Most of you at some time will have come across the legend of the wandering Jew.
Who was he? Or she?
When Jesus bade Peter to follow him, he asked Jesus what should John do? Jesus replied,
'If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?'
Middle aged theologians concluded that John did not in fact die and was wandering the earth still, waiting for the second coming.
This rumour gave way to more speculations and rumours, perhaps it wasn't John. What about Malchus, whose aer Peter sliced off, or Pontius Pilate? Or the thief that remained impenitent on the cross next to Jesus.
The dominant version however that prevailed was the story of a shopkeeper who watched Jesus stagger slowly past his shop, groaning under the weight of his burden. He struck Jesus on the back, urging him to hurry past his shop.
'I go,' Jesus replies 'but you will tarry 'til I return'.
In the early seventeenth century a Jewish shoemaker called Ahasuerus claimed to be the wanderer. This fuelled a mass hysteria similar to todays faint to ridculous cults - UFOs, Bigfoot and even Elvis lives!
Scores of wandering Jews popped up over England and Europe and even in the US over the next two centuries, a combination of rumours, hoaxes and delusional psychotics.
Scores of poems, plays and other works sprang up, but the theme was much the same - the wandering jew represented all of Jewry for rejecting the Messiah, anti-semitism was fuelled by the appearance of Ahasuerus.
Viereck and Eldridge in the late twenties wrote erotic autobiographies , My first two thousand years and Salome, the Wandering Jewess.
The most recent work appears to have been written in 1981, which portrays the Wandering Jew as a hunchback who tramps the road with Lucifer in tow.
Other works portray Herodia, Herods wife as the Wandering Jewess who accompanies Ahauseras, portraying him as carrying the mark of Cain, a single black eyebrow covering both eyes. He bears seven nails on the soles of his iron boots and leaves the imprint of the cross wherever he goes.
The legend of the Wandering Jew prompted many poems: Shelley in particular seemed obsessed with the wandering Jew:
The Wandering Jews Soliloquy:
Is it the Eternal Triune, is it He
Who dares arrest the wheels of destiny
And plunge me in the lowest Hell of Hells?
Will not the lightning's blast destroy my frame?
Will not steel drink the blood-life where it swells? 5
No — let me hie where dark Destruction dwells,
To rouse her from her deeply caverned lair,
And taunting her curst sluggishness to ire
Light long Oblivion's death torch at its flame
And calmly mount Annihilation's pyre. 10
Tyrant of Earth! pale misery's jackal thou!
Are there no stores of vengeful violent fate
Within the magazines of thy fierce hate?
No poison in the clouds to bathe a brow
That lowers on thee with desperate contempt? 15
Where is the noonday pestilence that slew
The myriad sons of Israel's favoured nation?
Where the destroying minister that flew
Pouring the fiery tide of desolation
Upon the leagued Assyrian's attempt? 20
Where the dark Earthquake demon who ingorged
At the dread word Korah's unconscious crew?
Or the Angel's two-edged sword of fire that urged
Our primal parents from their bower of bliss
(Reared by thine hand) for errors not their own 25
By Thine omniscient mind foredoomed, foreknown?
Yes! I would court a ruin such as this,
Almighty Tyrant! and give thanks to Thee —
Drink deeply — drain the cup of hate — remit this I may die.
And a much longer version started when he was called the Wandering Jew. The Jew also makes appearances in Queen Mab and Hellas.
The wandering Jew cauught the imaginations of Goethe and even Kafka.
In Italy it took a different form, in the charming legend of Beffana, and all the more timely with Christmas fast approaching.
Legend has it that Beffana was cleaning her home when the three kings passed by and invited her to join them on their trip to Bethlehem to see the new bore Christ. She shooped them away with her broom and told them she was far too busy.
She was doomed to wander the world forever, looking for the infant Jesus, and every year she slips down the chimney of all children the world over and fills their stockings with sweets and toys.
Before she leaves, she peers into the faces of each child, hoping to get a glimpse of infant Jesus reborn.
And finally, a poem from Charles Timothy Brooks
The wandering Jew once said to me,
I passed through a city in the cool of the year;
A man in the grader plucked fruit from a tree.
I asked: "How long has the city been here?"
And he answered me, as he plucked away -
"It always stood where it stands to-day,
And here it will stand forever and aye."
Five hundred years rolled by, and then
I traveled the self-same road again.
No trace of the city there I found:
A shepherd sat blowing his pipe alone;
His flock went quietly nibbling round.
I asked: "How long has the city been gone?"
And he answered me, and he piped away -
"The new ones bloom and the old decay,
This is my pasture ground for aye."
Five hundred years rolled by, and then
I traveled the self-same road again.
And I came to the sea, and the waves did roar,
And a fisherman threw his net out clear,
And when heavy laden he dragged it ashore.
I asked "How long has the sea been here?"
And he laughed, and he said, and he laugher away -
"As long as you billows have tossed their spray
They've fished and they've fished in this self-same bay."
Five hundred years rolled by, and then
I traveled the self-same road again.
And I came to the forest, vast and free,
And a woodman stood in the thicket near -
His axe he laid at the foot of a tree.
I asked, "How long have the woods been here?"
And he answered "These woods are a covert for aye;
My ancestors dwelt here alway,
And the trees have been here since creation's day."
Five hundred years rolled by, and then
I traveled the self-same road again.
And I found there a city, and far and near
Resounded the hum of toil and glee,
and I asked, "How long has the city been here?
and where is the pipe, and the woods and the sea?"
And they answered me, as they went their way,
"Things always have stood as they stand to-day,
And so they will stand forever and aye."
I'll wait five hundred years, and then
I'll travel the self-same road again.
So who was, or rather who is the Wandering Jew?
Can just a phrase or two in a two thousand year old text really have spurred on such grandiose tales?
Or are there many Wandering Jews, immortals cursed to wander the earth until the end of time?
Are there immortals among us cursed to wander the earth for any reason?
Or is it really just an invention from just one original rumour?
Who knows?
yechydda,
(With thanks to Martin Gardner and others)