Wandering Jew

The Wandering Jew is a mythical immortal man whose legend began to spread in Europe in the 13th century.

The original legend concerns a Jew who taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion and was then cursed to walk the earth until the Second Coming. The exact nature of the wanderer's indiscretion varies in different versions of the tale, as do aspects of his character; sometimes he is said to be a shoemaker or other tradesman, while sometimes he is the doorman at Pontius Pilate's estate.

The earliest extant manuscript with the legend is the Flores Historiarum by Roger of Wendover, where it appears in the part for the year 1228, under the title Of the Jew Joseph who is still alive awaiting the last coming of Christ.

At least from the 17th century the name Ahasver has been given to the Wandering Jew, apparently adapted from Ahasuerus, the Persian king in the Book of Esther, who was not a Jew, and whose very name among medieval Jews was an exemplum of a fool. This name may have been chosen because the Book of Esther describes the Jews as a persecuted people, scattered across every province of Ahashuerus' vast empire, similar to the later Jewish diaspora in countries whose state and/or majority religions were forms of Christianity.

A variety of names have since been given to the Wandering Jew, including Matathias, Buttadeus, Paul Marrane, and Isaac Laquedem which is a name for him in France and the Low Countries, in popular legend as well as in a novel by Dumas.

Where German or Russian are spoken, the emphasis has been on the perpetual character of his punishment and he is known as "Ewige Jude" and "vechnyy zhid (вечный жид)", the Eternal Jew. In French and other Romance languages, the usage has been to refer to the wanderings, as in French "le Juif errant", and this has been followed in English from the Middle Ages, as the Wandering Jew.

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