World Famous Cults and Fanatics Read Online Free PDF Page B

doubt that the end was just around the corner.
    Simon Bar Kochba
    But even before the millennium, there were plenty of messiahs. In AD 132, a Jewish revolutionary named Simon Bar Kochba led a revolt against the Romans
in Judaea when he learned that the Emperor Hadrian intended to build a temple dedicated to Jupiter on the site of the temple that had been destroyed by Titus. A celebrated student of the Talmud
(the Jewish book of law), Rabbi Akiva, told Simon Bar Kochba: “You are the messiah.” And Bar Kochba behaved exactly as a Jewish messiah was expected to behave (and as Jesus had failed
to behave); he seized towns and villages from the Romans, had his own head stamped on the coinage, and built fortresses. But he stood no real chance against the Romans, with their highly trained
troops. It took Julius Severus three and a half years to destroy the rebels, and in that time he destroyed fifty fortresses and 985 villages, and killed over half a million people. Since Bar
Kochba’s men were guerrillas, and guerrillas survive by being supported by sympathizers, Severus set out to kill all the sympathizers. He finlly killed Bar Kochba himself in the fortress of
Bethar, and renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolana. So one more messiah was proved to be mortal after all. The Jews were so shattered by this defeat that there were no more Jewish messiahs for many
centuries.
    Moses of Crete
    In about AD 435, an unnamed messiah from Crete, who called himself Moses, announced that, like his predecessor, he would lead his followers back to the
Promised Land, causing the sea to part for them so they could walk on the bottom. Hundreds of followers gathered on the seashore, and Moses raised his arms and ordered the sea to separate. Then he
shouted the order to march into the waves. They obeyed him, but the sea ignored his order, and many of his followers were drowned. Moses may have been drowned with them; at all events, he
disappeared.
    The Christ of Gevaudon
    In AD 591, an unnamed messiah began to wander around France. This man had apparently had a nervous breakdown after being surrounded by a swarm of flies
in a forest; he recovered after two years and became a preacher, clad himself in animal skins, and wandered down through Arles to the district of Gevaudon in the Cevennes (noted later for a famous
case of a werewolf). He declared he was Christ, had a companion called Mary, and healed the sick by touching them. (As we have seen in the case of Rasputin, this may be a natural gift.) His
followers were mostly the very poor, and they often waylaid travellers (most of whom would be rich) and seized their money. The messiah redistributed it to the poor. His army of 3,000 became so
powerful that most towns lost no time in acknowledging him as the Christ.
    Before he arrived at the cathedral city of La Puy he quartered his army in neighbouring halls and churches, and sent messengers to announce his coming to Bishop Aurelius. When these messengers
appeared in front of the bishop stark naked and turned somersaults, he decided it was time to end the career of this dangerous and disrespectful rebel. He sent his men to meet him, apparently to
welcome him, and as one of them bowed down as if to kiss the messiah’s knees, they grabbed him and dragged him to the ground, his companions rushed forward and hacked the messiah to pieces. With their “Christ” dead, the rebellious followers soon dispersed. Mary was apparently tortured until she revealed the “diabolic devices” that had given the messiah his
power – St Gregory of Tours, who recounts the story, naturally assumed that it was all the Devil’s work. But he also records that the messiah’s followers continued to believe in
him to the day they died, and to maintain that he was the Christ.
    A century and a half later, about 742, a messiah called Aldebert, who came from Soissons, announced that he was a saint; his followers built chapels for him which he named after himself. He