Editing Wandering Jew (section)

==Origin and evolution==
===Biblical sources===

The origins of the legend are uncertain; perhaps one element is the story in [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] of [[Cain and Abel|Cain]], who is issued with a similar punishment—to wander the Earth, scavenging and never reaping, although without the related punishment of endlessness. According to Jehoshua Gilboa, many commentators have pointed to Hosea 9:17 as a statement of the notion of the "eternal/wandering Jew".<ref name="SweeneyCotter2000">{{cite book|last1=Sweeney|first1=Marvin Alan|last2=Cotter|first2=David W. |last3=Walsh|first3=Jerome T.|author4=Franke, Chris|title=The Twelve Prophets: Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4vOwFysWpogC&pg=PA102|access-date=13 December 2011|date=October 2000|publisher=Liturgical Press|isbn=978-0-8146-5095-0|page=102}}</ref> The legend stems from Jesus' words given in [[Gospel of Matthew|Matthew]] [[s:Bible (King James)/Matthew#16:28|16:28]]:

{{blockquote|{{Lang|grc|Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, εἰσίν τινες ὧδε ἑστῶτες, οἵτινες οὐ μὴ γεύσωνται θανάτου, ἕως ἂν ἴδωσιν τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενον ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ αὐτοῦ.}}

Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the [[Son of man (Christianity)|Son of Man]] coming in his kingdom. ([[New International Version]])

Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. ([[King James Version of the Bible|King James Version]]){{efn|This verse is quoted in the German pamphlet ''Kurtze Beschreibung und Erzählung von einem Juden mit Namen Ahasverus'', 1602.}}}}

A belief that the [[disciple whom Jesus loved]] would not die was apparently popular enough in the early Christian world to be denounced in the [[Gospel of John]]:

{{blockquote|And Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple following whom Jesus loved, who had also leaned on His breast at the supper, and had said, Lord, which is he who betrayeth Thee? When, therefore, Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, and what shall he do? Jesus saith to him, If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou Me. Then this saying went forth among the brethren, that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus had not said to him that he would not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?|John 21:20-23, KJV}}

Another passage in the Gospel of John speaks about a guard of the high priest who slaps Jesus (John 18:19–23). Earlier, the Gospel of John talks about Simon Peter striking the ear from [[Malchus]], a servant of the high priest (John 18:10). Although this servant is probably not the same guard who struck Jesus, Malchus is nonetheless one of the many names given to the wandering Jew in later legend.<ref name="Italian popular tales">{{cite book|title=Italian Popular Tales|author=Thomas Frederick Crane|publisher=Macmillan|year=1885 |url=https://archive.org/details/italianpopulart00crangoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/italianpopulart00crangoog/page/n235 197]|access-date=2011-12-21}}</ref>

===Early Christianity===
[[File:Hirszenberg.jpg|thumb|left|upright|The Wandering Jew by [[Samuel Hirszenberg]] (1899)]]
The later amalgamation of the fate of the specific figure of legend with the condition of the Jewish people as a whole, well established by the 18th century, had its precursor even in early Christian views of Jews and the diaspora.<ref name="Bein1990"/> Extant manuscripts have shown that as early as the time of [[Tertullian]] ({{circa|200}}), some Christian proponents were likening the Jewish people to a "new Cain", asserting that they would be "fugitives and wanderers (upon) the earth".<ref>{{cite book|author=[[Salo Wittmayer Baron]]|title=Social and Religious History of the Jews|year=1993|edition=18 vols., 2nd|publisher=Columbia University Press, 1952–1983|isbn=0231088566}}</ref>

[[Prudentius|Aurelius Prudentius Clemens]] (b. 348) writes in his ''Apotheosis'' (c. 400): "From place to place the homeless Jew wanders in ever-shifting exile, since the time when he was torn from the abode of his fathers and has been suffering the penalty for murder, and having stained his hands with the blood of Christ whom he denied, paying the price of sin."<ref name="Apotheosis">{{cite book|author=Aurelius Prudentius Clemens|title=Apotheosis|url=https://archive.org/stream/prudentiuswithen01pruduoft/prudentiuswithen01pruduoft_djvu.txt|access-date=2011-12-22|year=c. 400}}</ref>

A late 6th and early 7th century monk named [[John Moschus|Johannes Moschos]] records an important version of a Malchean figure. In his ''[[Leimonarion]]'', Moschos recounts meeting a monk named Isidor who had purportedly met a Malchus-type of figure who struck Christ and is therefore punished to wander in eternal suffering and lament:{{sfn|Anderson|1965}}

{{blockquote|I saw an Ethiopian, clad in rags, who said to me, "You and I are condemned to the same punishment." I said to him, "Who are you?" And the Ethiopian who had appeared to me replied, "I am he who struck on the cheek the creator of the universe, our Lord Jesus Christ, at the time of the Passion. That is why," said Isidor, "I cannot stop weeping."}}

===Medieval legend===
Some scholars have identified components of the legend of the Eternal Jew in Teutonic legends of the Eternal Hunter, some features of which are derived from [[Odin]] mythology.<ref name="SocialReligiousHistoryOfJews_178">{{cite book|title=A social and religious history of the Jews: Citizen or alien conjurer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eXVDceafeiEC&pg=PA178|access-date=13 December 2011|volume=11|year=1965|publisher=Columbia University Press|first=Salo Wittmayer|last=Baron|isbn=978-0-231-08847-3|page=178}}</ref>

"In some areas the farmers arranged the rows in their fields in such a way that on Sundays the Eternal Jew might find a resting place. Elsewhere they assumed that he could rest only upon a plough or that he had to be on the go all year and was allowed a respite only on Christmas."<ref name="SocialReligiousHistoryOfJews_178" />

Most likely drawing on centuries of unwritten folklore, legendry, and oral tradition{{Citation needed|date=September 2024}} brought to the West as a product of the [[Crusades]], a Latin chronicle from Bologna, {{lang|la|Ignoti Monachi Cisterciensis S. Mariae de Ferraria Chronica et Ryccardi de Sancto Germano Chronica priora}}, contains the first written articulation of the Wandering Jew. In the entry for the year 1223, the chronicle describes the report of a group of pilgrims who meet "a certain Jew in Armenia" ({{lang|la|quendam Iudaeum}}) who scolded Jesus on his way to be crucified and is therefore doomed to live until the Second Coming. Every hundred years the Jew returns to the age of 30.{{sfn|Anderson|1965}}

A variant of the Wandering Jew legend is recorded in the {{lang|la|[[Flores Historiarum]]}} by [[Roger of Wendover]] around the year 1228.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=910n83JaIREC&q=Flowers+of+History |title=Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History |access-date=2010-10-11|author1=Roger of Wendover|author2=Matthew Paris |year=1849 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_dv8KAAAAYAAJ |page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_dv8KAAAAYAAJ/page/n160 149] |title=Flores historiarum |via=[[Internet Archive]] |year=1890 |publisher=H.M. Stationery Office |access-date=2010-10-11}}</ref><ref>For the 13th century expulsion of Jews, see [[History of the Jews in England]] and [[Edict of Expulsion]].</ref> An [[Armenia]]n archbishop, then visiting England, was asked by the monks of [[St Albans Abbey]] about the celebrated [[Joseph of Arimathea]], who had spoken to Jesus, and was reported to be still alive. The archbishop answered that he had himself seen such a man in [[Armenia]], and that his name was Cartaphilus, a Jewish shoemaker, who, when Jesus stopped for a second to rest while carrying his cross, hit him, and told him "Go on quicker, Jesus! Go on quicker! Why dost Thou loiter?", to which Jesus, "with a stern countenance", is said to have replied: "I shall stand and rest, but thou shalt go on till the last day."<!--needs citation--> The Armenian bishop also reported that Cartaphilus had since converted to Christianity and spent his wandering days [[proselytize|proselytizing]] and leading a [[hermit]]'s life.

[[File:Zid Jezis.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|The Wandering Jew (left) meets [[Jesus Christ|Christ]] on his way to [[Calvary]], as depicted in the {{lang|la|Chronica Majora}}]]
[[Matthew Paris]] included this passage from Roger of Wendover in his own history; and other Armenians appeared in 1252 at the Abbey of St Albans, repeating the same story, which was regarded there as a great proof of the truth of the Christian religion.<ref>Matthew Paris, {{lang|la|Chronica Majora}}, ed. [[H. R. Luard]], London, 1880, v. 340–341</ref> The same Armenian told the story at [[Tournai]] in 1243, according to the ''Chronicles of Phillip Mouskes'' (chapter ii. 491, Brussels, 1839). After that, [[Guido Bonatti]] writes people saw the Wandering Jew in [[Forlì]] (Italy), in the 13th century; other people saw him in Vienna and elsewhere.{{sfn|Anderson|1991|pp=22–23}}

There were claims of sightings of the Wandering Jew throughout Europe and later the Americas, since at least 1542 in [[Hamburg]] up to 1868 in [[Harts Corner, New Jersey|Harts Corners]], New Jersey.<ref>"Editorial Summary", ''Deseret News'', 23 September 1868.</ref> [[Joseph Jacobs]], writing in the [[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|11th edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'']] (1911), commented, "It is difficult to tell in any one of these cases how far the story is an entire fiction and how far some ingenious impostor took advantage of the existence of the myth".{{sfn|Jacobs|1911}} 

Another legend about Jews, the so-called "[[Red Jews]]", was similarly common in Central Europe in the Middle Ages.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Voß|first=Rebekka|date=April 2012|title=Entangled Stories: The Red Jews in Premodern Yiddish and German Apocalyptic Lore|journal=AJS Review|volume=36|issue=1|pages=1–41|doi=10.1017/S0364009412000013|s2cid=162963937|issn=1475-4541|url=http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-275215}}</ref>