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About this period a great number of Jews who dwelt in Crete were
convened to Christianity, through the following disastrous
circumstance. A certain Jewish impostor pretended that he was
Moses, and had been sent from heaven to lead out the Jews inhabiting
that island, and conduct them through the sea: for he said that he was
the same person who formerly preserved the Israelites by leading them
through the Red Sea. During a whole year therefore he perambulated
the several cities of the island, and persuaded the Jews to believe
such assurances. He moreover bid them renounce their money and other
property, pledging himself to guide them through a dry sea into the
land of promise. Deluded by such expectations, they neglected
business of every kind, despising what they possessed, and permitting
any one who chose to take it. When the day appointed by this deceiver
for their departure had arrived, he himself took the lead, and all
followed with their wives and children. He led them therefore until
they reached a promontory that overhung the sea, from which he ordered
them to fling themselves headlong into it. Those who came first to the
precipice did so, and were immediately destroyed, some of them being
dashed in pieces against the rocks, and some drowned in the waters:
and more would have perished, had not the Providence of God led some
fishermen and merchants who were Christians to be present. These
persons drew out and saved some that were almost drowned, who then in
their perilous situation became sensible of the madness of their
conduct. The rest they hindered from casting themselves down, by
telling them of the destruction of those who had taken the first leap.
When at length the Jews perceived how fearfully they had been duped,
they blamed first of all their own indiscreet credulity, and then
sought to lay hold of the pseudo-Moses in order to put him to death.
But they were unable to seize him, for he suddenly disappeared which
induced a general belief that it was some malignant fiend, who had
assumed a human form for the destruction of their nation in that place.
In consequence of this experience many of the Jews in Crete at that
time abandoning Judaism attached themselves to the Christian faith.
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