Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew: the legend Borges rescued

Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew: centuries of punishment without redemption

The legend of the Wandering Jew does not spring from a divine punishment: it comes from two separate traditions that Europe eventually fused into one. According to the most widespread medieval tale, a Jew named Ahasuerus refused to let Jesus Christ lean against the wall of his house on the way to Golgotha —some versions add that he even struck him— and was condemned to wander the world without rest until Christ's return.

The two traditions that merged around 1600

The oldest version does not mention Ahasuerus. It comes from the late Roman world and has Armenian origins, calling the wanderer Cartafilus or Cartaphilus. The Ahasuerus version is later, purely medieval, and probably influenced by the Crusades. Both circulated separately for centuries and were not fused until around 1600, in the German printing presses. From there they leapt into literature: Borges mentions Joseph Cartaphilus in passing in The Immortal, and the figure of the man condemned never to die runs through several of his stories.

Infinite punishment for a finite sin: the theological problem

Here the matter gets complicated. Some argue that eternal punishment for a single offense is an injustice, and that redemption should be a right even for the reprobate, who must be able to acknowledge his errors and settle his accounts. The classic answer is that God does not send anyone to hell: it is a free choice of the damned, who rejects union with Him. Chesterton summed it up by saying that hell is a monument to human freedom and dignity.

The other current is harsher. Saint Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Theologiae (Second Part of the Second Part, Question 18, Article 2), holds that the damned retain no kind of hope, because they know their punishment is eternal and beatitude is impossible for them. Dante wrote it on the lintel of his hell: abandon all hope. Saint Augustine added his piece with the massa damnata and predestination, and Scotus Eriugena, read today, turns out to be argumentatively impeccable and heretical in equal measure.

The underlying problem, that of evil and its origin, remains unresolved: if God created everything, where does suffering flow from?

With these materials, the predictable outcome is that Ahasuerus will keep wandering. Each generation reads his condemnation as it pleases: some see justice, others see cruelty, and a few see, simply, a good story. That he keeps wandering proves nothing about God, but it says a great deal about us.