The unsuccessful issue of the Bar Kokba war had put an end for centuries to Messianic movements, but Messianic hopes are nonetheless cherished.
The Messiah, in accordance with a computation found in the Talmud, had been expected in 440 (Sanh. 97b) or 471 ('Ab. Zarah 9b).
Judah ha-Nasi had predicted that the Messiah would come in the year equivalent to CE 435, three hundred and sixty-five years after the destruction of the Temple).
R. Hanina, his student, had predicted that the Messiah would come in the year 470 (four hundred years after the destruction).
This, coupled with persecution and natural disasters, has resulted in the appearance of false messiahs.
This expectation in connection with the disturbances in the Roman empire attendant upon invasions may have raised up the Messiah who appears about this time in Crete, and who wins over the Jewish population to his movement.
One Jose, or ‘Fiscus’, in 442 proclaims himself the new Moses and predicts that on a certain day, the sea will open and the Jewish people will walk on dry land to Palestine.
On the given day, ‘Moses of Crete’ and many of his followers dutifully leap off a low cliff into the sea, with predictably tragic results.
The “False Messiah” phenomenon has become so widespread that most rabbis forbid predictions of the coming of the Messiah, since often people bereft of hope convert after grave disappointment.
