Encouraged by the support of the Jews, continued in spite of his change of religion, Sabbataï persisted in keeping up his character as Messiah, and associated more and more with Jews. His weak brain had been turned by the overwhelming rush of events, and he completely lost balance. At one time he reviled Judaism and the God of Israel with foul words of abuse, and is said even to have informed against Jews as blasphemers of Islam before Turkish magistrates. At other times he held divine service according to the Jewish ritual with his Jewish followers, sang psalms, expounded the Zohar, ordered selections from the Torah to be read on the Sabbath, and frequently chose seven virgins for that purpose. On account of his constant intercourse with Jews, whom he was not able to bring over wholesale to Mahometanism, as he may have boastfully asserted, Mehmed Effendi is said to have fallen into disfavor, forfeited his allowance and been banished from Adrianople to Constantinople. He finally married another wife, the daughter of a man learned in the Talmud, Joseph Philosoph of Salonica. The Turkish patrol having surprised him in a village (Kuru Gisme) near Constantinople, while singing psalms in a tent with some Jews, and the Bostanji Bashi (officer) having reported it, the grand vizir commanded the Kaimakam to banish him to Dulcigno, a small town in Albania, where no Jews dwelt. There he died, abandoned and forsaken, it was afterwards said, on the Day of Atonement, 1676. Spinoza, who had likewise broken away from Judaism, may well have looked with great contempt on this Messianic craze of his contemporaries. If he had cared to dig the grave of Judaism and bury it, he would have been obliged to recognize Sabbataï Zevi, his private secretary, Samuel Primo, and his prophets, as allies and abettors. The irrationality of the Kabbala brought Judaism much more effectually into discredit than reason and philosophy. It is a remarkable fact that neither the one nor the other could wean the numerous cultured Jews of Amsterdam from the religion of their forefathers, so strongly was it rooted in their hearts. At this time when two forces of Jewish origin were antagonizing Judaism in the East and the West, the Portuguese community, increased to the number of four thousand families, undertook (1671) the building of a splendid synagogue, and after some years finished the huge work, which had been interrupted by war troubles. The dedication of the synagogue (Ab 10, August 2, 1675), was celebrated with great solemnity and pomp. Neither the first Temple of Solomon, nor the second of Zerubbabel, nor the third of Herod, was so much lauded with song and eloquent speech as the new one at Amsterdam, called Talmud Torah. Copper-plate engravings, furnished with inscriptions in verse, were published. Christians likewise took part in the dedication. They advanced money to the Jews in the times of need, and a poet, Romein de Hooghe, composed verses in honor of the synagogue and the