Christmas Every Day

The story of the Wandering Jew

According to Chambers Book of Days: On the 22^nd of April 1774, the Wandering Jew, or some individual who had personated him, appeared in Brussels, where he told his story to the townsfolk.

The story of the Jew who had witnessed the Crucifixion, and had been condemned to live and wander over the earth until the time of Christ’s second coming, while it is one of the most curious of the mediaeval legends, has a peculiar interest for us, because, so far as we can distinctly trace its history, it is first heard of with any circumstantial details in our island. The chronicler of the abbey of St. Albans, whose book was copied and continued by Matthew Paris, has recorded how, in the year 1228, ‘a certain archbishop of Armenia Major came on a pilgrimage to England to see the relics of the saints, and visit the sacred places in this kingdom, as he had done in others; he also produced letters of recommendation from his Holiness the Pope to the religious men and prelates of the churches, in which they were enjoined to receive and entertain him with due reverence and honour. On his arrival, he came to St. Albans, where he was received with all respect by the abbot and monks; and at this place, being fatigued with his journey, he remained some days to rest himself and his followers, and a conversation took place between him and the inhabitants of the convent, by means of their interpreters, during which he made many inquiries relating to the religion and religious observances of this country, and told many strange things concerning the countries of the East.

In the course of conversation he was asked whether he had ever seen or heard anything of Joseph, a man of whom there was much talk in the world, who, when our Lord suffered, was present and spoke to him, and who is still alive, in evidence of the Christian faith; in reply to which a knight in his retinue, who was his interpreter, replied, speaking in French:

“My Lord well knows that man, and a little before he took his way to the western countries, the said Joseph ate at the table of my lord the archbishop in Armenia, and he has often seen and held converse with him.” He was then asked about what had passed between Christ and the said Joseph, to which he replied, “At the time of the suffering of Jesus Christ, he was seized by the Jews and led into the hall of judgment before Pilate, the governor, that he might be judged by him on the accusation of the Jews; and Pilate finding no cause for adjudging him to death, said to them, ‘Take him and judge him according to your law;’ the shouts of the Jews, however, increasing, he, at their request, released unto them Barabbas, and delivered Jesus to them to be crucified. When therefore the Jews were dragging Jesus forth, and had reached the door, Cartaphilus, a porter of the hall, in Pilate’s service, as Jesus was going out of the door, impiously struck him on the back with his hand, and said in mockery, ‘Go quicker, Jesus, go quicker; why do you loiter and Jesus, looking back on him with a severe countenance, said to him, ‘I am going, and you will wait till I return.’ And, according as our Lord said, this Cartaphilus is still awaiting his return.

At the time of our Lord’s suffering he was thirty years old, and, when he attains the age of a hundred years, he always returns to the same age as he was when our Lord suffered. After Christ’s death, when the Catholic faith gained ground, this Cartaphilus was baptized by Ananias (who also baptized the apostle Paul), and was called Joseph. He dwells in one or other division of Armenia, and in divers Eastern countries, passing his time amongst the bishops and other prelates of the church; he is a man of holy conversation, and religious; a man of few words, and circumspect in his behaviour, for he does not speak at all unless when questioned by the bishops and religious men, and then he tells of the events of old times, and of those which occurred at the suffering and resurrection of our Lord, and of the witnesses of the resurrection, namely, those who rose with Christ, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto men.

He also tells of the creed of the apostles, and of their separation and preaching. And all this he relates without smiling or levity of conversation, as one who is well practised in sorrow and the fear of God, always looking forward with fear to the coming of Jesus Christ, lest at the last judgment he should find him in anger, whom, when on his way to death, he had provoked to just vengeance. Numbers come to him from different parts of the world, enjoying his society and conversation; and to them, if they are men of authority, he explains all doubts on the matters on which he is questioned. He refuses all gifts that are offered to him, being content with slight food and clothing.”‘

Such is the account of the Wandering Jew left us by a chronicler who was contemporary with what he relates, and we cannot doubt that there was such a person as the Armenian in question, and that some impostor had assumed the character of the Jew who was supposed to be still wandering about the world, until in the middle of the sixteenth century he made his appearance in Germany. He had now changed his name to Ahasuerus, and somewhat modified his story:

It was again a bishop who had seen him, when he attended a sermon at Hamburg, where a stranger appeared in the winter of 1542, who made himself remarkable by the great devotion with which he listened. When questioned, he said that he was by nation a Jew, that his original occupation had been that of a shoemaker, that he had been present at the passion of Jesus Christ, and that since that time he had wandered through many countries. He said that he was one of the Jews who dragged Christ before Pilate and were clamorous for his death, and on the way to the place of crucifixion, when Jesus stopped to rest, he pushed him forward, and told him rudely to go on. The Saviour looked at him, and said, ‘I shall stop and repose, but thou shalt go on;’ upon which the Jew was seized with an irresistible desire to wander, and had left his wife and children, whom he had never seen since, and had continued to travel from one country to another, until he now came to Germany.

The bishop described him as a tall man, apparently of about fifty years of age, with long hair, which hung down to his shoulders, who went barefooted, and wore a strange costume, consisting of sailor’s trousers which reached to the feet, a petticoat which descended to the knees, and a mantle which also reached to the feet. He was always taciturn, was never seen to laugh, ate and drank little, and, if anybody offered him money, he never took more than two or three pence, which he afterwards gave away in charity, declaring that God contributed to all his wants. He related various events which he had seen in different countries and at different times, to people’s great astonishment.

All these details, and many more, are told in a letter, dated the 29^th of June 1564, which was printed in German and in French. On this occasion the Jew spoke good German, in the dialect of Saxony; but when he, or another person under the same character, appeared in the Netherlands in 1575, he spoke Spanish. A few years later the Wandering Jew arrived in Strasburg, and, presenting himself before the magistrates, informed them that he had visited their city just two hundred years before, ‘which was proved to be true by a reference to the registers of the town.’

The Wandering Jew proceeded next to the West Indies, and returned thence to France, where he made his appearance in 1604, and appears to have caused a very considerable sensation. As during the time he was there the country was visited by destructive hurricanes, it was believed that these visitations accompanied the Jew in his wanderings, and this belief became so general that at the present day, in Brittany and Picardy, when a violent hurricane comes on, the peasantry are in the habit of making the sign of the cross, and exclaiming, ‘C’est le Juif-errant qui passe!‘ Various accounts of the appearance of the Wandering Jew in differents parts of France at this time were printed, and he became the subject of more than one popular ballad, one of which is well known as still popular in France, and is sold commonly by the hawkers of books, the first lines of which are,-

‘Est-il rien sur la terre
Qui soit plus surprenant
Que la grande misere
Du pauvre Juif-errant?
Que son sort malheureux
Parait triste et facheux!’

There is a well-known English ballad on the Wandering Jew, which is perhaps as old as the time of Elizabeth, and has been reprinted in Percy’s Reliques, and in most English collections of old ballads. It relates to the Jew’s appearance in Germany and Flanders in the sixteenth century. The first stanza of the English ballad is,

When as in fair Jerusalem
Our Saviour Christ did live,
And for the sins of all the world
His own dear life did give;
The wicked Jews with scoffs and scorn
Did dailye him molest,
That never till he left his life
Our Saviour could not rest.’

 The wanderer has not since been heard of, but is supposed to be travelling in some of the unknown parts of the globe. The Histoire admirable du Juif-errant, still printed and circulated in France, forms one of the class of books which our antiquaries call chap-books, and is full of fabulous stories which the Jew is made to tell with his own mouth.

1968

Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood”

Enoch Powell (1912-98) was a brilliant classical scholar and linguist, a soldier who rose from the rank of private to general in the course of the Second World War, and a Conservative politician in the British House of Commons. In 1968 while his party was in Opposition, he gave a speech in his Birmingham constituency which opposed further non-white immigration from Commonwealth countries. It became known as the “Rivers of Blood” speech, after Powell’s reference to a passage in the Aeneid where the Sybil prophecies civil war.

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood”. That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.

The speech was denounced by many in public life, including his fellow Conservative politicians; he was fired from his position as shadow defence critic.  The general public seems to have been widely supportive at the time; polls backed his position, workers went on strike to protest his demotion, and letters to the editor were overwhelmingly in his favour. In the 1970 election, the Conservatives were returned to power and voting experts were convinced that Powell’s speech had added over two million votes to the winning party.

Because of the speech, Powell remained an outsider for the rest of his political life, opposing his party on entry into the European Union and on anti-terrorist legislation, and eventually running for the Ulster Unionists. The current debate on immigration levels has prompted many in the media to bring up Powell’s 1968 predictions again.

1988

Operation Praying Mantis

During the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88, Iran blockaded the Gulf of Hormuz to prevent Iraqi tankers from exporting oil and prevailed upon Syria to block the pipeline from Iraq to the Mediterranean. Iraq then resorted to using Kuwaiti vessels to carry the valuable cargo, so Iran took military steps to prevent that maneuver. The United States, anxious to keep the supply of Gulf oil going to the industrialized world, reflagged the Kuwaiti ships and accorded them naval protection in the area.

When an Iranian mine exploded in international waters, damaging the guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Morrison, the Americans replied with Operation Praying Mantis designed to destroy Iranian facilities and ships used in their blockade. On April 18, 1988 the US launched attacks on oil platforms used for gun installations and intelligence purposes. The Iranian navy challenged the American fleet with speedboats and frigates and also attacked unarmed tankers belonging to western nations, but overwhelming American force neutralized the threat. The Iranians lost a frigate, a gunboat and 3 speedboats; two of their oil platforms were destroyed with a cost to the US of only a 2-man helicopter crew.

The decisive defeat in the Gulf is said to have led to a more eager Iranian willingness to settle the greater war; a ceasefire with Iraq was signed later that year.

1990

The debut of Dr Death

Jacob “Jack” Kevorkian (1928-2011) was a Michigan pathologist who advanced several ideas about dying and who came to public notice for illegally assisting in patient suicides.

As a pathologist Kevorkian’s work was with the dead, leading him to propose that the blood from corpses be used in military intravenous supplies, that condemned prisoners could submit to dangerous experiments in lieu of execution, and that the organs of dead prisoners be harvested for transplant. These ideas won little favour with the authorities but did get Kevorkian the beginnings of an unsavoury reputation.

In 1990, on a 58-year old woman diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, he conducted the first of an estimated 130 procedures in which he provided the means by which those seeking death could commit suicide. These people were dispatched by either the “Thantron” (“Death Machine”) which dispensed lethal drugs or the “Mercitron” (“Mercy Machine”) which administered carbon monoxide poisoning. Since there was at the time no law against assisting suicide, Kevorkian could not be charged with any crime but he did lose his medical license. Undeterred by four trials from 1994-97, he continued his mission and was not successfully prosecuted.

However, in 1998 he publicly ended the life of an ALS sufferer in a television documentary and this time administered the killing drug himself. He dared the state to prosecute him, and Michigan obliged, charging with with second-degree murder and possession of a controlled drug. Kevorkian defended himself rather badly and was found guilty, with a sentence of 10-25 years in prison. He served 8 of those years before his release in 2007.

A highly controversial figure, Kevorkian succeeded in bringing the issue of assisted dying into greater public prominence.

1912

RMS Titanic hits an iceberg

Shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912 the White Star liner Titanic struck one of a number of icebergs in a pack south of Newfoundland and sank within hours. Over 1500 passengers and crew died, with only 710 survivors.

There have been many naval disasters that have taken more lives than the sinking of the Titanic. In 1865 the boilers of the steamboat Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River and killed over 1,800 people; the ferry Dona Paz collided with an oil tanker on its way to Manila and sank, with 4,300 people lost. 9,300 refugees and troops being evacuated on the German liner Wilhelm Gustlof were killed when the ship was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in 1945. There have been more poignant and tragic sinkings — the loss of the “White Ship” in 1120 led to a 20-year civil war in England; thousands of prisoners of war were killed by their own countrymen in World War II when ships transporting them were sunk by aircraft or subs unable to discern the human cargo.

But no other maritime catastrophe has entered into the public imagination as the doomed RMS Titanic bound for New York from Southampton. The subject of countless books, movies and popular songs, the sinking of the ship labelled “unsinkable” is the stuff of legends. There are a number of reasons for this: the hubris of the name and its boasts; the fact that this was the maiden voyage of the largest vessel afloat; the easily-avoided nature of its collision; and the loss of prominent society members all contributed to the fascination.