Part 11

The time of the Crusades comes. From all parts of the world the nations rush to Jerusalem, where once the altar of Jehovah stood. They are impelled by many selfish motives: no single thought or aim unites the warriors, and so they struggle in vain. Ahasuerus now learns to doubt the progress of mankind. In vain a master-builder beside his work instructs him that in the structure of the world God is the builder. “He does not die; each century is a stone block added to the rest: so mankind gradually ascends.” “But,” Ahasuerus says, “often the work stands still.” “It does,” answers the stonemason, “but only to gather new strength.” To this Ahasuerus answers that all the blood that has been shed in the Crusades was of no use to Europe; but the guildmaster replies that they formed a vast step in human progress, because they brought the different nations closer together, and brought “liberty” into the world. Many knights sold their estates, which passed into the hands of the commons; the supremacy of nobles was destroyed, new life sprang up in sciences and art. Then suddenly the cry of battle rings through the air, robber knights menace the peaceful citizens; the tocsin sounds; the workmen rush to the battlefield; the building stops. Full of mockery and derision at this new retrogradation in place of the vaunted human evolution, Ahasuerus walks on.

The errors of the age, the doings in the convents, the excesses of the Hussites, the mad demeanour of King Wenceslas, only increase Ahasuerus’ disbelief in the progress of mankind. An angel leads him to Mayence, where Gutenberg’s printing-press is seen. Ahasuerus does not believe in the importance of this invention. He also thinks Columbus a fool, but, nevertheless, follows him to the deep whirlpools of the sea, which he hopes will swallow him. But Columbus is spared by the waves, he reaches land--the New World is discovered. There the god of the primeval forest complains like Ahasuerus, because he has been roused from his rest and deep silence and is dragged into the history of men. The all-pervading Spirit of the Universe addresses him, “Oh, might the discovery of this new hemisphere come also to thee, that thou mightst see the divine wisdom, take comfort, and know that in the future of Humanity there shall be One people, One mind, Unity and Reason!”

Amid the New World, and with this vision over it, Ahasuerus gains Belief. He now sees that “it was the ruin of Israel, once as rich a land as America, to reject the New, which comes from God.” In human evolution the Old always denies the New: “God is born, crucified, and--lives.” The wave of each century brings the accumulated treasures of the Past nearer to the shores of Perfection.

Then Ahasuerus stretches out his hands towards the endless Ocean, and in the chaos of his mind he begins to understand what _once_ he was and what has become of him. In his own life he sees the progress of mankind, and so the wings grow that bring him back to Heaven. But the time has not yet come, only a day of Eternity has elapsed; and Andersen’s Muse tells us in the last words of her song that “the myth of Ahasuerus is only an echo of the endless tide of Time; a better Scald will come and tell the meaning of that other pilgrimage.”

HELLER imitates Andersen in his poem, _The Wanderings of Ahasuerus_. In his introduction he says that Ahasuerus shall lead us through all nations to the modern world: from God becoming human to Humanity becoming God. In the first edition (1865) the poet did not bring his theme to its end. But in a later edition (1868) he continued his work, and leads his hero on to the days of Goethe. The conception and execution of his poem are exactly like those of Andersen, but Heller presents more historical details, and his ideas and suggestions are full of interest. His Ahasuerus is an adversary of Jesus, as one who does not comprehend his high mission and his own doctrine. A wealthy shoemaker, his workshop full of workmen, he is ugly and deformed; his wife, however, is beautiful. He is an old schoolfellow of the new prophet, who in former days has often been protected by him when people asked him tauntingly his father’s name. Ahasuerus’s own son bears the name of Jesus. But now Ahasuerus calls Jesus an adventurer, who had always been a favourite of women, on account of his fine looks. He says Jesus has learned the black art in Egypt, which enables him to win the multitude with miracles; that he misleads poor fishermen to leave their work and homes; that he poisons the pure fountain of the Bible, deriving from it that he is the Son of Man. He, Ahasuerus, will unmask this dangerous impostor. So, when he is told by some children that a fine-looking man much like Jesus has sat down to take some rest at his door, he scornfully bids him move on, and not bring a curse upon his house by touching his threshold. Peter intervenes, but Ahasuerus laughs at him. Then Jesus rising, he answers, “Unhappy man! the feelings that so violently move thy heart come from a misled but believing mind. Sincere as is thy anger, even now thy heart is kind. If thou couldst only understand me, no one would shed his blood for me like thou. The time will come when thou shalt know me. Until the day when all the world shall have accepted Christianity thou shalt wander through the earth with thy people, spared by Death. Nations shall come and go, but ye shall remain until the day of the last trumpet.”

Ahasuerus re-enters his house speechless. On the day of the Passover, Saul comes to him, and is told what happened. He declares Jesus one of those fanatics who rise everywhere and disappear like meteors; the streets of Rome are crowded with them. “Men,” says Saul, “are bending under the burthen of their sins and long for forgiveness, which they do not find in their Ancient Law. Love, the only thing that brings release, must be delivered from the chains of the old institutions.” Unconsciously, Saul is already of the new belief, and is soon after formally converted. Peter and James try to convert Ahasuerus also, but they succeed only in engaging him to hear Saul, now Paul, who preaches in Athens of Christ’s resurrection. Ahasuerus finds out that this doctrine is not in the Scriptures: Paul must be deceived. He returns to Jerusalem, in his old disbelief. Jerusalem is conquered, destroyed; Ahasuerus joins in the combat; at length all whom he has loved are buried, he leaves the ancient city in ruins: his wanderings begin.

We find him again, with other fugitive Jews, in a cavern, gathered about an old Rabbi. They mourn for Jerusalem, but their master reminds them of the Law; he exhorts them to adhere firmly to that--it is stronger than that of Christ’s apostles, which is sealed only by a man, not by God. As Jewish apostles they go forth into the world. The war begins between Paganism, Christianity, and Judaism. Ahasuerus tries to win over the pagans, to bring back those that turn apostate. The wild movements and anomalies of the world gradually lead Ahasuerus to the hope of a kingdom not of this world. He is now seen longing for Jesus; he flies the noisy world and arrives at the Lake of Tiberias. There Christ appears to him, and Ahasuerus implores forgiveness. He has already lost something of his rigid Jewish faith. When Constantine has become a Christian, and when Rome falls, he believes that his new idea will be realised: but no, straightway begin the disputes of Christian sects. Ahasuerus turns his back on the contending Gnostics, Simonians, Arians, and the rest, and comes to the desert, where he finds Anthony, the hermit. Anthony has delivered himself from the world and its controversies to find peace amid nature. They exchange their experiences and thoughts. Ahasuerus acknowledges that Christ’s doctrine has spread a kingdom of love over the earth, but that his great work has been degraded to a mere fable. “I did not find the kingdom of God, but of men. Here I will rest until some Angel wakes me from my dream to begin once more my earthly pilgrimage.” Anthony has the same faith; he will struggle on patiently and imitate the life that was so full of suffering and love. Henceforth the two live together in a long brotherhood.

This was the end of Heller’s first edition. In the second he enlarged and transformed the entire poem. He separates the whole in three different wanderings. He calls the first, which we have already described, _Ahasuerus’s Error of Faith_; the second, _Picture of the Universe_; the third, _Humanity_. During his first pilgrimage, Ahasuerus moves still in the restricted horizon of a Pharisee, but he loses much of that in his intellectual intercourse with Anthony. In his second pilgrimage, although the whole scene of history lies open before him, he persists still in his hope of a coming Messias. At last he doubts that his hope will ever be realised; he frees himself from his rigid belief. The discovery of the New World, the invention of typography, and the Reformation, he now regards as contributing to a free evolution of mankind, leading to the only true religion: Humanity. Ahasuerus, like Faust, sees in this the high destiny of mankind. History unfolds itself before Man; he moves after it, observing, investigating, looking forward to the fulfilment of his desire. The movement of mankind over the Old World goes on; new gods replace the old; contrasts of all kinds meet together--nowhere is room for God’s empire of peace. Mohammed, too, is not the right prophet. Under Charlemagne and Leo the empire of God’s majesty on earth is founded, but this is not the real empire of God for which Ahasuerus looks. Besides, it does not prove to be everlasting. Priesthood, to which all nations blindly submit, degenerates; whilst in Germany, under the Saxon emperors strong conventional worldly power arises. Then a new Messias seems to appear in Hildebrand, this monk so possessed of worldly wisdom; but his empire is only maintained by the strong reins of obedience, not by love. The Crusades do not satisfy Ahasuerus. New persons come before us, one forming a contrast to the other. Jehuda Levita, who praises the sublime inheritance of Adam against the “original sin” of Christendom; then the pious buffoon, Francis d’Assisi, contrasting with Tannhäuser, whom Ahasuerus meets in Rome, and whose longing for the fresh and natural world of his heathen land, amid the helpless ossification of the Christian priesthood, he can well understand; Dante, who tries at least to harmonise the contrasts in poetry; Rienzi, a political fool, who makes a step backwards into the old Roman time; Huss, who, a second saviour, a martyr of the old pure Christian doctrine, expires on the pyre.

Then Ahasuerus begins to doubt of the duration of God’s empire. When he sees how Christ is always vanquished, and has now been crucified so often, a deep melancholy overcomes him; he longs for death, he is disgusted with seeing the world any longer. Then Faust appears to him, his congenial brother; Faust, the realist, who enjoys the life and liberty given to him, who, though a true friend of Christendom, does not join the theological disputes, but with a happy mind prefers the fresh hearts of the people to the musty churches with their endless supplications. With Faust’s appearance a change of mind comes over Ahasuerus. Both have still a third mythical brother, the Spaniard, Don Juan. Ahasuerus, the first-born, is continually occupied with the highest problems; he takes no notice of life, and awaits the day when his faith will be one with that of Jesus. In sharp contrast with this, the Spaniard enjoys life and its pleasures, with all his natural enthusiasm. Between these two, as a mediator, stands Faust, susceptible of high and noble things as of the pleasures of the world. He opens Ahasuerus’ heart to the love of humanity; he teaches his dim eyes to look around him in the world; he shows him all the productions of industry and art. In his house he shows him the wonders and first performances of typography; he leads him to magnificent Florence, residence of the Medicis; and, escaping the Spanish Inquisition, they voyage with Columbus to America. Ahasuerus, who until now thought the earth to be miserable and small, wishes to remain on it.

In the third part of the poem, Ahasuerus leaves the New World and returns to the Old, to follow there the evolution of human thought. He goes to Rome, and rejoices to see the flourishing state of sciences and arts; he finds there the great master, Raphael, who exalts Christianity into Humanity. There also he meets Luther, who, beholding the corruptions of the Church, conceives the idea of the Reformation.

ROBERT HAMERLING is the last German poet who has paid his respects to our myth. The hero of his poem, _Ahasuerus in Rome_ (1867), however, is Nero, and not Ahasuerus. The latter is only, as by Klingemann and Horn, a kind of Nemesis in the piece, a supernatural power intervening in human actions. He presents a sharp contrast with Nero, who resembles Faust in his immense love of life, whilst Ahasuerus has come to Rome longing for death. He intends to accomplish Nero’s fate, for in spite of their different natures, their mission is the same; both are fulfilling and advancing the evolution of mankind. Especially in a place where the decayed past struggles with new forms of life, history needs such Titans of destruction as Nero, in order to hasten the crisis of events and advance human progress. Ahasuerus therefore makes Nero his unconscious instrument; he pushes him on and on in his monstrous attempts. The supposed god, who can only operate by destruction, Ahasuerus treats as the indestructible, and by this very faith prepares the way of Nero’s humiliation. Ahasuerus animates Nero to burn Rome, and swings the first torch; but he comes himself unharmed out of the flames, spared by the fire, to show Nero that there is still something on earth which to destroy is beyond his power; something like a phœnix rising out of ashes--the immortal humanity. For a moment Nero thinks himself equal to this new adversary. “I, too,” he cries, “am indestructible: life in me is firmly anchored: nothing can ever change me! I am I! I cope with you: our combat will show if my intellectual indestructibility balances not thy bodily indestructibility!”

Ahasuerus accepts the combat with the certainty that the hour of death has come for Nero. It arrives in the curse of satiety and disgust which overcomes Nero. He has enjoyed the pleasures of earth, and Olympus; they have no more for him; only one thing further remains for him--Hades. By force of magic he summons the dead; his own victims start up before him, and, smitten with horror, he falls. Now, forsaken by his favourites and subjects, Nero escapes at the hand of the only one remaining--a devoted German--under the secret guidance of Ahasuerus, into the catacombs. He there finds a congregation of Christians, his mortal enemies. He offers his head to their revenge, and is told that they do not know such a sensation, that their hearts obey the law of love, a law which did not exist for him, because he did not feel anything above him, whither he could look with a longing eye. For the first time Nero finds a God who, instead of being worshipped and feared is beloved. He also understands that not pleasure but pain saves the world, and cries: “I see that the ever-creating womb of the human Mind is not exhausted! The outworn world falls to dust: the human heart ever brings it forth anew.” Thus Nero pronounces the inner secret of the Ahasuerus-myth (according to this poem). And although unable to submit to the new doctrine, he consecrates himself to the god of the infernal world, exchanging his longing for life with the ardent longing for death, according to Ahasuerus’ prophecy. Ahasuerus himself appears in the hour of his adversary’s death among the Christians, and the poet, in an original conception, makes him assume towards the end of his poem a gigantic shape.

According to this, Ahasuerus, who once despised Jesus, was already on earth since time immemorial. For he is the first-born of the unborn, the first of the created beings; he is the first child of man, the first rebel, Cain, the murderer of his brother. Ahasuerus first brought Death into the world, who now at the same time rewards and punishes him by sparing him.

It is greatly to be regretted that the great brain which carried the legend of _Faust_ to such noble fruit did not fulfil its design of giving poetic expression to that of the Wandering Jew. In his _Dichtung und Wahrheit_, GOETHE has sketched the design of this unwritten poem. A clever shoemaker with whom he once lodged in Dresden was to be a model for Ahasuerus. The shoemaker of Jerusalem was to be a character; in his open workshop he talks with passers-by, and, after the Socratic fashion, touches up everyone in his own way. Even Pharisees and Sadducees like to talk with him, and Jesus with his disciples often stop there. The shoemaker is a firm secularist, but he feels a special affection for Jesus, whom he tries to persuade to give up his visions, and leave off drawing people away from their work into the wilderness. Jesus, on the other hand, tries to persuade his friend to his way of thinking. When Jesus has become a public character, Ahasuerus warns him that tumult will follow, and that he (Jesus) will have to place himself at the head of a party. Finally, when things have gone their course, Judas rushes into the shoemaker’s shop, in despair, declaring that in endeavouring to hasten his master’s triumph he had only ruined him. Ahasuerus is in great excitement about his friend, and when he sees him passing his door reminds him of his warnings. Jesus does not answer, but just then the loving Veronica covers his face with a napkin, on which, as she raises it, Ahasuerus sees depicted the features of Christ, not as a sufferer, but transfigured and radiant. As he turns he hears the words: ‘Over the earth shalt thou wander till thou shalt once more see me in this form!’ When the shoemaker comes to himself he finds that everyone has gone to the execution. Through the empty streets he moves, and begins his wanderings.

The way in which Goethe would have dealt with the theme is indicated by the fact he elsewhere mentions, that he had meant to bring Ahasuerus to a meeting with Spinoza. It will be seen, however, in this chapter, that a number of the best pens which have dealt with this subject have been spiritually moved by Goethe.

XVI.

THE NEW AHASUERUS IN FRANCE.

In the year 1833 Edgar Quinet published his “Mystery” entitled _Ahasuerus_. It seems an amazing fact that a work of this importance should never have been translated into English. It was well appreciated in France, and was the subject of the excellent review (_Revue des Deux Mondes_, Dec., 1833) which has already been referred to in this work. It is an epic in prose. Amid the stately Miltonic forms of Biblical and other mythology, and through a mist of mysticism, may be seen Edgar Quinet himself bent under the doom of turning the faith of his childhood, the illusions of all he loved, into mere conventionalised foliations of a frame around the reality of a creature moving about amid worlds for ever dead.

His early faith having suffered what he fondly hoped might prove to be transient eclipse, he started upon those restless journeyings through Europe and the East, which were still less restless than his spiritual wanderings; but at no point could he see any faintest arc of a sun returning from its eclipse. The old light had for ever gone down. As he wandered there arose before him this other self, this doomed Ahasuerus. Through ten years he was writing it; it was written, he has told us, on foot, on horseback, in the gondola, at sea; in cathedrals of Germany, basilicas of Rome, in the convent of Bron, in the villas of Naples, and the almshouses of Morea. “Its aim is to reproduce some scenes of the universal tragedy played between God, Man, and the World.” In the end Quinet married a German lady, Rachel by name, who appears in his dramatic epic also as the saviour of Ahasuerus.

The work is divided into four “Days,” with three interludes, a prologue, and an epilogue. The first day is “The Creation;” the second, “The Passion,” discussed by the devils as a rather poor comedy. Ahasuerus appears in this second “Day.” He is seated on his bench in an open door as Jesus passes with his cross, followed by a crowd which praises Barabbas and Pilate. Ahasuerus believes Jesus a magician, and when he says, “Is it thou, Ahasuerus?” the latter says, “I know thee not.” “I thirst; give me a little water from thy spring.” “My well is empty.” “Reach thy cup--thou wilt find it full.” “It is broken.” “Help me to bear my cross along this hard path?” “I am not thy cross-porter; call a griffin from the desert.” “Let me sit on thy bench at thy house door?” “My bench is full; there is no room for another.” “On thy threshold?” “It is empty, but the door is shut and bolted.” “Touch it, and you can enter to get a stool.” “Go thy way!” “If thou wilt, thy bench may become a golden seat in the house of my Father.” “Go, blaspheme where thou wilt! Thou hast already withered with thy footsteps my vine and fig-tree; do not set foot on my stairway, it will crumble under thy speech. Thou wouldst bewitch me.” “I wish to save thee.” “Diviner, leave my shadow! Thy road is before thee. March, march!” “Why hast thou said that, Ahasuerus? It is thou who shalt march, even till the Last Judgment, more than a thousand years. Go take thy sandals and travelling raiment; wherever thou passest thou shalt be known as the Wandering Jew. It is thou who shalt find no seat whereon to rest, no mountain-spring to slake thy thirst. In my place thou shalt bear the burthen which I leave on the cross. For thy thirst thou shalt drink what I have left at the bottom of my cup. Others shall take my coat, thou shalt inherit my eternal pain. Hyssop shall germinate in thy staff, wormwood increase in thy leather bottle; despair shall cling as the leather girdle about thy loins. Thou shalt be the man that dies not. Thy age shall be mine. To see thee pass the eagles shall perch on their barn. The little birds shall half hide themselves under the crest of the rocks. The star shall bend beneath the cloud to watch thy tears falling drop by drop in the abyss. I go to Golgotha; thou shalt journey on from ruins to ruins, from kingdoms to kingdoms, without finding thy Calvary.”

This is about half of the sentence pronounced upon Ahasuerus. A hand had written on his house, “The Wandering Jew.” Ahasuerus finds himself alone, and calls for Jesus to return; he would speak only one word more! After his sad soliloquy the angel Michael appears, and bids him travel onward. Ahasuerus enters his house once more and attempts to rest and eat with his father and children, but he cannot; he must go, despite their pleadings.

After a long and pathetic farewell to his family and his home, Ahasuerus passes out to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Here, he says, he would build his hut upon the rock could he only find some water. The Valley bids him journey on: “I have neither well nor cistern; those who dwell in my vale never thirst.” “Where are thy date-trees planted?” “I have none. They who sojourn in my hill never hunger.” “Find in thy brushwood some herb to heal this wound in my heart, which is like a point of iron?” “My simples heal all pains, but not that of the heart in which a thorn rests.”

After much converse the Valley bids him adieu. “Talk no more where the dead sleep. I am silent.” After that, whatever Ahasuerus says, Echo alone replies. His requests are successively in the words Jesus had addressed to him at his door, and Echo repeats his own refusals.