ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

{The Wandering Jew 1893}

Note to the Second Edition of The Wandering Jew and Press Comments

AUTHOR’S NOTE

TO THE SECOND EDITION

                                                                                                                                                                 155

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

THE first edition of ‘The Wandering Jew’ having been exhausted in little over a fortnight, and a new one being called for, I seize the opportunity to say a few words to my readers; not with the view of protesting against the attacks made upon the book by both Press and Pulpit, but simply to save myself, if I can, from further misconstruction. For the past fortnight a wild warfare, awakened by the Poem, has been waged in the columns of a London daily newspaper, by antagonists who have spared neither me nor each other; this warfare has spread to the London Churches, which are wildly discussing the work and shrieking angry negatives to the editorial question ‘Is Christianity played out?’ Meantime, I am in the unfortunate position of having offended two parties besides those professedly Christian—the¹⁵⁶ literary flâneurs who cling timorously to the skirts of a nebulous Christianity, and the secular Satyrs who scoff in and out of season at its Founder. Well, I wished to please neither of those parties. I wished to appeal to those with whom Religion, real Religion, is an eternal verity. My poem was neither for the Pharisee who follows Jesus among the formulas of theology, nor for the Sadducee who interprets him through the letter of literature. It was meant to picture the absolute and simple truth as I see it—the presence in the world of a supreme and suffering Spirit, who has been and is outcast from all human habitations, and most of all from the Churches built in his Name. It is not a polemic against Jesus of Nazareth; it is an expression of love for his personality, and of sympathy with his unrealised Dream. Nothing has more surprised and pleased me in the controversy than the spirit with which many Christian believers, both lay and clerical, have treated the arguments advanced by me against so-called Christianity, and I am specially grateful to preachers like the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes for their admission that my denunciation of the ecclesiastical ¹⁵⁷ system is complete and unanswerable. Some new eclectic spirit must be moving in religious circles when clergymen can be so fair to an opponent. I have discovered, indeed, that a man who utters the truth, as he conceives it, has nowadays less to fear from those who uphold both the letter and spirit of a great Faith than from those who ‘trim’ and trifle with belief in order to curry favour with the formalists and hypocrites who labour to keep thought in a state of compromise. With these last invertebrate individuals I have even less sympathy than with the ‘roughs’ who trample underfoot all the flowers of Religion, and think that the apex of enlightenment is reached when they pollute the ears of Humanity with the public-house humours of a ‘comic Bible.’
     In an adverse but perfectly fair review of this book, the Spectator (Saturday, January 28) says: ‘Mr. Buchanan’s poem is a half-tremulous, half-wistful wail over the gigantic failure of Christ, a long lamentation that Jesus Christ has accomplished so little. . . This is, we say, the main drift of the poem—love for Christ, impatience with the Eternal Father for his delay in securing him the triumph ¹⁵⁸ and exaltation which had been predicted for his Gospel. . . . There is no accent of joy in the poem, and very little of hope.’ My purpose in quoting the writer is simply and unreservedly to admit the accuracy of his general description. I picture the living Christ as ‘weak, aged, and helpless, wandering feebly through the Cities, ever suffering afresh, never prevailing.’ To that point of view I adhere. I withdraw no part of my description. But I contend that my poem contains at least as much hope and joy as there is in Christianity, and that it contains what is better than either—the sublimity of human sympathy and love. It is not to the arraignment of historical Christianity that I attach most importance, nor to my parade of witnesses against Jesus, nor to my representation of the Christian Church as an obnoxious and essentially corrupt system. The writer in the Spectator thinks it curious that, while gathering so much human testimony against Christ, I have brought forward little or no evidence in his favour. Just so; that was my intention. My plea for Jesus was to consist almost wholly in his helplessness before the Spirit of Man, in his loneliness, in his ¹⁵⁹ solitary despair. To my mind, he stands now exactly where he did, and where all Great Dreamers stand—apart, misunderstood, always ready for the crucifixion.
     The writer in the Spectator, summing up on the poem, affirms that it is ‘false alike to history and to poetry,’ that ‘it represents neither what is great in Christianity nor what is great in imaginative life.’ If it is false in one way, it is certainly false in the other. But, once again, I withdraw no word of it. I leave those who have studied human documents to settle its truth to History, and I ask those who are weary of religious dogmas to say whether it is false or true to imaginative Life. True or false, it is the truth as I see it. ‘The Wandering Jew’ has, I believe, utterly failed to convince the World of his godhead. Yet he survives, and will survive, as a Divine Ideal, a pathetic Figure searching Heaven in vain for a sign, for a token that he has not wholly failed. The clamour of a thousand pulpits, the tumult of a thousand newspapers, the protests of all the Churches, and the mockeries of all the creeds, are nothing to him now. He is asking himself, after 1,800 years of weary effort, the terrible question which I have ¹⁶⁰ put into his mouth—’After all, are men worth saving?’ The only affirmative answer to that question would be the existence in the world of Christ-like men. When human beings really begin to love one another (not solitary beings like Jesus, but beings en masse), when War and Prostitution have left the earth, when the wicked no longer reign, when the selfish and base cease to flourish and the poor cease to starve and die, when Woman emerges from her long degradation and Man ceases to be her willing slave, the Christ may answer ‘YES’. Then, perhaps, the God whom he now seeks vainly may vouchsafe him a sign, and so enable him to fulfil his beautiful Promise; but till then, he will wander on, as he wanders on now, in spiritual weariness and despair.

                                                                                                                           ROBERT BUCHANAN.

January 31, 1893.

                                                                                                                                                                   161

PRESS AND PULPIT OPINIONS

OF

THE WANDERING JEW

A Christmas Carol

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN

SPEAKER

     What strikes us as most remarkable about Mr. Buchanan’s poem, and the remarkable discussion to which it has given rise, is the singular parallelism between the whole matter and what is related in the New Testament. Christ is being tried over again, at the instance of a furibund Scotch poet, before a prætorium in Fleet Street.

SPECTATOR

     A stranger ‘Christmas Carol’ was never written. Mr. Buchanan’s poem may be described as a half-tremulous, half- wistful wail over the gigantic failure of Christ. . . . This is, we say, the main drift of the poem,—love for Christ, impatience with the Eternal Father for His delay in securing Him His triumph. . . .

TIMES

     Mr. Buchanan has essayed a task which would have taxed to the uttermost the poetic genius of a Dante and a Milton combined. . . . For the rest, Mr. Buchanan handles the rhymed couplet with no little variety and skill, and he writes with powerful rhetoric.

                                                                                                                                                                   162

ECHO

     Mr. Buchanan has given us a picture which he says will haunt us. The ‘Wandering Jew’ will fully justify the author’s predictions. . . . Every line of the poem is reverent to the highest aspirations of man and sympathetic to the woes of the central figure.

TELEGRAPH

     A strange, powerful, but also painful, piece of work. . . . Again and again instinct with imaginative force.

THE REV. HUGH PRICE HUGHES
(at the Conference in St. James’s Hall, Sunday, January 22)

     Let me, then, say in the first place, that it will do all orthodox and devout Christians immense and endless good to read, ponder, and remember the attack upon historic and ecclesiastical Christianity which this poem utters. I say that nothing better could be done than that Robert Buchanan should rub these facts well into our ecclesiastical skins. I freely admit that through all the centuries the name of Christ has been identified with every kind of devilry. . . . There is nothing in this terrible poem to give intelligent Christians fear.

THE REV. F. SLOPER
(preaching in Congregational Church, Kilburn)

     Strauss, Renan, and, we may add, Buchanan, will live in literature because they have attempted to do something with Jesus. Mr. Buchanan’s poetry and philosophy show that it is Jesus, not Christianity, which is on trial.

THE REV. DR. CLIFFORD
(preaching in Westbourne Park Chapel)

     Mr. Buchanan’s book is serviceable, in that, in the most eloquent and forcible terms, it has pointed out the way in which detrimental forces have been working. Yet, in spite of this, Christianity is Life.

                                                                                                                                                                   163

MANCHESTER GUARDIAN

     Vigour, fervour, sweep, and a certain distinct touch of mystical passion which no one who remembers the ‘Ballad of Judas Iscariot’ will deny.

LITERARY WORLD

     The most eloquent exposition of the school of religious pessimism which we have seen. The book exercises a fascination over the reader.

G. R. SIMS (Referee)

     A splendid piece of work. Never for a moment does this wild, weird, daring fantasy border on the blasphemous.

SUNDAY SUN

     Take the thing as a whole, and there is something even great about it. It is the conception of no mere literary pigmy. We should like to see the finicking minor poet who could bend this bow! . . . Images of poetic beauty, pictures of weird fascination, narrative and descriptive passages of striking power. . . . He has done something which is likely to justify his own boast: ‘In your dreams, this thing will haunt you!’

PARIS FIGARO

     The celebrated Scottish poet, Robert Buchanan, has just published a new poem, ‘The Wandering Jew,’ which is making a great stir in England. It is certainly Buchanan’s chef-d’œuvre. Form and subject are alike remarkable, and the work deserves to be translated into all languages.

THE REV. WILLIAM PIERCE
(preaching at New Court Chapel)

     The wonderful picture portrayed by Mr. Buchanan. . . . All the same it is a highly blasphemous book. . . . [Mr. Pierce adds, in a letter to the ‘Chronicle’:] Its strength lies in the fact that it contains a great deal that is true. There is no use denying it, the long story of mediæval Christianity is a monstrous repudiation of all that is truly Christian.

                                                                                                                                                                   164

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

     When a man like Mr. Buchanan takes the measuring line of his powerful pen and indites a condemnation of Christianity, it were well to listen to what he has to say! For however wrong he may be, what he says is for the most part beautifully said, and his opinion is shared by many who do not, who will not, or who cannot express it, but who share it none the less.

BAZAAR

     Mr. Buchanan’s masterly production. . . . The book should be read by everybody who admires and loves true poetry. We cannot attempt to review the ‘Wandering Jew’ in these columns, and, so far, not a single criticism worth reading has appeared in the London press. Each man must read the book for himself.

MR. G. W. FOOTE
(President of the National Secular Society)

     Mr. Buchanan’s indictment of Christianity stands unanswered.

_____

The Devil’s Case (which Buchanan published himself in 1896) contains a similar four page advert for The Wandering Jew, and mentions a new edition (‘with a new Preface and Notes’) which never materialised. All the reviews used in the Second Edition are repeated, apart from that of G.R. Sims, but there are several new comments:

i

In the Press, and will be published immediately. New and
Cheaper Edition, with a new Preface and Notes.
__________

THE WANDERING JEW:

A Christmas Carol.

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.
_____

SOME PRESS AND PULPIT OPINIONS.

SPEAKER.
—

SPECTATOR.
—

TIMES.
—

ZEIT-GEIST (Berlin).

     For many years no book has created such a tumult. . . . It is only two weeks in the hands of the public, and already whole pages of the newspapers are filled with what the poet says, and how he says it. . . . Buchanan has produced a noteworthy and thought-inspiring book.

                                                                                                                                                                 ii

THE ROCK.

     Honest and conscientious . . . but it is awful reading, and shocks us inexpressibly.

WORLD.

     The leading idea of the poem is decidedly original, and the arraignment of Christ is magnificently dramatic. . . . It is not too much to say that the Wandering Jew should greatly improve the author’s position as a writer and thinker.

ECHO.
—

TELEGRAPH.
—

THE REV. HUGH PRICE HUGHES.
—

THE REV. F. SLOPER.
—

BIRMINGHAM POST.

     All this weltering mass of foul accusation is but the morbid dream of an egotistic rhymer.

                                                                                                                                                                 iii

MISS MARIE CORELLI (Author of “Barabbas”).

     There would be something inexpressibly funny in a Robert Buchanan pronouncing doom on the Christ, if it were not so revolting.

THE REV. DR. CLIFFORD.
—

MANCHESTER GUARDIAN.
—

LITERARY WORLD.
—

SUNDAY SUN.
—

PARIS FIGARO.
—

CHRISTIAN GLOBE.

     The work is universally admitted to contain much powerful writing, and to be the fruit of an honest and even a reverent mind.

                                                                                                                                                                 iv

DR. JOSEPH PARKER.

     I am not going to throw this brilliant genius into the waste paper basket. Mr. Buchanan is on his way to the true and eternal Altar.

THE REV. WILLIAM PIERCE.
—

SUNDAY AFTERNOON.
—

BAZAAR.
—

MR. G. W. FOOTE.
—

AGNOSTIC JOURNAL.

     Mr. Buchanan’s indictment is based upon the incontrovertible facts of history, and can neither be quashed nor repudiated.

REV. R. F. HORTON.

     I rejoice in such attacks—stern, eloquent, and even bitter attacks are just what we should welcome. I do not understand the bitterness which some defenders of the faith have displayed towards Mr. Buchanan.

_____

“Is Christianity Played Out?” - The Wandering Jew controversy.

_____

Back to The Wandering Jew - main page

or Poetry