Wandering Jew, the
Wandering Jew, the,a Jew condemned to wander about the world until Christ's second coming because, according to the legend, as Christ bore the cross to Calvary the Jew chid him, and urged him to go faster.
A pamphlet was published in Leiden in 1602 , relating that Paulus von Eizen, bishop of Schleswig, had in 1542 met a man named Ahasuerus, who declared that he was the Jew in question. The story, which had previously flourished in Spain and Italy, became popular, and many instances of the Wandering Jew are recorded from the 16th to the 19th cents.
But a somewhat similar story is told much earlier by Roger of Wendover , in his Flores Historiarum. An Armenian archbishop visited England in 1228 , and, while being entertained at St Albans, was asked if he had ever seen or heard of Joseph, who was present at the Crucifixion, and was said to be still alive, as a testimony to the Christian faith. The prelate replied that the man...
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