MYSTIC FIGURE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1937, Page 4 (Supplement)

MYSTIC FIGURE.

STRANGE BELIEFS. CENTURIES-OLD PUZZLE. In the year 12-50 Ma .v Paris. a medieval monk, wrote a v-.?;- tha: he "ad received a -rears. *-e f . - - -y an Armenian b>h>p who had him a ■weird st ry. Acc-rdinz : • account, the bishop had lately entertained at his tab.? a mys t e r.cus war. lorer, wh l *! according to his own confer*ion. was C-artaphilus. who had : ec:i kee: or of Pilate s judgment ha!'., and who, on finding .Je-suis wearied fro:n the great cross and leaning for a rr.intent against the wall of hi* house, had hurried the >aviour away—in nunishment for wmch unkindnes* he nad been condemned by Him to stay on earth •until His return. According to th-. ■wanderer, he had later been baptised by Ananias and had taken the name of Joseph. He well remembered the Saints and the making of the Apostles' Creed. This strange record by pood Brother Paris was j.ut away for 300 year* and •did not again come" to lipht until 1571. ■when the English Archbishop Parker had it published. A-a in in lfi-40 it was set forth in the Epidemica'" of Sir Thoma* Brown, Knight, M.D., of -Norwich, England. Ever since those years the alleged, "wanderings and reminiscence- of Carta philus. the Jew condemned to live through the centuries, has haunted the minds of theologi-ii* nnd students of mystici*4n. According to the learned monk Matthew. the wandering Jew's life was miraculously prolonged each hundredth year, when he fell into a faint. After remaining unconscious for

a time be would then recover, to find his age restored to where it stood when he insulted Jesus. .*• • • In 1547, according to the devout and learned Bishop of Schleswig, there appeared in the Hamburg Cathedral a man whose personality excited the awe of the congregation. He followed the service with great reverence, bowing very deeply whenever the name of the Christ was mentioned. He ww a man of middle age—about 50—dressed in ragged clothes. It was recorded that "many of the nobility and gentry who saw him recognised him as one whom they had already seen in various places—England, France, Italy, Hungary, Persia, Spain, Poland, Moscow, Lieffland, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, etc." Being asked who he was, the stranger informed the bkhop that he was Ahasuerus, a shoemaker of Jerusalem, who had been present at the Crucifixion •and ever since had been wandering. The bishop found the newcomer strangely proficient in history, especially regarding the Apostles. According to his story, when Christ was renting from the burden of the Cross, he had directed Him to move on. and had then received the curse: "I will stand here and rest, but thou shalt move on till the last day!" The belief that somewhere in the world this condemned Jew was restlessly wandering persisted throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the latter it was believed that he healed diseases, and those who claimed to have met with him in their travels, quoted him as having been at Rome when it was burned by Nero: of having witnessed the return of Saladin after his eastern conquests; of having been m Constantinople when Salimen had the royal mosque erected: of having known Tamerlane the Scythian and Scender Beg: of having seen Bajazet married in a cage by Tamerlane's soldiers; of remembering the Caliphs of Babylon and Egypt; of having travelled through the empire of the Saracens, and of having been in the Crusades, where he had known Godfrey de Bouillon. When asked if he had witnessed the sack of Jerusalem, he regretted that he had not. because at the time he was in Rome at the court of Vespasian. * • • • In . 1748 there appeared at the court of Louis XV. k mysterious stranger calling himself the Count St. Germain. - who claimed to have lived since the time of Christ, who recounted incidents of his acquaintance with great personages of all intervening epochs of time, and who surprised his hearers not only by hU accurate knowledge of history, but his ability to converse fluently in any live or dead language in which he might be addressed.

! TV Ctrzy. who had been French Ann i-v\ :>r to \ er.: e. remembered nav :n; seen tne same man at that court .yi v".: s >rc. and re--ailed that he na.i ti-""Ked -nst as h» did now tit -h-' •■" , ':rt or X\ . After leaving ~- r - A '-r ■•:rt this Wtdrd persona ee ' wair.? t.ie favourite companion of the -- '■ a*e C:iar.es or Hes>e. Although n:s ~1-nath was announced in 17*0. Gnvley. an eminent savant of the British. E\"'a. >0,-;ety. stated that he saw the same man in a French prison during the a T1 r '~ Terror, while Lord Lvtton in !Sr '" n-.et a --haracter whom he believe-! c "ava been th? *ame man. There were a.-o r'imours that he was the a my-t.->r:o-.:s "Major Frazier."' who at the e-">urt or Lou:- Napoleon expended the iirr-ome from a v«st fortune of mysteri- '* or:;in. and who boasted of personal 3. ae.y.iaintance with Nero. Dante and many s other irreat men of history. Some believed that these modern adventurers were the Wandering .Tew 1 appearing in other of hi? various roles. e The belief in such a personage doomed t to defy the ravages of the centuries has j vexed Christendom for 700 years. The basis of the belief is. unknown.