Chapter XX: Three Witnesses 281 (1)

THE WANDERING JEW.

I.

THE LEGEND.

In the year 1228, an Armenian bishop visited England; and the purport of his conversation is recorded in the _Historia Major_, begun by Roger de Wendover and completed (anno 1259) by Matthæus Parisius. The interviews between the monks and the Armenian took place at St. Albans, through Henri Spigurnel, a French interpreter, a native of Antioch and servant of the bishop; and if the replies of the Eastern prelate were rightly rendered, his tendency to the marvellous was sufficiently strong. He was asked, for instance, whether he had seen Noah’s Ark, said to be still preserved on an Armenian mountain, and he replied “Yes.” He was also asked whether he knew anything of “the famous Joseph,” so much discussed, said to have been preserved from the time of the crucifixion of Christ, as a witness of that event. The interpreter said that the personage in question had dined with his master shortly before they left Armenia, and then gave the story as follows. The name of the wonderful Jew was originally Cartaphilus, and he was Pilate’s doorkeeper at the time of Christ’s trial. When the young men were leading Jesus out from the hall of judgment, this doorkeeper struck him on the neck, and said, “Go, Jesus; go on faster: why dost thou linger?” Jesus turned, and answered, “I will go, but thou shalt remain waiting until I come.” (Here is quoted Matt. xxvi. 24: “The Son of man goeth as it is written of Him; but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.”) Thenceforth Cartaphilus has been waiting. He was thirty years when he insulted Christ, and whenever he reaches the age of one hundred he faints; on his recovery he finds himself as young as when his doom was pronounced. (Which, again, reminds the Chronicler of a text, Ps. ciii. 5: “Thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s;” and no doubt he was coming near a myth to which this item of the story is related, that of the Phœnix.) It was further related that Cartaphilus had been baptized by Ananias (who baptized Paul) under the name of Joseph. He lives among eminent Christians in Armenia as a holy man; relates to them and to others who visit him, sometimes from great distances, much concerning the Apostles: he never smiles, but sometimes weeps; refuses gifts, is frugal, and talks little. He hopes for final forgiveness, because he knew not what he did. The Chronicle adds that this story was attested by Richardus de Argentomio, who visited the East.

The same archbishop is quoted for the story told in the _Chronique rimée_ of Philippe de Mousket, born 1220, Bishop of Tournai in 1682. When the Jews were leading Jesus to execution, “this man” (no name is given) said, “Wait for me: I also am going to see the false prophet fastened to the cross.” Jesus turned upon him and said, “They will not wait for thee, but thou shalt wait for me.” This man would seem to have been a Jew, whereas Cartaphilus was a Roman.

These are the earliest written records of the legend of the Wandering Jew. From that time no trace of it appears until the year 1547, when an individual seems to have appeared in Hamburg, pretending to be the Wandering Jew himself. The legend and its representative appeared in German annals simultaneously. The fullest account is in a work published 1613: _Newe Zeitung von einem Juden von Jerusalem, Ahasuerus genannt, welcher die Creutzigung unsers Herrn Jhesu Christi gesehen, und noch am leben ist, aus Dantzig an einem guten Freund geschrieben_. The name appended to this narrative is “Herr Chrysostomus Duduläus Westphalus,” which Grässe believes a pseudonym. The author, however, embodies statements made in an earlier work: _Strange Report of a Jew, born at Jerusalem, named Ahasuerus, who pretends he was present at the crucifixion of Christ. Newly printed at Leyden, Leipzig, 1602._ From the same source came, _True likeness of the whole form of a Jew, seen by all, from Jerusalem, who pretends, etc. First printed at Augspurg, 1619._ The narrative of Westphalus is as follows:

“Paulus von Eizen, Doctor and Bishop of Schleswig, related to me, some years ago, that at the time he was studying at Wittenberg, while on a visit to his parents at Hamburg, in 1547, he had seen in church, placed near the chancel, a very tall man, with hair falling on his shoulders, barefoot, who listened to the sermon with great attention; and whenever the name of Jesus was mentioned, bowed humbly, smote his breast, and sighed. His only clothing was a pair of trousers, ragged at the ends, and a coat tied with a cord which fell to his feet. He appeared to be fifty years of age. There seem to have been many of the nobility and gentry who have seen this man, in England, France, Italy, Hungary, Persia, Spain, Poland, Moscow, Lieffland, Sweden, Denmark, and Scotland, and in other regions. Everyone has marvelled much at him. And the aforenamed Doctor, having made inquiries as to where he could converse with this man, and having found him, asked him whence he came, and how long he had been there during that winter. On this the man very humbly told him that he was by birth a Jew of Jerusalem, named Ahasuerus, his occupation that of a shoemaker; that he had been present at the crucifixion of Christ, since which time he had been alive; that he had travelled through many countries and cities; and to prove that he was telling the truth, he had knowledge of various events which had occurred since that time, as well as of all the events which had happened to Christ when he was brought before Pilate and Herod and finally crucified. He told even more than we know through the evangelists and historians; and he narrated the many changes of government, especially in Eastern countries, which had occurred at one time or another during those many centuries. Then he related most minutely the life, sufferings, and death of the holy Apostles. And now, when Dr. Paulus of Eizen, with great interest and astonishment, had heard these things, in order to obtain more thorough knowledge, he asked him to relate exactly all that happened. Thereupon this man answered that, at the time of the crucifixion, he resided in Jerusalem, and like others he regarded Christ as a heretic; he had not thought of him otherwise than as a misleader of the people; and that with others he had endeavoured to get one who in his eyes was a rebel out of the world. Soon after the sentence had been pronounced by Pilate, they led Jesus past his house. Knowing that he would be led that way, he (Ahasuerus) had gone home, and told all in his house that they might see Jesus pass by and would know what kind of man he was. Just as Jesus was passing, he took a child in his arms and stood before his own door. Christ, bearing a very heavy cross on his shoulders, stopped a little before the shoemaker’s door and leaned against the wall. Then the shoemaker, full of sudden anger, and also desirous of public applause, told Christ to move on whither he was ordered. Upon this, Christ looked sternly upon him, and said, ‘I will stand here and rest, but thou shalt move until the last day!’ Upon this, he put the child down quickly on the floor, and could stay there no longer. He followed Jesus, saw him miserably crucified, tortured, and slain. After all had been fulfilled, it was impossible for him to enter Jerusalem. He never saw his wife and child again, but as a sad pilgrim has wandered through foreign countries one after another. When after many years he returned once more to Jerusalem, he found everything sacked and destroyed, so that he could recognise nothing: not one stone was left upon another, nor any trace of the former magnificence visible. What God now intended to do with him, in leaving him in this miserable life wandering about in such wretchedness, he could not explain otherwise than that God wished him to remain until the Day of Judgment as a living sign against the Jews, by which the unbelieving and the godless might be reminded of Christ’s death and be turned to repentance. For his part he would be very happy if God would take him to heaven out of this vale of tears.

“After this report and conversation, Dr. Paulus of Eizen asked, as also did the School-Inspector of Hamburg, who was learned in ancient histories, the right account of all sorts of things which had occurred in Eastern countries after Christ’s birth and crucifixion. This man gave a very good and exact report of all these ancient events: so that people were obliged to believe in him and his story, and went away astonished, and saying, that with God all things are possible--but with man they are inscrutable.

“As to this Jew’s life it was very quiet and retired. He did not talk much, and only when asked a question; and when invited into a house, he did not eat or drink much, being abstemious. He never stayed long in one place. At Hamburg, Dantzig, and elsewhere, when money was offered, he only accepted two shillings, which soon after he gave to the poor, with the remark that he did not need any money; that the good God would provide for him because he was penitent for his sin; and what he had ignorantly done he would submit to God. None ever saw him laugh. In whatever country he entered he knew the language at once. At that time he spoke the Saxon language as one born there. Many people came to Hamburg, from neighbouring and even distant places, to see and listen to this man, and believed that something marvellous was indicated by him, because he was not only attentive to the Word of God but showed great reverence, and sighed whenever the name of God or Christ was pronounced. He could never hear anyone utter a curse. Whenever the name or torture or sufferings of God were connected by any excited person with a curse, he would sigh deeply, and say, ‘Miserable man, miserable creature! wilt thou take lightly the name of thy Lord and God, and of his great suffering and torture? Hadst thou seen it as I did, hadst thou seen how hard the wound of thy Saviour was for thee and me, thou wouldst rather do a great harm to thyself than pronounce his name lightly.’ All these things Dr. Paulus of Eizen told me with truth and sincerity, with many other true circumstances, which, since then, I have heard from several old friends who also saw the same man at Hamburg with their own eyes. Which things, also, Paul of Eizen saw, and has told with truth and earnestness.

“Anno 1575. The Secretary Christoph Krause and Magistrate Jacobus von Holstein had been sent as ambassadors to the Royal Court of Spain, and afterwards to the Netherlands, in order to pay the soldiers who served in the royal [army]; and when they had returned home again, being near Schleswig, they solemnly related that they had seen this wonderful man in Spain, with the identical appearance, costume, manners, and mode of life. They had spoken to him personally; and said that at the same time many besides themselves heard him speak good Spanish.

“Anno 1599. In Christ’s month, a very trustworthy person wrote from Brunswick to Strasburg that this wonderful man was then in Vienna, in Austria, and that he intended to go from thence into Poland and Dantzig, and after that to Moscow. This Ahasuerus has been at Lubeck in 1601. And also at Reffel in Lieffland, and in Cracow, Poland. He was seen and spoken to by many people in Moscow.

“What now sensible men shall think of all this I leave to themselves. The providences of God are marvellous, inscrutable, inexplicable; as time goes on they will become more so; and they will only be revealed to us at the last day.

“_Dated at Reffel, the first of August, 1613._--CHRYSOSTOMUS DUDULÄUS WESTPHALUS.”

Other notices of the Wandering Jew are as follows. Nicolas Heldvaler (_Sylva Chronol. Circuli Baltici_) says:

“This year (1604) there has appeared a fable of a Jew who is said to have been a shoemaker in Jerusalem in the time of Christ, and having on Good Friday struck Jesus with his shoe-last, cannot die, but must wander about the world till the last day.”

Rodolphe Bouthrays (Botereius), Parliamentary Advocate of Paris (in his _Commentarii de Rebus Historicis in Gallia et toto pene Orbe gestis_, Lib. xi., 1604), mentions the report as wide-spread in his time. The following is a translation from his Latin:

“I am afraid that some may charge me with anile trifling, if I insert in this page the story which is told in the whole of Europe, concerning a Jew, a contemporary of the Saviour Christ. Nothing, however, is more widely-spread, and the vernacular history of our own countrymen has not blushed to declare it. Thus I have, as witnesses, those who formerly wrote our Annals ... that he, not in one century [only] had been seen and recognised in Spain, Italy and Germany, but that this year it was he himself who was seen at Hamburg, anno 1564. Many other things the vulgar imagine about him, as it is prone to rumours; which I relate, lest anything should remain untold.”

The following is a translation from the Latin of Julius Cæsar Bulenger (_Historiarium sui Temporis Libri_, Leyden, 1619):

“It was reported at that time that a Jew, a contemporary of Christ, who for more than a thousand years had been a vagrant and a wanderer over the whole world, was still wandering about without meat and drink, having been condemned to that punishment by God, because he was the first of the dregs of the circumcised to cry out that Christ should be fixed to the Cross, and that Barabbas the robber should be released from the hook and the terror of the Cross. Afterwards, when Christ, panting from the weight of the Cross, would have rested at his workshop, for he was a mechanic, he ordered Him off with bitter words. To whom Christ said, Because thou begrudgest me so little rest, I will rest; and thou without rest shalt wander. And it is told that presently, in less time than the telling occupies, the man wandered frantic and aimless throughout the whole city, that thence his wanderings continue over the whole world even to this present day, and that it was the very man who was seen at Hamburg in the year 1564. ‘Credat Judæus Apella.’ I did not see the man at that time, since I was occupied at Paris, nor did I hear about him from sufficiently trustworthy authorities.”

Louvet mentions seeing him in 1604 at Beauvais, surrounded by a crowd of children, speaking of the Passion of Christ. He expresses regret that his contempt for the fellow prevented his interrogating. He asked and received alms at a certain house.

S. H. Bangert (_Commentatio de ortu vita et excessu Coleri Jurisconsulti Lubecensis_, Lubeck, 1644) mentions that Coler left a memorandum in his diary to the effect that “that immortal Jew, who asserted that he had been present at the crucifixion of Christ, was at Lubeck on the 14th January, 1603.”

Martin Zeiler (_Historici Chronologi et Geographi Celebres Collecti_, Ulm, 1653) mentions the Wandering Jew. Among his Letters Zeiler cites one by Westphalus, substantially the same as his account (1613) already quoted, as having been written to one of his (Westphalus’) friends.

In the year 1644 the ‘Turkish Spy’ writes from Paris (Book III. Letter I.) to Ibraham Haly Cheik, a Man of the Law, as follows:

“There is a man come to this city, if he may be called a man, who pretends to have lived above these sixteen hundred years. They call him the Wandering Jew. But some say he is an impostor. He says of himself that he was Usher of the Divan in Jerusalem (the Jews call it the Court of Judgment), where all criminal causes were tried, at the time when Jesus, the Son of Mary, the Christian’s Messias, was condemned by Pontius Pilate, the Roman President. That his name was Michob Ader; and that for thrusting Jesus out of the Hall with these words, ‘Go, why tarriest thou?’ the Messias answered him again, ‘I go, but tarry thou till I come;’ thereby condemning him to live till the Day of Judgment. He pretends to remember the Apostles that lived in those days, and that he himself was baptized by one of them; that he has travelled through all the regions of the world, and so must continue to be a vagabond till the Messias shall return again. They say that he heals all diseases by touching the part affected. Divers other miracles are ascribed to him by the ignorant and superstitious; but the learned, the noble, the great, censure him as a pretender or a madman. Yet there are who affirm that ’tis one convincing argument of the reality of his pretence that he has hitherto escaped a prison, especially in those countries where the authors of all innovations are severely punished. He has escaped the Inquisitions at Rome, in Spain, and in Portugal, which the vulgar will have to be an evident miracle.

“One day I had the curiosity to discourse with him in several languages; and I found him master of all those that I could speak. I conversed with him five or six hours together in Arabic. He told me there was scarce a true history to be found. I asked him what he thought of Mahomet, the Prophet and Lawgiver of the Mussulmans? He answered that he knew his father very well, and had often been in his company at Ormus in Persia; that Mahomet was a man full of light and a divine spirit, but had his errors as well as other mortals, and that his chiefest was in denying the crucifixion of the Messias; ‘for,’ said he, ‘I was present, and saw Him hang on the Cross, with these eyes of mine.’ He accused the Mussulmans of ‘imposture’ in making the world believe that the tomb of their Prophet hangs miraculously between heaven and earth, saying that he himself had seen it, and that it was built after the manner of other sepulchres. Thou who hast been at the Holy Place knowest whether this be true or false. He upbraids the Persian Mahometans with luxury, the Ottomans with tyranny, the Arabians with robbery, the Moors with cruelty, and the Mussulmans of the Indies with atheism. Nor does he spare to reproach the Christian churches: he taxes the Roman and Grecian with the pompous idolatry of the heathens; he accuses the Æthiopian of Judaism, the Armenian of heresy; and says that the Protestants, if they would live according to their profession, would be the best Christians.

“He told me he was in Rome when Nero set fire to the city and stood triumphing on the top of a hill to behold the flames. That he saw Saladin’s return from his conquests in the East, when he caused his shirt to be carried on the top of a spear, with this proclamation: ‘_Saladin, lord of many rich countries, Conqueror of the East_, ever victorious and happy, when he dies shall have no other memorial left of all his glories, but only this poor shirt.’

“He relates many remarkable passages of Soliman the Magnificent, whereof our histories are silent, and says he was in Constantinople when Soliman built that royal mosque which goes by his name. He knew Tamerlane the Scythian, and told me he was so called because he halted on one leg. He pretends also to have been acquainted with Scander-Beg, the valiant and fortunate Prince of Epirus. He seemed to pity the insupportable calamity of Bajazet, whom he had seen carried about in a cage by Tamerlane’s order. He accuses the Scythian of too barbarous an insult on the unfortunate Sultan. He remembers the ancient Caliphs of Babylon and Egypt, the empire of the Saracens, and the wars in the Holy Land. He highly extols the valour and conduct of the renowned Godfrey de Bouillon. He gives an accurate account of the rise, progress, establishment and subversion of the Mamelukes in Egypt. He says he has washed himself in the two head-springs of the river Nile, which arise in the southern part of Æthiopia. That its increase is occasioned by the great rains in Æthiopia, which swell all the rivers that fall into the Nile, and cause that vast inundation to discover whose origin has so much puzzled philosophy. He says that the river Ganges in India is broader and deeper than the Nile; that the river Niger in Africa is longer by some hundreds of miles; and that he can remember a time when the river Nile overflowed not till three months after the usual season.

“Having professed himself an universal traveller, and that there was no corner of the earth where he had not been present, I began to comfort myself with the hopes of some news from the Ten Tribes of Israel that were carried into captivity by Salmanasar, King of Assyria, and could never be heard of since. I asked him several questions concerning them, but found no satisfactory answer. Only, he told me that in Asia, Africa, and Europe he had taken notice of a sort of people who (though not Jews in profession) yet retained some characteristics whereby one might discover them to be descended of that nation. In Livonia, Russia, and Finland he had met with people of languages distinct from that of the country, having a great mixture of Hebrew words; that these abstained from swine’s flesh, blood, and things strangled; that in their lamentations for the dead they always used these words: _Jeru, Jeru, Masco, Salem_. By which, he thought, they called to remembrance Jerusalem and Damascus, those two famous cities of Palestine and Syria. In the Circassians also he had traced some footsteps of Judaism: their customs, manner of life, feasts, marriages, and sacrifices being not far removed from the institutions of Mosaic Law. But, what is most remarkable, he said that he had conversed with professed Jews in the north part of Asia who never so much as heard of Jesus, the son of Mary, or of the revolutions of Judea after his death, the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, or any other matters wherewith all histories abound concerning that nation. He said, moreover, that these Jews had only the Pentateuch, not having heard of the rest of those Books which compose the greatest part of the Old Testament; and that this Pentateuch was written in a sort of Hebrew far different from that which is now commonly spoken by the rest of the Jews dispersed throughout the world. That the number of these Jews was infinite. And, finally, he thought that these (if any) were the true posterity of those Ten Captive Tribes.

“Having mentioned the destruction of Jerusalem, I asked him where he was at that time? He told me, in the Court of Vespasian at Rome; and that he had heard the emperor say, when he understood the Temple of Solomon was burnt to ashes, ‘he had rather all Rome had been set on fire.’ Here the old man fell a-weeping himself, lamenting the ruin of that noble structure, which he described to me as familiarly as if he had seen it but yesterday. He says that Josephus wrote partially of the seditions in the city, being related to one of the chief ringleaders, whom therefore he spared, being loth to stain the reputation of his own family to all posterity.

“I tell thee, sage Cheik, if this man’s pretences be true, he is so full of choice memoirs, and has been witness to so many grand transactions for the space of sixteen centuries of years, that he may not unfitly be called ‘A living Chronology,’ the ‘Protonotary of the Christians’ Hegira,’ or principal recorder of that which they esteem the last _epocha_ of the world’s duration. By his looks one would take him for a relic of the Old World, or one of the long-lived fathers before the Flood. To speak modestly, he may pass for the younger brother of Time.

“It would be endless to tell thee how many other discourses we had of his travels and memoirs; till, tired with his company, and judging all to be a cheat, I took my leave. I assure thee, he seems to be a man well versed in all histories, a great traveller, and one that affects to be counted an extraordinary person. The common people are ready to adore him; and the very fear of the multitude restrains the magistrates from offering any violence to this impostor.

“Live thou in the exercise of thy reason, which will not permit thee to be seduced into errors by the subtle insinuations of men. Continue to love Mahomet, who honours thee without a fiction.

“Paris, 4th of the 1st Moon of the Year 1644.”

* * * * *

In, or about, the year 1645 there was published in German at Augsburg the _Strange Report of a Jew who claims to have been present at the crucifixion, and to have been kept alive from that time. A theological warning to the Christian reader, illustrated and enlarged by trustworthy histories and examples._ On this book there is a picture representing a village, with trees; on the right the sun emerging from clouds; in the centre Jesus crowned with thorns, his arms stretched out; in front, the Wandering Jew kneeling with clasped hands, his hat and the Bible lying before him. On both sides, in horizontal line, runs the sentence: _From Chrysostomo Dudulæo Westphalo, written to his good friend_. On the back are some verses, the first two lines being in Latin:

“Nubibus in altis crucifixum cernit Jesum
Asverus, dignum clamitat ante cruce.”

In 1681 there appeared a publication, written by Pastor J. Georg Hadeck: _Nathanieli Christiano. Relation concerning a hermit named Ahasuerus, a Jew who was present at the crucifixion, etc._

M. Magnin in an essay prefixed to the _Ahasuerus_ of Edgar Quinet (Paris edition of 1843, p. 24) says “In 1641 an Austrian baron, and in 1643 a physician returned from Palestine, related that a certain Turk had pointed out ‘Joseph’ to a Venetian nobleman named Bianchi. The poor Jew was then under close guard at the bottom of a crypt in Jerusalem; he was dressed in his ancient Roman costume, exactly that of the time of Christ. He did nothing but walk about the room without saying a word, and strike his hand against the wall, or sometimes his breast, to testify his sorrow for having struck the holy face of the Lord. I find these details in an anonymous German work of the middle of the 17th century, bearing the singular title of _Relation_, or _Brief account of two living witnesses of the Passion of our Saviour_.” This was no doubt a version of the work of Droscher, _De duobus testibus vivis passionis dominicæ_, Jena, 1688. M. Gaston Paris believes this to have been a tale suggested by the Matthew Paris Chronicle, printed in London in 1571, at Zurich in 1586.

An important work appeared with the following title: _Dissertatio historica de Judæo non mortali_, etc. _Certaminis publ. argum. f. Præs. Schultz. Regiom. Pruss. respondens Martin Schmid Slavio. Pomer._ A.D. _26 Jan. Ann. 1689_. This work contains a curious account of the Twelve Tribes, sent by a Jewish physician to his co-religionists in Mantua; also a “trustworthy” copy of the judgment which Pilate pronounced on Christ, stating his motives, subscribed by all members of his council and officers of the Sanhedrim; with the full Notes of the Prosecutor; these having been “found in a marble rock in the city of Aquila.” (This idea was used by A. W. Schlegel, in his romance on the subject.)

In 1697 a book was published at Wolffenbüttel, entitled _Description of a Hermit, a Jew_ (etc.), _who brings near the evidence of Joseph concerning Christ; the history of the death of Christ; the Letter of Lentulus to the Roman Council; the condemnation of Christ; history of the broken stone; Letter of Pilate to the Emperor Tiberias; of Pilate’s punishment said to have been inflicted on the Twelve Tribes of Israel for the crucifixion of Christ. With an addition concerning a Jew, a sorcerer, who gave himself out for the Messias. Collected out of respectable old histories and most trustworthy testimonies._

In the French language there was published at Bordeaux (1609) the _True History of the Wandering Jew taken from his own lips_. The legend seems hardly to have been known in Spain, and but little in Italy, at any early date. There was printed at Bruges (where the _Chronique rimée_ of Philippe de Mousket had prepared the soil for it) early in the seventeenth century (probably) a folkbook entitled _Wonderful History of the Wandering Jew, who since the year 33 to this time has only wandered_.

In the English language the only early story of the Wandering Jew, after that in the Chronicle of Matthew of Paris, is the ballad contained in _Percy’s Reliques_. This ballad is in black-letter in the Pepys’ collection; it follows the Hamburg legend, and was probably written early in the 17th century. That the legend was well known in England in the seventeenth century appears from a satire, in which it is utilised, without being narrated, entitled _The Wandering Jew telling Fortunes to Englishmen. A Jew’s Lottery._ _London_: printed by John Raworth, for Nathaniel Butter, 1640.

It should also be stated that there were a number of treatises written against the story, such as--1. _De duobus testibus vivis passionis Christi._ _Jena_, 1668 (written by S. Niemann); 2. _Meletea historia de Judæo immortali_, 1668 (written by J. Freutzel); 3. _Diss. hist. de Judæo non mortali_, 1689 (written by Martin Schmid). In the following century (1723) an anonymous pamphlet was printed, in Frankfort and Leipzig, “concerning the Immortal Jew, in which it is shown throughout that in the nature of things he never existed.” In 1756 was published C. Anton’s _Diss. in qua lepidam fabulam de Judæo immortali examinet_; followed by _An Alewife’s letter to Anton, that there is a Wandering Jew_. (Halle, 1756.)

This earlier bibliography of the Wandering Jew is mainly condensed from the most important work on the antiquarian features of the legend:--_Die Sage vom Ewigen Juden, historisch entwecklt mit verwandter Mythen verglichen und beleuchtet_. Von Dr. J. G. Th. Grässe. Dresden u. Leipzig, 1844.

In following Grässe, M. Schœbel (_La legende du Juif Errant_, Paris, 1877), and M. Gaston Paris (_Le Juif Errant_, Paris, 1880) have added important points and criticisms.

From the various books mentioned are gathered the following notes:

S. Grosse (in his “History of Leipzig”) says that the Wandering Jew appeared there as a beggar in 1642, and accepted gifts, some of high value. Other traditions report that he refused presents.

It is a tradition of Matterberge, under the Matterhorn, that formerly a great city stood there; and it is said that when the Wandering Jew first came there he said: “When I come again I shall find a forest where now are houses; and when I come the third time all will be snow and ice: and this has been fulfilled.”

It is said that at Naumburg (Thuringia) he could neither sit nor stand still. Even when listening to a sermon he was always moving. He said he had “no rest by day or night, and was kept alive without food or drink, sleep or rest, for many years in a miraculous manner.” It is said that, in 1640, two citizens of Brussels, walking in a wood, met a grey old man, in shabby and antique garb. They invited him to an inn, where he drank with them, standing. Before leaving, he told them of things that happened centuries before. They gathered that he was Isaac Laquedem, the Jew who forbade his Lord to rest at his door, and left him in terror.

The presence in England of a man pretending to be the Wandering Jew is stated in a letter of Madame de Mazarin to Madame de Bouillon (Calmet, _Dict. de la Bible_, ii. 472). In England he assumed the character of one who had been an official of high rank in Jerusalem. His statements to the English noblemen and University professors who conversed with him (many of whom believed his story) were so precisely those which were given to the Turkish Spy in Paris that there is no need to reproduce them here. It is probable that the same man had journeyed from Paris to England, as it is difficult to believe that two such clever and learned impostors could appear at the same time.

It is notable that an account of the first appearance of a personal representative of the legend should only have been published more than fifty years (certainly) after his visit to Hamburg; and then just after the death of the witness said to have conversed with him, Paul of Eizen. This prelate was born at Hamburg, 1522, and died in 1598. His alleged testimonies to the Wandering Jew were reported subsequently by the pseudonymous Duduläus. It is further remarkable that in the story as told by Duduläus, already given, nothing is said of a _blow_ dealt Jesus by Ahasuerus. He evidently desires to soften the story for the Wandering Jew, and adduce him as a witness to the Christian legend. He tries in one of his pamphlets to recommend the story to sceptics by relating another of three pious miners of Bohemia, who fell into a pit at Kuttenberg. They remained there for seven years, their provisions and lamp holding out miraculously. One prayed that he might again see the light of day; another, that he might once more eat with his family; the third, that he might live one more year with his wife and children. The prayers were answered, but each died suddenly immediately after his wish was fulfilled.

The _animus_ of the revival of the legend is shown by instances in which the Jews’ quarters were invaded under rumours that they were concealing the Wanderer.

II.

THE UNDYING ONES.

The myth of the Wandering Jew belongs, essentially, to a class which has great antiquity, and is found in every part of the world.

At a period before Animism had been embodied in clear conceptions of a life beyond the grave, the human heart and mind had to adapt themselves as well as they could to the King of Terrors, which destroyed the greatest as well as the humblest. The first that were ideally wrested from Death were saints and heroes; and it was necessary to find for these an earthly immortality. Many myths and legends of the undying ones are no doubt variants of each other; but they are found among races so separate in origin and history, that we may be content to find their common root in human nature. Men cannot bear to think that their leaders, heroes, saviours are really dead. They resolutely repel the unwelcome fact as long as they can. They easily credit any rumour that the reported death is some fiction of the enemy, or possibly a stratagem of their own party-leaders. It is said that after the death of General Jackson, a President of the United States, many democrats still voted for him at the following election, denouncing the report of his death as “another Whig lie.” The story if not true is _ben trovato_; and there are facts enough like it even in modern history. Sceptics were found in France who but slowly credited the tidings of the death of Napoleon III.: their transient suspicions were echoes of Beranger’s cry when he heard of the first Napoleon’s death: “God, I can scarce believe Thee without him!”[1]

It is recorded in the _Heimskringla_ that, after the death of King Odin, “the Swedes believed that he often showed himself to them before any great battle. To some he gave victory, others he invited to himself; and they reckoned both of these to be well off in their fate.” Thus, the Wild Huntsman began his career. This tendency in the popular mind was utilised by courtiers of the next popular monarch. This was Freyr, second monarch after Odin, who probably lived in the first century of our era, and built the great temple at Upsal. It is recorded: “Then began, in his days, the Frode-peace; and then there were good seasons in all the land, which the Swedes ascribed to Freyr, so that he was more worshipped than the other gods, as the people became much richer in his days by reason of the peace and good seasons.... Freyr fell into a sickness; and as his illness took the upper hand, his men took the plan of letting few approach him. In the meantime they raised a great mound, in which they placed a door with three holes in it. Now when Freyr died they bore him secretly into the mound, but told the Swedes he was alive; and they kept watch over him for three years. They brought all the taxes into the mound; and through the one hole they put in the gold, through the other the silver, and through the third the copper money that was paid. Peace and good seasons prevailed.... When it became known to the Swedes that Freyr was dead, and yet peace and good seasons continued, they believed that it must be so as long as Freyr remained in Sweden; and therefore they would not burn his remains, but called him the god of this world, and afterwards offered continually blood sacrifices to him, principally for peace and good seasons.”[2] Here we have one chapter in the genesis of these immortals. Men have been executed in Portugal for professing to be Sebastian returned. In the time of James II., country-people in England believed that Monmouth had not really died on the scaffold, but “would suddenly appear, would lead them on to victory, and would tread down the King and the Jesuits under his feet.”[3] Some believed him to be the Man in the Iron Mask.

On the death of King Arthur all hope of finding the Holy Graal seemed to vanish. On the “Morte d’Arthur” it is written: “This of King Arthur, I find no more written in my copy of the certainty of his death; but thus he was led away in a barge, wherein were three Queens; and one was King Arthur’s sister, Queen Morgan le Fay, and there was Nimue, the chief Lady of the Lake. More of the death of King Arthur, could I never find. But that ladies brought such a one unto burials, that he was buried here, that the hermit bare witness that sometime was Bishop of Canterbury and dwelled that time in a chapel beside Glastonbury. But yet the hermit knew not, of a certain, that it was verily the body of King Arthur. Some men yet say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had, by the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, into another place. And men say that he will come again, and he shall win the Holy Cross.”[4] That King Arthur is in the Vale of Avalon (of Apples) attended by fairies; that in some regions he has been found by shepherds slumbering, like Barbarossa, with his knights in a subterranean castle (at Sewingshields especially); that in others he has been seen, like Wodan, at the head of a ghostly hunt by night: these are legends found far and wide in British and Breton folklore. Tennyson makes Arthur repose in--

“The island-valley of Avilion
Where falls not hail, nor rain, nor any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair, with orchard lawns,
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea.”

Germany has many corresponding myths, chief of which is that of Frederick I., or Barbarossa, believed to be sleeping under Raven’s Hill at Kaiserlautern, ready to come forth in the last emergency (or glory and unity) of his country. There, in his palace (or grotto) underground, a shepherd once found him surrounded by his sleeping knights, all in armour; the horses near by in harness. The red beard, which gave the hero his name, had grown through the stone table before him, and taken root in the floor. As the shepherd entered, Barbarossa awoke and asked:

“Are the ravens still flying round the hill?”

“Yes.”

“Then must I sleep another hundred years.”

On the evening when the present Emperor of Germany had reviewed his troops, after his late war with France, this legend was represented before him in a series of marvellous tableaux which I witnessed. In the last it was shown that the hour had arrived for Frederick the Red Beard to come forth, and it need hardly be said that he bore a striking resemblance to the Emperor William. In some regions it is said that Frau Holda stands beside the slumbering Barbarossa: this may have helped to give us our familiar variant _The Sleeping Beauty_.

It is said that after Pope Paschal III. had made Charlemagne a saint, Otho III. (anno 997) opened that Emperor’s tomb and found him seated on his throne, with his crown, imperial robe, and sceptre, and on his knees a copy of the Gospels. Beside him was his sword Joyeuse, and his pilgrim’s pouch. So Charlemagne was added to the list of holy sleepers.

In another work I have spoken of these Sleepers, and also of the Wanderers.[5] The list of such, too long to be given here, includes Tell, in Switzerland; Boabdil of Spain; Sebastian of Portugal; Olger Dansk; Thomas of Ercildoune, and many another, down to such præternatural if not perpetual sleepers as Rip Van Winkle, and the Abbot Cormac of Killarney, who listened two hundred years to the singing of a nightingale. The Abbot had doubted if he would not find the singing of heaven tiresome; he supposed he had listened to the bird a few moments only in the wood, but returned to find all changed. The legend has inspired one of Allingham’s beautiful ballads, “The Abbot of Inisfalen.” Herodotus (iv. 94) relates the tale of Zalmoxis, the Thracian, who, disgusted with the uncivilised life around him, had a subterranean hall built and there resided. Some presently believed that Zalmoxis never died; others regarded him as a god; and ultimately it became a custom of the Getans to despatch a messenger, every fifth year, to him, by hurling some man into the air and catching him on javelins. If the victim dies Zalmoxis is propitious. Plutarch relates a story similar to this (De Defect. Orac.), as told by one Cleombrotus, concerning an Oriental personage who appeared among his fellow-men only once a year. The rest of his life was passed among friendly nymphs and demons, and as these are said to have rendered him proof against disease it may be supposed that he was one of the undying.

Similar legends are indeed found among the aboriginal races of North America. Such heroes as Booin (Nova Scotia) and Hiawatha were supposed never to have died. Booin was carried to a happy land inside a friendly whale, whom he compensated with the tobacco which the Micmacs still see smoking in the spout of that animal; and Hiawatha “sailed into the purple sunset.” To these good Indians migrate when they die. The Incas of Peru also were found believing that the founder of their kingdom never died, but would return to restore its ancient splendours. The Muyscas of Bogota relate that the first lawgiver of Bochica lived among their tribe 2000 years, then “withdrew,” and he is now known as Idacanzas.[6]

It is interesting to compare such primitive forms of the myth with those assumed by it amid the advanced phases of Animism. Tithonus, for whom Eos obtained the gift of immortality but not that of perpetual youth, whom divine pity changed into a grasshopper, became the proverbial title of a decrepit old man, and represents the nearest approach to an earthly immortal in Greek mythology. The immortals exist indeed, but in changed forms, or even if the human powers be preserved it must be in Hades, as in the case of Teiresias. The Glaucus-myth, running through several variants, shows the evolution of this class of myths. Surviving all ordeals in Crete--the sea, the cask of honey, the serpent’s bite--he becomes on the Corinthian coast an evil ghost, and in Bœotia a marine deity. In classic ages every hero has his vulnerable point where he is sure to be touched at last.

III.

SOURCES OF THE MYTH.

Although, as we have seen, the myths of the undying ones are found among races so widely separate that they must often be of independent origin, many of them are ethnically related. This is the case with a series of such, now to be considered, which bear upon the fable of the Wandering Jew.

The earliest myth of this character is probably that of the Iranian Yima, King of the Golden Age in Persia. This beautiful myth is found in the Zendavesta, and in the Vendidad which Haug traces, in its earlier parts, to an antiquity not far short of Zoroaster himself, not less than a thousand years before our era. In the Zendavesta it is declared: “During the happy reign of Yima there was neither cold nor heat, neither decay nor death, nor malice produced by the demons; father and son walked forth, each fifteen years old in appearance.” With Yima was Armaiti, the divine woman, genius of the earth, who by promoting culture, recovering wildernesses and converting nomadic tribes to peaceful cultivators, expanded the earth to thrice its original size; and over this paradise Yima reigned nine hundred years. After the evils of winter had come over his country Yima led a select number of his friends to a secluded spot, where they enjoy perfect happiness.[7] Armaiti still, in Parsî faith, remained at her work, upholding the earth in her maternal arms, ever working against the powers of evil; and when she shall have prevailed, Yima is to come back again and lead in the Golden Year.

It is an instance of the unconscious poetry of humanity that this Iranian Yima is one with Yama, the Vedic King of the Dead! The idea may have originally been the declining sun;[8] but there are other characters than darkness about the sunset; there are splendours also, and often the western horizon is painted with radiant islets which to primitive man seemed a part of his planet. It may even have been that the westward course of human migration was guided by this permanent pillar of Fire which every evening lit up the Hesperian Gardens and Isles of the Blest.

This migration on earth and sea corresponds with a mental and spiritual migration. Exploration of the Edens, Gan-Edens, Avalons, Hesperides, Atlantises, turns them to parts of the prosaic world while it raises the ideals that hovered over them to rosy cloud-lands which cannot yet be explored. No Yima found anywhere on earth! And so it begins to be sung of him that he has passed to some region not exactly upon earth. Now it is said, this time in the Rigveda (x. 14, 1, 2): “Yama, the king, the gatherer of the people, has descried a path for many, which leads from the depths to the heights; he first found out a resting-place from which nobody can turn out the occupants; on the way the forefathers have gone, the sons will follow them.” Finally, as Haug remarks: “This happy ruler of the blessed in Paradise has been transformed, in the modern Hindu mythology, into the fearful god of death, the inexorable judge of men’s doings, and the punisher of the wicked.”

For a long time after their constitution as a people, the Jews had no definite faith in the immortality of the soul, and there is no text in the Old Testament which clearly teaches that doctrine. It has been thought by some that their adoption of that doctrine was coincident with their decline from greatness as a nation.[9] Jehovah still walked amid the pleasant shade-trees of Paradise, and there Enoch walked with him. Out of this belief in an earthly immortality grew the earlier form of belief in the life after death, which insisted on corporeal resurrection. As time went on, and the numbers for whom immortality was claimed grew, and as exploration discovered no earthly Eden in which these resided, paradise necessarily ascended to an aerial realm. But its earthly characteristics were preserved. Thence angels passed to earth and back on a ladder, and thence came the chariot and horses which appeared when Elias was borne away by a sufficiently strong whirlwind. That he was ‘carried to the sky’ marks, however, a step away from the earthly abode, in the direction taken by the myth which turned Yima to Yama.

But the Jews introduced into their belief in certain undying ones an important feature, drawn from their imported dualistic philosophy, which marshalled everything and every being, small or large, on one side or the other of the great war between Ormuzd and Ahriman. Beside the hero, too holy to die, is seen the man of sin, to whom the repose of the grave is forbidden. The books of our Bible were written after ancient traditions, and gathered together when other ideas were predominant; and it is rather by intimations there found, and by references to rabbinical and Arabian folk-lore, that we can get at these primitive fables.

In the first epoch we find counterparts in Cain and Seth. Even the Biblical narrative seems to point to a primitive myth, in which these two were good and evil immortals, which had gone to pieces before the book of Genesis was compiled.[10] At any rate at an early age the pieces had been put together by the Semitic imagination. It is said (Gen. iv. 25) that Eve called this her third son Seth (_scion_ or _germ_): “for,” she said, “God hath appointed me another seed in place of Abel, whom Cain slew.” The Talmudic book, _Shene Luchôth_, says that the soul of Abel (_breath_) passed into Seth, and again into Moses. Josephus (_Ant._ i. 2) shows that Seth was venerated as one possessed of great knowledge, which he engraved on two pillars. Suidas says Seth was the first to hear the name of God. In the fourth century there was a sect of Sethians, who, according to Epiphanius, identified Seth with the Messiah (Adv. Hær. i. 3, 39). In the line of Seth were born the long-lived beings, some of whom lived above nine hundred years, and one of whom was Enoch, who did not die at all. Many of the names resemble those in the line of Cain--and were no doubt taken from it--Cain-an, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech. It is evident that the Seth legend was introduced to avoid having the human race descend from the first murderer and type of evil--Cain.

Cain was the first Wandering Jew. His name, signifying a spear, and Tubal-Cain, “son of a spear,” first artificer in brass and iron, suggest the possibility that his doom may have been that of a Semitic Prometheus. At any rate the curse pronounced upon him (“a fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be in the earth”); the mark (token, or perhaps _weird_) fixed upon him, that none should slay him; the land to which he wandered, itself meaning flight (Nod)--supplied ample materials for the mother-myth of eternal Wanderers. Of Cain, however, more will be said at a further stage of our inquiry.

Enoch represents the first personage of Biblical record clearly corresponding to Yima. “Enoch walked with Elohim and was no more [seen among men], for Elohim took him.” With regard to the solar character of the Enoch-myth we cannot concern ourselves here. As his name indicates Enoch is the Beginner, like Yima, of whom Ahuramazda says, “with him I conversed first among men” (Vendidad, ii. 2). It is especially noticeable that Enoch “walks” with Elohim, whom we before find “walking in the garden” (Gen. iii. 8). A heavenly abode is not yet imagined. Even the Koran, when it speaks of Enoch (Erdris), hesitates to affirm his translation to heaven, but says, “We exalted him to a high place.”

The evil counterpart of Enoch is Lamech, who, although his death at the age of 777 is recorded in the later Sethite line, identifies himself as a deathless wanderer with Cain in the lines which, as Ewald thinks, probably gave rise to the Cain story itself:

Adah and Zillah, hear my voice!
Ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech!
For the man I slew for my own wound,
The child I struck dead on account of my own hurt!
Was Cain avenged seven times?
Lamech will be seven and seventy times!