Eschatology and Conversion in the Sperling Letters ¹

When conversion and eschatology joined forces during Europe’s long Reformation period, it was usually to underscore religiously exclusivist claims. Eschatological expectations heightened the sense that those who adhered to the wrong beliefs, did not follow the correct practices, and did not belong to God’s sole favored religious community, should convert before it was too late. Thus, eschatologies of this period, also known as the Age of Conversion, tended to ground demands for conversion in exclusivist terms.2 This was the case for Christian communities in the Reformation, but it was also characteristic of contemporary Jewish eschatologies, which abandoned older traditions that had allowed for righteous Gentile ‘Sons of Noah’ to find salvation outside the Jewish community. Elisheva Carlebach, among other scholars, portrays early modern eschatologies – Christian as well as Jewish – in these terms:

monic characters (alongside the pope and the Turkish sultan) being trampledby am uscular risen Christ.Acaption beside the demon'sh ead reads, "Der Teuffel kumpt in einer gstalt eins Engels"-the devil comesinthe guise of an angel. Beneath the angelic appearance of religious peace, suggests the print,ademonic actor lurks.The Savior'sr eturn forebodes disaster for those who make religious concessions to the wrongr eligions or denominations.⁴ The reactions of writers and artists to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which brought an end to the bloodyT hirty Years War, demonstrate that such attitudes continued into the seventeenth century.What todayi su pheld as an example of religious peace-makingwas portrayed at thattime by artists and authorsonboth sides in eschatological exclusivist terms,a st he victory of theiro wn denomination.⁵ In this Christian eschatological exclusivism, converts and the phenomenon of conversion wereg enerallyt aken to signify that,with the end imminent,there was onlyo ne road to salvation.
Manyofthe Christians who converted to Judaism in the Calvinist-dominated Dutch Republic maintained this attitude, and accepted thosecontemporary Jewish claims that salvation can onlyb ea ttained through living fullyi nt he Lawof Moses.⁶ Fori nstance, while in Amsterdam visitingafellow German who had recentlyconverted to Judaism, at raveler encountered another convert.This was a formerCatholic priest,now named Danielben Abraham, who expected the messiah to come in 1703.While the traveler was talking with his host,this Daniel ben Abraham: […]s at quiet for aw hile, but finallyt alked, saying: "Dear friends,i th appens now like it happened at the days of Noah, when the good and pious man was ridiculed, and he and his ark were mocked until the Flood, and those whoh ad mocked him beggedh ew ould take them in his ark, but in vain. Also the People of God have been laughed at with their hope and waitingf or the messiah, which manyf or certain to their own damage all tool atew ill regret […]."⁷  Erasmus Alber,Also spricht Gott: Dis ist mein lieber Son an welchem ich wolgefallen hab Den SolltI hr Hören (s. l., n.p.: c. 1550).  Fora no verview,s ee Hartmut Laufhütte, "Der gebändigteM ars:K riegsallegorie und Kriegsverständnis im deutschen Schauspiel um 1648," in Ares und Dionysos: Das Furchtbareu nd das Lächerliche in der europäischen Literatur,e ds.H ans-JürgenH orn and Hartmut Laufhütte (Heidelberg: Winter, 1981): 121-35.  Fors uch exclusivist Jewish views in the Dutch Republic see, for instance, the writings of the polemicist Isaac Orobio de Castrod escribedi nY osef Kaplan, From Christianityt oJ udaism: The Story of Isaac Orobio de Castro( Oxforda nd New York: Publishedf or The Littman Library by OxfordU niversity Press,1989), 353 -59.  "niedergesetzt und ihrenD iscours in der Stille fleißigzugehöret,endlich aber darein geredet und gesagt, geliebteF reunde, es gehet jetzo, wie zu den ZeitenN oae, da man den gutenf rom-Typical of the kind of wide-scope conversion narrative that relied on eschatological expectation, the aforementioned converted priest'sc ombination of promise (for the Jews)and threat (to the Christians),and expectation that the fortunes of the two religious communities would be reversed, mirrored as well as legitimized BenA braham'so wn religious change.
Yet, not all earlymodern converts thoughtoftheir religious affiliation in exclusivist terms,ora tleast did not expressthis exclusivism in practice. As recent studies of earlymodern interreligious relations such as thatofBenjamin Kaplan show,c onverts did not necessarilyd emand their unconverted familym embers' conversion or sever ties with relations who remained in their old faith.⁸ Moreover,a si sa mplyd emonstrated by the rich recent scholarship on Iberian New Christians, the religious self-perception of earlym odern converts was complex. To continue with the example of Iberian Jewish converts to Christianity, whereas older scholarshipa ssumed that Jewishc onverts to Christianity either fullye mbraced their new religion or clandestinelyr emained loyal to the religion they had publiclyb een forced to abandon, more recent scholarship such as that of David Graizbord has shown thatf or these converts, the "threshold" between the Jewisha nd Christian worlds was "at once ab oundarya nd ac rossroads."⁹ In other words, earlym odern converts were markers of religious difference and exclusivity as they embodied the possibility to dwell in two religious worlds simultaneously.
The present article willexplore this side of earlymodernconversion and eschatology by analyzingt wo extraordinary letters written in Amsterdam in 1682, and theiri mmediate and broader religious Umwelt such as Bader,K uhlmann, Menassehb en Israel, and Paulli.¹⁰ The letters are found todayi nacollection of miscellaneous documents in Hamburg'sS tate Archive,a nd weref ormerly held in the archive of the Hamburger Geistesministerium,a ni nstitution that served as the highest authority of the Lutheran Church in Hamburga nd functioned as an advisory bodyt ot he city government in the earlym odern period. They werew ritten by ac ertain Benedictus SebastianS perling to his mother,t o explain his conversion from Christianity (presumably the Lutheran faith) to Judaism. Sperling,who by then alsoused the name Israel Benedeti Ger (ger meaning 'proselyte'), tried to comfort his mother who apparentlyh ad been greatlyu pset by the news of his conversion, by presentingher with ascenario of the imminent eschaton that allowed for the salvation of people of different religions.
What is striking about Sperling'sl etters is the lack of religious exclusivism they convey. This is not what we would expect from an earlym odern convert in the confessional ageo ft he Reformation, particularlyn ot from ac onvert in expectation of imminent eschatological events. Nevertheless, as Iw ills how, Sperlingr ecognized Christian scripture as authoritative scripture, claimedt hat good Calvinistsa nd Lutherans would alsob es aved, hinted at universals alvation, and depicted the eschaton as ac ooperative effort of Protestantisma nd Islam to return the Jews to theirp romised land.
It is important to mention that each of these elements -scriptural promiscuity,t he claim of multiple paths to salvation, and an eschatology that attributes positive roles to more than one religious group -has, at various times, been exploited to servee xclusivist claims. Sperling'sl etters can indeedb er eadi nt hat way: as with manyJ ewish polemicists before and after him, he used Christian scripture to undermine the dogmas of Christian churches.F urthermore, while Sperlinge nvisioned hostso fC alvinists, Lutherans,a nd Muslims gathering and aiding Israel to return to its promised land,h ea lso imagined RomanC atholics  StaatsarchivH amburg5 11-1M inisterium III A1dB and 2(1553 -1686), further as "Sperling letters." Translations arem ine, and the original German is found in the footnotes. as their common enemy. As in most eschatologies, Sperling'ss cenario drew a clear line between the forces of light and darkness.
Yet, to focus on this feature is to ignore the spirit of the letters,inwhich dualism between the Catholics and the Protestant-Muslim-Jewish alliance plays a minor role relative to the positive elaborationo ft hat alliance. In the following, Iexplore Sperling'sr emarkable combination of (on the one hand) personal conversion and thus commitment to ap articularr eligion, and (on the otherh and) commitment to an on-exclusive attitude toward different religions. Beforea d-dressingS perling'si nclusivist eschatology in the letters themselves, however,I will first brieflye xplore the historical Sperlinga sw ell as the religious environments of Hamburg, whenceh ec ame, and Amsterdam,whereh ec onverted and wroteh is letters.

The Historical Sperling
Benedictus Sebastian Sperlingasahistoricalperson has thus far been somewhat of amystery.The absenceofdocumentation on Sperling'slife should have raised the question of whether the letters werep erhaps,r ather thanc orrespondence written by ason to his mother,literaryartifacts: fictive missivescomposed to further the agenda of aspecific religious group somehow associated with the Jewish community of Amsterdam. Neither WolfgangP hilipp, who published Sperling's letters in their original Germani n1 958, nor Gerald Strauss, who published an English translation in 1974,e verc onsidered this option, and took the letters as authentic.¹¹ Moreover,b ecause the letters ended up in ag overnmental archive  Wolfgang Philipp, "Der Philosemitismus im geistesgeschichtlichen Feld: Bericht über eine neue Quelle und Orientierungsversuch," Zeitschrift für Religions-u nd Geistesgeschichte1 0:3 (1958): 220 -30.P hilipp published the letters also in idem, ed. Das Zeitalter der Aufklarung, Klassiker des Protestantismus (Bremen: C. Schönemann, 1963), 106 -10;and see idem, "Spätbarock und Frühe Aufklärung: Das Zeitalter des Philosemitismus," in Kirche und Synagoge: Handbuch zur Geschichtev on Christen und Juden: Darstellungm it Quellen, eds.K arl Heinrich Rengstorf and Siegfried vonK ortzfleisch (Munich:D eutscher Taschenbuch Verlag,1 988), 54-7; Gerald Strauss, "AS eventeenth-Century Conversion to Judaism: TwoL etters from Benedictus Sperlingt oh is Mother,1 682," Jewish Social Studies 36:2 (1974): 166 -74.S trauss claims that, based on the handwriting, the archivedl ettersm ust be eighteenth-century copies. The archival locations Philipp and Strauss noteda re not accuratea nymore. Sperlingi sa lso mentioned in other research, often merelya saconvert to Judaism. The most detailed discussions areb yE li-shevaC arlebach,who argued that Sperling'sc laim to be of Jewish descent served to legitimize his conversion, and Paul Thraugh, whoused Sperlingasa'Jewish' perspective on Luther;Elisheva Carlebach, "'Ich will dich nach Holland schicken …' Amsterdam and the Reversion to Judaism in Hamburg, Philipp and Strauss presumed thatS perlingw as from Hamburg. The letters themselves, however,d on ot indicate their destination.¹² But Sperling did exist,a nd the records of the PortugueseJ ewishc ongregation in Amsterdam document thath ew as indeed from Hamburg. It is not known whether Sperling arrivedi nA msterdam alreadyi ntent on converting,o r whether he traveled to Amsterdam for other reasons and found Judaism once there.¹³ Theformerismore likely, though, because in his second letterheclaims to be in possession of ab equest from his father to his children, stating that his ancestors had been Jews forciblyc onverted to Christianity "duringw ars." His onlyt wo appearancesi nA msterdam'sr ecords are in the Portuguesec ongregation's Livro Longo,wheret he charity donations, among others, were registered. It lists that on 15 Adar I, 5442( 23 February 1682),t hus, six weeks after sending his first letter,two florins wereg iven to "Israel Beneditog uer de Hamb o ":I srael Beneditothe proselytefrom Hamburg. Three and ahalf months later,onthe first of Sivan( Sunday, 7J une), "Israel Benedito"-this time it is not mentioned that he is aconvert -is again givencharity,specifically, 3: 3florins.¹⁴ This is the last we hear of Sperlingi nt he annalso fJ ewishA msterdam.
Thus, it seems that Sperlingarrivedi nA msterdamatt he latest in earlyJ anuary 1682, the date of his first letter,and remained there, receiving financial support from the city'sprosperous Portuguese community,atleast until June of that year.His subsequent fate is unknown, but additional clues about his social and religious environment in Amsterdam can be found in his letters.Having received charity from the Portuguesecongregation does not mean thatheh ad joined the Sephardic community,f or the Portuguese provided charity to both Sephardic as  My own inquiry with Hamburg'sa rchivesh ad no result.S perlingw as never registereda sa citizen of Hamburg, nor was he listed in its registers of inhabitants without citizenship and strangers.E -mail communication from AnkeH önnig,S taatsarchivH amburg,9April 2015.  The fact that he does not surfaceinthe recordsofAmsterdam'sChristian churches,such as Amsterdam'sL utheran congregation, might be an indication that he was alreadyi nterested in convertingw hen he arrived. E. g. Stadsarchief Amsterdam (further as SAA) 213( Archief vand e Evangelisch-Lutherse Gemeente te Amsterdam;K erkenraad en Ouderlingen), 520 -5( Communicanten registers,1677-1682).  SAA3 34 (Archief van de Portugees-Israëlietische Gemeente), 217( Livro Longo:K asboek betreffende salarissen,l ijfrenten en anderep eriodiekeu itkeringen, 1676 -1685), 310 and 339. well as Ashkenazi Jews. In fact,the name Sperlingadopted in Amsterdam, Israel Benedeti, and his chosen term of address, "signor," suggest contact with Italian Ashkenazi Jews rather than, as Philipp assumed, the Sephardic community.¹⁵ The hypothesis thath ej oined the Ashkenazi community rather thanA msterdam'sP ortuguese Sephardic congregation is further supported by his postal address,namely,the residenceo f"Rabbi Gaim Lubbeliner" on the Uilenburg. This was Haim Lubliner, awell-respected rabbi in the Ashkenazi congregation.¹⁶ Unfortunately, too few of the Ashkenazic ongregation'sr ecords of this period sur-vivedW orld WarI It or eveal more about Sperling'si dentity.I f, after June, Sperlingr emained in Amsterdam'sJ ewish community and died there, he was not buried under the name he had chosenf or himself and under which he had receivedc harity,b ut under ag eneric proselyten ame such as "Abraham Ger of Hamburg."¹⁷

Sperlinga nd Lutheran Hamburg
The background of Sperling'se schatological beliefs,t hen, should be soughti n both Hamburgand Amsterdam. Philipp in particular,and Strauss while offering am oreg eneral contemporaryc ontext,o nlyc onsidered Hamburg. Philipp suggested thatS perling'sb eliefs ought to be understood in view of late Baroque philosemitism in Lutheran Hamburg( an idea adopted by later studies such as those of Hans-Joachim Schoeps).¹⁸ Noting the presencei nS perling'sl etters of millenarian Paul Felgenhauer's(1593 -1677) philosemitic ideas, Philipp sketched abroad imageo fphilosemitic cultureinHamburg. Itscomponents included the influenceo ft he Swede Andress Pederson Kempe,t he presenceo faflourishing Sephardic Jewishc ommunity and the messianic Sabbatian movement thath ad seduced manyoft his community'sm embers, close contacts with English philosemites,a nd (later in the seventeenth century), ag roup of scholars centered around the theologian JohannF riedrich Mayer( 1650 -1712).¹⁹ Like Philipp, Strauss too placed the letters in the context of scholarlyinterest in the Jewishr oots of Christianitya nd the attraction to Judaism by Christians grown weary of Christendom'si nternal divisions. Moreover,S trauss regarded Sperling'sl etters as an example of the late seventeenth-century rapprochement between spiritual Christian messianic expectations and more earthlyJ ewish ones. Strauss also identifieds pecific eschatological beliefs which werei nc irculation when the letters werewritten -for instance, aseries of claims focused on the comets thathad appearedinthe threey ears preceding Sperling'sletters and on the rare astrological conjunctions expectedf or the years immediatelyt o come.²⁰ When describing Hamburg'sr eligious climate,S trauss, in contrast to Philipp,e mphasized the hostile Christian environment by which it was marked in the second half of the seventeenth century,r ather than its philosemitic intellectualm ilieu.
How might one account for the differenceb etween Philipp'sp ositive and Strauss'snegative characterizations of Hamburg? In this regard,itmight be useful to recall Hamburg'spolitical division, that is, its relatively tolerant civil leadership on the one hand,and its clerical opposition on the other.²¹ The city magistrates' economic interests and distrust of clerical ambitionse nabled the Sephardic Jewish community to prosper and reach ap eak in the 1660s.²² The philosemitism evinced by aselect group of intellectuals described by Philipp further fueled this cooperative attitude. Nonetheless,t he city'sL utheran clergy, generallyi no pposition to the city'sl eadership,t ended to be hostile towardsa non-Lutheran presenceinHamburg, includingthatofJ ews.²³ The second half of the century sawani ncrease in this hostility following the arrivalo fJ ewish refugees (whichm ay have included Sperling'so wn paternal ancestors), who were fleeing the Khmelnytskymassacres and otherpogroms in the East.²⁴ This antipathyt owards Jews was reinforced by aggressive missionary efforts includingt he foundation of the Edzardische Proselyten Anstalt in 1667, one year after the conversion to Islam of the Jewish messianic claimant Sabbatai Tsevi (1626-1676), who had manya dherents among Hamburg'sJ ews. Exploiting the Jewishm essianic disappointment to convince Jews that JesusC hrist was the true messiah, this missionary institute attracted ag reat number of converts.²⁵ Particularlyi fh is claims about his father are true, Sperling was likelya lreadyi nc ontact with Jews whens till in Hamburg, making Philipp'ss uggestion that publici nterest in Sabbatianism mayh avec ontributed to Sperling'sc onversion highlys ignificant.²⁶ Pawel Maciejko has recentlys hown how in the Sabbatian movement "fusingi nterreligious elements became ap ositive,a nd possibly even asupreme, value."²⁷ Following theirmessiah, who, in contrasttothe historiographic tradition, seems to have sincerelyembraced Islam while continuingto observeanumber of Jewishp ractices, Sabbatians became […]t he most ecumenical of earlym odern Jews.While mainstream Jewish discourse habituallyb undled all 'nations of the world' and their faiths together,S abbatianism carefully distinguished between different creeds and denominations,o ften drawingl ines not only between large religious formations such as Islam and Christianity,but also between different sects and subgroups,s uch as different Protestant churches or different Sufi orders.²⁸ Hamburg, whereSabbatianism survivedthe demise of the Sabbatian massmovement,thus offered aJ ewishs ubculturet hat combined religious conversion and an ecumenicalattitude, breathingthe samespirit of Sperling'seschatologicalbeliefs described below. Hence, Hamburgw as homet ot wo attitudinale xtremes.Whereas as trong Lutheran exclusivist sector tried to either aggressively bar Jews from Hamburg or convert them to Christianity, several subcultures sheltered by Hamburg'smagistratest hat ranged from philosemitic Lutherans to Sabbatian Jews explored more ecumenical connections between Christianityand Judaism. Sperling'sjourney to Amsterdam epitomized his own preference for the latter,since these inclusivist attitudes could also be found in Amsterdam.

Sperling'sA msterdam: German Boehmistsa nd InternationalP roselytes
In his second letter to his mother, when Sperlingpresents his eschatological scenario, he refers to what he "has also heard in the sermons," in which it was claimed thatt he first angel of the Apocalypse of John refers to "the great angel, the archangelD .M artin Lutherus."²⁹ It is unlikelyt hat this phrase came from the mouth of an Ashkenazi rabbi. Possibly, Sperling was alludingt oasermon rememberedf rom aG ermanL utheran past that he had left behind -after all, he mentions sermons while discussingLuther.Nevertheless,the depiction of Luther as an archangeli sani ntegralp art of the eschatological belief system he held after his conversion -suggesting that he mayhaveheard the description in sermons he was stillattendingatthe time he wrotethe letter.I tisalso noteworthythat he usesthe definite article in his letter ("the" sermons)and chooses the perfect rather thant he past perfect tense.
While Boehmists -followers of the German mystic Jakob Böhme (1575 -1624) -might not have had the pulpitsn ecessary to directlys pread their message, Boehmiste lements in the letters,a lreadyn oted by Philipp, indicate that these sermons might be linked to the presenceo fG erman Boehmists in Amsterdam around 1680,such as Johann GeorgGichtel (1638 -1710) and Friedrich Breckling Quirinus Kuhlmann. LikeS perling,K uhlmann wrotea bout an eschatological alliance among Lutheranism, Calvinism, and the (Muslim) Ottoman Empire.³¹ UnlikeS perling,h owever,K uhlmann attributed to himself ac entral role in the upcomingm essianic events. These or other German-speaking Boehmists in Amsterdam, some of whom weres uch fervent Hebraists that they spoke Hebrew at home, werel ikelyi nstrumental in Sperling'st urn to Judaism. Moreover,the fact that the Revelation of John figures prominentlyi nS perling'se schatology points to some continued connection with this Boehmistmilieu after joining the Jewish community.³² An important clue about another religious environment in Amsterdam can be found at the end of Sperling'sfirst letter,where he cryptically hints in an underlined sentence: "Please know that Ia mn ot the first Christian who has become aJ ew,a nd Iw illn ot remain the last."³³ As burial and other records from both Amsterdam'sA shkenazi and Sephardic communities show,A msterdam numbered manyc onverts at the time.³⁴ These include converts from Hamburg or thosew ith some other connection to it: in the twoy ears before Sperling's conversion, for instance, the English convert Elias BarA braham traveled to Hamburgt wice.³⁵ The Portuguesec ommunity'sc harity lists also includes everal converts from Hamburginthe years following Sperling'sletters,who, like Sperling,h ad come to Amsterdam.³⁶ Social interactions between converts was common in Amsterdam. The aforementioned MosesG ermanus and Daniel ben Avraham interacted with fellow converts, as did Abigail Guer("Abigail the proselyte"), who in the 1640s stipulated that part of her large donation to the Portuguese Jewish community should be reserved as ay earlya llowance for Dinah Guer ("Dina the proselyte").³⁷ In addition, at least some of these converts, as Sperlingi mplies, expectedt hat there would be more conversions to Judaism in the near future.
The use of the Book of Revelation as authoritative prophecyb yaJewish proselytew ho receivedh is mail at the address of ar enowned rabbi comes as something of as urprise. But proselytes, it might be helpful to recall here, occupied arather liminal status in the Jewishcommunity.Beginning at the end of the seventeenth century,t he Portuguese community required the permission of the maamad,t he synagogue board, for the burial of proselytes, and one instance in its burial book shows as eparate plot for proselytes.³⁸ Thus, the Portuguese community,atleast,may have deemed converts as belongingtoasocio-religious category distinct from that of born Jews.³⁹ If the Portuguese community perceived proselytes differently, the AshkenaziJ ewish community,f inanciallyd ependent  Burial 'segregation' begins in this period, when former slavesbegan to be buried in the "negroes section." In addition, converts begin to be listed as "buried by the order of the maamad," suggesting that their burial in the Jewish cemetery was not self-evident. on their richer Portuguese brethren, likelyfollowed suit.One of the effects of this différence mayh aveb een ag reater toleration -albeit by virtue of neglect -for the peculiarr eligious views of proselytes.
While the graduallygrowingdistinction between born Jews and proselytes in JewishA msterdam might have afforded ac ertain degreeo fd octrinal liberty for the city'sc onverts, there seems to have been am orep ositive factor at playa s well. This was the presenceo fh eterodoxt endencies among Amsterdam'sJ ews themselves, in particulara mong its Portuguese community.Y osef Kaplan and Yirmiyahu Yovel, among others, have shown how Amsterdam'sJ ews' converso past resulted in widespread heterodoxy in its community -Spinoza being its most famous example -which included positive engagementsw ith Christianity and Christian-Jewish hybridities.⁴⁰ Sperling'sstatements about the origins of his prophetic beliefs provide additional evidence about the subculture to which he belonged. Combining the principle of Sola scriptura with assertions of their owni nsights and authority,P rotestant non-conformists oftenc laimedt hat their personal interpretationso f scripture were equally, if not more, valid thano fficial doctrinal positions.O ne of the ways Sola scriptura was invoked was to arguethatGod'seternal commandments to Moses werenever,and could never be, nullified.⁴¹ As Iwill show in due course, Sperling shared both this viewpointa nd its Sola scriptura justification.
Sperlingalso gave his own readings of the 12 th ,14 th ,a nd 19 th chapters of the Book of Revelation, of Daniel, and of the traditionalJ ewishl ife-saverZ echariah 8:23.Tohis mother,Sperling stressed the personal nature of his reading of scripture, writing, for instance: "I believet he woman clothed with the sun is […];" "I have read in the book of Daniel."⁴² Of course, this does not rule out the possibility that these readingsw eres hared within an interpretive community.
Eschatology and Conversion in the Sperling Letters of biblical prophecy,S perling halts -perhaps suspectingt hat his mother,r eading the letter,m ight have begun to doubt his sanity -and writes: Manyw ould ask me: How do youknow that?W isdom, whoisthe judge of all the arts,has taught me. Iwant to praise her,makeher known, show her clearlysothat everybodyknows what that wisdom is. Fort hrough her one gets to know God and his holiest name, which cannot be uttered and which teaches everything[ … ]S he knows God'sw ill and counsel, for she was therew henG od created the world […]T hrough her we will resurrect from the dead and live in eternity,b ecause she inhabits in all that is, and whoever seeks for her finds her.Whoever seeks her from the heart will receive her.⁴⁴ "Wisdom," who appears in Proverbs 3and 8and Ecclesiastes 1, was aparticularly popular character in the earlym odern period. Consequently, the origin of Sperling'sl oyalty to heri sh ardt oa ssess. He couldh avep ickedh er up from theB oehmistt radition alreadym entioned, from Jewish or Christiank abbalists, or even from Sabbatians (who were presentbothinHamburg andinAmsterdam), or possibly,f romacombination of these. More importantly, however, Sperling's readingofscripturalpropheciesstemmed notonlyfrom Sola scriptura andthe discoursesofexegeticalc ommunities, butalso -so he believed -from divine inspiration. Sperling must have belonged to,oratleast have been socialized by,one or more groups that upheld individual divine inspiration.⁴⁵ Wisdom was as "pure,"" noble," and "careful" as Sperling portraysh er: Sophia was able to do something with Revelation, the prophetic text at the coreo fS perling'sb eliefs, that few others have been able or willing to do. Although she left one villain in place (in the person of the pope), the thrust of Wisdom'sw ork was to turn the Book of Revelation into ac all for and forecasto f inter-religious alliance at the end of times.

Sperling'sE schatology
Sperlingw as not the first to design eschatological alliances among different religious groups.I nt he rapidlyg lobalizing earlym odern world, manys ought to make room for different religions in their end-time scenarios.AJewishe xample is Menasseh ben Israel'swell-known appealtoOliverCromwell (1599 -1658) that the English Christian readmission of Jews would hasten the arrival of the Messiah.⁴⁶ In Christian eschatology,Quirinus Kuhlmann (mentioned aboveasapossible influenceo nS perling) outlined an alliance between Lutheranism and Calvinism. Twosimilar eschatological proposals to join Jews and Christians under a single religious banner werethose of Augustin Bader (c. 1495 -1530) from South Germany, and the Dane Oliger Paulli, from Amsterdam. Each claimed to be the messiah, or representing the future messiah, of both Jews and Christians and attempted, unsuccessfully, to forge aJ ewish-Christian alliance against the Roman Catholic Church.⁴⁷ Sperling'scase, however,isdifferent.Evenifhis letters are literaryartefacts rather than personal documents, they lack the obvious strategic interests of something like Menasseh ben Israel'sa ppeal. Nor did Sperling share the messianic religious ambitions of Bader,K uhlmann, and Paulli -ambitions thats et these religious entrepreneursa part from, and above, the regular human realm with its various religious commitments.T hisd ifference makes Sperling'sr eligious eschatology remarkably gentle. One can hear this in the tone of the letters, which is, as Strauss mentioned, unusually tender and conciliatoryf or someone who believes himself to be witnessingt he last events unfold.T hus, we read: Dearest beloved mother,Icannot neglect to write --my filial lovef or you, mother,burns constantly --regarding the fact that Ih aveb ecome aJ ew because of God and his Holy Name. Ik now that this is alreadyk nown to my mother,m yf riends,a nd my enemies.Iin- tend also to live and die as aJew in the name of the Lord of Hosts. Ibeg my mother,brother, sister,a nd brother-in-lawt hat they will not be hostile because of religion. ForIdesiret o remain in friendship with my friends and blood relatives. Forw hatg ood is enmity?A t all times we should remember that at one point we will appear in front of God'sjudgment seat to account for ourselvesi no rder to enjoy God'sc ompassion. So let us practice love, and know,t hat God is purec ompassion.⁴⁸ Sperling'srhetorical question -"Forwhat good is enmity?"-supplies an implicit answer -"nothing at all"-by his claim that we all will be judgedindividually for our actionsrather than our denominational commitments.Indeed, in the second letter,i nwhich Sperlingm entionst hath eh ad heard how badlyhis mother had taken his conversion, he writes: The question now is whycould In ot have become savedint he Lutheran faith, or whether the Lutherans [Sperlinga dded initially "and Reformed," but crossed that through] are damned. Ia nswer and declare that the upright Lutherans and Reformed will all achieve salvation. Letm ys oul stand for yours if Iw ritet his out of hypocrisy.⁴⁹ Further on in the second letter,S perling writes also that the third angel, which "Ih ope will be the messiah,w ill bring redemption to all people, and all that is evil will be destroyed." Not onlygood Lutherans and Calvinists could achieve salvation, then, but salvation could be universal.⁵⁰ Let us now turn to the content of Sperling'se schatological views. Twoo f the passages from the Book of Revelation that he focused on were Revelation  "Hertz vielgeliebteMutter Ichkan nicht unterlassen zu Schreiben den die kindliche liebe von mir brennet alle Zeit gegend er Mutter was anlanget daß ich vonG ott und seines Heyligen Namens wegen bin ein Jude geworden. Daß weis ich daß solches der Mutterm einen freünden und feinden schon bekandti st.I ch gedenkea uch im Namen der HERRN der Herrscharen ein Jude zu leben und zu sterben. So gereichet nun meine bitte an der Mutter Bruder und Schwester und Schwagerd aß sie wegen glaubens halber keine feindschaft ausüben. Den ich habeL ust freündschafft zu halten mit meinen freünden und Bluts Verwandten. 14:6 -11, concerning the three successive angels, and Revelation 12: 1, concerning the woman clothed with the sun. Either Sperlingcopied Revelation 14:6 -11 from Luther'st ranslation, or he remembered it by heart (onlyasingle "and" is missing), and he cites it in full. Notably,h ee nds his exegesiso fv erse 12 just before the point at which it commands belief in Jesus.
According to my understanding, and how Ihavealso hearditinthe sermons,the first angel […]a st he man of God, the great angel and archangelM artin Luther.The other angel who followed the first and shouted "She is fallen Babylon the great city" was the man of God the great angel and archangelJ ohn Calvin […]. The third angel, with ag reat voicew ill speak, saying:Those whow orship the Beast and its idol receivest he mark on his forehead and the mark of its name, after which the papacyw ill perish. This angel, the thirdo ne, I think has not come yet. Ie xpect the third angel [ and] hope it will be the messiah who will bringr edemption to all people, and all that is evil will be destroyed. Now Il et you know that these two angels,t hese two men of God Martin Luther and John Calvin, stand for the Lutheran and Reformed host,t hey area rchangels,f romt he seven of them who stand therea nd serveG od daya nd night.They aret wo peaceful angels of one beinga nd hence the Lutherans and Reformed will not wagew ar with another over religion.⁵¹ Clearly, Sperling,l ike thosew ho preached the sermons he had attended, believed himself to be witnessingt he fulfillment of the very prophecies described in Revelation. The first twop hases, in which the first two angels appeared, had alreadyb een completed by the arrival of the Lutheran and Calvinist churches. Sperlingw as waitingf or the third angel to come.
God has placed his judgment seat in these two religions,Sperlingwrote, and will judgethe entire world when the third angel appears. At this point,the Jewish people become part of the eschatologicals cenario. Accordingt oS perling,t he woman clothed in the sun of Revelation 12:14 is not,a si nt raditional Christian interpretation, the true (Christian) church. Rather,she standsfor the Jewish people who, pursued by the great dragon, will be savedbybeing giventhe two wings of ag reat eagle. These wings are the Lutheran and Reformed communities: So the two communities,namelythe Lutherans and Reformed,will be to the Jews as the two wingsofagreat eagle. And they will bringthem to the barren land, to their place, namely the promised land. That the holyc ity Jerusalem and the temple of God and the land that has so long lain in ruins will be rebuilt.⁵² This Protestant alliance will help the Jews return to theirland in order to rebuild it and its Temple. Failing to predict the appearance of the Ottoman armya t Vienna'sgates the comingyear,Sperling foretold that the Turkish sultan, the caliph of Sunni Islam,would build a "neatr oad" so the Jews could travel to their promised land.⁵³ With the important exception of RomanC atholicism, Sperling described eschatological cooperation among different religions. Together,t hey would bring about universal redemption by enablingt he restoration of the Jews to the land promised to them by God. To support his view,S perling offered an astrological interpretation of the passageabout the woman who is clothed with the sun, has the moon underher feet,and on her head acrown of twelve stars. In so doing,h ed rew on at raditionali dentification of the different heavenlyb odies with the different religions that stretched back to the illustrious eighth-century astrologers Al Kindi (c. 800 -873) and AbuM ashar (c. 787-886). The latter's De magnis coniunctibus was as tandard item in learned households of the earlym odern period.⁵⁴ Sperlingw rotet his part of his exegesis in an inspired style: Yous hould know that the Lutherans aret he mother from whom everythingg ood is born. Luther,you aret he clear mornings tar that heralds every good, oh powero fV enus.
And the threec ommunities,n amelyt he Turks, Lutherans and Reformed are trusted friends of Israel.
The pope with his cardinals, bishops,a bbots,prelates, monsignors and whatever belongstothat which is the dark night,the mother of all evil and all whoredom and idolatry. Yes, the dark night that is friend to no-one, pope, your poweri sf ickle. Mercury is [your] star.⁵⁵ Here, with the papacyasthe sole negative force, the different religions/heavenly bodies playc omplementary roles. Like the first angel, Venus/Luther -standing for the Lutheran faith -heralds the good news. Calvin takes over from there with as terner,m ore martial role, making sure to keep in line the ex-monk who once proclaimed that "He who loves not wine, women and song remains af ool his whole life long." The sultan, who keeps the pope at bay, is also assigned ad isciplinary duty.

Conversion and Universal Salvation
Sperling'si nclusivist eschatology raises the question of his conversion. Whydid Sperlingconvert to Judaism when he did not regard Judaism as the sole road to salvation?T he explanations Sperlingh imself provides suggest an interesting model, one thatc ouples religious pluralism with commitment to one religion alone.
Sperlinggives tworeasons for his conversion. The first is that he had arrived at ap ersonal conviction that God had never abolished the lawg iven to Israel. Sperlingsupported this claim with, among other texts, Christian scripture, namely,Matthew 5:17-20 and Luke 16:17, in which Jesus statesthat he has not come to abolish the Law. Christians who deniedthatthe lawofMoses had been abolished weren ot an infrequent phenomenon in the Dutch Republic. This can be seen in the complaints recorded throughout the seventeenth century by Amsterdam'sRe-formedC hurch, which kept awatchful eyeo nwhat happened in other religious communities as well.⁵⁶ Although 'Judaizing' was often limited to insistenceo na specific commandment -most often the observanceo ft he JewishS habbat -it occasionallyr esulted, as in Sperling'sc ase, in conversion to Judaism.⁵⁷ Although Sperlingt hus maintained that Scripture, correctlyi nterpreted, proved Judaism to be the onlyt rue religion, and although he himself converted to Judaism as resultoft his conviction, he did not holdthatadhering to another religion would automaticallyp reclude salvation. This "salvific pluralism" has roots in the Jewish tradition itself,f rom which the aforementioned attitudes of the proselyteD aniel ben Abraham and manym embers of Amsterdam'sP ortuguese community had deviated. Sperling'sp luralistic attitude could alsob e found in seventeenth-century Dutch Jewish discussions of Noahites (initiated by Christian Hebraists such as John Selden( 1584-1654), as MiriamB odian has recentlys hown), in which the possibilityo fm ultiple paths to salvation also appears.⁵⁸ Sperling'sv iews also echo tolerant Christian philosophies, such as thoseo f the influences discussed above, as well as those populari nt he Dutch Republic since its earlyd ays. Fori nstance,i nc riticizingC alvin'se xecution of Michael Servetus (c. 1509 -1553), Sebastian Castellio (1515 -1563) had argued that "the truth is to sayw hat one thinks, even when one is wrong." And Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert (1522 -1590) had written thatp agans,t oo, could attain salvation as long as they followed the "spirit."⁵⁹ The second reason Sperling gave for decidingt hath es hould "live and die as aJ ew" was that, as mentioned above, he had Jewish ancestry.I nh is second letter,h ew rote: Idesire to live according to such awonderful law, all the moresosinceIdescend from the Jewish race,justasm ybrother and sister,because we come from one father.This will seem quitestrangetomother because she knows nothingofit, nor do my brotherand my sister. I, however,k now it and Il et mother know that my father has left behind in writingabequest and declaration to us childrens ot hat we will know from what kind of tribe we are. Because my father'sforefathers have been forced [toconvert] in wars.They wanted to save their lives. This report Ih avei nt he documento fm yf ather and can give testimonyo fi t under oath.⁶⁰ Sperlingt hus claimed that, unbeknownst to his mother and siblings, his father had givenhim documents provinghis and his siblings' Jewishancestry.Whether Sperlingpossessed such documents or whether this was acaseofinvented Jewish ancestry,wewill never know.⁶¹ What we do know is thatSperling believed he was of the seed of Abraham through patrilineal descent,a nd thath ew as thus called upon to observeo ther commandments than thoseo ft he gentiles.
Eschatology and conversion often accentuated the differences among religious communities.T he Sperling letters in their Amsterdam context show that the opposite was alsop ossible. Thec onvert who sought to preserveh is or her social and familial tiestoareligious past could serveasabridge between different communities,and even as aguide for them to fulfill -together -their respective roles at the end of time.