The enmity which began at tlie time when the co- operation of the Samaritans in rebuilding the Temple was refused continued to increase till it reached such a height as to become proverbial in after-times. It is ]irobable, too, that the more the Samaritans detached themselves from idols a]id became devoteil exclusively to a sort of worship of .lehovah, the more they resented tlie contempt with which the Jews treated their offers of fraternization. Matters at length came to a climax. About B.C. 409, in the reign of Darius Nothus, one Ma- nasseh, of priestly descent, was expelled from Jerusalem by Nehemiah for an illegal marriage, and took refuge with the Samaritans. Whether the temple on Mount Gerizim was actually built in the days of Manasseh is doubtful. Probably he labored to unite the people in a common worship. The temple is not said to have been erected till the time of Alexander the (Jreat, who gave permission to build it. If so, it did not exist till about one hundred years after Manasseh. It is diffi- cult to make a consistent and clear account of the mat- ter out of Josephus, who has evidently fallen into error, since he is inconsistent with Neh. xiii, 28, etc. The establishment of a separate worship made the breach existing between the Jews and Samaritans irreparable. From this time malcontent Jews resorted to Samaria ; and the very name of either people became odious to the other. About the year B.C. 129, John Hyrcanus, high-priest of the Jews, destroyed the city of the Sa- maritans. TheCutha>an Samaritans had possessed only a few towns and villages of the large area generally known as Samaria, and these lay almost together in tlie centre of the district. Shechem, or Sychar (as it was contemptuously designated), was their chief settle- ment, even before Alexander the (ireat destroyed tlie city of Samaria, probably because it lay almost close to IMount Gerizim. Afterwards it became more promi- nently so, and there on the destruction of the city of Samaria by Alexander they had built themselves a temple, which remained till the capture of Gerizim by John Hyrcanus (Joseph. Anf. xiii, 9, 1). See Shechem. The only thing wanted to crystallize the opposition between tlie two races — viz. a rallying-point for schis- matical worship — fx-ing now obtained, their animosity became more intense than ever. The Samaritans are said to have done everything in their power to annoy the Jews. They would refuse hospitality to pilgrims on their road to Jerusalem, as in our Lord's case. They would even waylay them in their journey (Joseph. A nt. XX, 6, 1) ; and many were compelled through fear to take the longer route by the east of Jordan. Certain Samaritans were said to have once penetrated into the Temple of Jerusalem, and to have defiled it by scatter- ing dead men's bones on the sacred pavement {ibid. xviii, 2, 2). We are told, too, of a strange piece of mockers' which must have been especially resented. It was the custom of the Jews to communicate to their brethren still in Baliylon the «xact day and hour of the rising of the paschal moon by beacon-tires commencing from !Mount Olivet, and flashing forward from hill to liill until they were mirrored in tlie Euphrates. So the Greek poet represents Agamemnon as convoying the news of Troy's capture to the anxious watchers at MycenjB. Those who " sat liy the waters of Babylon" looked for this signal with much interest. It enabled them to share in tlie devotions of those who were in their fatlierlaiid. and it jirovcd to them that they were not forgotten. Tfie Samaritans thought scorn of these feelings, and would not unfretpiently deceive and dis- appoint tliem by kindling a rival flame ami perplexing the watchers on the mountains. "This fact," says Dr.
Trench, " is mentioned by ]\Iakrizi (see De Sacy. Chrest. Arabe, ii, 159), who affirms that it was this which put the Jews on making accurate calculations to determine the moment of the new moon's appearance (comp. Schiittgen, Jlor. Jhb. i, 344)." Their own temple on Gerizim the Samaritans considered to be much superi- or to that at Jerusalem. There they sacrificed a pass- over. Towards the mountain, even after the temple on it had fallen, wherever tliey were, they directed their worship. To their copy of the law they arrogated an antiquity and authority greater than attached to any copy in the possession of the Jews. The law (i. e. the five books of Moses) was their sole code ; for they re- jected every other book in the Jewish canon. They professed to observe it better than did the Jews them- selves, employing the expression not nnfrequently, " The Jews indeed do so and so: but we, observing the letter of the law, do otherwise." The Jews, on the other hand, were not more conciliatory in their treatment of the Samaritans. The copy of the law possessed by that people they declared to be the legacy of an apostate (Manasseh), and cast grave suspicions upon its genu- ineness. Certain other Jewish renegades, as already observed, had, from time to time, taken refuge with the Samaritans. Hence, by degrees, the Samaritans claim- ed to partake of Jewish blood, especially if doing so happened to suit tlieir interest (Joseph. Ant. xi, 8, 6; ix, 14, 3). A remarkable instance of this is exhibited in a request which they made to Alexander the Great, about B.C. 382. They desired to be excused payment of trib- ute in the sabbatical year, on the plea that as true Is- raelites, descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, sons of Joseph, thej' refrained from cultivating their land in that year. Alexander, on cross-questioning them, dis- covered the hollowness of their pretensions. (They were greatly disconcerted at their failure, and their dis- satisfaction probabh' led to the conduct which induced Alexander to besiege and destroy the city of Samaria. Shechem was, indeed, their metropolis, but the destruc- tion of Samaria seems to have satisfied Alexander.) Another instance of claim to Jewish descent appears in the words of the woman of Samaria to our Lord, John iv, 12 : "Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the wcUV" a question which she puts without recollecting that she had just before strongly contrasted the Jews and the Samaritans. Very far were the Jews from admitting tliis claim to consanguinity on the part of these people. They Avere ever reminding them that they were, after all, mere Cutha?ans, mere strangers from Assyria. They accused them of worshipping the idol-gods buried long ago under the oak of Shechem (Gen. XXXV, 4). They would have no dealings with them that they could possibly avoid. This prejudice had, of course, sometimes to give way to necessity, for the disciples had gone to Sychar to buy food while our Lord was talking with the woman of Samaria by the well in its suburb (.lohn iv, 8). From Luke ix, 52 we learn that the disciples went before our Lord at his command into a certain village of the Samaritans "to make ready" for him. Perhaps, indeed (though, as we see on both occasions, our Lord's influence over them was not yet complete), we are to attribute this partial abandonment of their ordinary scruples to the change which his example had already wrought in them. "Thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil" was the mode in which the Jews expressed themselves when at a loss for a bitter reproach. Everything that a Samaritan had touched was as swine's flesh to them. The Sa- maritan was publicly cursed in their synagogues; could not be adduced as a witness in the Jewish courts; could not be admitted to any sort of proselytism; and was thus, so far as the Jew could affect his position, excluded from hope of eternal life. The traditional hatred in wliich the Jew held him is expressed in ICcclus. I, 25, 20, "There be two manner of nations which my heart abhorreth, and the third is no nation : they that sit on the mountain of Samaria; and they that dwell