Part 2
“He relates many remarkable passages of Soliman the Magnificent, whereof our histories are silent, and says he was in Constantinople when Soliman built that royal mosque which goes by his name. He knew Tamerlane the Scythian, and told me he was so called because he halted on one leg. He pretends also to have been acquainted with Scander-Beg, the valiant and fortunate Prince of Epirus. He seemed to pity the insupportable calamity of Bajazet, whom he had seen carried about in a cage by Tamerlane’s order. He accuses the Scythian of too barbarous an insult on the unfortunate Sultan. He remembers the ancient Caliphs of Babylon and Egypt, the empire of the Saracens, and the wars in the Holy Land. He highly extols the valour and conduct of the renowned Godfrey de Bouillon. He gives an accurate account of the rise, progress, establishment and subversion of the Mamelukes in Egypt. He says he has washed himself in the two head-springs of the river Nile, which arise in the southern part of Æthiopia. That its increase is occasioned by the great rains in Æthiopia, which swell all the rivers that fall into the Nile, and cause that vast inundation to discover whose origin has so much puzzled philosophy. He says that the river Ganges in India is broader and deeper than the Nile; that the river Niger in Africa is longer by some hundreds of miles; and that he can remember a time when the river Nile overflowed not till three months after the usual season.
“Having professed himself an universal traveller, and that there was no corner of the earth where he had not been present, I began to comfort myself with the hopes of some news from the Ten Tribes of Israel that were carried into captivity by Salmanasar, King of Assyria, and could never be heard of since. I asked him several questions concerning them, but found no satisfactory answer. Only, he told me that in Asia, Africa, and Europe he had taken notice of a sort of people who (though not Jews in profession) yet retained some characteristics whereby one might discover them to be descended of that nation. In Livonia, Russia, and Finland he had met with people of languages distinct from that of the country, having a great mixture of Hebrew words; that these abstained from swine’s flesh, blood, and things strangled; that in their lamentations for the dead they always used these words: _Jeru, Jeru, Masco, Salem_. By which, he thought, they called to remembrance Jerusalem and Damascus, those two famous cities of Palestine and Syria. In the Circassians also he had traced some footsteps of Judaism: their customs, manner of life, feasts, marriages, and sacrifices being not far removed from the institutions of Mosaic Law. But, what is most remarkable, he said that he had conversed with professed Jews in the north part of Asia who never so much as heard of Jesus, the son of Mary, or of the revolutions of Judea after his death, the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, or any other matters wherewith all histories abound concerning that nation. He said, moreover, that these Jews had only the Pentateuch, not having heard of the rest of those Books which compose the greatest part of the Old Testament; and that this Pentateuch was written in a sort of Hebrew far different from that which is now commonly spoken by the rest of the Jews dispersed throughout the world. That the number of these Jews was infinite. And, finally, he thought that these (if any) were the true posterity of those Ten Captive Tribes.
“Having mentioned the destruction of Jerusalem, I asked him where he was at that time? He told me, in the Court of Vespasian at Rome; and that he had heard the emperor say, when he understood the Temple of Solomon was burnt to ashes, ‘he had rather all Rome had been set on fire.’ Here the old man fell a-weeping himself, lamenting the ruin of that noble structure, which he described to me as familiarly as if he had seen it but yesterday. He says that Josephus wrote partially of the seditions in the city, being related to one of the chief ringleaders, whom therefore he spared, being loth to stain the reputation of his own family to all posterity.
“I tell thee, sage Cheik, if this man’s pretences be true, he is so full of choice memoirs, and has been witness to so many grand transactions for the space of sixteen centuries of years, that he may not unfitly be called ‘A living Chronology,’ the ‘Protonotary of the Christians’ Hegira,’ or principal recorder of that which they esteem the last _epocha_ of the world’s duration. By his looks one would take him for a relic of the Old World, or one of the long-lived fathers before the Flood. To speak modestly, he may pass for the younger brother of Time.
“It would be endless to tell thee how many other discourses we had of his travels and memoirs; till, tired with his company, and judging all to be a cheat, I took my leave. I assure thee, he seems to be a man well versed in all histories, a great traveller, and one that affects to be counted an extraordinary person. The common people are ready to adore him; and the very fear of the multitude restrains the magistrates from offering any violence to this impostor.
“Live thou in the exercise of thy reason, which will not permit thee to be seduced into errors by the subtle insinuations of men. Continue to love Mahomet, who honours thee without a fiction.
“Paris, 4th of the 1st Moon of the Year 1644.”
* * * * *
In, or about, the year 1645 there was published in German at Augsburg the _Strange Report of a Jew who claims to have been present at the crucifixion, and to have been kept alive from that time. A theological warning to the Christian reader, illustrated and enlarged by trustworthy histories and examples._ On this book there is a picture representing a village, with trees; on the right the sun emerging from clouds; in the centre Jesus crowned with thorns, his arms stretched out; in front, the Wandering Jew kneeling with clasped hands, his hat and the Bible lying before him. On both sides, in horizontal line, runs the sentence: _From Chrysostomo Dudulæo Westphalo, written to his good friend_. On the back are some verses, the first two lines being in Latin:
“Nubibus in altis crucifixum cernit Jesum Asverus, dignum clamitat ante cruce.”
In 1681 there appeared a publication, written by Pastor J. Georg Hadeck: _Nathanieli Christiano. Relation concerning a hermit named Ahasuerus, a Jew who was present at the crucifixion, etc._
M. Magnin in an essay prefixed to the _Ahasuerus_ of Edgar Quinet (Paris edition of 1843, p. 24) says “In 1641 an Austrian baron, and in 1643 a physician returned from Palestine, related that a certain Turk had pointed out ‘Joseph’ to a Venetian nobleman named Bianchi. The poor Jew was then under close guard at the bottom of a crypt in Jerusalem; he was dressed in his ancient Roman costume, exactly that of the time of Christ. He did nothing but walk about the room without saying a word, and strike his hand against the wall, or sometimes his breast, to testify his sorrow for having struck the holy face of the Lord. I find these details in an anonymous German work of the middle of the 17th century, bearing the singular title of _Relation_, or _Brief account of two living witnesses of the Passion of our Saviour_.” This was no doubt a version of the work of Droscher, _De duobus testibus vivis passionis dominicæ_, Jena, 1688. M. Gaston Paris believes this to have been a tale suggested by the Matthew Paris Chronicle, printed in London in 1571, at Zurich in 1586.
An important work appeared with the following title: _Dissertatio historica de Judæo non mortali_, etc. _Certaminis publ. argum. f. Præs. Schultz. Regiom. Pruss. respondens Martin Schmid Slavio. Pomer._ A.D. _26 Jan. Ann. 1689_. This work contains a curious account of the Twelve Tribes, sent by a Jewish physician to his co-religionists in Mantua; also a “trustworthy” copy of the judgment which Pilate pronounced on Christ, stating his motives, subscribed by all members of his council and officers of the Sanhedrim; with the full Notes of the Prosecutor; these having been “found in a marble rock in the city of Aquila.” (This idea was used by A. W. Schlegel, in his romance on the subject.)
In 1697 a book was published at Wolffenbüttel, entitled _Description of a Hermit, a Jew_ (etc.), _who brings near the evidence of Joseph concerning Christ; the history of the death of Christ; the Letter of Lentulus to the Roman Council; the condemnation of Christ; history of the broken stone; Letter of Pilate to the Emperor Tiberias; of Pilate’s punishment said to have been inflicted on the Twelve Tribes of Israel for the crucifixion of Christ. With an addition concerning a Jew, a sorcerer, who gave himself out for the Messias. Collected out of respectable old histories and most trustworthy testimonies._
In the French language there was published at Bordeaux (1609) the _True History of the Wandering Jew taken from his own lips_. The legend seems hardly to have been known in Spain, and but little in Italy, at any early date. There was printed at Bruges (where the _Chronique rimée_ of Philippe de Mousket had prepared the soil for it) early in the seventeenth century (probably) a folkbook entitled _Wonderful History of the Wandering Jew, who since the year 33 to this time has only wandered_.
In the English language the only early story of the Wandering Jew, after that in the Chronicle of Matthew of Paris, is the ballad contained in _Percy’s Reliques_. This ballad is in black-letter in the Pepys’ collection; it follows the Hamburg legend, and was probably written early in the 17th century. That the legend was well known in England in the seventeenth century appears from a satire, in which it is utilised, without being narrated, entitled _The Wandering Jew telling Fortunes to Englishmen. A Jew’s Lottery._ _London_: printed by John Raworth, for Nathaniel Butter, 1640.
It should also be stated that there were a number of treatises written against the story, such as--1. _De duobus testibus vivis passionis Christi._ _Jena_, 1668 (written by S. Niemann); 2. _Meletea historia de Judæo immortali_, 1668 (written by J. Freutzel); 3. _Diss. hist. de Judæo non mortali_, 1689 (written by Martin Schmid). In the following century (1723) an anonymous pamphlet was printed, in Frankfort and Leipzig, “concerning the Immortal Jew, in which it is shown throughout that in the nature of things he never existed.” In 1756 was published C. Anton’s _Diss. in qua lepidam fabulam de Judæo immortali examinet_; followed by _An Alewife’s letter to Anton, that there is a Wandering Jew_. (Halle, 1756.)
This earlier bibliography of the Wandering Jew is mainly condensed from the most important work on the antiquarian features of the legend:--_Die Sage vom Ewigen Juden, historisch entwecklt mit verwandter Mythen verglichen und beleuchtet_. Von Dr. J. G. Th. Grässe. Dresden u. Leipzig, 1844.
In following Grässe, M. Schœbel (_La legende du Juif Errant_, Paris, 1877), and M. Gaston Paris (_Le Juif Errant_, Paris, 1880) have added important points and criticisms.
From the various books mentioned are gathered the following notes:
S. Grosse (in his “History of Leipzig”) says that the Wandering Jew appeared there as a beggar in 1642, and accepted gifts, some of high value. Other traditions report that he refused presents.
It is a tradition of Matterberge, under the Matterhorn, that formerly a great city stood there; and it is said that when the Wandering Jew first came there he said: “When I come again I shall find a forest where now are houses; and when I come the third time all will be snow and ice: and this has been fulfilled.”
It is said that at Naumburg (Thuringia) he could neither sit nor stand still. Even when listening to a sermon he was always moving. He said he had “no rest by day or night, and was kept alive without food or drink, sleep or rest, for many years in a miraculous manner.” It is said that, in 1640, two citizens of Brussels, walking in a wood, met a grey old man, in shabby and antique garb. They invited him to an inn, where he drank with them, standing. Before leaving, he told them of things that happened centuries before. They gathered that he was Isaac Laquedem, the Jew who forbade his Lord to rest at his door, and left him in terror.
The presence in England of a man pretending to be the Wandering Jew is stated in a letter of Madame de Mazarin to Madame de Bouillon (Calmet, _Dict. de la Bible_, ii. 472). In England he assumed the character of one who had been an official of high rank in Jerusalem. His statements to the English noblemen and University professors who conversed with him (many of whom believed his story) were so precisely those which were given to the Turkish Spy in Paris that there is no need to reproduce them here. It is probable that the same man had journeyed from Paris to England, as it is difficult to believe that two such clever and learned impostors could appear at the same time.
It is notable that an account of the first appearance of a personal representative of the legend should only have been published more than fifty years (certainly) after his visit to Hamburg; and then just after the death of the witness said to have conversed with him, Paul of Eizen. This prelate was born at Hamburg, 1522, and died in 1598. His alleged testimonies to the Wandering Jew were reported subsequently by the pseudonymous Duduläus. It is further remarkable that in the story as told by Duduläus, already given, nothing is said of a _blow_ dealt Jesus by Ahasuerus. He evidently desires to soften the story for the Wandering Jew, and adduce him as a witness to the Christian legend. He tries in one of his pamphlets to recommend the story to sceptics by relating another of three pious miners of Bohemia, who fell into a pit at Kuttenberg. They remained there for seven years, their provisions and lamp holding out miraculously. One prayed that he might again see the light of day; another, that he might once more eat with his family; the third, that he might live one more year with his wife and children. The prayers were answered, but each died suddenly immediately after his wish was fulfilled.
The _animus_ of the revival of the legend is shown by instances in which the Jews’ quarters were invaded under rumours that they were concealing the Wanderer.
II.
THE UNDYING ONES.
The myth of the Wandering Jew belongs, essentially, to a class which has great antiquity, and is found in every part of the world.
At a period before Animism had been embodied in clear conceptions of a life beyond the grave, the human heart and mind had to adapt themselves as well as they could to the King of Terrors, which destroyed the greatest as well as the humblest. The first that were ideally wrested from Death were saints and heroes; and it was necessary to find for these an earthly immortality. Many myths and legends of the undying ones are no doubt variants of each other; but they are found among races so separate in origin and history, that we may be content to find their common root in human nature. Men cannot bear to think that their leaders, heroes, saviours are really dead. They resolutely repel the unwelcome fact as long as they can. They easily credit any rumour that the reported death is some fiction of the enemy, or possibly a stratagem of their own party-leaders. It is said that after the death of General Jackson, a President of the United States, many democrats still voted for him at the following election, denouncing the report of his death as “another Whig lie.” The story if not true is _ben trovato_; and there are facts enough like it even in modern history. Sceptics were found in France who but slowly credited the tidings of the death of Napoleon III.: their transient suspicions were echoes of Beranger’s cry when he heard of the first Napoleon’s death: “God, I can scarce believe Thee without him!”[1]
It is recorded in the _Heimskringla_ that, after the death of King Odin, “the Swedes believed that he often showed himself to them before any great battle. To some he gave victory, others he invited to himself; and they reckoned both of these to be well off in their fate.” Thus, the Wild Huntsman began his career. This tendency in the popular mind was utilised by courtiers of the next popular monarch. This was Freyr, second monarch after Odin, who probably lived in the first century of our era, and built the great temple at Upsal. It is recorded: “Then began, in his days, the Frode-peace; and then there were good seasons in all the land, which the Swedes ascribed to Freyr, so that he was more worshipped than the other gods, as the people became much richer in his days by reason of the peace and good seasons.... Freyr fell into a sickness; and as his illness took the upper hand, his men took the plan of letting few approach him. In the meantime they raised a great mound, in which they placed a door with three holes in it. Now when Freyr died they bore him secretly into the mound, but told the Swedes he was alive; and they kept watch over him for three years. They brought all the taxes into the mound; and through the one hole they put in the gold, through the other the silver, and through the third the copper money that was paid. Peace and good seasons prevailed.... When it became known to the Swedes that Freyr was dead, and yet peace and good seasons continued, they believed that it must be so as long as Freyr remained in Sweden; and therefore they would not burn his remains, but called him the god of this world, and afterwards offered continually blood sacrifices to him, principally for peace and good seasons.”[2] Here we have one chapter in the genesis of these immortals. Men have been executed in Portugal for professing to be Sebastian returned. In the time of James II., country-people in England believed that Monmouth had not really died on the scaffold, but “would suddenly appear, would lead them on to victory, and would tread down the King and the Jesuits under his feet.”[3] Some believed him to be the Man in the Iron Mask.
On the death of King Arthur all hope of finding the Holy Graal seemed to vanish. On the “Morte d’Arthur” it is written: “This of King Arthur, I find no more written in my copy of the certainty of his death; but thus he was led away in a barge, wherein were three Queens; and one was King Arthur’s sister, Queen Morgan le Fay, and there was Nimue, the chief Lady of the Lake. More of the death of King Arthur, could I never find. But that ladies brought such a one unto burials, that he was buried here, that the hermit bare witness that sometime was Bishop of Canterbury and dwelled that time in a chapel beside Glastonbury. But yet the hermit knew not, of a certain, that it was verily the body of King Arthur. Some men yet say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had, by the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, into another place. And men say that he will come again, and he shall win the Holy Cross.”[4] That King Arthur is in the Vale of Avalon (of Apples) attended by fairies; that in some regions he has been found by shepherds slumbering, like Barbarossa, with his knights in a subterranean castle (at Sewingshields especially); that in others he has been seen, like Wodan, at the head of a ghostly hunt by night: these are legends found far and wide in British and Breton folklore. Tennyson makes Arthur repose in--
“The island-valley of Avilion Where falls not hail, nor rain, nor any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadowed, happy, fair, with orchard lawns, And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea.”
Germany has many corresponding myths, chief of which is that of Frederick I., or Barbarossa, believed to be sleeping under Raven’s Hill at Kaiserlautern, ready to come forth in the last emergency (or glory and unity) of his country. There, in his palace (or grotto) underground, a shepherd once found him surrounded by his sleeping knights, all in armour; the horses near by in harness. The red beard, which gave the hero his name, had grown through the stone table before him, and taken root in the floor. As the shepherd entered, Barbarossa awoke and asked:
“Are the ravens still flying round the hill?”
“Yes.”
“Then must I sleep another hundred years.”
On the evening when the present Emperor of Germany had reviewed his troops, after his late war with France, this legend was represented before him in a series of marvellous tableaux which I witnessed. In the last it was shown that the hour had arrived for Frederick the Red Beard to come forth, and it need hardly be said that he bore a striking resemblance to the Emperor William. In some regions it is said that Frau Holda stands beside the slumbering Barbarossa: this may have helped to give us our familiar variant _The Sleeping Beauty_.
It is said that after Pope Paschal III. had made Charlemagne a saint, Otho III. (anno 997) opened that Emperor’s tomb and found him seated on his throne, with his crown, imperial robe, and sceptre, and on his knees a copy of the Gospels. Beside him was his sword Joyeuse, and his pilgrim’s pouch. So Charlemagne was added to the list of holy sleepers.
In another work I have spoken of these Sleepers, and also of the Wanderers.[5] The list of such, too long to be given here, includes Tell, in Switzerland; Boabdil of Spain; Sebastian of Portugal; Olger Dansk; Thomas of Ercildoune, and many another, down to such præternatural if not perpetual sleepers as Rip Van Winkle, and the Abbot Cormac of Killarney, who listened two hundred years to the singing of a nightingale. The Abbot had doubted if he would not find the singing of heaven tiresome; he supposed he had listened to the bird a few moments only in the wood, but returned to find all changed. The legend has inspired one of Allingham’s beautiful ballads, “The Abbot of Inisfalen.” Herodotus (iv. 94) relates the tale of Zalmoxis, the Thracian, who, disgusted with the uncivilised life around him, had a subterranean hall built and there resided. Some presently believed that Zalmoxis never died; others regarded him as a god; and ultimately it became a custom of the Getans to despatch a messenger, every fifth year, to him, by hurling some man into the air and catching him on javelins. If the victim dies Zalmoxis is propitious. Plutarch relates a story similar to this (De Defect. Orac.), as told by one Cleombrotus, concerning an Oriental personage who appeared among his fellow-men only once a year. The rest of his life was passed among friendly nymphs and demons, and as these are said to have rendered him proof against disease it may be supposed that he was one of the undying.
Similar legends are indeed found among the aboriginal races of North America. Such heroes as Booin (Nova Scotia) and Hiawatha were supposed never to have died. Booin was carried to a happy land inside a friendly whale, whom he compensated with the tobacco which the Micmacs still see smoking in the spout of that animal; and Hiawatha “sailed into the purple sunset.” To these good Indians migrate when they die. The Incas of Peru also were found believing that the founder of their kingdom never died, but would return to restore its ancient splendours. The Muyscas of Bogota relate that the first lawgiver of Bochica lived among their tribe 2000 years, then “withdrew,” and he is now known as Idacanzas.[6]