SAMARITAN
287
SAMARITAN
among the Philistines; and that foolish people that dwell in Sichem." So long was it before siicli a tem- per could be banished from the Jewish mind that Ave lind even the apostles believing that an inhospitable slight shown bj^ a Samaritan village to Christ would be not unduly avenged by calling down tire from heav- en. " Ye know not what spirit ye are of," said the large-hearted Son of Man ; and we find him on no one occasion uttering anything to the disparagement of the Samaritans. His words, however, and the records of his ministrations conlirm most thoroughly the view which has been taken above — that the Samaritans were not Jews. At the iirst sending -forth of the twelve (Matt. X, 5, 6), he charges them, " Go not into the way of the Gentiles; and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." So, again, in his tinal address to them on Mount Olivet, " Ye shall be witnesses to me in Je- rusalem and in all Jud«a, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts i, 8). So the nine unthankful lepers, Jews, were contrasted by him with the tenth leper, the thankful stranger {aWoytvijc), who was a Samaritan. So, in his well-known parable, a merciful Samaritan is contrasted with the unmerciful priest and Levite. And the very worship of the two races is described by him as different in character. " Ye worship j'e know not what," this is said of the Sa- maritans : "We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews" (John iv, 22).
Such were the Samaritans of our Lord's day : a peo- ple distinct from the Jews, though lying in the very midst of the Jews ; a people preserving their identity, though seven centuries had rolled away since they had been brought from Assyria by Esar-haddon, and though they had abandoned tlieir polytheism for a sort of idtra- Mosaicism; a people who — though their limits had been gradually contracted, and the rallying-place of their re- ligion on Mount (ierizim had been destroyed one hun- dred and sixty years before, and though Samaria (the city) had been again and again destroyed, and though their territory had been tlie battle-tield of Syria and Egvpt — still preserved their nationality, still worship- ped from Shechem and their other impoverished settle- ments towards their sacred hill, still could not coalesce with the Jews.
Under Vespasian, the city of Sichem received the new name of Neapolis, which still remains in the Ara- bic form Nablus. At the time of Pilate a tumult was excited among the Samaritans by an adventurer who persuaded the common people to follow him to the sum- mit of Gerizim, where he pretended that Moses had buried the golden vessels. But Pilate dispersed the multitude with troops, and put the heads of the sedi- tion to death. In consequence of the Samaritans com- plaining of his conduct to Vitellius, Pilate was deposed and sent to Rome (Joseph. .4«^. xviii, 4, 1). Josephus relates (ir«r, iii, 7, 32) that while Vespasian was en- deavoring to subjugate the neighboring districts, the Samaritans collected in large numbers and took up their position on Mount Gerizim. The Roman general at- tacked and slew 11, GOO. Under Septimius Severus they joined the Jews against him; and tlierefore Neapolis was deprived of its rights. In the 3d and 4th centu- ries, notwithstanding their former calamities, they seem to have greatly increased and extended, not only in the East, but in the West. They appear to have grown into importance under Dositheus, who was probably an apostate .Jnw. Ei)i|)hanius (Adv. Ilcereses, lib. i), in the 4th century, considers them to be the chief and most dangerous adversaries of Christianitj', and he enumer- ates the several sects into which they had by that time divided themselves. Tliey were popularly, and even by some of the fathers, confounded with the Jews, inso- much that a legal interpretation of the Gospel was de- scribed as a tendency to Srt/frtpEiriff/dif or 'loi»^«((7jit''c- This confusi(jn, however, did not extend to an identifi- cation of the two races. It was simply an assertion
that their extreme opinions were identical. But the distinction between them and the Jews was sufficiently known, and even recognised in the Theodosian Code. In the 5th century a tumult was excited at Neapolis, during which the Samaritans ran into the Christian church, which was thronged with worshippers, killing, maiming, and mutilating many. Tlie bisliop, Terebin- thus, having repaired to Constantinople and complained to the emperor, the latter punished the guilt}- by driv- ing them from Mount Gerizim and giving it to the Christians, where a church was erected in honor of the Virgin. Under Anastasius an insurrection headed by a woman broke out, and was soon suppressed. Under Justinian there was a more formidable and extensive outbreak. It is related that all the Samaritans in Pal- estine rose up against the Christians and committed many atrocities, killing, plundering, burning, and tort- uring. In Neapolis tliey crowned their leader, Julian, king. But the imperial troops were sent against them, and great numbers, with Julian himself, were slain. In the time of the Crusaders, Neapolis suffered, along with other places in Palestine. In 1184 it was plun- dered by Saladin. After the battle of Hatthi, in 1187, it was devastated, and the sacred places in the neigh- borhood were polluted by Saladin's troops. Having been several times in the hands of the Christians, it was taken by Abu 'Aly in 1244, since which it has re- mained in the power of the Mohammedans. No Chris- tian historian of the Crusades mentions the Samari- tans; but they are noticed by Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th century, who calls them Cuthites, or Cutha;- ans. In the 17th century Delia Valle gives an ac- count of them ; subsequently, Maundrell and IMorison. After an interest in the people had been awakened by the reception of copies of their Pentateuch, their an- swers to the letters which Joseph Scaliger had sent to their communities in Nablus and Cairo came into the hands of John Morin, who made a Latin translation of them. The originals and a better version were pub- lished by De Sacy in Eichhorn's Repertoriam, vol. xiii. In 1G71 a letter was sent by the Samaritans at Nablus to Robert Huntington, which was answered by Thomas Marshall of Oxford. The correspondence thus begun continued till 1G88. De Sacy published it entire in Ciirre.tpnndance des Samuritains, contained in Xolices et Extraits des MSS, de la BiUiofheque dii Rou vol. xii. The correspondence between Ludolf and the Samaritans was published by Cellarius and Bruns, and is also in Eichhorn's Repeitorium, vol. xiii. These letters are of great archaeological interest, and enter very minutely into the observances of the Samaritan ritual. Among other points worthy of notice in them is the inconsist- ency displayed by the writers in valuing themselves on not being Jews, and yet claiming to be descendants of Joseph. In 1807 a letter from the Samaritans to Gre- goire, the French bishop, came into De Sacy's hands, who answered it. This was followed by four others, which were all published by the eminent French Orien- talist.