2. Arguments in Favor (if a Mixed Origin of the Sa- maritans.— The above views have been strongly com- bated by Kalkar (in the Tkeologische Mitarlu itiit, 1840, iii, 24 sq.) ; and weight}' names are on this side, e. g. De Sacy, Gesenius, Winer, DiiUinger {Ueidentlaim u. .fitdenthum, p. 739), Davidson, Stanley, Rawlinson, etc. The arguments for their views are substantially as follows :
(1.) It is evident that a consiilerable portion of the original Israelitish population must still have remained in the cities of Samaria; for we find (2 Chron. xxx, 1-20) that Hezekiah invited the remnant of the ten tribes who were in the land of Israel to come to the great Passover which he celebrated, and the different
SAMARITA^N"
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tribes are mentioned (ver. 10, 11) who did or did not respond to tlie invitation. Later, Ksar-hadUon adopted the policy of Shalmaneser, and a still further deporta- tion took place (Ezra iv,2)\ but even after this, though the heathen element, in all probability, preponderated, the land was not swept clean of its original inhabitants. Josiah, it is true, did not, like Hezekiah, invite the Sa- maritans to take part in the worship at Jerusalem ; but, finding himself strong enough to disregard the power of Assyria, now on the decline, he virtually claimed the land of Israel as the rightful appanage of David's throne, adopted energetic measures for the sujipression of id<ila- try, and even exterminated the Samaritan priests. But what is of more importance as showing that some por- tion of the ten tribes was still left in the land is the fact that, when the collection was made for the repairs of the Temple, we are told that the Levites gathered the money " of the hand of Mamisseh and Ephidlm, and of all the remnant of Israel" as well as " of Judah and Benjamin" (•2 Chron. xxxiv, 9). So, also, after the discovery of the book of the law, Josiah bound not only '-all who were present in Judah and Benjamin" to stand to the cove- nant contained in it; but he '• took away all the abom- inations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were present in Is- rael to serve, even to serve Jehovah their God. All his days they departed not from serving Jehovah the God of their fathers" (2 Chron. xxxiv, 32, 33).
Later yet, during the viceroyalty of Gedaliah, we find still the same feeling manifested on the part of the ten tribes which had shown itself under Hezekiah and Josiah. Eighty devotees from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, came with all the signs of mourn- ing, and bearing offerings in their hand, to the Temple at Jerusalem. They thus testified both their sorrow for the desolation that had come upon it, and their readiness to take part in the worship there, now that order was restored. This, it may be reasonably pre- sumed, was only one party out of many who came on a like errand. All these facts prove that, so far was the intercourse between Judah and the remnant of Israel from being imbittered by religious animosities, that it was the religious bond which bound them together. Hence it would have been quite possible during any portion of this period for the mixed Samaritan popula- tion to have received the law from the Jews.
This is far more probable than that copies of the Pentateuch should have been preserved among tliose families of the ten tribes who had either escaped when the land was shaven by the razor of the king of As- syria, or who had straggled back thither from their exile. If even in Jerusalem itself the book of the law was so scarce, and had been so forgotten, that the pious king Josiah knew nothing of its contents till it was ac- cidentally discovered, still less probable is it that in Israel, given up to idolatry and wasted by invasions, any copies of it should have survived.
On the whole, we should be led to infer that there had been a gradual fusion of the heathen settlers with the original inhabitants. At first the former, who re- garded Jehovah as only a local and national deity like one of their own false gods, endeavored to appease him by adopting in part the religious worship of t lie nation whose lanil they occupied. They did tiiis in the first instance, not by mixing with the resident jiopulation, but by sending to the king of Assyria for one of the Israelitish priests who had been carried cajitive. But in process of time the amalgamation of races became complete, and the worship of Jehovah superseded tiie worship of idols, as is evident botli from the wish of the Samaritans tdjciin in the Ti'inple worsliip after the cap- tivity, and from the absence of all idolatrous symlxils on Oerizim. So far, then, the history leaves us alto- gether in doubt as to the time at whicii the Pentateuch was received by the Samaritans. Copies of it mi(/ht have been left in the northern kingdom after Shalma- neser's invasion, though this is hanlly probable ; or
they might have been introduced thither during the religious reforms of Hezekiah or Josiah. Till the re- turn from Babylon there is no evidence that the Sa- maritans regarded the Jews with any extraordinary dislike or hostility. But the manifest distrust and sus- picion with which Nehemiah met their advances when he was rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem provoked their wrath. From this time forward thej' were declared and open enemies. The quarrel between the two nations was further aggravated b}' the determination of Nehe- miah to break off all marriages which had been con- tracted between Jews and Samaritans. Manasseh, the brother of the high-priest (so Josephus calls him, Ant. xi, 7, 2), and himself acting high-priest, was one of the offenders. He refused to divorce his wife, and took refuge with his father-in-law, Sanballat, who consoled liim for the loss of his priestly privilege in Jerusalem by making him high-priest of the new Samaritan tem- ple on Gerizira. With Manasseh many other apostate Jews who refused to divorce their wives fled to Sama- ria. It seems highly probable that these men took the Pentateuch with them, and adopted it as the basis of the new religious sj'stem which they inaugurated. See Pentateuch.