The Wandering Jew

The Wandering Jew is a figure in Christian mythology, a Jewish man who, according to the legend, struck Jesus along the way to the Crucifixion and was cursed to walk the earth until the time of the Second Coming.

The exact nature of the wanderer varies in different versions of the story, as do the aspects of his character; sometimes he is said to be a shoemaker or a merchant, other times the keeper of Pontius Pilate's palace, or a Roman rather than a Jew.
While some interpreters see the "Wandering Jew" as a metaphorical personification of the Jewish people's Diaspora, others view him as the pretext for the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Titus, holding the Jewish people responsible for the Crucifixion. A more allegorical perspective, however, argues that the "Wandering Jew" represents any individual who realizes the error of his wickedness, just as the mockery of the Passion symbolizes humanity's coldness toward other human beings.
In some versions of the tale, Ahasuerus is an official of the Sanhedrin (a council of Jewish priests); in others, he is simply a shoemaker with a brusque character. Whatever his origins, all versions of his story agree that the Wandering Jew soon repented of his sins and was baptized into Catholicism. He aged normally until the age of one hundred, after which he lost his skin and rejuvenated to the age of thirty. The Middle Ages are filled with sightings of the Wandering Jew, usually while he recounts his story in exchange for a simple meal and a small room, sometimes even with proofs of authenticity from local professors and people in the academic world.

Throughout Europe, encounters with the Wandering Jew have been reported; during the Middle Ages, he was seen in Armenia, Poland, Moscow, and, practically without exception, in the cities of Western Europe, including London.
Starting in the 19th century, sightings of the Wandering Jew were largely attributed to impostors and madmen.
In 1840, he reappeared in New England, though this time only in literary form, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories A Virtuoso's Collection and A Select Party (both first published in magazines and later collected in Mosses from an Old Manse, 1846).
In these stories, Hawthorne abandons the traditional depiction of the Wandering Jew as a repentant, world-weary figure, instead portraying him as a cynical and coarse character.
At the same time, Gustave Doré created a series of fine woodcuts, The Legend of the Wandering Jew (1856), perhaps the most elegant representation of the traditional myth.

The character first appears in writings from the 13th century:
- An anonymous chronicle by a Cistercian monk from the Abbey of Santa Maria di Ferraria in the Kingdom of Naples reports that in 1223, foreigners passed through the monastery who had encountered a Jew (quendam Judaeum) in Armenia. After mocking Jesus, the Jew was said to have been told by Christ: "I go, and you will wait for me until my return" (ego vado et tu expectabis me donec revertar).
- In Flores Historiarum by Roger de Wendover, it is narrated that in 1228, an Armenian archbishop visited Saint Alban. When asked about a certain Joseph, often spoken of by the people (de Joseph, viro illo, de quo frequens sermo habetur inter homines), who was said to still be alive after witnessing the Passion of Jesus, the archbishop claimed to know him. His name was Cartaphilus, the doorkeeper of the praetorium during the time of Pontius Pilate (Cartaphilus, praetorii ostiarius). After the Passion of Christ, Cartaphilus is said to have converted and was baptized with the name Joseph.
- A 13th-century rhymed chronicle by Philippe Mouskes, Archbishop of Tournai, also recounts similar events, attributed to bishops from Armenia.