Part 10

JULIUS MOSEN is the first who treated the subject in a fuller and more independent way. His “Ahasuerus” (1838) is an epic. In the notes it is stated that the myth belongs to the poet’s earliest recollections, the supposed Wandering Jew having passed through his birthplace, and that a shepherd had spoken to him. The poem carries this idea out with poetical realism. Mosen’s idea of the myth is human nature imprisoned by an earthly existence. Ahasuerus symbolises the spirit of Tradition embodied in an individual being, who, at first in unconscious obstinacy, but at length deliberately, opposes himself to the God of Christendom. Mosen gives his Ahasuerus from the first a human trait. His deceased wife has left him two beautiful children, Eve and Reuben. A young Roman prince, living at Jerusalem, likes these children, and he wishes to take them with him to Rome. He applies to Pilate, who orders Ahasuerus to part with the children. The father in his desperation implores the assistance of Jesus, the new prophet. He will believe in him and his new doctrine, if he can save his children. Jesus will not grant such private wishes, but goes on to prophesy the fall of Jerusalem. Upon this Ahasuerus tears his clothes into pieces, and in pain and wrath accuses Jesus of falsehood and imposture: “Thou art our God? And yet to save thou hast no power! If man or God, thou hast deceived the people!” When the Roman prince comes to fetch the children, Ahasuerus has slain them. In his despair he becomes more and more a disbeliever. What, he asks himself, did Israel commit to become so wretched? “Through its piety it has been led to misery. Why, then, does man crowd after this haughty God? I will cast off his memory; death to this Nazarene, to God, to everything!” In this excitement Ahasuerus scornfully forbids Jesus to rest at his door when he asks that favour. Jesus pronounces his sentence in these words, “Thou shalt live without rest thy immortality upon earth!”

The Archangel Michael appears and gives Ahasuerus a hope that mercy may be obtained at three different times of trial. The trials follow. Ahasuerus has married again and has once more two children, Eve and Reuben. Rome declares war against Judea, Titus surrounds Jerusalem; Ahasuerus is full of resentment against God, who declines to help, and in his anger sets the temple on fire. During the conflagration, with his children at his side, he enters the flames, which do not touch him. Eve’s lover, Matthias, who has become a Christian, for that reason rejected by Ahasuerus, serves in the Roman army and comes rushing through the flames to save his beloved. Ahasuerus bids him welcome as a suitor, and pushes him into the flames. His children shriek with terror, and Ahasuerus throws them both after him, crying, “Here, heartless God! now thou canst rejoice!”

The first trial thus passes without redemption for Ahasuerus, and the second comes. Ahasuerus, having tried all possible ways of suicide, at last addresses Death with an appeal for pity. Death replies that he has orders to pass him by until he shall believe in God. Ahasuerus refuses. He is once more father of two beautiful children, Leah and Reuben. He enjoys the purest happiness, when all at once, in a thunderstorm, the God of the Jews appears to renew the old league with him against Christ. Ahasuerus consents, and is sent to Julian the Apostate as the great adversary of Christendom. Ahasuerus arrives there in the very moment when the wounded Julian, under a night-vision of Christ, begins to doubt his pagan faith. Ahasuerus gains him back to his former antagonism, and obtains permission to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. But during the building, a dispute breaks out among the workmen. All order is gone, the work is interrupted; one looks at another in amazement, when suddenly a prophet announces that for the reconstruction of the temple, the God of Judea and the God of the Christians were contending; and that the latter could only be made to yield if the blood of two innocent children should soak the ground. Ahasuerus offers his own children. Before the sacrifice is finished, Christ invisibly takes the children to Himself. Then the earth is rent asunder; flames dart out and consume the new building.

The second trial having passed without saving Ahasuerus, twice a murderer of his own children, the third trial advances. In this Death passes, with souls that have found repose, before Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus is in mortal agony; his soul has nearly departed, but one point still remains, which no effort of his will can destroy. This point begins to assume a shape, a form once more. It is the same point of life which goes through all organic nature, and nowhere admits of destruction or state of rest. So our Wanderer, too, is once more filled with the wish to live. Again the God of Judea animates him to struggle against the doctrine of Christ. Again he follows his advice. He is now sent to Arabia, where Mohammed leads on the nations against the Cross. Ahasuerus allies himself with Mohammed to conquer Jerusalem; he calls his people together, but they will not hear him, they have only stones to throw at him who suffered so much for their sake. Then, with tears in his eyes, Ahasuerus leaves them for ever, and bestows henceforth his love upon Humanity.

Mosen’s Ahasuerus thus becomes a hero of Humanity, and his aims rise high above his first purpose. He is at the head of Mohammed’s warriors, driving away the defenders of the Holy Sepulchre, menacing death to all who approach it. All fly away; two children only remain--his own. Ahasuerus embraces them, and rejoices to have found them at last. Then Mohammed reminds him that he has sworn death to whomsoever should approach the sepulchre. Ahasuerus now cries out in his grief. For the third time he falls under the curse of his disbelief. He calls for some one to slay him, and the third trial so releases him of his vow. Arrows dart through the air: the children fall; he, too, sinks down, to awake once more for fulfilment of his real mission. “One thing has been ended; another begins, that neither time nor dark eternity can end. Loosed from Him and His mercy, henceforth I begin a long struggle until I have saved mankind from Him.” Ahasuerus declares an everlasting war against Christ, “in the name of all forces and powers, all sighs, all sorrows, shed tears and blood, broken spirits and crushed hearts.” Christ accepts the combat: “Thou facest Me, Thought against Thought. Wrestle on and on, until at last, the circle ended, the Day of Judgment shall decide!”

There the poem ends, or rather, as Helbig remarks, “does _not_ end;” the end is put off to the day of the last Judgment. The struggle now only begins, never to end, between Ahasuerus and Christ, between Humanity and Christendom, between Earth and Heaven.

LUDWIG KÖHLER, too, makes the Wanderer a type of human tendency. His _New Ahasuerus_ (1845) is a prophet of freedom. The sufferer he has derided says to him: “March on then for eternities, until veracity has found its residence on earth, filling it with purest brightness! until a golden Dawn as of springtide breaks, and Liberty awakes the light now hidden in night!” Often the Wanderer thinks this morning has come, and exults in his hope of rest; but his joy, his hopes are vain. Napoleon crushes the French Revolution, “the Burschenschaft” leads to the errors of Sand; the rebellious Greeks are betrayed, and so on. Everywhere is oppression of conscience and thought. Ahasuerus despairs, and complains that he cannot die, when suddenly Jesus addresses him with a rebuke: he tells Ahasuerus that he is unworthy of the longed-for liberty, so long as he has not mastered self and sacrificed his egotism. “Thy grave, not humanity, was thine aim, so thou hast striven in vain. Liberty shall be aim, not instrument to thee. Whilst thou wert complaining of Destiny, it went its way, and Liberty began its heavenly progression. ’Tis no dream and delusion; ere thou thinkest, it sunders hell and displays its light. The world gets free. Already in the vale a stir is heard. Its reign is near!” With this vision of hope for the future the poet leaves us.

FRANZ HORN (1818) published in Fouqué’s _Frauentaschenbuch_ his novel “_The Eternal Jew_.” His Ahasuerus is a rich Jew in Jerusalem, who only believes in Christ’s external mission. He thinks that Jesus, though for the time full of humility, will rule with a commanding sceptre when clad in purple, and by his healing power will extirpate disease and death from the earth. In this he is disappointed: Jesus is laughed at, despised, ill-treated, and endures all unresistingly. Mistaken in his dearest hopes, Ahasuerus conceives a deep hate against Jesus. So, when the latter, fallen under the burthen of his cross, asks for a moment’s rest at his door, Ahasuerus drives him on without compassion. Then Christ rises, and says: “Well, receive then what thou wishest; live, live on, as never man before; die not till thou hast become worthy to die!”

And so it came: all around him died; everything became strange to him; only the sky above him remained the same. He comes to understand that Christ by his death has sealed death, and that he (Ahasuerus) by his life has to represent the insufficiency and misery of mere life. He moves on with aimless strides, his form as of iron, his visage weather-beaten like lichened stone, a nameless grief upon his features. The scene of the novel is laid at the end of the Thirty Years’ War. Ahasuerus has saved a young count in the tumult of battle, and afterwards, by telling him the story of his life, converts him from the blasphemy and despair into which he had fallen by the sudden death of his family--a misfortune attributed to the appearance of Ahasuerus.

From this novel, AUGUST KLINGEMANN (1827) took the subject of his tragedy, _Ahasuerus_. The Wanderer was a favourite character with the distinguished actor Ludwig Devrient. With Klingemann the myth signifies purification by suffering in order to obtain an imperishable liberty. Christ appears as the mediator between natural and supernatural things, and points the wandering man to his coming empire. The hero of Klingemann’s drama is the murderer of Gustavus Adolphus, the Count of Werth, a fanatical Catholic, who, in disguise of a Protestant, has assassinated the champion of Protestantism. The deed weighs heavily on his soul, drives him to melancholy and despair, and he finally drowns his conscience in Atheism. The son of Gustavus Adolphus enters his family as a visitor; and in his presence, and that of his family, the guilty Count speaks of the deed with abhorrence. Only one person knows of his guilt--the mysterious man who saved him out of the battle. To get rid of him the assassin challenges him; but his lance breaks on the breast of the stranger--for it is Ahasuerus, he who has blasphemed his Lord, like the now atheistical Count of Werth. The curse upon him is that which strikes the Denier of God. Ahasuerus, after the fruitless combat, reveals to the count his story, and his longing to die, imploring him no longer to blaspheme God. The Count after this discovery acknowledges the existence of God, and confesses his murder of Gustavus Adolphus. He then kills himself, and so finds rest; but Ahasuerus wanders on--on!

THEODOR OELKERS has treated the subject in a novel, _Princess Mary of Oldenhoff, or the Wandering Jew_, (Leipzig, 1848). Oelkers adds a curse upon Ahasuerus: in order to reconcile Christ he must sacrifice what is dearest to him, but his sacrifices are always ineffectual. He takes from time to time a wife, he has children; he survives each wife, slays his children; he is driven to do this by necessity, while conscious that the offerings will be in vain. He has the fearful gift of reading the future: foresees all that shall happen to himself and his beloved ones. In bitterness of heart he says: “Let men see in me how vain is their hope for divine love and mercy!” But at length he finds reason to hope for release at a very distant period. “I am only,” he says, “condemned in Time: Eternity belongs to me, as it belongs to all when Time shall end. Then shall I be free to move about in endless regions, breathing the air of heaven; then the partial tyranny of Grace shall be dethroned; Justice will occupy the throne, sharing it with her sister, Love.”

Oelkers thinks that before this time comes there will also appear a Wandering Moslem and a Wandering Christian.

LEVIN SCHÜCKING, too, brings our hero before us in an episode, full of imagination, called “The Three Suitors” which belongs to his novel _The Peasant Prince_, 1851. In the hotel of “The Three Moors,” at Augsburg, during the twelve nights after Christmas in the year 1700, three strangers met together. One was a weary half-decayed Jew, with a long dirty gown, who next morning changes into a handsome young Armenian Prince, Isaac Laquedam. The second was the Dutch admiral Van der Decken, who arrives in a carriage with four horses. The third was his Excellency the Master of Chase _en chef_, Herr von Rodenstein, with a large suite. These individuals have a rendezvous in this inn every hundred years, and pass one year together in revelling, after which they disappear. They lose their human form and wander as spectres, one over the earth, one over the sea, the third in the air, as the Eternal Jew, the Flying Dutchman, the Wild Huntsman; all in bond and service of Satan, except for this one year, wherein he has no power over them. Whenever one century is passed, Ahasuerus-Laquedam is seized by a burning fever, after which his body resumes the appearance it had when he raised his hand against Jesus.

All three do a great deal of mischief during that year in quiet Augsburg, especially in the hearts of the young women. Among these is one distinguished by great beauty, but also by her haughtiness and disdain towards the male sex. All three try to win her proud and frosty heart, which unfortunately has been chained to an ugly, paralytic husband. She once says to them that she is not proud of her beauty, but that she would take a pride in standing a danger or conquering a difficulty of which, centuries later, the world would say, _a man would have been unable to subdue it_.

The handsome Armenian prince takes her at her word and invites her to follow him one whole year: she promises it, and gives him as pledge of her word a ring. The two others obtain similar promises. At the end of the year she accompanies the Armenian. Suddenly she sees his youth disappear, a musty smell comes from him, and a third shadow walks at their side. “Who are you,” she cries aghast. “I am Ahasuerus!” She tries to fly, but Ahasuerus holds her with an iron hand. In her despair she sells her soul to the third shadow (the Devil) who promises her deliverance. But first, she has to keep her word to the Rodensteiner. With him, the Wild Huntsman, she rides through the air, and from aloft beholds the depravity of human life. From what she has seen, and from the wild ride, her soul and body are tormented, she is unable to go any farther, and again implores deliverance of the Devil. Already the Flying Dutchman has come to claim fulfilment of her promise to him. The Devil agrees to save her if she will pledge him, besides her own, the soul of her child.

“No, never my child, never!” the tortured woman cries; she prefers another year’s ride, over the sea. “Take her, she longs still for a third trial,” says the laughing Devil to the Dutchman; but he replies: “The trial was great enough, she is released. Her force was superior to that of a man. _A man would not have spared the soul of his child more than he did his own._” She wakes to find her child sleeping sweetly in its cradle; she finds also the three rings; but from the dream of a night her beautiful hair was grey.

JOSEPH VON ZEDLITZ, an Austrian poet, in his _Wanderings of Ahasuerus_ (1844), transfers the end of the Jew’s life to the Golden Age, when the reign of eternal Peace has begun. Ahasuerus has long been buried on Golgotha, when an angel awakes him, and bids him wander until Noah’s white dove, the messenger of peace, comes back, bringing peace on earth and songs of joy, dispersing all wrath and hatred, uniting the nations under the sceptre of Humanity. Ahasuerus, lying in his grave, half-dreaming, sees history pass before his eyes; he awaits the time that shall come. Whenever he thinks this moment has arrived, he rises from his grave, and wanders about to see the world. It seems to him that the Golden Age is near, when the Roman Empire sinks and the star of Christendom rises; when the cherub’s song of peace strikes his ear, he begins his pilgrimage. He expected to find peace, but he finds ruins, ashes, death. He meets Attila’s wild bands on his way. When Ahasuerus, 1300 years later, rises once more, he finds another Attila, who wants to bend a whole world under his sceptre. Terror-stricken, Ahasuerus cries: “Who can say Attila will not return a third time?” and returning to his grave, he asks: “Jehovah, how long must I still sleep?”

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN’S _Ahasuerus_ is the angel of Doubt, who comes upon earth to live with men, whom he resembles, for like them he denies and doubts. He is born on earth at the same moment with Jesus, and now, as a human being, bears the name Ahasuerus. As a man he grows wiser and better, like his fellow-men, whose increasing perfection will, in many thousands of years, lead them to heaven. Then Ahasuerus too will return.

After this Prologue Ahasuerus is seen as a Jewish shoemaker; he is at the same time a favourite narrator of the stories of the Bible. Merry children, as well as serious Pharisees, come to his workshop, and listen to his words. He becomes conceited, and complains that he is only a shoemaker, and not allowed to sit among the Scribes. Among his auditors is young Veronica, who is enchanted with the new prophet from Nazareth, who had just made his appearance. Ahasuerus counts Jesus amongst the false prophets; he also regards him as the cause of the death of his mother and sister, who had been slain by the agents of Herod. But when he hears Jesus preach in the desert, he changes his mind, and shares the admiration of Veronica. Now, he thinks, the days of splendour will come, according to the prophets, and the reign of David in all its magnificence. Judas, the friend of Ahasuerus, and the enthusiastic disciple of Jesus, is the first to doubt him. He thinks Jesus does not show enough energy in his proceedings, calls him a loiterer; at length decides to test whether he is really the Messias. If so, legions of angels will certainly assist him at his call; if not, he may perish. Judas betrays Jesus, in order to give him an opportunity to show his power--an idea suggested by Goethe. The hope of Judas is not realised. Jesus consents to be made a prisoner. “Man he was, and not Messiah!” says Ahasuerus, turning apostate; “how could I imagine that the son of a carpenter was a prophet? He feels the cold, suffers hunger, thirst, needs sleep.”

After the usual scene on the way to Golgotha, a voice from above says to the disbelieving Ahasuerus: “Ahasuerus, Ahasuerus! thou art the type of mankind; thou disputest and deniest God himself. Ye are all alike; so thou mayest wander until we shall meet once again!”

It is not real Atheism, but a rigid Judaism that will not surrender to what the author deems the unfolding purposes of God, which appears in this Ahasuerus.

The first person whom Ahasuerus meets in his wanderings is Barabbas, who lives as an hermit in Lebanon, repenting his sins. He has already been mentioned in the poem as a profligate who only knows the god of his senses; but the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ, which he has witnessed, have converted him. He receives his friend with the words, “Blessed be Jesus Christ.” Ahasuerus answers with a curse. Full of wrath, not believing in the resurrection, he takes his leave of Barabbas. He trusts in the strength of Israel, but soon after he is told of Jerusalem’s fall. He travels to Rome, where Domitian is persecuting the Christians. He rejoices when he sees the burning pyres and the Christian martyrs. He stands at the side of executioners who torture some Christians. Among these is Veronica. He cannot convert her, and tries therefore to slay her. He does not succeed in so saving her from torture, but is suspected and (apparently) killed by the executioners. Ahasuerus awakes to find beside him the dead Veronica, and many other bodies of martyred Christians. He starts forth in terror to flee the kingdom of the Crucified, which he sees consisting only of “graves laden with the smell of Pestilence.”

Having passed through distant parts of the world, Ahasuerus, at the end of three centuries, returns to Rome. He finds that the doctrine of Christ has conquered heathendom. The Emperor and his people are kneeling with Christ’s name on their lips. “The spirit of Jehovah has left the earth; his people is lost in this world-chaos. The old is all dead; the new is vain and empty! Jehovah! my breast is Thy temple, the last in this ruined world!”

Ahasuerus passes the Alps. The Huns sweep by. He inspires Attila to attack Rome and crush Christendom. But he--he wanders on, farther on, to the region of the Northern Light. On his return he finds thick in the forests the symbols of Christ; he finds Christ now worshipped in Gaul, and in Rome the first Pope. Compelled now to believe in the power of the Christian faith, he yet persists in his belief that a still greater God will come, the true Messiah promised to Israel. The poet then describes the small communities of Jews, with their quiet and secret worship, still awaiting their Messiah. Some think he has come in the person of Mohammed, and to him Ahasuerus now goes. He advances with him to Jerusalem; there he is about to set the temple on fire, when Veronica appears and prevents him. He journeys on. In Rome Charlemagne has been made emperor; the Jews have become slaves of the Christians. The hate of this inflexible believer in Jehovah increases. By a vast leap the poet brings Ahasuerus to Canossa, where, full of astonishment, he sees the emperor, barefooted and in tears, standing before the Vicar of Christ. Before such evidence of the Majesty of Christendom, Ahasuerus, too, stands with bended head. He cannot escape this new kingdom, for he is in the closed yard of the world which it fills. “The emperor stood for nights; my nights are millenniums!”

And now for the first time the idea rises in him that he is not only the Opposing Jew, but that he represents everything earthly in conflict with the divine.