ba'al Shems arose, the most noted of these being Israel of Podolia, known as Ba'al Shem Tob, or by the initial letters of this name, Besht, who founded his sect of Hasidim in 1740.
Besht, whilst opposing bigoted Rabbinism and claiming the Zohar as his inspiration, did not, however, adhere strictly to the doctrine of the Cabala