THE SAMARITANS.
After the Assyrian conquest of Israel, and the removal of its people into captivity, colonies from the E. were placed in their deserted cities. The country having been desolated by war, wild beasts multiplied, and became the terror and scourge of the new inhabitants. The barren heights of Hermon and Lebanon, and the deserted jungles of the Jordan valley, are to this day infested with bears, panthers, wolves, and jackals. The strangers attributed the calamity to the anger of the local Deity, of whose peculiar mode of worship they were ignorant. They therefore petitioned for Jewish priests to instruct them in religious rites; and after they had heard their teachings “ they feared the Lord, and served their own gods.” (2 Kings xvii. 24-41.) Such was the origin of the SAMARITANS. Strangers by blood, they were merely instructed in some of the leading points of the Jewish religion by one, or probably several, Jewish priests; and still retained the gods of their own nations. The introduction of the Pentateuch among them is sufficiently accounted for by this partial adoption of the Jewish creed. In after times the Jews refused to acknowledge them in any way, and would not permit them to place a stone on the walls of the second Temple, though their refusal cost them many a trial. (Ezra iv.)
Being thus cast off by the Jews, the Samaritans resolved to erect a temple of their own on Gerizim. The immediate occasion appears to have been the circumstances related by Nehemiah, that a son of Joiada, the high priest, had become son-in-law to Sanballat, and had on this account been expelled from Jerusalem. (Neh. Xiii. 28.) The date of the temple may thus be fixed at about B.C. 420. Shechem now , became the metropolis of the Samaritans as a sect; and a kind of asylum, : too, for all apostate and lax Jews who fled from the severe strictness of the ceremonial law. (Joseph. Ant. xi. 8, 6.) These things tended to foster feelings of enmity between the two nations, which finally resulted in the total destruction of the Temple of Gerizim by the Jews under John Hyrcanus. The very name Samaritan became a by-word and a reproach among the Jews, just as the name Yehûdy, “ Jew,” is among the modern Syrians; and some even suppose that they nicknamed the city of Shechem Sychar, “ Falsehood,” to mark their opinion of the pretended origin of its inhabitants. In our Lord’s time the Samaritans retained their worship on Gerizim though the temple was in ruins; and they had also some vague expectations of a Messiah. (John iv. 20-25.)
During the reign of Vespasian Shechem was rebuilt and renamed Neapolis, “‘ New City,” an appellation which has run into the Arabic Nâbulus —one of the very few instances in which the Greek has entirely supplanted the ancient Semitic name. “The Samaritan worship,” says Dr. Robinson, “ would appear to have long continued predominant at Neapolis; for upon the coins of the subsequent centuries we find Mount Gerizim with its temple depicted as the symbol of the city. There is indeed no historical testimony that the former temple was ever rebuilt; yet there was doubtless an altar, or some kind of structure, where their worship was held. The Samaritans are not mentioned in connexion with the Jewish war and catastrophe under Adrian; but under Septimius Severus, about A.D. 200, they appear to have made common cause with the Jews against the emperor; and Neapolis was deprived by him of its rights as a city. In that and the following centuries the Samaritans were spread extensively not only over Egypt and the E., but also in the W. as far as Rome itself, where they had a synagogue in the time of Theodoric, after 4.D.493. Their occupation appears to have been chiefly that of merchants and money-changers, much like the Jews.”
They first heard the Gospel from the lips of the Saviour himself, when he preached to the woman and her friends at Jacob’s Well (John iv. 39-42), And after the Crucifixion the Apostles taught in their city (Acts vili. 25; ix. 31). Justin, the martyr and philosopher, one of the earliest of the Christian writers, was a native of Neapolis, where he was born about A.D. 89. The city afterwards became an episcopal see; and the names of several of its prelates are found among the subscriptions to the Councils of Aneyra, Nice, and Jerusalem. In A.D. 487 the Samaritans rose against the Christians, killed many of them, and cruelly maimed the bishop. In consequence of this act they were driven from Mount Gerizim, and a church was built there in honour of the Virgin. This building was frequently attacked by the enraged Samaritans, and the emperor Justinian surrounded it by a strong fortress as a defence against them.
On the invasion of Syria by the Muslems Neapolis peaceably surrendered, and when the Crusaders captured Jerusalem it as peaceably yielded to them. Like the other cities of Palestine however, it suffered severely by the long wars between the Crescent and the Cross. It was repeatedly plundered ; its churches and altars were polluted; and its people exposed to the most fearful atrocities. During all this time no mention is made of the Samaritans; and it is only on the visit of the Jew, Benjamin of Tudela, in the 12th centy., that they are again brought under our notice. In Cæsarea, on the sea-coast, he found “two hundred Cutheans, commonly called Samaritans ;” and in Nâbulus, the ancient Sichem, about one hundred. His account of them as to numbers, habits, and religion might be adopted without much change at present. From that time until the beginning of the present centy. this interesting people are only noticed in brief and general terms by a few passing travellers; but we learn more of them from letters they wrote to several inquisitive European scholars, These were published by De Sacy in his Correspondance des Samaritains ; and from them it appears that 2 centuries ago they had small communities in Cairo, Gaza, and Damascus. All have long since disappeared except the few families in Nâbulus, who still cling around the mountain consecrated by their history and their faith.
The literature of the Samaritans is very confined. It consists of the following works :—1. The Pentateuch in the original character, first published in the Paris Polyglott ; also in an Arabic version still in manuscript. 2. A Collection of Hymns, published by Gesenius. 3. A Samaritan Manuscript, professing to be the Book of Joshua, but really a worthless chronicle, extending from Moses to the time of Alexander Severus. It has been translated into Arabic, and a copy of this version exists in the Library of the University of Leden. 4. Several commentaries on the Law; and a history of their nation in Arabic from the Exodus to Mohammed. Their manuscripts are kept in a recess of their Synagogue, behind a curtain, under the sole care of the High Priest. The present priest is a liberal, and to some degree enlightened man; and travellers have little difficulty in seeing, touching, and handling as much as they wish, all their treasury of wisdom. Their celebrated copy of the Pentateuch was written (so they affirm) by Abishua the son of Phinehas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron, and is therefore nearly 3300 years old. It is a ponderous roll, tattered, patched, and stained, but neither writing nor parchment appears to be of very great antiquity. It is kept in a cylindrical brass case which opens upon hinges..
The principal religious rites of the Samaritans are as follows :—'Three times a year they go in solemn procession to the summit of Gerezim (Jebel et-Tur), reading the Law as they ascend. First, on the Feast of the Passover, when they encamp on the mountain, sacrifice 7 lambs at sunset, and remain all night. Second, on the Day of Pentecost. Third, on the Feast of Tabernacles, when they dwell on Gerizim in booths, or arbours formed of branches of the arbutus. They keep their Sabbath (Saturday) with great strictness, permitting neither labour nor trading, cooking nor lighting a fire. On Friday evening they pray in their houses; and on Saturday hold public prayers in their Synagogue, morning, noon, and evening. These are noisy affairs, consisting of a number of prostrations, accompanied by recitations hurried over as if for a wager, and shouted at the pitch of the voice : there is no appearance of solemnity, or even of decent propriety, in either priest or people. The following note I made on the spot at the service immediately after their Passover last spring (1857). “The priest now informed me that it was the hour for evening prayer. I asked permission to remain, which was readily granted. The services commenced by all turning their faces to the recess or sanctuary, prostrating themselves on the ground and touching the floor with lips and forehead. They then rose to their knees, and, resting back on their heels—a posture which none but Orientals can assume—commenced to chant, led by the priest, and two young men his cousins, who were stationed immediately in front of the sanctuary. At first they spoke slowly and with low voice, but they gradually went faster and grew louder until the united voices became an absolute dismal howl. I had never heard anything like it except the howling derwishes at Damascus. There was no semblance of feeling or devotion—it was just a performance. Each one who came in after the commencement made the prostrations and went on with the others. Three or four boys arrived very late, and one of them had a regular battle for a place. On attempting to kneel beside a man, the latter drove him roughly away; in another place he met with a still ruder reception, and it was fully 3 minutes before he could get a spot to rest on—all eyes in the mean time being turned on the disputants!” They assemble in the synagogue on the great feasts, when they read the Law, and on the new moons, but not every day.
The Samaritans would seem to have obtained the petition of Agur the son of Jakeh—“ Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.” They are ‘neither poor nor rich; they are well clothed, and have every appearance of being well fed. They live in their own houses, follow in peace their trades and occupations, and are neither so much despised nor oppressed by the Muslems as their Jew or Christian neighbours. It is a curious fact that for centuries their number has neither increased nor diminished, at least to any perceptible extent. This, of course, tends to prevent poverty. The only instances of poverty I could hear of among them were those of 2 or 3 individuals who had brought it upon themselves by idleness and misconduct. Their hatred of the Jews is as cordial as it was 18 centuries ago; indeed in this as in everything else they are eminently conservative. Like Shylock, however, they are willing to compromise matters; and though they will neither eat with them, drink with them, nor pray with them, they have no objections to transact a little profitable business with them (John iv. 9).