Note 1 — Chapter I · Salathiel Doomed to Immortality

—page 3. The legend of the Wandering Jew first appeared in the thirteenth century, in the chronicle of Matthew of Paris, who professes to have received his information from an Armenian bishop to whom the hero had himself communicated the events. According to this version, he was a servant in the house of Pilate, named Cartaphilus, and gave Christ a blow as He was dragged out of the palace to execution. Another and perhaps more familiar version, probably of the fifteenth century and of German origin, states that he was a shoemaker named Ahasuerus. As Jesus bore His cross along the via dolorosa, staggering with pain and weakness, He leaned for a moment against the doorway of the rude shopkeeper, who, with cursing and bitterness, ordered him to “go on.” The sufferer looked upon him and said: “I go, but tarry thou till I come!” From that awful moment he found life a burden and death an impossibility. From time to time he was able to rejoice in gray hairs and a stooping form, but regularly these indications of the end would vanish, and clothed again in the form of youth, he felt the look and heard in his soul the dread voice bidding him wander on and on forever. All versions agree touching the verdict of Christ, that he should wander on earth till the Second Coming.