Mordecai Manuel Noah is a politician who starts believing that he’s the Jewish Messiah. Authors Johnson and Wilentz speculate that Noah’s antics (which the press covers frequently) influence Matthias’s attempt to refashion himself as a prophet. Noah later writes a book, warning that too much religious zeal makes people vulnerable to religious frauds.
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Mordecai Manuel Noah Character Timeline in Kingdom of Matthias
The timeline below shows where the character Mordecai Manuel Noah appears in Kingdom of Matthias. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2: Robert Matthews
...a Hebrew prophet. Matthews is inspired by a newspaper editor and politician named Mordecai Manuel Noah, who claims to be the Jewish messiah. Margaret thinks that Matthews is going insane.
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...wants to leave Matthews, but her community convinces her not to. Around the same time, Noah starts dressing in a king costume, and he tries to build a vessel (which he...
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Chapter 4: The Downfall
...in, saying that religious fanaticism has taken over the country. An editor named Mordecai Manuel Noah argues that Matthias’s followers all exhibited fanatical behavior before meeting him, and that made them...
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Epilogue
...Many newspaper articles sensationalize the risk of people being corrupted by new cults. Mordecai Manuel Noah publishes a damning article calling for Americans to reflect on a society that allows such...
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