The Nuttall Encyclopedia

1. Jew, The Wandering

   a Jew bearing the name of Ahasuérus, whom, according to an old legend, Christ condemned to wander over the earth till He should return again to judgment, because He drove Him brutally away as, weary with the cross He carried, He sat down to rest on a stone before his door; in symbolic token, it is surmised, of the dispersion of the whole Jewish people over the earth as homeless wanderers by way of judgment for their rejection of Christ.