Himself a partial follower of the secret science, subscribing only to the Biblical and the Talmudical miracles, the rabbi of Barcelona replied that he would have considered the affair of the prophet of Avila as arrant fraud, if trustworthy people had not attested its truth. Still he could not possibly recognize him as a prophet, for he lacked the principal conditions which the Talmud lays down as essential to prophecy: outside of Palestine, prophecy is altogether impossible; the age is not suitable for prophetic revelation, and the prophetic spirit can not rest upon a perfectly ignorant person. It was incredible that a man should go to bed an idiot and get up a prophet. The story required the most painstaking and impartial investigation. In spite of the warning of the most honored rabbi of the time, the prophet of Avila pursued his course, and fixed the last day of the fourth month (1295) as the beginning of the Messianic redemption. The easily influenced and ignorant multitude made preparations for its coming, fasted, and spent money lavishly in alms, that they might be found acceptable in the Messianic kingdom, and be permitted to partake of its bliss. On the appointed day, the deluded people, dressed as on the Day of Atonement, hastened to the synagogues, and waited there to hear the trumpet-blasts announcing the Messianic advent. But the expected Messiah did not show himself, nor was there any sign of him. Instead, they are said to have noticed on their garments small crosses, for which they were totally unprepared, and which partly sobered and partly terrified them. It is possible that some of the incredulous in the congregation had fastened the crosses secretly on their garments, either to practice a joke upon their credulous brethren, or to point out to what end Messianic charlatanry was destined to lead them, and thus cure them of their delusion. Some of the impostor's followers are said to have gone over to Christianity in consequence of this incident; others, to have been plunged into melancholy, because they could not explain the presence of the crosses. What became of the prophets, or beguiled deceivers, of Ayllon and Avila is not related. Like Abraham Abulafia they were lost sight of, and have importance only as the excrescences of a diseased state. It is possible that another disciple of Abulafia, Joseph Jikatilla, who also was looked upon as a performer of miracles, and had his dwelling not far from Ayllon, played a part in the mad or deceitful pranks of the prophets of Ayllon and Avila. Joseph ben Abraham Jikatilla (born in Medina-Celi, died in Penjafiel, after 1305), heard, at the age of twenty years, an exposition of the bewildering secret doctrine of Abulafia, and whilst the latter still was in Spain, he composed a Kabbalistic book of his own, in which he exhibits the same eccentricities as his master. He, too, occupied himself with the mysticism of letters and numbers, and with the transposition of letters.