WANDERING CLERGY. See Vagantes.

WANDERING JEW: A legendary character doomed to wander over the earth till the return of Christ. The story of the Wandering Jew is not, as has been plausibly supposed, a primitive Christian legend, but a literary product in the guise of a romance. The story first appears in Germany in 1602, in a small pamphlet entitled, Kttrze Beschreibung and Brzahlung von einem Jade mil Namen Ahttsverus, welcher bei der Kreuzigung Christi selbst personlich gewesen, ctuch das Crucifige über Christum hab helfera schreiert and um Barrabam bitten, which pretends to report a conversation that took place at Hamburg in 1542 between the Wandering Jew and Paul von Eitzen, bishop of Sleawick. The Jew tells Von Eitzen that his name is Ahasuerus, that in the time of Christ he was a cobbler in Jerusalem, and that, because he knew no better, he had joined in the cry, " Crucify him,"; further, that when Jesus, bearing the Cross, passed by the door of his house and was intending to lean against the wall to rest, he harshly scolded him away, whereupon Jesus gazed at him fixedly and said: " I will atop and rest, but thou shaft go on." Since that time he had had no rest, but had wandered about the world. It is claimed further that Von Eitzen examined him in detail and found him possessed of wonderful knowledge, notably in oriental history. The Jew is then described with reference to his appearance and his humble temperament. Of his adventures it is related merely that he was in Palestine again a century after Christ's crucifixion, finding Jerusalem destroyed, though an appendix mentions that in the year 1575, or shortly before, he was in Spain. The report is subscribed, " Datum Sleswick, June 9, 1594." This relation was then frequently reprinted in the seventeenth century. The title and date became altered, but the substance of the narrative continued the same, except for added moral observations and socounts of new apparitions of the Wandering Jew. From the time of the second series of editions the author's name purports to be Cbrysostomus Dudulseus Westphalus, unquestionably a pseudonym. From about the beginning of the eighteenth down into the nineteenth century the story appeared in numerous popular editions in which the text became utterly degenerate. For example, the name " Von Eitzen " merged into " Litz." The story was early translated into French, Dutch, etc., with characteristic embellishments.

There can be no doubt as to the fact that the story of the Wandering Jew first became known in the year 1602; and it is probable that it originated then. Some of its features, however, bear marked resemblance to earlier narratives. For example, the story of Cartapbilua, Pilate's doorkeeper, as first related by Roger of Wendover (d.1237) in his Flores laistoriarum, unquestionably has much in common with the story of the Wandering Jew, while still other common traits occur in the legends of "° death less John," etc. Yet in its main outline the story of the Wandering Jew is so distinctive that it moat be regarded as the independent invention of au indi vidual. Had the author had any inkling of those earlier tales he would have referred to them in some way, as later editors expressly did. The object of the story is undoubtedly apologetic. How the author happened to designate the well-known the ologian Paul von Eitzen as the man who saw the Wandering Jew can not be determined.

Carl Bertheau.

Bibliography: J. G. T. Grease, Der TannhSUaer und der ewipe Jude, Dresden, 1$81; F. Bassler, Ueber die Sage vom ewigen Juden, Berlin, 1870; C. M. Blass, Der ewige dude in Deutschland, Stoekerau, 1870; F. Helbig, Die Sage vom ewigen Juden, ihre Poetische Wandlung oral Fortbildung, Berlin, 1874; C. SchSbel, La Legende du juif-errant, Paris, 1877; G. Paris, Le Juij errant, ib. 18$0; M. D. Conway, The Wandering Jew, London, 1881; S. Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, ib. 1884; L. Neubaur, Die Sage vom ewigen Judea, Leipsic, 1884; idem, New M%tEheilungen über die Sage vom ewipen Judea, ib. 1893.