[The Wandering Jew 1] - My First Two Thousand Years the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew

by Viereck, George Sylvester

  He made the sign of the Cross.

  “There are some things I should like the world to know, Father.”

  “I shall divulge to the world any message with which you may charge me.”

  I pressed his hand. “So be it! Look at me well, Father. What is my nationality or my race?”

  The Bishop scrutinized me carefully. “You may be of any race or nationality. And you may be of any age…thirty, perhaps, or sixty. There is something unreal about you…or maybe it is only the reflection of the moon.”

  He shivered a little, and recoiled slightly.

  Then, collecting himself, he said: “Tell me your story. My lips will be sealed after you unlock your breast—even” he whispered, “if you are Anti-Christ.”

  The sun had already risen, but I continued to relate my adventures. The Bishop, spellbound, listened motionless, fearing perhaps that it was all a dream, that he might suddenly awaken, and the story remain untold.

  At last my tale was finished. The Bishop, his head bowed, meditated.

  “Father, do you believe my story?”

  He nodded.

  “Is it not too extravagant to be true?”

  “Before God all things are possible, my son.”

  “Except my conversion to Jesus.”

  He looked at me sadly. “You will never know the meaning of happiness if you are not willing to accept Jesus. You have sought happiness for twelve hundred years; your eyes have beheld marvelous things—yet, what have you gained except disillusion?”

  “Disillusion and a sense of humor.”

  “Deep in your heart, you are still seeking happiness. Disillusion and humor merely protect you from pain.”

  “I can conceive of no happiness based on the denial of reason!”

  “Reason is only an ornament; it is not life itself. The futility of your struggle against Jesus proves that the universe moves by something greater than reason.”

  “Is it greater…or is it smaller? Divine Unreason, perhaps!”

  The Bishop smiled. “Forgive me if I say that your obstinacy proves you are still a Jew.”

  “A characteristic I share with the founder of your religion, Father. Life requires obstinacy. Man accomplished his growth from savagery by his unconquerable tenacity. Nature is a mountain of iron and rock. Man is a hammer!”

  “Ah…if Jesus could persuade you through me! What glory and power you would bring His Kingdom!”

  “Who knows, Father? Perhaps he lives only because I am his enemy…”

  “He lives because He is.”

  “And I…?”

  “Because He wills it.”

  “He also willed that I suffer always, that I consider life an endless torment…and yet…”

  “How do you know what He really willed? The love of Jesus is infinite…”

  “His love was not infinite, Father.”

  “His hand heals, even when it seems to smite.”

  “It is not true, Father. Jesus hated. Jesus was irascible…”

  “What do you say, my son?”

  “The Council of Nicaea rejected several authentic narratives of the gospel…”

  “Those that were of divine origin rose from the altar, as if possessing wings. The others dropped to the earth,” the Bishop interjected.

  I smiled. “I was present. What you say never occurred. The fathers wrangled and fought. I never saw a more obstinate and self-willed gathering. A militant minority, backed by Emperor Constantine, imposed its will upon the Council. Finally, they compromised upon the Bible, as the Christian world knows it, but the books of Thomas and the gospel of the Infancy of Jesus were rejected, for they related things unpalatable to your theology…”

  “What things, my son?”

  “The cruelty of Jesus…”

  “Impossible!” the Bishop exclaimed.

  “You forget,” I remarked, “that I knew Jesus as a boy. I knew his tantrums as a child. I knew him when he was an apprentice in his father’s shop. I remember how, on one occasion, my father commissioned him to do a job for him. The work was not satisfactory. When my father pointed out certain flaws to him, young Jesus flew into a rage and smashed his own handiwork. If a god adopts a trade he should master it more completely.”

  “My son,” the Bishop remarked, shaking his locks, “your hatred envenoms your tongue. You draw upon memories embittered by your own bias.”

  “If you will not accept my testimony, I can cite the evidence of your own sacred books. I shall draw upon sources regarded as sacred by the Fathers of the Church.

  “His cruelty even as a boy became so frequent and so intolerable, according to the testimony of Saint Thomas and other witnesses, that Joseph, his father, said in despair to Saint Mary: ‘Thenceforth we will not allow him out of the house; for everyone who displeases him is killed.’ ”

  “That was a metaphor, my son,” the Bishop smiled.

  “No, Father! It was literal. Listen to a few incidents.”

  “Go on, my son.”

  “The son of Hanani, disturbing the waters of a fish pool, Jesus commanded the water to vanish, saying:—’In like manner as this water has vanished, so shall thy life vanish.’ And presently the boy died.

  “Another time when the Lord Jesus was coming home in the evening with Joseph, He met a boy, who ran so hard against Him, that he threw Him down; to whom the Lord Jesus said, ‘As thou hast thrown me down, so shalt thou fall, nor ever rise.’ At that moment the boy died.

  “Another time Jesus went forth into the street, and a boy running, rushed by His shoulder; at which Jesus being angry, said to him, ‘Thou shalt go no farther.’ And he instantly fell over dead. The parents of the dead boy, going to Joseph, complained, saying, ‘You are not fit to live with us, in our city, having such a boy as that. Either teach him that he bless and not curse, or else depart thou hence with him, for he kills our children.’

  “Then Joseph, calling the boy Jesus by himself, instructed him, saying, ‘Why dost thou such things to injure the people so, that they hate and persecute us?’

  “But Jesus replied, ‘They who have said these things to thee shall suffer everlasting punishment.’ And immediately they who had accused him became blind.”

  I remained silent. The Bishop knit his brows, and meditated.

  “It is merely a legend, the invention of some poet who liked cruel things. Your testimony is spurious. Jesus was as gentle as a lamb. Even as a child He was obedient and wise…”

  “That is also mere poetry, Father,” I smiled a little cynically, piqued at the fact that he did not believe me. “Jesus snubbed his brothers. He neglected his family. He denied all family ties. He asked those who followed him to leave their fathers and mothers, their kith and their kin. I do not blame him for upbraiding his Father in Heaven on the cross. Yet why should he be surprised if his Father in Heaven forsook him, since he himself forsook his father and mother on earth? Only an unnatural son would deny his own mother with the cold insolence of Jesus. ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?’ is not a quotation from the Apocrypha. It is part of the gospel, the gospel which, you claim, rose miraculously from the altar. He withered the lives of little children with the same petulance with which he blasted the innocent fig tree.”

  “My son, if what you relate were really true, would it not prove that He was omnipotent from His Mother’s womb?” the Bishop exclaimed triumphantly. “He had a God’s work to do even in His infancy.”

  “Then he who kills is God,” I remarked.

  “The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. His ways are inscrutable. If Jesus commanded the children to wither, it was part of His divine plan, I assure you.”

  I laughed. “He was cruel, and he was cruel to me. His eyes blazed with anger when he hurled his anathema against me, without attempting to understand my motives. If he had read my heart he would not have cursed me. He acted rashly, and he acted in anger. Perhaps he inherited his unreasonable irascibility from his putative Father in Heaven…”

  “He
gave you the opportunity to find your soul…” the Bishop said gently.

  “No!” I exclaimed. “He meant evil, but I have conquered him! By my will and by my intelligence, I have transformed his curse into a blessing.”

  “God’s ways are incomprehensible to man,” the Bishop repeated suavely.

  “Let man be incomprehensible to God, then!” I exclaimed.

  “Only man’s vanity is incomprehensible to God, my son.”

  “Man’s vanity, then, shall conquer God!”

  “So Lucifer believed, and he was hurled to destruction!”

  “Lucifer lives on, Father. He is not destroyed.”

  We remained silent. The Bishop placed his hands upon my shoulders, and looked at me, his eyes covered with a film. “My son, believe me, if you understood Jesus you would accept Him.”

  “I understand…therefore, I cannot accept!”

  “You have denied Him too long. He loves you. He waits for you. He will return whenever your heart calls Him… You can end your long pilgrimage whenever you wish. You need not tarry until the end of time… Give up your age-long battle against His love and His Holy Word.”

  “How can I, a poor mortal, harm his Holy Word, if he indeed is God? You exaggerate my power, Bishop. In the great sea of humanity, is a man more than a wave?”

  “One unruly wave may capsize a boat.”

  “If Christianity is the work of God, who is strong enough to destroy it?”

  “No one!” he exclaimed. “And yet,” he continued sadly, “people may so distort and misinterpret it, that it were almost better destroyed…”

  “Father, from the clash of mountains, there arises a conflagration; out of the struggle between Jesus and myself…who knows, something more beautiful than either Christianity or pure reason may be born.”

  “Christ is perfection.”

  His words startled me. It seemed as though I suddenly saw something—a Light—a Vision. I tried to grasp it, but it vanished immediately.

  I smiled. “Father, that which we seek and find,—is it worth the finding?”

  “Only one thing is worth the finding,—Jesus.”

  The two friars, the Bishop’s companions, were approaching, and at a distance, propped against a tree, Kotikokura was patting a large cat and squinting his eyes in my direction.

  “We are both very tired, my son. Let us rest a little. This evening we shall speak again.”

  He arose, pressed my hands, and walked towards his friends. The Bishop’s face, as it broke the reflection of the sun, appeared strangely different from that of Apollonius. Had I been laboring under an illusion? Had I made a grave error in recounting my story? My head ached. My heart felt heavy.

  “Kotikokura, we must leave this beautiful and happy place. We must leave our two good wives.”

  Kotikokura shrugged his shoulders.

  “I know you have long ago wearied of yours, and perhaps I have a little of mine. However great a discomfort may be, there is always a grain of pleasure in it. Thus, our leaving here will not make it necessary for you to carry out your intention.”

  Kotikokura looked at me quizzically.

  “Kotikokura, I know you too well. You cannot hide your thoughts from me. You meant to strangle your wife…and perhaps mine…and throw them into the river.”

  Kotikokura grinned.

  “Nevertheless, I doubt whether we shall ever discover another place as lovely as this.”

  He shook his head sadly.

  Kotikokura’s cat crawled between his legs, purring. He raised her and fondled her.

  “You regret leaving your cat more than your wife—do you not my friend?”

  Kotikokura nodded.

  XLVIII: THE EMPIRE OF PRESTER JOHN—“IF I WILL THAT HE TARRY TILL I COME WHAT IS THAT TO THEE?”—KOTIKOKURA DANCES—CAN MAN INVENT A LIE?

  “PRESBYTER JOHANNES, by the power and virtue of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord of Lords,” the friar exclaimed, “will deliver us from the infidels and the heathens. His power is limitless and his lands are the richest in the world. Even the pebbles of the shores of his rivers are pure diamonds and the mountains are replete with gold. In the center of the empire, the Fountain of Youth falls softly into a thousand cups, and he who drinks of it shall never die. Presbyter Johannes shall come to deliver us. He shall come with his hundred thousand knights and three hundred thousand footmen; with the princes and kings of the seventy-two states that pay him tribute; with his chariots and elephants and strange creatures that devour ten men at one meal.”

  His listeners laughed, some pointed to their foreheads, one or two asked him a few questions. The friar expostulated against the Moors and the Saracens who had defeated the Crusaders, were knocking at the gates of Vienna, and threatened to destroy Europe and Christianity.

  The people dispersed one by one. Only Kotikokura and I remained. Prester John—Presbyter Johannes—for some obscure reason, troubled my mind, like a word that one tries to restore in time and space but cannot.

  “Brother,” I said to the friar, “where is his empire and who is Presbyter Johannes?”

  He looked at me startled. “Who is Presbyter Johannes?”

  I nodded.

  “He is…the Lord of Lords.”

  “I understand that…and yet– —”

  He approached my ear and whispered mysteriously, “He is John, the Apostle.”

  “But John the Apostle is dead.”

  “How can he be dead, having drunk of the Fountain of Youth?”

  “Of course,” I said vaguely.

  “The Lord Jesus has kept His beloved disciple alive and has made him great and powerful that he may save the cross from destruction.”

  ‘John,’ I mused. Could it really be he? Speaking of John, Jesus said to Peter: “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee…?” There was a rumor among the Christians based on these words that John could not die. But Jesus merely said: “If I will.” Had he willed it? Had his love wrought for John what his hate had wrought for me…?

  “Whence, brother friar, will Prester John start?” I asked.

  “From the center of his empire, which is the center of the earth—a far-off land, thousands of miles beyond Jerusalem, which, however, he will deliver first…”

  “In the heart of Asia, then?”

  He nodded.

  I gave him a coin.

  He bowed very low, making the sign of the cross over Kotikokura and me.

  “Kotikokura, man is incapable of inventing a pure lie or discovering a pure truth. What this friar said today must have a grain of reality…”

  Kotikokura grinned.

  “And if John lives…alas, you do not remember John…that is true. It was a few centuries before I discovered you. You are a mere stripling, Kotikokura…”

  Kotikokura laughed, and danced about me.

  “Let us go in search of this fabulous land, Kotikokura, and see what scrap of reality suffices to create a legend…”

  The reputation of Presbyter Johannes or Prester John was much more widespread than I suspected. Some laughed at the notion, some disputed; others proved his existence or nonexistence by the Scriptures. But everywhere his name was mentioned and discussed.

  We wandered about, taking now one road, now another, according to the vague and contradictory directions we received, stopping only to recuperate and replenish our supplies. The farther Europe disappeared behind us, the less resplendent became the empire of Prester John.

  “We are on the right path, Kotikokura, for falsehood shines like a sun, but truth is a modest jewel.”

  “Where is the empire of Prester John?” I asked a very stout Buddhist monk.

  He smiled leisurely. “The empire?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are speaking metaphorically, sir, are you not?”

  “Metaphorically?”

  “A man’s soul may be a vast empire.”

  “Is it in that sense only that Prester John has an empire?”

  �
��Not quite in that sense, nor quite in the other.”

  ‘How strangely his empire shrinks! ‘I mused.

  “Don’t let me discourage you from visiting the empire of Prester John,” the Buddhist remarked, as if reading my thoughts. “It is about two hundred miles in this direction– —” He pointed toward the East.

  I thanked the Friar very cordially, and gave him the expected alms.

  “Kotikokura, truth is not even a modest jewel. Truth is a moss-covered stone pushed aside by angry travelers.”

  XLIX: THE CITY OF GOD—I RECOGNIZE PRESTER JOHN—PRESTER JOHN DISCUSSES THE BEAST—TIME HAS A HEAVY FIST

  THE people were assembling in the public square, mostly fishermen and small merchants, dressed in the manner of the Hebrews of the time of Jesus. Their faces, too, their angular gestures, and their incessant disputations wrenched time back a thousand years.

  Kotikokura whose foot was caught in the meshes of a fisherman’s net pulled vigorously to regain his freedom.

  “Who allows you to interfere with an honest man’s means of livelihood?” the man shouted in Hebrew, discovering that several of the meshes had been torn.

  Kotikokura was about to jump at his throat. I grasped him by the arm.

  “I regret infinitely, sir,” I addressed the fisherman. “We are strangers and know neither the name of the country we are in nor its customs. I am inclined to believe, however, that all such mishaps may be adjusted peacefully here as elsewhere.”

  I gave him a few pieces of silver. He looked at me critically. “This hardly pays for my loss.” I knew that he lied atrociously, but in order to avoid any further dispute, I doubled my gift.

  “What is the name of this country, my friend?” I asked him.

  “Ours is the Realm of God, and yonder comes our Patriarch, Prester John—may his name be blessed!”

  A man, apparently seventy or seventy-five, approached gravely, followed by several priests, if judged by their garb, but rabbis by their long beards and curls. John carried in his arm the Torah, while from his neck hung a large crucifix.