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THE WANDERING JEW. 77 |
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faith. The archbishop responded that the fact was indeed as reported, and one of his retinue added, that his master had personally known this extraordinary character, and had admitted him to his table only a short time before setting out for the West; that he had been porter to Pontius Pilate, and was named Cartaphilus ; that when the Jews were dragging Christ from the judgment-hall, he had struck him in the back with his fist, saying, " Go faster, Jesus: why dost thou tarry ? "—whereupon Christ turned to him and said, "I go, but thou shalt tarry till my coming." After the death of Jesus, Cartaphilus had been converted, and baptized by Ananias, under the name of Joseph. Still the sentence pronounced upon him by the Saviour was not revoked, and he remained in the world, awaiting the Lord's second advent, living in Armenia, or some other country of the East. Whenever he reached the age of a hundred, he fell into a trance, and when he revived, found himself again about thirty years old, as he had been at the epoch of Christ's suffering.
This story Matthew Paris heard at St. Albans, of which monastery he was himself a brother, a few years after the memorable visit of the Armenian prelate. His contemporary, Philippe Mouskes, Bishop of Tournay, has incorporated the substance of his narrative into his rhymed chronicle, edited by the Baron de Keiffenberg, v. 25524, et seq. We hear nothing more of the Wandering Jew from this time until the middle of the 16th century, when he presents himself at Hamburgh, (in 1547,) calling himself Ahas-uerus, who had been a shoemaker at Jerusalem. The ballad which follows is founded upon some narrative |
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