The Wandering Jew.
Brought to Europe from the East, after the first crusade under Peter the Hermit, late in the eleventh century, was the legend of the Wandering Jew. This appellation was given by the popular voice to almost every mendicant with a long white beard and scanty clothing, who, supported by a long staff, trudged along the roads with eyes downcast, and without opening his lips.
In the year 1228 this legend was told for the first time by an Armenian bishop, then lately arrived from the Holy Land, to the monks of St. Alban, in England. According to his narrative, Joseph Cartaphilus was door-keeper at the prætorium of Pontius Pilate when Jesus was led away to be crucified. As Jesus halted upon the threshold of the prætorium, Cartaphilus struck him in the loins and said: "Move faster! Why do you stop here?" Jesus, the legend continues, turned round to him and said, with a severe look: "I go, but you will await my coming."
Cartaphilus, who was then thirty years old, and who since then has always returned to that age when he had completed a hundred years, has ever since been awaiting the coming of our Lord and the end of the world. He was said to suffer under the peculiar doom of ceaselessly traversing the earth on foot. The general belief was that he was a man of great piety, of sad and gentle manners, of few words, often weeping, seldom smiling, and content with the scantiest and simplest food and the most poverty-stricken garments. Such was the tradition which poets and romancists in various lands and many languages have introduced into song and story.
As the ages rolled on new circumstances were added to this tale. Paul of Eitzen, a German bishop, wrote in a letter to a friend that he had met the Wandering Jew at Hamburg, in 1564, and had a long conversation with him. He appeared to be fifty years of age. His hair was long, and he went barefoot. His dress consisted of very full breeches, a short petticoat or kilt reaching to the knees, and a cloak so long that it descended to his heels. Instead of Joseph Cartaphilus, he then was called Ahasuerus. He attended Christian worship, prostrating himself with sighs, tears and beating of the breast whenever the name of Jesus was spoken. The bishop further stated that this man's speech was very edifying. He could not hear an oath without bursting into tears, and when offered money would accept only a few sous.
According to the bishop's version of the affair, Cartaphilus was standing in front of his house, in Jerusalem, with his wife and children, when he roughly accosted Jesus, who had halted to take breath while carrying his cross to Calvary. "I shall stop and be at rest," was all that the Lord said; "but you will ever be on foot." After this sentence Cartaphilus quitted home and family to do perpetual penance by wandering on foot over the whole world. He did not know, the bishop said, what God intended to do with him, in compelling him so long to lead such a miserable life, but had hope and faith in His mercy. There was scarcely a town or village in Europe, in the sixteenth century, but what claimed to have given hospitality to this unfortunate witness of the Passion of our Lord.