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n I would think it is safe to say that anyone evennfaintly acquainted with the stories of the Christian religion would be familiarnwith the story of Judas Iscariot, even if they were a little vague on thendetails. There is another figure who appears in the story of the Passion andnalthough they may be aware of the legend, it’s unlikely that the details arenquite as familiar to most people. It is said that after Pontius Pilate hadnexamined Jesus and found no fault with him, he sent him to be judged by the Jewishnauthorities and as Jesus was passing out of Pilate’s hall, one of the porters,na Jew called Cartaphilus, had struck him on the back with his fist and said,
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n“Gonquicker Jesus, go quicker; why do you linger?”n
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nJesus looked back at himnreproachfully and replied,
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n“I am going, and you will linger till I return.”n
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nCartaphilus has forever since roamed the earth, waiting for the Second Coming,ncursed to live until the End of Days; he is known popularly as the WanderingnJew.
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| A Particularly Angry Wandering Jew |
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nThe story seems to be a slight variation of John 18:22,
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n“And when henhad thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palmnof his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest so?”n
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nThe first recordnof the Wandering Jew is found in the Flores Historiarum (Flowers ofnHistory) where Roger of Wendover records that in 1228, an Armenian bishopnvisited England to see the relics of the saints and visit the shrines. He camento St Albans and, in conversation with the monks, he told them the story ofnCartaphilus, with whom he had dined just before he had left for his pilgrimagento England.
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| An early woodcut |
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nAfter the crucifixion, Cartaphilus had been baptised by Ananias,nwho also baptised the apostle Paul, and had taken the name Jospeh. He lived innArmenia and discoursed regularly with the theologians there, having thenadvantage of over a thousand years of study, reading and meditation. He livesnuntil he is one hundred years old, when he becomes ill and falls into annecstasy, from which he recovers and returns to the age at which he was firstncursed, being about thirty years old.
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| An early French woodcut |
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nHe lived humbly and frugally, placing hisnhopes for salvation in that he had acted in ignorance and Jesus’ words,
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n“Father,nforgive them for they know not what they do.”n
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| How to annoy Jesus |
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nJust slightly later, PhillipenMouskes, later Bishop of Tournai, in his Chronique Rimée (RhymednChronicle) (c.1242), tells the story of an unnamed man who, seeing Jesusncarrying his cross to Calvary, calls to his friends to wait for him, as henwants to see the false prophet crucified, and Jesus turns to him and says,
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n“Theynwill not wait for thee, but thou shalt wait for me.”n
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nThere is a passingnreference that the Wandering Jew was in Bohemia in 1505, where he assisted anweaver named Kokot at the royal palace, but he does not reappear until 1547,nwhen Paul von Eitzen, later bishop of Schleswig, records seeing a tattered mannat a church service in Hamburg, who acted very piously and who, whennquestioned, said that he was Ahasuerus, a shoemaker from Jerusalem, who hadnknown of Jesus before his trial, (this is the reason why fancy boots feature so prominently in early pictures of the Wandering Jew).
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| Ahasuerus and his distinctive boots |
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nHe thought that Jesus was merely anothernrabble-rouser and trouble maker, and when he heard that Jesus was to bencrucified, he went home, knowing that his house lay on the route to Calvary.
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| Ahasuerus mocks Jesus |
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nHenstood on his doorstep and waited and as Jesus was passing, he paused and restednthe cross against Ahasuerus’ wall. Eager for the applause of the crowd,nAhasuerus struck Jesus and told him to be on his way, and Jesus had replied,
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n“Inwill stand here and rest, but thou shalt move until the last day,”n
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nand fromnthat moment on, he had been unable to rest and had wandered across the earth,nsearching for release. Professors and historians questioned him, and hisnreplies were those of an eyewitness to the events he described. He was calm andnmodest, ate little and drank less, and if anyone gave him any money, henimmediately gave it away to the poor. He spoke fluent German at the time butnwhen he reappeared in the Netherlands in 1575, he spoke equally good Spanish.
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| Wandering in his boots |
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nThis identical man was seen in various places over the years, always dressed inntattered rags and with shoulder-length hair, he appeared across Europe,naimlessly wandering and, some said, followed by thunderstorms – even into thennineteenth century, peasants in Brittany and Picardy would cross themselves andnmurmur
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n‘C’est le Juif-errant qui passe’n
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nwhenever a storm blew up. He wasnseen in Dantzig, Vienna and Moscow; in 1604 he was in Paris, in 1633 he wasnback in Hamburg, in 1640 at Brussels, in 1642 he was seen in Leipzig and inn1658 he was in England, (in Percy’s Reliques of ancient English Ballads,nthere is a ballad about him dating from about this time).
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| A vaguely anti-Semitic woodcut |
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nHe was questioned bynprofessors from Cambridge and Oxford, and answered their questionsnsatisfactorily; he spoke for several hours in Arabic and described thencrucifixion and the resurrection, the burning of Rome by Nero and thendestruction of the Temple in Jerusalem; he had met Mohamet and his father (henwasn’t impressed by them) and had been present at many of the turning points ofnhistory.
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| A vaguely anti-Semitic Swedish woodcut (with the boots) |
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nShortly afterwards, he departed for Denmark and was seen later innSweden, and then he disappeared. There have been sporadic sighting of himnsince, and claims to be him have sometimes been made by individuals who havenbeen exposed as imposters, but as far as we know, he may wander still.
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nnnMore tomorrow.
