extended to the former as well, it was decided by watch- ing wliether a clean or unclean bird first settled upon it. On the Sabbath they might only eat and drink from earthen vessels, which, if defiled, could not be purified; they might give no food or water to their cattle: this was done on the day previous. Their high-priest was a certain Zarii, who had been turned out of his own community for immorality.
At a later period lived Dusis. Being condemned to death for adultery, he was respited on the promise of sowing dissension among the Samaritans by founding a new sect. He went to 'Asker, near Nabliis, and formed a friendship with a Samaritan, distinguished for his learning and piety, by the name of nn*^. Compelled, however, to fly for his life on account of a false accusa- tion which he had brought against his friend, he took shelter at Shueike with a widow woman named Amentu, in whose house he composed many writings; but, find- ing that a hot pursuit after him was still maintained, he retired to a cave, where he peiished of hunger, and his body was eaten by dogs. Before his departure, how- ever, he left his books with his hostess, enjoining her to let no one read them unless he first bathed in the tank hard h\. Accordingly, when Levi, the high-priest's nephew — a pious, able man — arrived with seven others in search of him, they all bathed, one after the other, in the tank, and each, as he emerged from the water, ex- claimed, " I believe in thee, Jehovah, and in Dusis, thy servant, and his sons and daughters;" Levi adding, when his turn came, '• Woe to us if we deny Dusis, the prophet of God." They then took the writings of Dusis, and found that he had made many alterations in the law — more, even, than Ezra. They concealed them, and on their return to Nabliis reported that Dusis had disappeared before they arrived, they knew not whither. At the next Passover, Levi had to read out Exod. xii, 22 in the synagogue, but for '"hyssop" (mTX) he sub- stituted " thyme" ("ir"^). Corrected by the congrega- tion, he still persevered, crying, " This is right, as God hath said by his prophet Diisis, on whom be peace ! Ye are all worthy of death for denying the prophetic office of his servant Dusis, altering the feasts, falsifying the great name of Jehovah, and persecuting the second prophet of God, whom he hath revealed from Sinai! Woe unto you that you have rejected and do not follow him !" Levi was stoned. His friends dipped a palm- leaf in his blood, and ordained that whoever would read Dusis's writings and see the leaf must first fast seven days and nights. They cut off their hair, shaved their beards, and at their funerals performed many strange ceremonies. On the Sabbath they would not move from their place, and kept their feasts only on this day, during which they would not remove their hands from their sleeves. When one of their friends died, thej' would gird him with a girdle, put a stick in his hand and shoes on his feet, saying, " If we rise, he will at once get up," believing that the dead man, as soon as he was laid in the grave, would rise and go to Paradise. As to the age in which Dusis lived, it must have been long before Origen, for this father, in his Commentary on John xiii, 27 (ed. Lommatzsch, ii, 49), tells iis that a " certain Dositheus arose and claimed to be the IMessiah ; his followers are called Dositheans, who have his books and tell wonderful stories of him, as if he had not died and is still alive somewhere." This agrees with the statement of Abftl-Fath concerning Dusis. According to Origen, Dositheus must have lived long before him— probably in the 1st, or at least in the 2d century of the Christian sra. That he was the teacher or pupil of Simon Magus, as some have asserted, is an untenable conjecture. See Petermann in Herzog, xiii, 387 sq. ; Nutt, Samaritan History, p. 46 sq. ; Basnage, Histoire des Juifs (Taylor's transl.), p. 94 sq.; Jost, Gesch. des Judenth. u. s. Secten, i, 62 sq. ; De Sacy, Chrestom. A rabe, i, 334 sq. (B. P.)
SAMARITAN VERSIONS. There exist three dif-
SAMARITAN VERSIONS
300
SAMARITAN VERSIONS
ferent translations of the Pentateuch in Samaritan, two of which have been translated into Greek and Arabic respectively.
1, Samaritan. — The origin, author, and age of the .Samaritan version of the five books of Moses has hither- to— so Eichhorn quaintly observes — "always been a golden apple to the investigators, and will very prob- ably remain so, until people leave off venturing decisive judgments upon historical subjects which no one has recorded in antiquity" {Einleiluw/, ii, 320). Indeed, modern investigators, keen as they have been, have done little towards the elucidation of the subject. According to the Samaritans themselves (De Sacy [J/««. 3], Pau- lus, Winer), their high-priest Nathaniel, who died about [ B.C. 20, is its author, tiesenius puts its date a few years after Christ. Juynboll thinks tliat it had long been in use in the second post-Christian century. Frankel places i it in the post -Mohammedan time, on account of the ^ many Arabisms. Other investigators date it from the time of Esar-haddon's priest (Schwarz), or either shortly | before or after the foundation of the temple on Mount Gerizim. Kohn thinks that it was made by different authors. It seems certain, however, that it was com- posed before the destruction of the second Temple; and being intended, like the Targums, for the use of the people exclusively, it was written in the popular Sa- maritan idiom, a mixture of Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and Arabic.