famous imposter 13

famous imposter 13

Joseph, it must be borne in mind, is the Wandering Jew, once Cartaphilus, who had

kept Pilate’s judgment-hall. Then Matthew himself takes up the story

and gives what professes to be the _ipsissima verba_ of the servant as

to the conversation between Christ and Cartaphilus which culminated in

the terrible doom pronounced on the janitor who, from the showing, did

not seem a whit worse than any of the crowd present on that momentous

day in Jerusalem. When Jesus, wearied already with carrying the great

cross, leaned for a moment against the wall of the house of Cartaphilus

just opposite the Judgment-hall the official said:

 

“‘Vade Jesu citius, vade, quid moraris?’ et Jesus severo vultu et

oculo respiciens eum, dixit: ‘Ego vado. Expectabis donec veniam.’”

 

Now this is the whole and sole foundation of the individual Wandering

Jew. I say “individual” because there were before long other variants,

and many old beliefs and fables were appropriated and used to back up

the marvellous story, invented by the Armenian servant and recorded

by the learned monk, Matthew. Amongst these beliefs were those

which taught that John the Baptist never died; that the aloe blooms

only once in a hundred years; and that the phœnix renews itself in

fire. It is the tendency of legendary beliefs to group or nucleate

themselves as though there were a conscious and intentional effort at

self-protection; and this, together with the natural human tendency to

enlarge and elaborate an accepted idea, is responsible for much. The

legend started in the thirteenth century, took root and flourished, and

in the very beginning of the seventeenth a variant blossomed. In this

Joseph, originally Cartaphilus, became Ahasuerus. In the long pause the

story, after the manner of all things of earth, had grown, details not

being lacking. The world was informed through the Bishop of Schleswig,

how in 1547, at Hamburg, a man was seen in the Cathedral who arrested

attention--why we are not told. He was about fifty years of age, of

reverend manner, and dressed in ragged clothes; he bowed low at the

name of Christ. Many of the nobility and gentry who saw him recognised

him as one whom they had already seen in various places--England,

France, Italy, Hungary, Persia, Spain, Poland, Moscow, Lieffland,

Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, &c. Inquiry being made of him, he told the

Bishop that he was Ahasuerus the shoe-maker of Jerusalem, who had been

present at the Crucifixion and had ever since been always wandering.

He was well posted in history, especially regarding the lives and

sufferings of the Apostles, and told how, when he had directed Christ

to move on, the latter had answered: “I will stand here and rest, but

thou shalt move on till the last day.” He had been first seen, we are

told, at Lubeck.

 

It is strange that in an age of religious domination many of the

legends of Our Saviour seem to have been based on just such intolerant

anger at personal slight as might have ruled a short-tempered,

vain man. For instance look at one of the Christ legends which was

reproduced in poor Ophelia’s distracted mind apropos of the owl, “They

say, the owl was a baker’s daughter.” The Gloucestershire legend runs

that Christ having asked for bread at baking time the mistress of the

bakery took dough from the oven, but her daughter having remonstrated

as to the size of the benefaction was turned into an owl. The penalty

inflicted on the erring janitor of the Presidium is another instance.

 

The “Wandering Jew” legend once started, was hard to suppress. The

thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were the ages

of Jew-baiting in the kingdoms of the West, and naturally the stories

took their colour from the prevailing idea.

 

In 1644, Westphalus learned from various sources that the Wandering Jew

healed diseases, and that he had said he was at Rome when it was burned

by Nero; that he had seen the return of Saladin after his Eastern

Conquests; that he had been in Constantinople when Salimen had built

the royal mosque; that he knew Tamerlane the Scythian, and Scander

Beg, Prince of Epirus; that he had seen Bajazet carried in a cage by

Tamerlane’s order; that he remembered the Caliphs of Babylon and of

Egypt, the Empire of the Saracens, and the Crusades where he had known

Godfrey de Bouillon. Amongst other things he seems to have apologised

for not seeing the Sack of Jerusalem, because he was at that time in

Rome at the Court of Vespasian.

 

The Ahasuerus version of the Wandering Jew legend seems to have been

the popular one amongst the commonalty in England. As an instance

might be quoted the broad-sheet ballad of 1670. It is not without even

historical significance as it marks the measure of the time in many

ways. It is headed: “The Wandering Jew, or the Shoemaker of Jerusalem

who lived when Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was crucified

appointed by Him to live until Coming again. Tune, _The Lady’s Fall_

&c. Licens’d and Enter’d according to order.” The imprint runs:

“Printed by and for W. O. and sold by the Booksellers of Pyecorner and

London-Bridge.”

 

A century and a half later--1828--was published a much more pretentious

work on the same theme. This was a novel written by Rev. George Croly.

It was called: “Salathiel: a Story of the Past, the Present, the

Future.” It was published anonymously and had an immediate and lasting

success. It was founded on historical lines, the author manifestly

benefiting by the hints afforded by the work of that consummate liar

(in a historical sense) Westphalus--or his informant. Croly was

a strange man with a somewhat abnormal faculty of abstraction. I

used to hear of him from my father who was a friend of his about a

hundred years ago. Being of gentle nature he did not wish to cause

any pain or concern to his family or dependents; but at the same

time he, as a writer, had to guard himself against interruption and

consequent digression of his thoughts during the times he set apart

for imaginative work. So he devised a scheme which might often be

put in practice with advantage by others similarly employed. When

settling down to a spell of such work--which as every creative

writer knows involves periods of mental abstraction though of bodily

restlessness--he would stick an adhesive wafer on his forehead. The

rule of the house was that when he might be adorned in this wise no one

was to speak to him, or even notice him, except under special necessity.

 

The great vogue of _Salathiel_ lasted some ten or more years, when

the torch of the Wandering Jew was lighted by Eugene Sue the French

novelist who had just completed in the _Débats_ his story “Les Mystères

de Paris.” As its successor he chose the theme adopted by Croly, and

the new novel _Le Juif-Errant_ ran with overwhelming success in the

_Constitutionnel_.

 

Sue was what in modern slang is called “up to date.” He knew every

trick and dodge of the world of advertisement, and in conjunction

with his editor, Dr. Veron, he used them all. But he had good wares

to exploit. His novels are really excellent, though the changes in

social life and in religious, political and artistic matters, which

took place between 1844 and 1910, make some things in them seem out of

date. His great imagination, and his firm and rapid grasp of salient

facts susceptible of being advantageously used in narrative, pointed

out to him a fresh road. It was not sufficient to the hour and place

that Cartaphilus--or Joseph--or Ahasuerus, or Salathiel or whatever he

might be called--should purge his sin by his personal sufferings alone.

In the legend, up to then accepted, he had long ago repented; so to

increase the poignancy of his sufferings, Sue took from the experience

of his own time a means of embittering the very inmost soul of such an

one. He must be made to feel that his existence is a curse not only to

himself but to all the world. To this end he attached to the Wanderer

the obligation of carrying a fell disease. The quick brain of the great

_feuilletonist_ seized the dramatic moment for utilising the occasion.

A dozen years before, the frightful spread of the cholera, which had

once again wrought havoc, woke the whole world to new terror. Some one

of uneasy mind who found diversion in obscure comparisons, noted from

the records of the disease that its moving showed the same progress in

a given direction as a man’s walking. A hint was sufficient for the

public who eagerly seized the idea that the Wandering Jew had, from the

first recorded appearance of the cholera, been the fated carrier of

that dreaded pestilence. The idea seemed to be a dramatic inspiration

and had prehensile grasp. Great as had been the success of the

_Mysteries of Paris_, that of _The Wandering Jew_ surpassed it, and for

half a century the new novel kept vividly before its readers the old

tradition, and so brought it down to the present.

 

We may now begin to ask ourselves who and where in this great deception

was the impostor. Who was the guilty one? And at first glance we

are inclined to say “There is none! Whatever the error, mistake,

deception, or false conclusion, there has been no direct guilt.” This

is to presuppose that guilt is of conscious premeditation; and neither

intention of evil nor consciousness of guilt is apparent. In legal

phrase the _mens rea_ is lacking.

 

It is a purely metaphysical speculation whether guilt is a necessary

element of imposition. One is an intellectual experience, the other is

an ethical problem; and if we are content to deal with responsibility

for another’s misdoing, the question of the degree of blameworthiness

is sufficient. Let us try a process of exclusions. The complete list of

those who had a part in the misunderstanding regarding the myth of the

Wandering Jew, leaving out the ostensible fictionists, were:

 

The Abbot of St. Albans, the Archbishop of Armenia, the interpreter,

the Archbishop’s servant, the monks or laybrothers who singly or in

general conversed with any of the above; and finally Matthew Paris who

recorded the story in its various phases. Of these we must except from

all blame both the Abbot of St. Albans and the Archbishop of Armenia,

both of whom were good grave men of high character and to each of whom

had been entrusted matters of the highest concern. The interpreter

seems to have only fulfilled his office with exactitude; if in any way

or part he used his opportunity to impose on the ignorance of the host

or the guest there is no record, no suggestion of it. Matthew Paris

was a man of such keenness of mind, of such observation and of such

critical insight, that even to-day, after a lapse of over five hundred

years, and the withstanding of all the tests of a new intellectual

world which included such inventions as printing and photography, he

is looked upon as one of the ablest of chroniclers. Moreover he put no

new matter nor comments of his own into the wonderful and startling

narratives which he was called on to record. He even hints at or infers

his own doubt as to the statements made. The monks, servants and others

mentioned generally, were merely credulous, simple people of the time,

with reverence for any story regarding the _Via Dolorosa_, and respect or awe for those in high places.