The Legend of the Wandering Jew

by George Kumler Anderson

When Christ, wearied by the heavy burden of the cross, leaned for a moment against a stranger’s doorway, the stranger drove him away and cried, “Walk faster!” To this, Christ replied, “I go, but you will walk until I come again!” So began the legend of the Wandering Jew, which has recurred in many forms of literature and folklore ever since. George K. Anderson, in a book first published in 1965 and immediately hailed as a classic, traces this enduring legend through the ages, from St. John through the Middle Ages to Shelley, Eugène Sue, and the antisemitism of Hitler to recent movies and novels. Though the main elements of the legend are a constant, Anderson shows how changes in emphasis and meaning reflect civilization’s shifting concerns and attitudes over time.

Genres: Folklore

504 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1965

Reviews

[Mbuye · Rating 4 out of 5]

For over the two thousand years since the Crucifixion of Christ, the myth of the Wandering Jew has grown and adapted itself to different cultures and different centuries. George Anderson examines this legend’s evolution from Jerusalem, Armenia and thence into Europe, where he is found in Spain, in Germany, in Poland, in Bohemia, in Russia, in Wales, in England, until finally he and his sister, the Wandering Jewess, face each other across the Bering Straits, the Jewess looking towards the Old World, and he looking forwards at the New.

Who is this man? It is said that on the way to Calvary, Jesus stumbled and fell. One man cursed Christ for leaning for a moment against his garden wall. Christ is said to have replied, “I go; but you shall walk until I return!” And so began the original story. But already there are variations. Is he Malchus, the servant of the High Priest, who struck Jesus for his answer to the men who came to arrest Him? Peter cut off his ear in rage but Jesus rebuked Peter and restored Malchus’s ear. Is he the doorkeeper of Pontius Pilate? Or is he Ahasueras, the shoemaker, a Jewish radical, who was one of those who wanted Christ to be crucified and Barabbas to be released? Is he Jesus's favourite disciple, John? The legend of the Wanderer has variations in Islamic and Buddhist tradition as well. And pre-Christian mythology has other figures subject to eternal punishment: Prometheus, Tantalus, Sisyphus and Cain, to start with.

His punishment is deathlessness. Fire cannot burn him, no, not even when he throws himself into Etna. The sea simply casts him ashore when his ship is wrecked and everyone else is drowned. If he throws himself off a cliff, he simply bounces to his feet and starts walking again. When the Romans throw him into an arena full of wild beasts, they ignore him, or give him a wide berth.

For some reason, his purse is always full of gold coin, so he cannot starve. This full purse, by the way, leads to a new name bestowed on him in the middle ages - Fortunatus.

Depending on what started the legend, whether he was “the beloved disciple,” or the man who struck Christ, the Wandering Jew takes on a positive or negative colouring. Here he is compassionate, charitable and a healer, whose very touch is a benediction. There he is the spawn of Satan, leading men from corruption to corruption, and thence to the bottomless pit. To see him is to invite destruction to one's house. At times he is a seducer of maidens and virtuous women, at others, his love for a good woman has been the cause of his redemption. In some variations he is doomed to eternal suffering, and in others, his repentance and acts of kindness release him from the curse, and he is permitted to die in the mercy of Christ.

From earliest times through the middle ages, from Spain, Italy and Germany, from chroniclers who romanticised every fact they had and gave it a pious and moral slant to Chaucer, who was the first to recognise him for a great tragic figure, to the Romantics of Germany, to the nineteenth century literature of Shelley, Goethe, Byron, Eugène Sue and Matthew (Monk) Lewis, through poetry and travelogues to drama and opera, Anderson explores the history and nature of a myth, its growth and development into the unshakeable warp and weft of folklore. Most stepmothers are kindly and loving, and they are forgettable. But the one woman who treats her stepdaughter as a household drudge, she gets into folklore. And some stories which contain the seed of folkloric imagination, remain the unique property of one man’s creativity. Such is Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner.

An inestimable collection of the myths and legends that make up the story of the eternal wanderer, including its modern versions of the Flying Dutchman, or Philip Nolan, the Man Without a Country, to take just two examples of the seven or eight given by Anderson. Deeply researched, this scholarly book is written in a light, easy style that keeps you spellbound. Nonetheless, for those who prefer a shorter version, the very first chapter of S. Baring-Gould’s ‘Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,’ is a good introduction to the legend itself as well as to Anderson's more scholarly and detailed work.