Will you please give me some information in regard to the wandering Jew?
L. S. The term "wandering Jew" is wholly legendary. It appeared for the first time in German literature in a small pamphlet in 1602. Before that time no trace can be found of it in Germany. The pamphlet pretended to be a report of an interview between a bishop and a wandering Jew which took place in Hamburg in 1542. This wandering Jew's name was Ahasuerus. He claimed to be a shoemaker in Jerusalem at the time of Christ. When Jesus was on His way to Golgotha, He passed by the house of this shoemaker, and stopped for a moment leaning against the door-post, when Ahasuerus pushed Him aside and bade Him move on. Jesus said to him, "I will stay here and rest, but thou shalt go on until the last day." From that moment Ahasuerus found rest nowhere. The tale goes on to say that he wandered about from place to place; had been seen in Spain, Germany, and other places. There is another tradition of it, and that is that a Jew called Kartaphilos, the doorkeeper of the judgment-hall in the service of Pontius Pilate, struck our Lord as he met Him, saying, "Go on faster, Jesus!" whereupon our Lord replied, "I am going, but thou shalt tarry till I come again." This tradition is that he falls into a trance at the end of every hundred years, and wakes up a young man about 30. There is a third legend which declares that it was Ananias the cobbler who hailed Jesus before the judgment-seat of Pilate, saying, "Faster, Jesus, faster." The last appearance of the wandering Jew was said to be in 1774. Croly in his story has one Salathial, the wandering Jew; and there are other stories beside. It has no basis of fact in connection with it at all, unless it be typical of the race of the Jews themselves, and of the words of the prophet which described them as wanderers among the nations.