ABOAB, SAMUEL.

Devar Shmuel [responsa]. With supplement (often lacking): Zichron LeB’nei Yisrael [concerning the pseudo-messiah Shabthai Tzvi - see below].
FIRST EDITION. Title within woodcut architectural border. Printed on thicker paper. Signature on title-page of Yehuda Mesaro. Opening and closing endpapers with seven pages of Hebrew manuscript commentary to Chumash-Rashi in a contemporary Italian hand.
ff. (6), 104. Lightly browned in places. Bound in Valmadonna-custom calf-backed marbled boards. Sm. folio. Vinograd, Venice 1533.
Venice: Vendramin 1702

In the Spring of 1668, shortly following the scandalous conversion to Islam by Shabthai Tzvi, his “prophet” Nathan of Gaza appeared in Venice on a clandestine mission heading toward Rome. Nathan was intercepted and subjected to a tribunal consisting of three judges: Rabbis Jacob Halevi, Samuel Aboab, and Solomon Chai Saraval. The cross-examination took place on the night of the 13th of the Omer 1668, at the conclusion of which Nathan was forced to sign a retraction of his beliefs concerning Sabbatianism. The proceedings, entitled “Zichron LeB’nei Yisrael,” were then forwarded by the Venetian rabbis to Jewish communities abroad, in order to discredit the erstwhile “prophet” who had so ignominiously promoted Shabthai Tzvi messianism. The historical record of these deliberations are preserved at the conclusion of Aboab’s responsa here (ff. 95b-97b). See G. Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: the Mystical Messiah (1975) pp. 763-69.