(c.) The present Hebrew character was not introduced by Ezra after the return from the Exile, but came into use at a much later period. The Samaritans might, therefore, have received the Pentateuch at the hands of the returned exiles, who, according to the Talmud, af- terwards changed their writing, and in the Pentateuch only, so as to distinguish it from the Samaritan. '• Orig- inally," saj's Mar Sutra (^Sanhedr. 21 b), " the law was given to Israel in Ihri writing and the holy (Hebrew) language ; it was again given to them, in the days of Ezra, in the Ashurith writing and Aramaic language. Israel then selected the Ashurith writing and the holy language, and left to the ignorant ('Ic>iwrai) the Ibri writing and the Aramaic language. Who are the ig- norant? The Cuthim (Samaritans). What is Ibri writing? The Libonai (Samaritan)." (See also Luz- zatto, in Kirchheim, op. cit. p. 111.) It is well known, also, that the Maccabaean coins bear Samaritan inscrip- tions; so that ^' iSiwTai' would point to the common use of the Samaritan character for ordinary purposes down to a very late period.
2. The second leading opinion on the age and origin of the Samaritan Pentateuch is that it was introduced b\' Manasseh (comp. Josephus, Atit. xi, 8, 2, 4) at the time of the foundation of the Samaritan sanctuary on Mount Gorizim (Ant. van Dale, R. Simon, Prideaux, Ful- da, Hasse, De VVette, Gesenius, Hupfeld, Hengstenberg, Keil, etc.). In support of this opinion are alleged the idolatry of the Samaritans before they received a Jew- ish priest through ICsar-haddon (2 Kings xvii, 24-33), and the immense number of readings common to the Sept. and this code against the Masoretic text.
3. Other, but verj' isolated, notions are those of Mo- rin, Le Clerc, Poncet, etc., that the Israelitish priest sent by the king of Assyria to instruct the new inhabitants in the religion of the country brought the Pentateuch with him; further, that the Samaritan Pentateuch was the production of an impostor, Dositheus ("^XUDII in the Talmud), who lived during the time of the apostles, and who falsified the sacred records in order to prove that he was the Messiah (Usher) — against which there is only this to be observed, that there is not the slight- est alteration of such a nature to be found ; finally, that
it is a very late and faulty recension, made after the Masoretic text (6th century after Christ), into whicli glosses from the Sept. had been received (Frankel), or transcribed from a Hebrew copy into their own charac- ter, in the 10th. Uth, or Tith century (Tychsen). Both these conjectures are clearly refuted by the testimonies of Origen and Jerome, who affirm that the Samaritans had the Pentateuch in peculiar characters before their time.
V. Relation of the Sumaritan Pentateuch to the Sej)- tuat/int. — From the time of the discovery of the Samar- itan Pentateuch, its striking resemblance in numerous passages to the Alexandrine version liad been noticed by all. Hassencamp calculated some 1900 places in which the Samaritan Pentateuch agreed with the Sept. Gesenius thinks that there are more than 1000 such places. The most important places are given by Pick in his Hurm Samaritance.
It must, on the other hand, be stated also that the Samaritan and Sept. quite as often disagree with each other, and follow each the Masoretic text; also, that the quotations in the N. T. from the Sept., where they coin- cide with the Samaritan against the Hebrew text, are so small in number, and of so unimportant a nature, that they cannot be adduced as any argument whatsoever. See Pentateuch.
The chief opinions Avith respect to the agreement of the numerous readings of the Sept. (of which no critical edition exists as yet) and the Samaritan Pen- tateuch are :
(1.) That the Sept. was translated from the Samar- itan (De Dieu, Selden, Hottinger, Hassencamp, Eich- horn, Kohn).
(2.) That mutual interpolations have taken place (Grotius, Usher, Kavius, etc.).
(3.) That both versions were formed from Hebrew codices, which differed among themselves as well as from the one which afterwards obtained public author- ity in Palestine; that, however, very manj^ wilful cor- ruptions and interpolations have crept in in later times (Gesenius).
(4.) That the Samaritan has, in the main, been al- tered from the Sept. (Frankel).
(«.) As to the first of these opinions — that the Sept. was translated from the Samaritan — it has been alleged on the evidence of Origen and supported by Jerome that in certain MSS. of the Sept. existing in their day the word mn^ was retained in the ancient Hebrew (i. e. Samaritan) character, not in those used at their time, Ezra, according to tradition, having introduced other letters after the captivity (Origen, Hexapla [ed. Montfaucon], i, 86 ; Jerome, Epislola 136 ad Marcel- luni). It is clear, however, from the statement made by Jerome on tliis point, that the remark of Origen can apply only to the Aramaic or square characters, not to those in use among the Samaritans. These are his words: "Nomen (viz. nomen Dei) est tetragrammum, quod avtKf^vi]Tov, i. e. ineffabile putaverunt, quod his Uteris scribitur: Yod, E, Vav, E. Quod quidam non in- telligentes Pi Pi legere consueverunt;" and they explain how it came that some Greek copyists could make Trnn out of the Hebrew ITin^. That the argument based upon Origen's words must fall to the ground is evident. Another reason alleged in support of the Sept. having been derived from the Samaritan original has been given on the supposition that the variations from the Hebrew text arose from a confusion between letters resembling each other in the Samaritan and not in the square alphabet. But this argument is untenable; for while we admit that such errors may have arisen from a confusion between similar letters in the Samar- itan, yet it is equally true that the same could have occurred as well in the square letters; thus, e.g., tl and n, "1 and 1, 1 and T, 2 and 3, 2 and 3, 1 and 3, S and ^, 1 and 1, could have been mistaken. A third argument