Curious Myths of the Middle AgesBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Curious Myths of the Middle Ages
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Folklore; Legends -- History and criticism; Tales, Medieval
He is said to have appeared in Naumburg, but the date is not given; he
was noticed in church, listening to the sermon. After the service he
was questioned, and he related his story. On this occasion he
received presents from the burgers.[12] In 1633 he was again in
Hamburg.[13] In the year 1640, two citizens, living in the
Gerberstrasse, in Brussels, were walking in the Sonian wood, when they
encountered an aged man, whose clothes were in tatters and of an
antiquated appearance. They invited him to go with them to a house of
refreshment, and he went with them, but would not seat himself,
remaining on foot to drink. When he came before the doors with the two
burgers, he told them a great deal; but they were mostly stories of
events which had happened many hundred years before. Hence the burgers
gathered that their companion was Isaac Laquedem, the Jew who had
refused to permit our Blessed Lord to rest for a moment at his
door-step, and they left him full of terror. In 1642 he is reported to
have visited Leipzig. On the 22d July, 1721, he appeared at the gates
of the city of Munich.[14] About the end of the seventeenth century or
the beginning of the eighteenth, an impostor, calling himself the
Wandering Jew, attracted attention in England, and was listened to by
the ignorant, and despised by the educated. He, however, managed to
thrust himself into the notice of the nobility, who, half in jest,
half in curiosity, questioned him, and paid him as they might a
juggler. He declared that he had been an officer of the Sanhedrim, and
that he had struck Christ as he left the judgment hall of Pilate. He
remembered all the Apostles, and described their personal appearance,
their clothes, and their peculiarities. He spoke many languages,
claimed the power of healing the sick, and asserted that he had
travelled nearly all over the world. Those who heard him were
perplexed by his familiarity with foreign tongues and places. Oxford
and Cambridge sent professors to question him, and to discover the
imposition, if any. An English nobleman conversed with him in Arabic.
The mysterious stranger told his questioner in that language that
historical works were not to be relied upon. And on being asked his
opinion of Mahomet, he replied that he had been acquainted with the
father of the prophet, and that he dwelt at Ormuz. As for Mahomet, he
believed him to have been a man of intelligence; once when he heard
the prophet deny that Christ was crucified, he answered abruptly by
telling him he was a witness to the truth of that event. He related
also that he was in Rome when Nero set it on fire; he had known
Saladin, Tamerlane, Bajazeth, Eterlane, and could give minute details
of the history of the Crusades.[15]
Whether this wandering Jew was found out in London or not, we cannot
tell, but he shortly after appeared in Denmark, thence travelled into
Sweden, and vanished.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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