Transcriber’s Note
This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text and =equals= to
indicate bold text. Small capitals changed to all capitals.
THE WANDERING JEW
BY
MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY
AUTHOR OF “DEMONOLOGY AND DEVIL-LORE”
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1881
COPYRIGHT, 1881,
BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY.
PREFACE.
It might be offered as a sufficient reason for writing this book that
no other treatise on the same subject exists in our language. But to
this it may be added, that in pamphlets that have appeared in other
languages, the relations of the Legend with Eastern mythology have
been little considered, and its connection with Hebrew and Christian
mythology almost ignored. Furthermore, those studies of the Legend
which I have read consider it mainly as a curiosity. But the subject,
as it appears to me, possesses a larger significance. Even the poems
and romances it has suggested fail to render the still sad music of
humanity pervading the variations of the folk-tale itself.
The Legend of the “Wandering Jew” is an example of how the folk-tale
may sometimes be a mirror brought by Truth from the bottom of her
well--the heart of the child-like world--wherein may be seen by
reflection things that few eyes can look upon directly. The splendours
now gathered around a triumphant Christ conceal from many the face
of the changeling really there. But children, fools, and folk-lore
speak the truth. The modern French song says, “Jesus, who is goodness
itself, sighing said, Thou shalt march till Judgment Day.” There is
a touch of sceptical sophistication here. But among the many earlier
songs, ballads, stories, there is not one which betrays the faintest
suspicion of anything in the curse on the Wanderer not characteristic
of Jesus. No one tried to soften the case. Another widespread legend
relates that once when Jesus begged bread of a baker, the dough
prepared for him was reduced, before being placed in the oven, by the
baker’s daughter; whereupon Jesus taught her the beauty of kindness by
changing her into a deathless owl. Ophelia murmurs: “They say the owl
was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we
may be.” These last words would not have been inappropriate for the owl
to address to a Christ whose transformation her own reflected. Is this
only a fantastic tale? It is coinage of the creed that a human word
or action may find its fair measure in ages of penalty. In it is the
fictitious equation of every theology which unites ancient divinities
not subject to moral laws with human ideals. The sacerdotal sorcery
which for the lover of enemies substituted a curser of enemies is
discoverable in the earliest Christian theology; but the working out of
it among the masses is not told in histories. The true record remains
to be written, and the materials for it are indestructibly preserved in
such legendary lore as this of the Wandering Jew.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. THE LEGEND 3
II. THE UNDYING ONES 29
III. SOURCES OF THE MYTH 38
IV. THE LEGENDS GENERALISED 52
V. TRANSFIGURATION 56
VI. MANTLES OF THE IMMORTALS 65
VII. THE MARK OF CAIN 71
VIII. THE JEW IN THEOLOGY 80
IX. THE JEW IN FOLK-LORE 87
X. THE WEIRD OF THE WANDERER 93
XI. “THE VERY DEVIL INCARNATION” 104
XII. THE WANDERING RACE 109
XIII. THE POUND OF FLESH 118
XIV. THE WANDERING JEW IN FOLK-LORE 150
XV. THE NEW AHASUERUS IN GERMANY 166
XVI. THE NEW AHASUERUS IN FRANCE 204
XVII. THE NEW AHASUERUS IN ENGLAND 225
XVIII. AHASUERUS VINCTUS 249
XIX. AHASUERUS DELIVERED 269
XX. THREE WITNESSES 281
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.