Volume 31, Number 7 · April 26, 1984
Beer, Onions, and Damnation
By D.J. Enright
The Wandering Jew
by Stefan Heym
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 298 pp., $14.95
The authorized version has it that Lucifer and the angels loyal to him fell through pride, having set themselves up as equal to the Almighty, and thereafter sought revenge by seducing God's newly created favorites, mankind. (See Milton for details.) The German novelist Stefan Heym has now come up with an alternative version. According to this, Lucifer and the others, including the archangel Ahasuerus or Ahasverus, whose name means 'beloved by God,' were expelled because they refused to bow down before man, that curiously arbitrary invention—Lucifer on the not unreasonable grounds of superior birth and qualities, and Ahasverus out of pity for man, since they both saw how he would turn out. 'It was such a great hope,' sighs Ahasverus as they fall toward the depths. 'Such a beautiful world! And such a beautiful man!'
Review, 2098 words
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