"THE WANDERING JEW"

Waipa Post, Volume 41, Issue 3186, 9 August 1930, Page 6

"THE WANDERING JEW"

■ '■ ORIGIN OF THE LEGEND. v:'- [What is the true story of the Wandering Jew ? . " 2 ', :. " Does anybody know the true story of any legend ?'-' asks "The Professor" in John o' London's Weekly. "It is always interesting to track down legends to their (origin, but in • most cases it is not easy. It is impossible in the case of the Wandering ■ Jew. It arose possibly "from a poetical myth emerging from the recorded incidents of our Lord's trial by Pon-tius-Pilate. One Gartophilus, a porter, was on-duty when, Jesus was led out of the Judgment Hall to be taken to Calvary. As our Lord passed the Jew struck'Him on the back, and, pushing Him toward the crowd, said, ' On with thee, Jesus. Wherefore- dost Thou Tarry?' Jesus turned, looked intently at the man, and answered, ' I, ;'.,' indeed, am going; but thou shalt tarry y. until I-come."'. " Well, whjit' then ? " - " The story "goes that soon after this man / Cartophilus accepted the frfr Christian faith, and was -baptised by K*~the name of Joseph. But his doom reyl Plained on him." . : L " How did he become' the ' wanderf" ing ' Jew ? " § | "How does any legend grow ? It H "isn't a far step to picture him like I - Cain, a wanderer on the face of the \ /dearth." ' Lfi Yes, but how about his wandering W for ages over the face of the earth, £\s.q£ 'he turned up, didn't he, in succeed- '' .'ing centuries and in diffeernt coun- ;'" 'tries ?•" f '" The legend is that whenever he ' " reached the age of one. hundred years ■•he was rejuvenated; to -the age of thirty, at which 'age he-had struck Jesus. He rested 'nowhere,; and in -some of the earliest .stories he is re- ' presented as a holy man who remembered and spoke "of. the incidents of the Crucifixion. ~-/One. very, old ballad is preserved'in;,' Reliques of Ancient ■.., Poetry.' One verse "reads, I think:. He never was seen-to laugh or smile, %"•' But weep and.make great moan, \ ■'.', Lamenting, still his miseries, • , And days forepast and gone. ' lithe hear anyone blaspheme ~* - Or take God's name in vain', "v'UHe tells them that they crucify .-: :,- Their Saviour Christ again. >- "How old is, that ballad supposed ".to.be?."- '". '

".The twelfth or thirteenth century, I believe. Anyway, the story was Well. enough known in England in the thirteenth century. In the year 1228 -an Armenian bishop came to England to see thejshrines and ancient relics preserved there, and he visited the monastery of St. Albans. This bishop declared that Joseph, who was present at the Crucifixion, was still alive, and, indeed, that he had entertained him at dinner. He related the story of this man, whom he called, not Joseph, but Cartophilus." "Is there any record of the Wandering Jew having been seen in England ? " " Oh, yes; he is fabled to have effected many cures in England. There is a strange narrative of a visit to Hull in 1769. There a minister named Dr Hall, taking him for a cheat, had him locked in a room all night, but next morning found the door open and the Jew sitting quietly within. The narrative reads:— "' They asked him concerning the breaking up of the locks of the room in which he had been shut up. He told them, if they would attempt to confine him with chains, it would avail nothing; human force cannot confine him whom the Almighty had sentenced to want a resting place. They sent him to a smith to put strong chains on him; but they instantly burst asunder to the surprise of a thousand spectators.' This document was signed and sealed by four ministers of Hull." "What other appearances are recorded ? " " Quite a number; Brussels in 1640; ' then at Paris, Leipzig, and Madrid; and as late as 1868 in America and numerous other places. In Italy it was said he painted wonderful pictures; in France he told marvellous stories of how he had seen Nero standing on a hill watching the burning of Rome. In Strasburg, where he was brought before the magistrates, he told them that he had visited the town two hundred years before; and the statement, according to the city's registers, was found to be corerct! In Hamburg, where he was in 1547, the Wandering Jew was described by two students who saw him listening to a sermon as a tall, gaunt man barefooted, and with white hair falling down his back and his beard below his girdle. He seemed to speak the languages of all the countries he visited." " What is the last recorded time he was supposed to have been seen ? " "In Salt Lake City, I think, in 1870; he had paid two other visits to London some fifty years before that. No doubt he'll turn up again ! " "Perhaps Mr Matheson Lang may have missed a chance, when he played the part of the Wandering Jew, in carrying on the record of the wan- 1 derer's doings; he could have carried f

it off well; might have founded a cult, in fact, in these days of fantastic cults. Eugene Sue wrote a famous story called 'The Wandering Jew,' • didn't he ? " "Yes, and rendered it absurd by making the Jew die. All sorts of stories and histories have been written, but the original simple legend is worth them all. Dundas had a shot at.it, and the theme attracted Goethe, but he took up 'Faust' instead, for which we may be thankful."