The Helena independent., 1890-12-08
SOME OTHER MESS|AHS.
The People Whom Jesus Hlmsel1
Had Said Would Come
After Him.
Some of the Known Cases Where
Men Have Played as
Christ.
The Instances Were Confined to no Par
ticular Country and to no Special
Race or People.

The nnear beliefs OF. the Indians of the
northwest concerning their supposed mes
siah. saws the St. Louis Republic, have
aronsed renewed interest in the subject of
fo,ea chris.s which Jesus himself said would
come after him: especially JUST at the pc
ginning of the end According to some
The apnearance of these pseudo Christs IS
ono If the signs that the coming of the
rea, messiah is near at hand; others, back
ed hv the evidence of history, give the ad
vent of these impostors but little weight,
preferrine to treat them as deluded fanatics,
worthy only of place in the insane asy-
INN. That there is no sign of anything
IN these appearances unless it is sign
of soft spot in the head OF
the impersonator, may be inferred
from the fact that not less
than twenty-four different persons pre-
sented themselves to the Jews alone, claim
ING to be Christ returned, between the time
of cruci6xion and the year 1852. Many of
these .'messiahs'' were defended by the
Jews at AN enormous cost of both life and
money. Especially ls this true IN the cas-
of Coziba of Barchocheba. one OF the most
ponnlar of the false Chrsts. who arc Sc as
the messiah of the Jews in the second CEN
INV after tine, crnclfxlor of Jesus tthe
Jews. of course put Jesus down among the
false Christsl, and in whose defense they
lost over 100000 men when the Romans
made war upon them in an attempt to put
down the popular deluson, In the sixth
century remarkable impostor appeared at
Alexandria in Egypt, claiming to be
Jesus OF Nazareth returned to
earth. He showed scars IN MS
hands and feet where he said he had been
nailed to the cross six centuries before. and
called upon the Egyptians to follow him in
reveneeful war against the Jews. The
chief ruler of Egypt became one Of the i'm
postor's followers and contributed an I'M
mense army for making an invasion of Pal
estine. Everything was i'll readiness when
the false Christ tool down with n fever and
soon died, just as common Egyptian
would have done.
The tenth century was one prolific of false
Christs, not less than eight or ten so-called
''messiahs'' making their appearance and
being ministered to by greater or less
number of deluded followers during that
century.
From the beginning of the eleventh to the
opening of the seventeenth century but few
fase Christs are recorded. The masses
were becoming more generally educated
AuU. tueIelOIc, 1888 lhtly w Ocoolt.o AO1AoW-
ers of such blasphemers. The extraordi-
nary wiles of Mordecni German-Jew, who
lived in 1852, gained him quite reputation
as q Christ, but, sharper that ne was, he
was at last compelled to flee for his life
and end his days as an outcast. Moses
Charjorn LuzZatto. an Italian, bOtn in 1907
is said to have actually believed himself
the predicted messiah. He wrote a "Newe1
Testament and organized a church, but
did not make any considerable headway
He died in 174O. while making efforts to
prove his divine origin.
According to the Fremdenblatt of Berlin
false Christ made his bow in Germany in
August, 1872. He called himself "Jeku-
thieI'' Chronicles vi, 49,, King of Israel,
and announced that he had come to assume
the throne of his empire as the true messiah.
His manifesto. entitled, ITO Whom it May
Concern" bore seal which had the crown
of David on one side and a aScriptural quo
tatior on the other. He evidently found
but few disciples, as but very little concern
ing him ever appeared in the German pa
pers. In 1880, or thereabonts, the noun
taineers of West Virginia attempted to cre-
ate an excitement by pretending to believe
in the divinity of one of their number.
Eighteen hundred and eighty-eight gave
Georgia trio OF false Christs: woman, a
negro by the name of Edward James, and
woman's success in the miracle line gained
her great reputation for awhile. James
and Bell were both finally committed to the
insane asylum. With Schweinfurth as
Christ of the Rockford, (Ill.) Heaven
and the Indian messiah in the Rocky noun
tains, We end this curious note on false
Christs