Christianity
Cartaphilus, The Wandering Jew, a Medieval Tale Based an Ancient Greek One
Abstract
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Friday, July 30, 1999
An Enquiry
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I am curious. I heard that there was a Roman soldier by the name of Carthephilus who was Pontius Pilate’s gatekeeper. He supposedly struck Jesus and was cursed by God to walk the Earth until the return of the Messiah and the end of the world. I can’t locate any passages or other sections or papers that discuss this person. Is he a real person? Or is someone pulling my leg? I’m not sure of the spelling on the name. The pronounciation is Car-te-fill-us. I would appreciate any scripture passages that refer to this person or any other books that discuss this person. Thank you.
Wandering Jew
You are referring to the well known myth of the Wandering Jew. Many people think it appears in the bible. It dioes not. The biblical authority for it, other than that Jesus was manhandled, is that it is used as a general explanation of the clear truth that Jesus got it wrong when he said in Matthew 16:28,
There be some of them that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the son of man coming in his kingdom.
Stronger authority is John 21:22 where Jesus says,
If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?
addressing Peter and referring to the beloved disciple which the author of John constantly suggests is John the disciple. More of this later.
The tale is an old one indeed. In Greek tradition, there is a story of Aristeas, a poet, who kept appearing among the people of the mythical nations of the world for over 400 years. The story to which you refer was, it seems, already established in the middle ages. In 1228, an Armenian bishop visited England to pay homage at the holy shrines and was entertained by the monks of St Albans. The monks were interested in the legend, believing it was linked with that of Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Grail, and asked the visiting bishop if it was true. He said it was.
The name Cartaphilus (Carthaphilus or Kartaphilos) was supplied to the monks by the Armenian bishop’s interpreter (everyone spoke French not Armenian in the West in those days). He said that the man known as Joseph, the name he took on his conversion to Christianity, was the porter or gatekeeper of Pontius Pilate’s courtrooms who had struck Jesus with his hand as he left the judgement hall, saying:
Get a move on, fellow.
Jesus looked up at him and replied:
I go quickly but you will wait until I return!
The interpreter knew all this because, Joseph Cartaphilus was a personal friend of the Armenian bishop and dined with him often!
Coma
The name doesn’t seem to mean much: Lover of Paper on the face of it, but paper could imply books implying Lover of the Bible. Perhaps it meant Lover of Maps because he travelled so far. Or, since he enjoyed dining, perhaps it is simply Lover of Menus! Who says monks don’t have a sense of humour?
Cartaphilus is not forever young, aging normally into a ripe old age, but every hundred years falls into a coma and seems to be about to die. Then he has an ecstatic fit and recovers the age he had when he struck Jesus, about the same age as Jesus was supposed to have been himself at the crucifixion -- thirty something. Since he remembers the whole circumstances of the death of Jesus, he is a very devout and holy man.
This story is told by Roger Wendover in Flores Historiarum and repeated by Matthew Paris, who says that other Armenian visitors confirmed the story in 1252. Both were monks at St Albans at the time. It was also repeated by Philippe Mouskes in 1243. The trouble with the story is that Cartaphilus seems not necessarily to have been Jewish but, as you say, Roman. His name is Greek or Roman. The story of the eternal Jew really became popular in the seventeenth century when a pamphlet was printed in Leyden in 1602 alleging that the bishop of Schleswig had met the Wandering Jew at Hamburg in 1542. His name was Ahasuerus. Otherwise much of the story of the St Albans monks was reiterated except that Ahasuerus was a cobbler beside whose shop Jesus paused to rest while carrying the cross along the Via Dolorosa. After telling him to clear off, he got the reply above from Jesus.
This pamphlet was a bestseller going to 40 editions before 1700. However, earlier references—John Buttadaeus (John who struck God) in Italy 1413 and 1415; in Germany and the low countries between the 13th and the 18th centuries—to the popular belief in an eternal Jew show that the pamphlet’s popularity merely gave credence to the established legend.
Once given the credence of a recently deceased bishop in the Dutch pamphlet, reports of the Wandering Jew began to appear regularly from all over Europe, just like the flying saucer "flaps" today. He was even reported in the USA in Salt Lake City in 1868. In France, he was called Isaac of Old (Lakedion or Laquedem—from a corruption of Hebrew), in German John Buttadaeus, in Spain John the Hope in God (Espera en Dios). It remains a popular story and has been used often in fiction as different as Miller’s, A Canticle for Liebowitz, and Shelley’s Queen Mab.
Other variants are that Herne the Hunter is a Jew who would not let Jesus drink from a horse trough but instead pointed out a small puddle in a hoofprint from which he could drink. Legend also has it that Gipsies are condemned to wander the earth because, as Egyptians (the meaning of the word Gipsy), they refused to help the holy family in their flight into Egypt.
No Recent Appearances
If such an eternal man existed he would be pretty strong proof of the supernatural basis of Christianity but, apart from the odd fraud, latterly he has made no appearances. He does not seem quite as open as he was those days of 8 centuries ago when he used to turn up for dinner. If he did turn up, he would be subject to a pretty thorough scientific investigation—like the man who does not catch aids despite his unbelievably prolific homosexuality—to find out how others able to afford it can evade death.
As to the origin of the legend, it seems plain that it was intended to be an explanation of the failure of Jesus to reappear within a generation as he promised, Matthew 16:28 being one instance. For the first 40 years after the end of Jesus’s career, his followers believed that he would return as, or with, prince Michael, the archangel in charge of the armies of heaven. His return or parousia would conclude the 40 years of cosmic conflict between the forces of light and the forces of darkness that they expected. With the conclusion of the battle and the victory of the saints and angels, the kingdom of God would begin, God would build anew the temple at Jerusalem and the saints who had died since the beginning of time would be resurrected to live as angels in heaven on earth.
The 40 years expired in 58 AD (or 73 AD at the latest, if conventional Christian dates are accepted). The bishops might have been able to stall any doubts for awhile because precise dates had not been kept, but the faithful would eventually realise nothing was happening. They could accept that the Jewish War (66-70 AD) was a reflexion of the cosmic battle started by Jesus but regrettably for theory, the forces of darkness (for Jews the Romans) won and Jesus did not appear. What were the bishops to do about a promise that was so clear in the Christian oral tradition that it could not simply be ignored? First, of course, they moved the kingdom of God from earth to a transcendental place called heaven, accesible for most people only after death after a life of faith in what the bishops taught them. But the promise of a parousia in the lifetime of those present was explicit. The answer had to be to make someone live until Jesus returned thus explaining his words.
Jesus’s Return
Now interestingly, the John who is said to have written John’s gospel, traditionally lived to be an ancient man and it seems that the earliest version of the bishop’s excuse placed the promise of long life on to him. John 21:22-23 tells us this. The earliest followers were fobbed off with the excuse that Jesus had meant that his return would not be in 40 years but within the lifetime of some of the disciples. So as long as a disciple remained alive, no one need be concerned. This is the excuse which appears in John 21:22. Unfortunately even that had failed because, obviously, eventually John too died. John 21:23 tells us that he had indeed died by the time the passage was written and the author had to say that Jesus had not really promised it but simply said,
What is it to you if I do promise it?
Now by this time none of the original followers were alive anyway, so a new generation of Christians had arisen and been taught the new, less explicit message devised by the bishops. They were not as apocalyptic as the first Christians and were ready to accept the transcendental nature of the after life and heaven. Nevertheless, the promises were still in the gospels, an invitation for doubters, sceptics or simply honest and naive believers to question. The legend of the Wandering Jew cursed by Jesus provided a perpetual excuse. If by a supernatural curse of God some human remained alive, Jesus would not have been untruthful in Matthew 16:28 and parallel passages. Of course the passages in John speak of the Beloved Disciple but he “that betrayeth” is also gasped in the same breath and Christians, who despite their devotion to the Holy Book, never seem to read it very clearly, transferred the curse to a betrayer. Note, not The Betrayer, Judas, though many people think the Wandering Jew is Judas. This passage is probably why.
Another aspect of it might have been that some questioners of the bishops pointed out that resurrection means life on earth. The promise of eternal life was a promise of eternal life here! It must have occurred to some of the first Christian theologians that everlasting life in our material world would not be a blessing but a curse. The Wandering Jew was duly thus cursed to show that the resurrection the Christian could expect was something else.
Finally, it never seemed to amaze any Christian that the Jesus cursing people in this way is out of character, just like the Jesus who curses innocent fig trees. The reason is that Jesus is a sticky plaster and sealing wax god, stuck together out of a myriad excuses. He could hardly be expected to be consistent and he wasn’t, but the bishops had an excuse for that too—it was all part of the mysteries of God!
Hope this is helpful.
