A SKETCH 
 
 SAMARITAN HISTORY, &c. 
 
By the same Author. 
 
 TWO TREATISES ON VERBS CONTAINING FEEBLE 
 AND DOUBLE LETTERS: By R. Jehuda Hayug of 
 Fez. Translated into Hebrew from the original Arabic by 
 R. Moses Gikatilia of Cordova ; to which is added, The 
 Treatise on Punctuation, by the same author, translated 
 by Aben Ezra ; edited from Bodleian MSS., with an EngUsh 
 translation. 
 
 London, 1870, 8vo. 
 
 pp. xiii, and 147, English; pp. xv, and 132, Arabic and Hebrew. 
 Price 7s. 6d. 
 
 In preparation. 
 
 A HEBREW COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH, by a French 
 Rabbi of the 12th century, edited from a Bodleian MS. with 
 an English translation. 
 
A SKETCH 
 
 OF 
 
 SAMARITAN HISTORY, DOGMA 
 
 AND 
 
 LITERATURE, 
 
 PUBLISHED AS AN INTRODUCTION 
 TO 
 
 "FRAGMENTS OF A SAMARITAN TARGUM, 
 EDITED FROM A BODLEIAN MS." 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN W. ' NUTT, M.A., 
 
 FELLOW OF ALL SOULS' COLLEGE, GRINFIELD READER ON THE LXI, 
 SUB-LIBRARIAIf OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY, OXFORD. 
 
 TRUBNER AND CO., LONDON. 
 1874. 
 
OXFORD: 
 
 BY E. PICKARD HALL AND J. H. STACY, 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface i 
 
 I. History of the Samaritans. 
 
 Captivity of the Ten Tribes, B. c. 7 2 2 2 
 
 fSettlement of Assyrian colonists in their place ... 3 
 
 All the Israelites not carried away 5 
 
 The Jews return from Babylon in 536 7 
 
 They refuse the Samaritans' aid in rebuilding the 
 
 Temple 7 
 
 Hostility of the latter in consequence 7 
 
 The territory of the Samaritans 8 
 
 Samaria or Sebaste 9 
 
 Shechem, the modern Nablus 11 
 
 Temple built on Garizim in opposition to that of 
 
 Jerusalem 16 
 
 The Samaritans under Alexander's successors ... 17 
 Their apostasy under Antiochus Epiphanes ....18 
 
 Destruction of their temple by John Hyrcanus ... 19 
 
 Samaria under the Romans 19 
 
 Fortunes of the people under the emperors . . . . 20 
 
 Troubles in the time of Zeno and Justinian .... 22 
 
 The Mohammedan conquest in 636 22 
 
 The Crusadei's in Palestine 109 9- 1244 22 
 
 Little known of the Samaritans ckiring the Middle 
 Ages -23 
 
VI CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Communications opened with them by Scaliger ... 2 3 
 
 A Pentateuch procured from them by P. della Valle . 24 
 
 Their correspondence with Europeans 24 
 
 Present condition of the people 25 
 
 II. Doctrines of the Samaritans. 
 
 At the first probably not very definite 28 
 
 Alliance of Samaritans with certain Jews in the time 
 
 of Ezra 30 
 
 Secession of Manasseh in the following century . . 30 
 
 The Samaritans borrow their theology from Jerusalem 30 
 Sadducean teaching then prevailing there ....31 
 
 It is gradually ousted by Pharisee doctrines . . . . 33 
 
 Bevived by the Karaites 36 
 
 Agreement of Samaritans, Sadducees, and Karaites, in 
 
 opposition to the Pharisees and Eabbanites ... 37 
 
 Jewish testimony to Samaritan doctrines . . . . 42 
 
 Statements of the Fathers 45 
 
 Sects of the Samaritans 46 
 
 1. Essenes 46 
 
 2. Sebuaeans 47 
 
 3. Gorthenians 48 
 
 4. Dositheans 48 
 
 5. Simon Magus and his followers 55 
 
 Later developments of Samaritan doctrine . . . . 65 
 
 Its five principal articles 66 
 
 The Miessiah 69 
 
 Feasts of the Samaritans ; the Passover 72 
 
 Their religious customs 75 
 
 III. Literature of the Samaritans. 
 
 The language in which it was written 77 
 
 Samaritan Hellenists and tlioir works So 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 PA6B 
 
 i. The Hebrew-Samaritan Pentateuch; its discovery 83 
 Its superiority over the Hebrew Pentateuch 
 
 asserted 86 
 
 Opposition to this view 88 
 
 Criticism of it by Gesenius 90 
 
 Similarity of LXX to Samaritan Pentateuch . . 91 
 
 Various explanations of the fact 93 
 
 1. The LXX was translated from the Samaritan 
 
 Pentateuch 93 
 
 2. The Samaritan Pentateuch was corrected 
 
 from the LXX 96 
 
 3. Both were derived from similar MSS. ... 98 
 Doubtful when the Samaritans received their Pen- 
 tateuch 99 
 
 Their alphabet abandoned by the Jews under Ezra 100 
 
 MSS. of the Samaritan Pentateuch ; the Paris MS. 103 
 
 The synagogue-roll at Nablus 104 
 
 Translations of the Samaritan Pentateuch : 
 
 1. Into Samaritan; the Targum 106 
 
 Similar translations among the Jews . . . 107 
 
 The Barberini MS. of the Targum . . . , 1 1 1 
 
 The Vatican MS 112 
 
 The Bodleian and other MSS 113 
 
 2. The Samaritan-Greek version 115 
 
 3. The Arabic version of Abusaid 116 
 
 ii. Samaritan chronicles 117 
 
 1. The ' book of Joshua ' 119 
 
 2. El-Tholidoth 124 
 
 3. The chronicle of Abul fa th 126 
 
 4. Agadic literature 131 
 
 iii. Commentaries on the Pentateuch 134 
 
 iv. Miscellaneous theology 139 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 V. Liturgies: prayers and hymns 142 
 
 vi. Calendars 145 
 
 vii. Grammar and lexicography 146 
 
 Appendix I. The Samaritan MSS. at St. Petersburg . 153 
 „ II. Translation of the Massekheth Kuthim . 168 
 
A SKETCH 
 
 SAMAEITAN HISTOEY, &c. 
 
 More tlian two centuries and a half have passed 
 away since the discovery was made at Damascus 
 of a Hebrew Pentateuch, written in Samaritan 
 characters, and with readings different from those 
 of the Masoretic text in use among the Jews, and 
 also of a complete translation of the same into 
 the Samaritan idiom. The attention of learned 
 Europe was thus directed to the literary remains 
 of a people now languishing and well nigh extinct, 
 but once the bitter and formidable religious oppo- 
 nents of the Jewish nation, and an interest was 
 aroused in them which the labours of De Sacy, Gese- 
 nius, and others in the present century have again 
 revived. The results, however, of these enquiries, 
 extending as they do over so long a period, are 
 in many cases buried in rare and costly volumes 
 or hidden away in periodicals and long-forgotten 
 dissertations. It has been thought, therefore, that 
 a short sketch, embodying the latest information 
 attainable with regard to the history, writings, 
 and religious tenets of the Samaritans, may fitly 
 b 
 
serve as an mtroduction to the interesting and 
 important fragment of their hterature which is 
 here published. 
 
 I. The tide of Assyrian conquest wliich had begun 
 to ovei-flow the land of Israel under Pul^ about 
 770 B. c, and had continued its progress during 
 the reigns of Tiglath Pileser^ and Shalmaneser^ 
 reached its height in the time of Hosea, when, in 
 722, ' the king of Assyria^ took Samaria, and car- 
 ried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in 
 Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and 
 in the cities of the Medes ^' supplying their place 
 
 ^ I Chron. v. 26 ; 2 Kings xv. 19. ^2 Kings xv. 29. 
 
 ^ 2 Kings xvii. 3-5. 
 
 * Ibid. xvii. 6 ; xviii. 11. This appears to have been Sargon, 
 the successor of Shalmaneser. See the article 'Sargon' in 
 Smith's Bible Dictionary, iii. 1142, and George Smith's Chrono- 
 logy of the Reign of Sennachenb (1871), p. 12. On a cylinder 
 in the British Museum, Sargon is called the ' Punisher of wide 
 Beth-Omri ;' and in a bull inscription of Khorsabad, 'Destroyer 
 of the city of Samaria, all Beth-Omri.' In the copy of his annals 
 he says, 'The city of Samaria I besieged and captured, 27,290 
 people dwelling in it I carried captive, 50 chariots in the midst 
 of them I arranged and the rest of them I took possession of, 
 my general over them I appointed, and the taxes paid by the 
 former king I fixed upon them.' Cf. Schrader, Die Keiliii- 
 schriften und das A. T. {iS'j 2), ip. 15S sq. 
 
 ^ 2 Kings xvii. 24. For an identification of these places see 
 Asahel Grant's Nestorians (1841), p. 129 sqq. Halah is pro- 
 bably the Calah of Gen. x. 11, 12, now NimruJ. The Habor 
 flows S. W. into the Tigris from the mountains of Assyria (so 
 
3 
 
 with colonists from ' Babylon, and from Cuthah, 
 
 Ewald, Gesch. (1866), iii. 658 ; but according to Schrader, p. 161, 
 it is the greater stream of that name which flows into the 
 Euphrates near Carchemish). Gozan = Zozan, the Nestorian 
 name for pastures : the high lands on either side of the great 
 Zab river, W. of lake Ooroomiah. (Rages also near Teheran, 
 Nineveh, and Ecbatana, are mentioned in the book of Tobit as 
 settlements of Israelites : Elkosh, the home of the prophet 
 Nabum, where his tomb is still shewn and greatly venerated, 
 was north of Nineveh.) Dr. Grant brings forward several 
 striking reasons for the identity of the independent Nestorian 
 Christians inhabiting this almost inaccessible tract of country 
 with some of the ten tribes. They call themselves Bene Israel ; 
 the patriarch claimed to be of the tribe of Naphtali ; the 
 neighbouring Jews allow that they are of the same stock as 
 themselves, and speak almost the same dialect with them, 
 though the two bodies hate each other and will not eat 
 together. The Nestorians still offer peace-offerings, practise vows 
 of Nazaritism, bring first-fruits, keep the Sabbath strictly, have 
 a recess in their churches termed the Holy of Holies ; children 
 may be baptized on the eighth day after birth ; the purification 
 of women after childbirth extends for forty days in the case of a 
 male, for sixty of a female infant ; they keep the Passover, but 
 the holy Eucharist supersedes the Jewish sacrifice ; their phy- 
 siognomy and names are Jewish; their patriarch, both in his 
 civil and religious capacity, strongly resembles the ancient 
 high-priest ; they have ' avengers of blood,' the churches serve 
 as 'cities of refuge.' The 'Chaldean' Church dates from A. d. 
 1 68 1, when the Nestorian metropolitan of Diarbekir quarrelled 
 with his patriarch, and had himself consecrated by the Pope 
 patriarch of the converts to papacy from the Nestorian and 
 Jacobite Churches who designate themselves by this title. Dr. 
 Grant's conclusions are doubted by Ewald, Gesch. (1864), iv. 
 b 2 
 
and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepliar- 
 vaim \' 
 
 120, who however does not bring forw\ard reasons in support 
 of his view. He mentions, giving references, the journey of 
 Eldad the Danite in the ninth century in search of the ten tribes 
 described by Josephus {Ant. xi. 5. 2) as existing in great 
 numbers beyond the Euphrates, Benjamin of Tudela's descrip- 
 tion of them in the twelfth, and the various attempts made to 
 discover them among Afghans, Chinese, Parthians, Buddhists, 
 and North American Indians. For Talmudical traditions as 
 to their position see Neubauer, Geographic du Talmud, p. 372 ; 
 for other references to Josephus, St. Jerome, &c., Juynboll, Com- 
 ment, in Hist. Gent. Sam. p. 26 sq. ; also Chwolson's Achtzehn Hehr. 
 Grahschriften avs d. Krim in Mem. de Tacad. imp. de St. Peters- 
 hourg, serie 7, vol. ix. 7, for records of the ten tribes in the 
 Crimea and (p. 59) Caucasus ; and for their connection with the 
 legend of Prester John, of. Oppert, Der Presbyter Johannes 
 (1864), p. 17. Benjamin of Tudela has found a successor in 
 'J. J. Benjamin II,' who went on the same quest in 1 846-1 855 ; 
 he corroborates Dr. Grant's statements ; see his ' Eight Years in 
 Asia and Africa' (Hanover, 1863), p. 124. 
 
 ^ For the position of Cuthah, see below, p. 9, note 4. That 
 of Ava is not known. Hamath was plundered by Sargon in the 
 second year of his i-eign, its inhabitants carried off, and others 
 settled in their place. Schrader, pp. 162-6. Ewald, op. cit. iii. 
 655 (1866), places Sepharvaim and Ava near Hamath. Sargon 
 in his first year transported colonists from Babylon to Samaria : 
 cf. Schrader, p. 162. Other colonists seem to have joined 
 them later. Sargon says in 715 B.C.: 'The Tamudi, Ibadidi, 
 Marsimani and Hayapa, remote Arabians [cf. 'Geshem the 
 Arabian,' Neh. ii. 19, iv. 7] dwelling in Bari whom the Akku 
 and Sapiru knew not of ... in the service of Assur my lord 
 I destroyed them, and the rest of them I removed, and in 
 
It has been much debated to what extent this 
 depopulation was carried out ^. In the later con- 
 quest of Judah it is especially mentioned that the 
 'poorest sort of the people of the land^' were left 
 behind, and only the nobles, warriors, and artisans 
 carried away. And it seems most probable that 
 such had been the case with Israel also, for Josiah, 
 in 630, puts down idolatry in ' Manasseh and 
 Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali ^' and a 
 little later repairs the temple with money collected 
 for the purpose from ' Manasseh and Ephraim and 
 all the remnant of Israel *,' as well as from Judah 
 and Benjamin. Again, after the ruin of Judah, 
 in 588, worshippers from Shechem and Shiloh and 
 Samaria are represented as coming with offerings 
 
 the city of Samaria I placed . . .' VIcl. George Smith, op. cit. 
 p. 14, and Schrader, p. 163. Other tribes also are mentioned 
 in Ezra iv. 9, 10, as having been brought over by Asnapper 
 and settled in Samaria, (for their position see Ewald, iii. 727) : 
 in iv. 2, the Samaritans ascribe their settlement to Esarhaddon. 
 Makrizi's account of this shifting of populations is to be found 
 in De Sacy, Chvestomathie Arabe, i. 302. 
 
 ^ For a reference to varying opinions on the subject see the 
 article 'Samaria' in Smith's Bible Diet. iii. 1105. 
 
 2 2 Kings xxiv. 14. ^2 Chron. xxxiv. 6. 
 
 * 2 Chron. xxxiv. 9. The invitation of Hezekiah to the pass- 
 over in 2 Chron. xxx. seems to have extended principally, if not 
 only, to the parts untouched by Assyria : the reference therefore 
 appears to be of no value for determining the question of what 
 Israelitish population was left behind by the conquerors. 
 
6 
 
 to the temple at Jerusalem '. In all likelihood, 
 therefore, a considerable population of Israelites 
 remained behind, who were recruited after the 
 withdrawal of the Assyrian armies by returning 
 fugitives^ and fresh drafts of foreign popula- 
 tions from the various countries which, in their 
 turn, came beneath the yoke of the kings of 
 Assyria ^. 
 
 At first the worship of Jehovah seems to have 
 been entirely overlooked amid that of the numer- 
 ous deities^ introduced by the new settlers, but 
 in consequence of the country being visited by a 
 plague of lions, it, or some modification of it ^, was 
 established by an Israelite priest*^ at Bethel, the 
 
 * Jer. xli. 5. 
 
 ^ Cf. Jer. xl. 7-12 for the similar case of Jiiduli. 
 
 ^ The term dWoyeprjs as applied to a Samaritan in Luke xvii. 
 18 cannot fairly be j^ressed so as to exclude the notion of there 
 being an Israelitish element among the Samaritan population. 
 
 * 2 Kings xvii. 30, 31. Succoth-benoth, the deity of the 
 Babylonians, cannot be traced. Nergal signifies the ' lion-god,' 
 mentioned in cuneiform inscriptions as worshipped by the people 
 of Cutha. This source gives no information as to Ashima, 
 Nibhas, and Tartak. The burning of children by the inhabi- 
 tants of Sepharvaim may liave been connected with their wor- 
 ship of the sun, the name signifying the 'city of the sun.' 
 Schrader, 166-168. 
 
 ■' Possibly the old calf-worship was restored again, Bethel 
 having been the seat of it. Ewald, iii. 729. 
 
 " The priests, as being an educated and important class of the 
 community, would naturally have been among the captives. 
 
former centre of state idolatry under Jeroboam and 
 liis successors ; each nationality meanwhile retain- 
 ing its own peculiar divinity and religious rites. 
 Although, therefore, the influence of the sanctuary 
 at Bethel seems in time to have spread through- 
 out the new immigrants and to have expelled the 
 various deities and rites introduced by them \ still 
 Zerubbabel and his returning brethren may have 
 had good reason for declining the co-operation of 
 the 'lion-converts^' in the work of restoring the 
 ancient ritual and temple at Jerusalem. This 
 refusal roused the deep hostility of the Samari- 
 tans, and from this time the relations between the 
 two people became continually more and more 
 embittered, till an absolute separation ensued be- 
 tween them. Even now, when one common ruin 
 has for so many centuries involved them both, 
 they hold no intercourse with each other. From 
 this time forward one thought alone presented 
 itself to the Samaritans' mind, to depress by every 
 possible means, fair or foul, their hated rivals of 
 Jerusalem, to represent themselves as the true 
 disciples of the great prophet of Israel and Gari- 
 zim as the sanctuary chosen of God on which the 
 first temple was at His command built by Joshua, 
 while Eli, Samuel, David, and Solomon were held 
 
 Ezra iv. 2. ^ Bah. Baha /I'awa, 38 b. 
 
up to reprobation as the apostate leaders of a 
 national and religious schism ^ 
 
 By the possession of a tract of country remark- 
 able for its fertihty, and venerable for its religious 
 associations, the Samaritans were well qualified for 
 maintaining an opposition to the rival state ^. It 
 extended, according to Josephus^, from Ginaea or 
 En-Gannim, on the south side of the great plain 
 of Jezreel, to the borders of Benjamin, thus includ- 
 ing the old territory of Manasseh and Ephraim. 
 Its principal towns were Bethshan ^ famous for its 
 fertility, known later under the name of Scytho- 
 polis ; Abelmeholah ^, the home of Elisha ; Jezreel ^ 
 the residence of Ahab ; Tirzah ^, proverbial for 
 its beauty, where dwelt the kings of Israel from 
 
 ' Yet, when it suited them, the Samaritans woukl deny all 
 connection with the Jews and assert their heathen extraction : 
 thus in the time of Darius Hystaspes they claim to be Persians 
 (Josephus, Ant. xi. 4. 9), under Alexander the Great, Sidonians 
 (ib. xi. 8. 6 ; xii. 5. 5). 
 
 ^ The old tribe of Ephraim, whose territory they possessed, 
 had been of gi:eat political importance under the Judges ; under 
 Abimelech it gained the royal power, and later opposed Ishbo- 
 sheth to David and Jeroboam to Rehoboam, always bearing with 
 great unwillingness the supremacy of Judah : the Samaritans 
 assumed exactly the same position. 
 
 ^ B. J. iii. 3. 4 ; but in the next chapter he makes Anouath 
 or Burkin the frontier. Cf. Neubauer, Geographie, p. 57. 
 
 * I Sam. xxxi. 10. "^ i Kings xix. 16. 
 
 * I Kings xviii. 46. ^ Cant. vi. 4. 
 
9 
 
 Jeroboam to Zimri ; Shiloh, the resting-place of 
 the ark ^ ; Bethel, the scene of Jacob's visions ^. 
 
 But the principal events of Samaritan history 
 gather round the two centres of Samaria and 
 Shechem. Built originally by Omii in a com- 
 manding position of great fertility, strength, and 
 beauty, on a hill some six miles north-west of 
 Shechem^, Samaria continued till the Assyrian 
 captivity the capital of the kingdom of Israel, 
 the centre of Ahab's Baal-worship, the scene of 
 many of the miracles of Ehjah and Elisha dis- 
 played in famines brought upon the land, in the 
 sudden return of plenty, and in deliverance from 
 Syrian invasions ; the object of the bitter denun- 
 ciations of Hosea and other prophets for luxury, 
 idolatry, and oppression. Taken in 722, after a 
 three years' siege **, the city must have sunk for a 
 
 ^ Josh, xviii. i. ^ Gen. xxviii. 19. ^ i Kings xvi. 24. 
 
 * 2 Kings xviii. 9, 10. For further references cf. Eobinson, 
 Palestine (1867), ii. 304, and Vviner, Bibl. Recd-W'drterhuch 
 (1847), p. 369. The term D''J"ittK^ is once (2 Kings xvii. 29) 
 used in the Okl Testament for the ' inhabitants of Samaria.' In 
 later times the Samaritans designated themselves as D''"iJDti^, 
 which, by a play upon the word, they interpreted ' observers ' of 
 the Law or Sabbath, or, according to others, 'guardians' of the 
 land, senses recognised by Origen {Gomm. in Joan. p. 355 ; Horn, 
 in Ezech. ix. i), Eusebius (Chron. ii. ad ann. Ahrahami 1270), 
 Hieronymus (Onomastica, ed. Lagarde, p. 66, cf. also p. 197), 
 Epiphanius {Haeres. i. 9) ; cf. also De Sacy, Not. et Extr. xii. 
 p. 175. They were termed by the Jews DTlID , from Cutha, a 
 
10 
 
 while into ruin, for it does not reappear in history 
 till the time of Alexander the Great, when it was 
 captured by him, part of the inhabitants put to 
 the sword, others removed to Shechem, and a new 
 colony introduced. Some frontier towns also were 
 lost to Judaea at this time \ It appears soon after 
 to have been rebuilt by Perdiccas, but in 311, 
 during the wars of Antigonus and Ptolemy Lagi, it 
 suffered the demolition of its walls : restored again 
 in a short time, it continued to exist till about b. c, 
 129, wdien it was taken and utterly destroyed by 
 John Hyrcanus, the Jews retaining possession of 
 the site'-^. It was restored by Pompey to its former 
 
 district in Asia of doubtful locality, whence colonists, perhaps 
 the most important, had been transplanted to Samaria by the 
 king of Assyria (cf. 2 Kings xvii. 24). Abulfath, in his Chro- 
 nicle (ed. Vilniar, p. lix), explains that in a persecution under 
 Darius some Samaritan exiles fled from the Jews to the valley of 
 Cutha, hence the name was fixed upon them in order to deprive 
 the nation of that of ' Israelites.' On the position of Cutha, cf. 
 De Sacy, direst. Arahe, i. 331; Herzfeld, Geschichte, i. 473, 
 iii. 598; Ewald, Gesch. (1866), iii. 727; Neubauer, Geo(j7\ 
 p. 379. According to Schrader, p. 164, it must be sought for 
 in Mid-Babylonia. 
 
 ^ Eusebius, Chron. ad ann. Abrahami 1684 ; cf. ^luuk, Pales- 
 tine, p. 485. This was in revenge for the murder of Androma- 
 chus, the Macedonian governor of Coelesyria. Herzfeld, ii. 120. 
 
 '^ The 25th of Marheshwan was kept in memory of this ; the 
 15th and 1 6th of Siwan in memory of the annexation of Beth- 
 shan and the plain of Jezreel; Mej. Ta'anilh, 3, 8; Griitz, 
 Gesch. (1863), iii. 422. 
 
11 
 
 owners, and rebuilt by Gabinius a few years b. c, 
 and somewhat later again fortified, colonised, and 
 magnifi-cently adorned by Herod the Great, receiv- 
 ing the name of Sebaste, in honour of Augustus, 
 to whom a splendid temple was erected within 
 the city. A Eoman colony was planted there by 
 Septimius Severus early in the third century, and 
 coins are found extending from Nero to Geta, the 
 brother of Caracalla \ At what time Herod's mag- 
 nificent erections were laid waste is not known. 
 A bishop of Sebaste was' present at the council 
 of Nicaea in 325, and another at the synod of 
 Jerusalem in 536. When the place fell into the 
 hands of the Crusaders, a Latin bishopric was 
 established there about 1155, the title of which 
 was still kept up by the Roman Church till the 
 fourteenth century. A small Arab village now 
 occupies the site of the old town, traces of whose 
 former grandeur are still visible in the stately 
 remains of the church of St. John Baptist^ and 
 long rows of broken columns. 
 
 But more interest attaches to Shechem, the 
 
 ^ Or perhaps somewhat later to Alexander Severus, 222-235. 
 Cf. Be Saulcy, Nuvdsmatique de la Terre Sainte (1874), P- 281. 
 
 2 St. Jerome gives Sebaste as tlie burial-place of St. John 
 Baptist, as also of Elisha and Obadiah : later a tradition sprang 
 up that it had been the scene of the Baptist's imprisonment and 
 death also, whereas Josephus, followed by Euseblus, places these 
 at Machaerus, on the east of the Dead Sea. Bobinson, ii. 306. 
 
12 
 
 modem Nablus \ the principal centre of Samaritan 
 life after the decline of Samaria, where still lingers 
 on the feeble remnant of the last Samaritan com- 
 munity. Built upon a gentle slope at the foot 
 of Mount Garizim, at a point where the mountain 
 and the opposite height of Ebal enclose a valley 
 of some 500 yards in breadth, Shechem, with its 
 bright streams and luxuriant vegetation, has always 
 drawn forth the warmest admiration of travellers '\ 
 Its associations were especially sacred. Near it 
 stood the oak of Moreh (Gen. xii. 6), the resting- 
 place of Abraham ; in the immediate vicinity of 
 which was the parcel of ground (xliii. 22) bought 
 by Jacob from Hamor and given by him as a pos- 
 session to Joseph ; it is marked still by Jacob s 
 well and Joseph's tomb. Here dwelt the patriarch 
 till compelled to leave in fear of the consequences 
 
 ' There seems to be no good reason for the identification of 
 Shechem (in LXX, 2i;;^e> and Si'ki/xu) with the ^vxap of John, 
 iv. 5. Eusebius and the Bordeaux pilgrim expressly distinguish 
 them : see the reff. in Smith's Bibl. Diet., art. ' Sychar,' iii. 1395 ; 
 Robinson, ii. 291 ; Neubauer, 169 ; Barges, Zes Samantains de 
 Naplouse, 10 sqq. Raumer identifies the latter with Askar, 
 half an hour east of Nablus, whence apparently were named the 
 plain and fountain Sahl-el-Asgar, and Ain-el-Asgar mentioned 
 by Berggren (in Avhich case the derivation from 1pt:>, the ' city 
 of lies,' cf. Hab. ii. 18, suggested by Reland, or Lightfoot's from 
 "»13C' 'of drunkards,' cf. Isa. xxviii. i, will fall through) : but 
 Robinson (iii. 133) demurs to this. 
 
 - See the interesting quotations in Smith's Diet. iii. 1236. 
 
13 
 
 which might ensue from the vengeance taken 
 upon Shechem by Levi and Simeon for the insult 
 offered to their sister. Under the same oak which 
 gave shelter to Abraham he buried the gods 
 brought by his family from Mesopotamia (xxxv. 
 1-4). By the same, in all probability, was Abi- 
 melech made king\ Near Shechem Joseph and 
 his brethren fed their flocks^; from Ebal and 
 Garizim were pronounced the curses and blessings 
 of the Law^ ; on Ebal Joshua built an altar and 
 set up stones on which were written the words of 
 the Law ^ ; at Shechem, which had been appointed 
 a city of refuge and possession of the Levites, he 
 gave his last warning to the assembled congre- 
 gation of Israel, setting up as a witness a great 
 stone 'under an oak which was by the sanctuary 
 of the Lord^ \ on Garizim was dehvered Jotham's 
 parable after Abimelech's slaughter of his brethren, 
 
 ^ Judg. ix. 6. ^ Gen. xxxvii. 12. 
 
 ^ Deut. xxvii. 11. For the account of an interesting experi- 
 ment as to the acoustic capabilities of the spot, see Mills, Nahlus 
 (1864), p. 57. The voice of a reader can with ease be heard 
 from one mountain to another, and there is ample space for the 
 accommodation of a crowd like the Israelites, 
 
 * Josh. viii. 30. The Samaritans charge the Jews with 
 having altered Garizim to Ebal in Deut. xxvii. 4 out of spite 
 to them, in order to rob Garizim of its honours. In the 
 neighbourhood of Sichem they shew the tomb of Eleazar, 
 Ithamar, Phinehas, Joshua, Caleb, the Seventy Elders, &c. 
 Barges, p. 15. * Josh. xxiv. 26. 
 
14 
 
 the connivance of the inhabitants of Shechem in 
 this deed of blood soon after returning on their own 
 heads in the destruction of their city by Abimelech ; 
 hither came Rehoboam to receive the kingdom ^ ; 
 and here for some time dwelt Jeroboam after his 
 accession ^. The city no doubt suffered like others 
 during the Assyrian invasion, but is mentioned 
 as existing about 588^. It gained in importance 
 by the erection of a temple on the neighbouring 
 height of Garizim in opposition to that of Jeru- 
 salem, which lasted from about the time of Alex- 
 ander the Great to B.C. 129, when it was destroyed 
 by John Hyrcanus 1 Later it acquired the name 
 of Mabortha^ or Mamortha*', and, apparently 
 under Vespasian, that of Flavia Neapolis ^ whence 
 
 ^ I Kings xii. i. ^ i Kings xli. 25. ^ Jer. xli. 5. 
 
 * The 2ist of Khislew (or, according to Bab. Yoma, 69 a, the 
 25th of Tebeth) was long kept by the Jews in memory of this. 
 Meg. Taanith, cap. 9. 
 
 ^ Josephus, B. J. iv. 8. i. 
 
 ® Pliny, H. N.\. 13. Olshausen suggests sniiyD as the deri- 
 vation of the name, Nablus being a halting-place between Jeru- 
 salem and Galilee; Neubauer, p. 172, Xn3"i30. Cf. 'Torberic,' 
 the ' blessed,' as a name of Garizim mentioned by Masudi and 
 Makrizi, De Sacy, Chrest. Arabe, i. 303, 343. 
 
 ' Robinson (ii. 292) thinks the old city may have extended 
 further eastwards than Neapolis (hence Eusebius' statement 
 that Sichem was iv npoaa-Tfiois Ne'as TToXecos), and now have dis- 
 appeared entirely : to the same effect Ewald in Gutting. Gel. 
 Anz. 1865, p. 167 1. Coins of the city are found from Titus 
 
15 
 
 its modern name of Nablus is derived. Here our 
 Lord made many converts \ and here in all pro- 
 bability was fomided a Churcli in apostolic times ^ : 
 Justin Martyr, who suffered at Eome about 163, 
 was a native of the place. A bishop of Neapolis 
 was present at the council of Ancyra and Neo- 
 caesarea in 314, of Nicaea in 325, and at the synod 
 of Jerusalem in 536 I After this brief survey of 
 the country occupied of old by the Samaritan 
 people, it is time to return to their history. 
 Disappointed in their wish to unite with the 
 
 (or Domitian) to Volusianus (a.d. 251-4), or Gallienus (253-68). 
 The year 72 was termed the 'era of Neapolis,' probably in 
 consequence of tbe ruin of Jerusalem and Judaea in 70-1. In 
 the time of Hadrian a representation of Garizim first occurs 
 on coins of the city, the temple having been rebuilt by him 
 {Chron. Sam. cap. 47). The mountain is of conical shape, 
 with two summits : on the one to the left appears a temple 
 with columns in front and a long flight of steps leading up 
 to it, as described by the Bordeaux pilgrim in 333; that on 
 the right has a small edifice on it, without columns. Neapolis 
 had received the 'jus Italicum' under the Flavian family, hence 
 its name of ' Aurelia Flavia Neapolis.' Of this it was deprived 
 by Septimius Severus (193-2 11) for supporting the cause of 
 Pescennius Niger. Under the Emperor Philip (244-9) i^ be- 
 came a Latin colony, receiving the title of 'Colonia Julia Sergia 
 Neapolis.' De Saulcy, p. 244 sq. 
 
 1 John iv. 39-42. ^ Acts viii. 25, ix. 31, xv. 3. 
 
 ^ Ptobinson, ii. 293. The portal and other remains of the 
 cathedral, which was dedicated to St. James the Less and is now 
 converted into a mosque, are still to be seen. Barges, p. 93. 
 
16 
 
 Jewish exiles on the return of the latter from 
 captivity in 536, the Samaritans succeeded in 
 preventing the erection of the Temple for twenty 
 years, and offered the same uurelenting opposition 
 to Nehemiah when, in 445, he set about rebuild- 
 ing the walls of Jerusalem, which till now had 
 lain in ruins. They welcomed with open arms 
 any refugees from Jerusalem who, for crime or 
 to escape the strict Mosaic rule there estabhshed, 
 might wish to leave their country \ No doubt 
 the stern reforms introduced by Nehemiah on his 
 second visit (chap, xiii) were highly distasteful to 
 many who preferred the laxity which had crept 
 in during his absence, and to these an asylum was 
 always open at Shechem. The alienation between 
 the two nations was finally completed when the 
 Samaritans at last succeeded in erecting a rival 
 temple" on Garizim and endeavoured to transfer 
 thither the prestige of the older one of Jerusa- 
 lem. The immediate occasion of the undertaking 
 was the refusal of Manasseh, brother of Jaddua the 
 
 ^ Joseplius, Ant. xi. 8. 7. 
 
 - The date of the erection is doubtful. Jopcphus {Ant. xi. 
 8. 4) seems to place it iu the reign of Darius Codomaunus (335- 
 330), the last king of Persia, but if the Sanballat he mentions is 
 the same as in Neh. xiii. 28, the event should be placed under 
 Darius Nothus (413-10); of. Winer, op. cit., ai-t. 'Nehemias.' 
 Jost {Gesch. i. 48, note 2) tliinks the temple must be much 
 earlier than Alexander. 
 
17 
 
 high-priest and son-in-law to Sanballat the Sama- 
 ritan governor, to dissolve his irregular marriage 
 in obedience to the admonition of the Jewish 
 elders. To reward him for his constancy, San- 
 ballat exerted himself to erect a rival sanctuary, 
 and there established him in the high-priesthood \ 
 On the troubled scene of politics which opened 
 after the death of Alexander the Samaritans suf- 
 fered equally with the Jews from the cruelty and 
 ambition of their ever-chauging masters. They 
 unfortunately served as the battle-field as well 
 as the prize of victory to the holders of Syria 
 and Egypt, and passed from the dominion of one 
 sovereign to that of the other according as the 
 tide of victory rolled hither or thither. From 
 the peaceful rule of Laomedon, the governor of 
 Syria, they passed into the hands of Ptolemy Lagi 
 in 320, to fall under the dominion of Antigonus 
 of Syria in 314. Three years later, by a sudden 
 incursion, Ptolemy repossessed himself of his former 
 conquest, but being compelled almost immedi- 
 
 ^ This temple the Jews termed D13D7S (Bereschith Rahba, 
 c. 81), signifying, according to Eeland [Garizim, c. 3), iriKidov 
 vaos, but the word is probably connected with irkaravos, i.e. the 
 n7N of Gen. xxxv. 4 ; cf. Frankel, Einfluss d. paldstin. Exegese, 
 p. 248. The Samaritans in turn stigmatised that of Jerusalem 
 as Nn^p7p n''3 or DTl^n 'l: by a play upon D^'^^*"n'' they called 
 it D^C ^~I1"I^< ' the cursed Salem.' Neubauer's Chronicle, Journ. 
 Asiat. (1869), p. 402; see below, p. 125. 
 
 
18 
 
 ately to retire, endeavoured to do as much mis- 
 chief as possible to his enemy, and consequently 
 before his departure razed the walls of Samaria 
 and other fortified towns. In 301 he, by treaty, 
 entered again into jjeaceable possession of the 
 country, but, in 298, it underwent a cruel 
 ravaging at the hands of Demetrius Poliorcetes, 
 the son of Antigonus. Thenceforth, for many 
 years, Palestine enjoyed a respite from trouble 
 under the mild and beneficent rule of Egypt, and 
 nothing more is heard of Samaria except petty 
 squabbles with the neighbouring Jews during the 
 sway of the feeble and avaricious high-priest 
 Onias II, till the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, 
 when a determined effort was made by this 
 monarch to root out the worship of Jehovah and 
 establish the ritual of Greece throughout his do- 
 minions. The conduct of the Samaritans at this 
 juncture formed a marked contrast to the noble 
 independence of the Jews in maintaining the faith 
 of their fathers : they abj ured all connection with 
 Israel or its God, claimed to be Sidonians by 
 origin, and requested that their temple might 
 be dedicated to Zeus Hellenios\ To one prin- 
 ciple of conduct however, with rare exceptions, 
 they always remained constant, to take the oppo- 
 site side to the Jews and injure them to the 
 
 ^ Josephus, Ant. xii. 5. 5. 
 
19 
 
 utmost of their ability. This at last drew down 
 upon them the vengeance of John Hyrcanus, and 
 the destruction of their temple about 129 B.C., 
 followed by that of Samaria a few years later. 
 The Samaritans responded by all the means of 
 annoyance at their command, killing Galilean pil- 
 grims on their way to Jerusalem, and lighting 
 sham beacon-fires in opposition to those kindled 
 by the Jews as a signal to their distant brethren 
 that the Paschal new moon had appeared. On 
 one occasion it is related how a Samaritan suc- 
 ceeded in polluting the Temple on the eve of the 
 Passover by scattering human bones over the 
 pavements The Gospel narrative shews that in 
 our Lord's time there was a complete estrange- 
 ment between the two nations: the very name 
 of Samaritan had now become a term of abuse ^. 
 When the independence of Judaea declined and 
 Palestine passed under the Roman rule, matters 
 began to look brighter for the Samaritan people. 
 Pompey freed them from the Jewish yoke ; Ga- 
 binius rebuilt and fortified Samaria ; the national 
 worship was restored, exiles suffered to return, and 
 government by a council of elders established : the 
 
 ^ See reff. in Neubauer, Georjr. p. 166. 
 
 ^ John viii. 48. Cf. also Ecclus. 1. 25, 26 (where 'Seir' is 
 possibly to be read for ' Samaria') and Testanientum XII Patrum, 
 p. 564 • Eorat yap ano (rrjfKpov 2iKf]fi 'Ktyojxivr) vrdXiy acri/i/tra)!/. 
 C 2 
 
20 
 
 relo-ii of Herod the Great also, one of whose wives 
 was a Samaritan, was marked by the execution 
 of great pubUc works for the embelHshment of 
 Samaria. 
 
 But the unquiet spirit which had distinguished 
 the old tribe of Ephraim in former times, and is 
 said even now to mark the modern inhabitants 
 of Nablus^ would not suffer the Samaritans to 
 rest. Their history is a constantly recurring tale 
 of insurrections, massacres, and bloody reprisals 
 taken on them by the conquerors. The severity 
 with which Pilate put down a tumultuous rising 
 occasioned his recall I Under Vespasian a revolt 
 was quelled with the loss of ii,6oo persons ^ and 
 Sichem received a garrison and new name from 
 the conqueror. It is uncertain whether they took 
 any part in the Jewish revolt under Trajan ^ : in 
 the terrible insurrection which a few years later 
 burst out with such desperate violence under the 
 
 ' Judg. viii. 1-3, xii. 1-6, 2 fSam. xix. 43; cf. Eobinson, 
 ii. 301. 
 
 2 Joseplius, Ant. xviii. 4. i, 2 : a certain man promised to 
 show them the sacred vessels hidden by Moses (or the high -priest 
 Usi, who, according to the Samaritan book of Joshua, chap. 
 42, hid them 261 years after the entry into Canaan) under 
 Garizim. The legend is borrowed from 2 Mace. ii. 5, where 
 the prophet Jeremy does the same on Nebo. 
 
 ' Josephus, B. J. iii. 7. 32. 
 
 * Juynboll, Comment, in Hist. Gent. Sam. p. 129. 
 
21 
 
 leadership of Bar Cocheba in the reign of Hadrian 
 the Samaritans apparently at first aided the Jews, 
 but afterwards deserting their allies assisted the 
 Romans in putting an end to the war, being 
 rewarded at the hands of their conqueror by the 
 restoration of their temple on Garizim \ With 
 the rest of the empire they benefited from the 
 gentle rule of the Antonines. Under Commodus, 
 Septimius Severus, Constantine and Constantius, 
 their condition was unsatisfactory, but quieter 
 times fell to their lot under Julian, Yalentinian, 
 and Valens ; their fortunes varied under the later 
 emperors. Laws unfavourably affecting their posi- 
 tion were passed by Honor ius in 404 and 418; 
 Theodosius II in 426 took from them testamentary 
 rights, and in 439 forbade them to exercise any 
 office which dealt with the affairs of Christians ; 
 new synagogues also might not be erected^. 
 
 The hatred with which they had formerly 
 regarded their Jewish rivals began to concen- 
 trate itself upon the Christians, now that the new 
 
 ^ JuynboU, Ckron. Sam. cap. 47 ; Barges, p. 101 ; Ewald, 
 vii. (1868), p. 409. Bettar is said to have fallen by Samaritan 
 treachery: as to its position see Neubauer, Geographie, p. 103. 
 In Jer. Kidduschin, iv. i, it is said that thirteen places were 
 merged among the Samaritans in the time of ' the destruction,' 
 i. e. under Hadrian : this was done by them in order to avoid 
 the fate of the Jews. 
 
 ^ Jost, Gesch. i. 76 ; Juynboll, Comment, p. 50. 
 
22 
 
 faith had become that of the empire. In the year 
 484 while mider the rule of Zeno they attacked 
 the church at Nablus, maimed the bishop, and 
 murdered many of the worshippers, committing 
 the like atrocities at Caesarea also. Under Anasta- 
 sius and Justinian fresh troubles broke out ^ In 
 529 a general revolt of the Samaritans took place 
 against the Christians, whole villages were burnt, 
 churches destroyed, and the worshippers tortured 
 to death. The severity with which this vras put 
 down by Justinian, followed by the enactment of 
 severe laws against them, completely crushed the 
 Samaritan peopled Many fled to Persia, many 
 became Christians'^. Henceforth they appear but 
 little in history. In 636 they fell under Moham- 
 medan rule when the conquest of Palestine was 
 effected by the Khaliph Omar, After the capture 
 of Jerusalem in 1099 ^7 Godfrey de Bouillon and 
 his allies, Nablus and the surrounding country 
 
 ' Petermann, in Herzog's Beal-EncydoiickUe, xiii. p. 369. 
 
 ^ They were rendered incapable of holding public employ- 
 ments, or of acquiring property by inheritance or gift among 
 themselves : their synagogues were to be destroyed and no new 
 ones erected. Some of these provisions were relaxed a few 
 years later : some time after again, they were ordered to under- 
 take civic oflSces with duties attached to them, without however 
 acquiring any of the coiTcsponding rights. Their testimony 
 against Christians could not be received. Jost, i. 78. 
 
 ^ Robinson, ii. 294, 295. 
 
23 
 
 came into the power of the Crusaders, and, with 
 the exception of some temporary occupations 
 by the Saracens \ remained Christian till 1244, 
 when it again became subject to Mohammedan 
 rule by the complete and utter rout of the 
 Christian forces at the fatal battle of Gaza. 
 Brief notices of the Samaritans and their country 
 appear in the works of Benjamin of Tudela 
 (twelfth century) and Christian pilgrims and 
 travellers ^ but Httle was known of them till 
 the close of the sixteenth century, when Joseph 
 Scaliger first opened communications with them, 
 addressing a letter to the congregations at Nablus 
 and Cairo ^ Answers arrived in 1589, but not 
 
 ^ As, for instance, when Nablus was plundered during a 
 temporary incursion of the Saracens in 11 13, again by Saladin 
 in 1 1 84 after his repulse from Kerak, and in 1187 after his 
 victory at Tiberias. 
 
 ^ Barges, pp. 10 sq., 33 sq. ; Robinson, ii. 297. Arabian 
 writers often confound them with the Jews. Ibn Batuta (1326), 
 while describing Nablus, does not mention them. 
 
 * A careful description of the correspondence of the Samaritans 
 with Europeans, from Scaliger to De Sacy, is given by the latter 
 in Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibl. du Roi, vol. xii. (1831), 
 together with the original texts and a translation of most of the 
 letters: two (to Ludolf) were published by Cellarius, 1688; 
 others are to be found in Eichhorn's Bepertorium, vols. ix. 
 and xiii. One more has since been published by Heidenheim 
 in his Vierteljahresschrift (vol. i. p. 88), that of Meschalmah ben 
 Ab Sechuah to the Samaritans of Europe, coming, as is supposed 
 
24 
 
 till after Scaliger's death, and these passing into 
 other hands the correspondence ceased. But in 
 1616, Pietro dellaValle having in vain endeavoured 
 at Cairo, Gaza, and Nablus, then centres of Sama- 
 ritan life, to carry out the injunctions of De Sancy, 
 then French ambassador at Constantinople, and 
 procure a Samaritan Pentateuch, succeeded at last 
 in purchasing one at Damascus, as also a transla- 
 tion of it into the Samaritan dialect. The 
 publication of these excited great interest and 
 provoked angry disputes as to their intrinsic 
 value among the learned of Europe, but no further 
 communications appear to have been opened with 
 the Samaritans till 1671, when Huntington, the 
 learned bishop of Raphoe, whose Oriental MSS. 
 form part of the treasures of the Bodleian Library, 
 paid a visit to Nablus, while holding the office 
 of chaplain to the English factory at Alej)po. 
 He found there a small community of thirty 
 families, procured from them a Pentateuch, and 
 in conjunction with Dr. Marshall, Piector of Lincoln 
 College, Oxford, carried on a correspondence with 
 
 by the editor, between the correspondence of Scaliger and 
 Huntington. Emendations of the text are suggested by Gciger 
 in the Zeitschr. d. D.M.G. xvi. 725, and by Vilmar, ibid. 
 xvii. 375. The letters are written partly in Arabic, and partly 
 in Hebrew marked by Samaritanisms and Arabisms ; they 
 display the most complete ignorance of all history and of every- 
 thing outside the little community of Nablus. 
 
25 
 
 them which lasted with intervals till the latter's 
 death in 1685. About this time a few letters 
 also passed between them and the celebrated 
 Aethiopic scholar Job Ludolf, and then, with the 
 exception of one letter addressed in 1790 to their 
 ' Samaritan brethren' in France \ nothing more is 
 heard of them till 1808, when the bishop and 
 senator Gregoire set about making enquiries with 
 regard to them by means of the French consular 
 agents in Syria. The information thus acquired 
 and the communications which subsequently en- 
 sued between Salameh the high-priest and De 
 Sacy himself are contained in the memoir drawn 
 up by the latter. They give the same picture as is 
 presented by later travellers of a small community 
 despised and ill-treated by Jew and Mahommedan ^ 
 from the very fact of their present depressed con- 
 
 ^ Published by Hamaker in Archief voor Kerkelijke Geschie- 
 denis, v. p. 56. Heidenheim, i. 82. 
 
 ^ A touching picture of the miseries undergone by the 
 Samaritans during the first half of the present century from 
 the cruelty and avarice of their ever-changing governors is given 
 in the autobiography of Jacob-esh-Shelaby, London, 1855. He 
 came at that time to England to collect funds for his impoverished 
 countrymen and to intercede with the government on their behalf. 
 A translation of his petition may be seen at p. 50. Another, to 
 the government of Louis Philippe, is given with a translation in 
 Barges, p. 65 sq. See also his letter in the Times of April 3, 
 1874. The congregation is now reduced to 135 persons, and 
 grievously oppressed by the Mohammedans. 
 
26 
 
 dition clinging with all the greater obstinacy to 
 their lofty traditions of the past and to the hope 
 of future restoration to the Divine favour ; with 
 little or no education ; depending for their his- 
 tory upon legendary mediaeval chronicles drawn 
 in great measure from Jewish sources ; for their 
 religious knowledge, upon the successive gleanings 
 of centuries from their Jewish rivals ; yet interest- 
 ing as the possessors of what they assert to be 
 an independent revision of the Pentateuch, and 
 as the sole remaining representatives of the people 
 who have now for more than 2500 years claimed 
 to be the chosen Israel of God \ The correspond- 
 
 ^ Formerly there were flourishing commimities of Samaritans 
 in other countries besides Palestine. Alexander the Great is 
 said to have settled his Samaritan auxiliaries at the siege of 
 Tyre in Egypt (Josephus, Ant. xi. 8. 6) : Ptolemy Lagi carried 
 off considerable numbers with liim {ib. xii. i), other colonists 
 probably followed during the troublous times of John Hyrcanus : 
 a dispute between the Alexandrian Jews and Samaritans is said 
 {ib. xiii. 3. 4) to have taken place before Ptolemy Philometor 
 ( 181-146) : here the Samaritan-Greek version of the Pentateuch 
 in all probability and. the Arabic of Abu-Said were composed. A 
 sect of Dositheans is mentioned there in the sixth century a. d., 
 and some remnants of the people lingered on there till the seven- 
 teenth. A colony of Samaritans was found by Edrisi in the 
 twelfth century in islands in the Red Sea, where they are said 
 to have taken refuge after the Arab invasion of Egypt in 638. 
 Meshullam ben Menahem of Volterra (n"i^L3?11 or m^D?12, not 
 n^t37D, Malta or Toledo, as Heidenheim supposes, cf. Biscioni, 
 C'atal. Medic, p. 128, and Zunz in Asher's Benjamin of Tihdela 
 
27 
 
 ence is of high value for the light it throws on 
 the later developements of Samaritan doctrine, 
 
 (1841), ii. 267) found fifty Samaritan families in Egypt on the 
 occasion of his visit there in 1480. They hold, he says, partly 
 to the written Law, but are idolaters ; their Avi-iting is diffei-ent 
 to that of the Jews, and they have no N, n, y, V, 2, n (cf. as to 
 this last statement Benjamin of Tudela, i. 67 ; Isaac Helo, A. D. 
 1344, in Carmoly's Itineraires, p. 252, and Makrizi, in De Sacy, 
 Chrest. Arabe, i. 303) ; they go in pilgrimage thrice each year to 
 Garizim, where a golden dove may be seen on the altar ; they live 
 apart from the Jews, having a separate synagogue ; the Sabbath 
 they observe only to mid-day. See his letter in Heidenheim, iii. 
 354. He was probably the same that Obadiah of Bertinoro met 
 on his journey to Jerusalem seven years later, cf Neubauer's Zwei 
 Briefe OhadiaJis in Jahrh.filr d. Gesch. d. Juden. (1863), iii. ig8, 
 229. The latter {ibid. 241, 243) gives much the same account : 
 he found fifty Samaritan families in Cairo, employed chiefly as 
 cashiers and agents for the principal officials, occupations in which 
 they acquired considerable wealth. The anonymous traveller of 
 1495, whose narration is given ibid. p. 271 sq., visited Sichem, 
 but makes no mention of the Samarita,ns, his Avhole mind being 
 apparently taken up with endeavours to avoid the extortions of 
 custom-house officials. In the third and following centuries 
 they seem to have been widely scattered in both East and West, 
 employing themselves chiefly as merchants and money-changers : 
 in the time of Theodoric (493-526) they had a synagogue in 
 Rome. A colony of Samaritans is mentioned as existing in the 
 fourth century at Babylon {Gittin, 45 a). Benjamin of Tudela 
 in the twelfth century found communities in Caesarea, Nablus, 
 Askelon, and Damascus : the great number of MSS. written at 
 the last-named place shews that it must have been an important 
 centre for them. The chronicle El-Tholidoth (see below, p. 126) 
 
28 
 
 and also of interest as shewing the intellectual 
 condition of this once numerous and powerful hut 
 now nearly extinct religious sect. The later 
 descriptions of modern travellers, such as Robinson, 
 Petermann, and others, shew that few changes 
 have since passed over the little community. 
 
 II. In the preceding historical sketch the reader 
 will no doubt have observed the extreme paucity, 
 or rather the almost total absence, of any trust- 
 worthy information derivable from the Samaritans 
 themselves as to the circumstances of their origin 
 and early condition ; and for this reason will ex- 
 pect no very exact account of the tenets held by 
 them in the earlier ages of their national existence. 
 Even with the fullest details at our disposal, 
 nothing very definite or distinctive in the way of 
 religious belief would in all probability have been 
 found existing among them. For it must be re- 
 membered that they were a population consisting 
 of the poorest Israelites, who had been left behind 
 by tlieir conquerors as politically too insignificant 
 to be worth the trouble of removing from their 
 
 gives the names of many families settled in Damascus, Palestine, 
 and Egypt. Cf. llobinson, ii. 293, 300 ; Basnage, Uist. des Juifs 
 (1716), ii. 140-142, 152; Juynboll, Comment, pp. 37-54 J i" 
 the last very full references will be found. In a prayer given by 
 Heidenheim {Vierteljahresschr. i. 418) supplications are offered 
 for the Samaritan congregations iu Damascus, Gaza, Philistia, 
 Egypt, Aleppo, Hamath, Scfad, and Haserim. 
 
29 
 
 land ; they had moreover, after long centuries of 
 corruption by means of state idolatry and devotion 
 to the cruel and licentious rites of Baal, Ashtoreth, 
 and other monstrous deities, afterwards been re- 
 cruited from time to time by the arrival of fresh 
 parties of foreign idolaters. The nation had in- 
 deed, under the influence of fear, partially abjured 
 their idolatry and professed the worship of Je- 
 hovah, so much so as to be anxious to unite with 
 the returning Jews in rebuilding the Temple at 
 Jerusalem, in all probability however their re- 
 ligious views had at this time gained no great 
 depth or distinctness. But the refusal of the 
 national party among the Jews to recognise them 
 as in any way belonging to Israel must have com- 
 pelled the Samaritans to consider their religious 
 position, to test the validity of the claims put 
 forth by them, and to shew both by their faith 
 and practice that they, and not their rivals of 
 Jerusalem, were the true disciples of Moses. By 
 themselves however they were unable, from lack 
 of the necessary learning, to carry out their pur- 
 pose, and it will be seen from several instances 
 which will be brought forward, that the Samari- 
 tans, powerless to invent, were compelled to borrow 
 the doctrines and usages then in vogue at Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 No one will be surprised at this who considers 
 the intimate relations which were from the first 
 
30 
 
 maintained between their leaders and a powerful 
 section of the Jews. It was in vain that Ezra, 
 aided by such as had ' separated themselves ' from 
 the heathen of the land, dissolved by force the 
 marriages which had taken place between the 
 latter and numberless priests and rulers of Jeru- 
 salem. A few years later the mischief had not 
 abated : Nehemiah complains that his plans were 
 betrayed by the nobles of Judah, who had allied 
 themselves with ihe enemy ; his last work 
 was to purify the Temple from the presence of 
 Tobiah the Ammonite who had estabhshed him- 
 self there with the assistance of Eliashib the 
 high -priest, and to expel the grandson of the 
 latter for his marriage with Sanballat's daughter. 
 These temporary checks caused by the zeal of 
 Ezra and Nehemiah being removed, no doubt 
 such alhances became frequent as before, and 
 although the influence of the national party at 
 Jerusalem was sufficient to prevent a complete 
 fusion of the two nations, yet a most intimate 
 connection must have been kept up between 
 certain members of each, and thus the Law and 
 the prevailing interpretation of it have readily 
 passed from Jerusalem into the opposite camp. 
 More especially after the secession of Manasseh 
 and his establishment as rival high-priest in the 
 Temple of Garizim, must all the then existing 
 Jewish learning have been at the disposal of 
 
31 
 
 the Samaritans, To understand their position 
 therefore it will be necessary to enquire what 
 was the state of religious parties and what the 
 tone of thought which after the return from the 
 exile prevailed in Jerusalem. 
 
 It was not apparently till the pontificate 
 of John Hyrcanus, about b. c. i 30, that the two 
 rival factions, of Pharisees and Sadducees^ made 
 their appearance under these names in history. 
 But they must have existed long before : there 
 was nothing, as far as we know, in the special 
 circumstances of the time which coidd have then 
 produced them : the principles which actuated 
 their conduct must have been at work in the 
 nation in the preceding centuries as well. The 
 government had all along been in the hands of 
 the high-priest and the other sacerdotal famihes 
 to whom he was related ; to these would naturally 
 ally themselves the other wealthy classes in the 
 state. In the hands of this, the Sadducee party, 
 would be all judicial and administrative posts, the 
 arrangement of the calendar on which all the feasts 
 of the year depended, the conduct of the services 
 of the Temple, the authoritative exposition of the 
 
 ^ Derenbourg [Palestine, i. 78, 452) thinks that Pharisee and 
 Sadducee were nicknames, invented long after the qualities of 
 Perishouth and Sedaqah had become the characteristics of the 
 two parties. See also Giatz, Gesch. (1863), iii. 454, sq. 
 
32 
 
 Law. Whatever might be the merits of individual 
 members of the body, such as Jaddua and Simon 
 the Just, still the tendency of a privileged and 
 wealthy class always would be to take life 
 quietly, to content themselves with following the 
 requirements of the Law as far as the letter and 
 ancient tradition requked them (in other words to 
 comply with Sedaqah), but not to invent rigorous 
 observances which would interfere with the in- 
 dulgence of those tastes which their wealth and 
 position enabled them to enjoy. Their interpre- 
 tation of the Law was characterised by the same 
 spirit. Though not always consistent in carrying 
 out the principle, still as a rule they clung to 
 the literal meaning, allowing the authority of no 
 tradition unless some ground was apparent for 
 it in Scripture ^ The official sanctity of the 
 priesthood, as distinguished from the personal 
 purity of its members, and the maintenance of 
 its emoluments and privileges were eagerly con- 
 tended for by them. Their disbelief in the re- 
 surrection of the body, which is expressly affirmed 
 of them by all ancient testimony ^ was due pos- 
 
 ^ Jost, Gesch. i. 214. 
 Matt. xxii. 23 ; Mark xii. 18 ; Luke xx. 27 ; Acts iv. 2, xxiii. 
 8 ; Bab. Sanhedrin, 90 b ; Josephus, Ant. xviii. 1.4; Origen, In 
 Matt. pp. 467, 8 1 1 ; Epii)hanius, Ilaeres. xiv, &c. The celebrated 
 Antigonus of Socbo is said to have taught tliat 'men shoukl 
 serve God without any claim for reward;' from this doctrine 
 
33 
 
 sibly to the almost exclusive attention which 
 their principles led them to give to the Penta- 
 teuch (in which this doctrine less clearly stands 
 forth) in preference to the later books of the 
 canon, and also to the easy circumstances of life 
 in which most of this party found themselves. 
 
 The Pharisees, or ' Separatists,' were of a different 
 spirit. They were the descendants and repre- 
 sentatives of the national party who at the bidding 
 of Ezra and Nehemiah had ' separated' themselves 
 from the heathen of the land, while many of the 
 priests and rulers had not scrupled to ally them- 
 selves with the ancient and deadly foes of Israel. 
 Though differing in no very important particulars 
 from the Sadducees either in doctrine or practice, 
 they found themselves outside the pale of an 
 official and priestly aristocracy, and were thus 
 compelled to throw themselves for support and 
 sympathy upon the middle and lower classes of 
 the community. Having no official character for 
 sanctity on which to depend, they laid especial 
 
 his scholars Sadoq and Boethus developed the further result 
 that ' no reward is to be expected from God,' and this was 
 naturally followed by a disbelief in the resurrection and future 
 judgment. The Boethusians first appear as an offshoot from, 
 but united with, the Sadducees, about the time of Herod the 
 Great; the exact points of difference between the parties are 
 difficult to distinguish. Geiger, Urschrift, 105, 149; Jost, 
 Gesch. i. 215. 
 
 d 
 
34 
 
 stress upon personal purity, avoiding contact with 
 any person or thing which might interfere with 
 it ; by means of brotherhoods ^ and minute regu- 
 lations endeavouring continually to reach higher 
 degrees of it, extending their care even to all 
 vessels used in the Temple service, on the plea 
 that they might have been defiled by the touch 
 of an unclean priest ^. In imitation of the grave 
 and reverend, banquets held by the priests at 
 which their portion of the sacrifices, the tithes 
 and offerings were consumed, the Pharisees es- 
 tablished brotherhoods for taking solemn meals 
 together, hallowed by special prayers, especially 
 on sabbaths and feast-days ^ : in the same spirit 
 
 ^ Jost, Gesch. i. 197. 
 
 ^ This circumstance shews that some priests must have be- 
 longed to the party of the Pharisees, though these probably 
 were few as compared with those who joined the Sadducees. 
 The touching of the Law rendered any one unclean: Deren- 
 bourg, i. 133. On one occasion a Sadducee seeing them bathing 
 the golden candlestick, exclaimed, ' See ! the Pharisees will at last 
 purify the sun !' Jost, i. 217. Cf. Mark vii. 4. 
 
 ^ The device by which the Pharisees evaded the two prohibi- 
 tions of not going more than 2000 cubits from home and of 
 not cari-ying anything out of their houses on tlie Sabbath, was 
 worthy of the legal ingenuity of a more civilised age. By placing 
 some food on the eve of the Sabbath at a spot 2000 cubits 
 from their real home, they created there a fictitious domicile, 
 whence they might move in any direction 2000 cubits more. 
 Each of the brethren, moreover, at the same time placed some 
 
35 
 
 of rivalry they endeavoured to curtail the emolu- 
 ments and privileges of the priesthood \ Their 
 interpretation of the Law v^as marked by a 
 reverence for tradition and by an absence of the 
 strict adherence to the letter which distinguished 
 their rivals ^. Their method of life was rigorously 
 simple, spent in carrying out the minute ob- 
 servances of religion : they held the doctrine of 
 the resurrection and of a future reward and 
 punishment^. This zeal was roused to fury by 
 witnessing the disgraceful pontificates of Jason 
 and Menelaus, when the rites of Zeus Olympius 
 were celebrated in the Temple itself, and a 
 determined attempt made by these apostates to 
 trample down obedience to the Law of Moses, 
 and in its place to introduce the sensuous ritual 
 of Greece. By an energetic exercise of the in- 
 fluence which they possessed over the people they 
 must have greatly contributed to the success of 
 the Maccabees in their war of independence ; but 
 when the victory was once gained, there was but 
 little place for them in the Court of the Asmo- 
 
 food in the common hall, thus a sort of community of houses 
 was imagined, and by joining the ends of the streets with beams 
 and ropes the whole city was made as it were one house. This 
 was termed the ^Eruhh. Derenbourg, i. 143. 
 
 ^ For instances see ihid. 135. ^ Ihid. 138. 
 
 ^ For Josephus' account of them see Ant. xviii. 1.3; also xiii. 
 5. 9 ; xvii. 2. 4 ; B. J. ii. 8. 14 ; i. 5. 2. 
 d2 
 
36 
 
 nean princes, filled as it was with warriors and 
 priestly allies ; so they retired to their old and 
 simple life among the peojile. The struggle 
 between the two parties went on till the f\dl of 
 Jerusalem, the Pharisees continually gaining more 
 and more advantages over theii' rivals : with the 
 ruin of the Temple and the cessation of its services 
 the Sadducees disappear from history, all the 
 teaching and interpretation of the Law falling into 
 the hands of the Pharisees, or Pabbanites as they 
 were afterwards termed. Thus matters went on 
 till A.D. 754, when, at the very moment when the 
 labours of the two schools of the Geonim appeared 
 to have established Pabbinism on a firmer basis 
 than ever, the celebrated Anan ben David raised 
 his voice against the system then in vogue, utterly 
 denying the right of tradition either to supplement 
 or interpret the written word, asserting the sole 
 authority of the Law, the unchanging character 
 of its precepts, and the necessity of seeking the 
 explanation of it in the book itself ^ Thus after 
 the lapse of nearly seven centuries was the old 
 method of interpretation revived, and the obsolete 
 
 ^ Jost. ii. 294. Here is to be found a very full account of 
 the literature and dogmas of the Karaites. See also Neubauer, 
 Aus der Petershurger Bihliothek, 88 sqq. They assumed the 
 name as being skilful 'readers' or interpreters of the 'literal 
 meaning' of the Law. 
 
37 
 
 teaching of the Sadducees and Samaritans repeated 
 in the Karaite school of Bagdad. 
 
 A few instances may be of interest, though the 
 subjects in dispute were not such as modern 
 theology takes much account of. The fruit of a 
 young tree in the fourth year belongs, according 
 to the old interpretation of Lev. xix. 23, 24, to 
 the priest, from whom it must be redeemed by the 
 owner ; in this both Samaritans and Karaites 
 agree, while a later explanation directs that the 
 fruit or the value of it be consumed by the owner 
 in person at Jerusalem ^ According to the ancient 
 interpretation of Lev. xxvii. 30; Deut. xiv, 22; 
 xxvi. 12 and xiv, 28, two tenths of the fruit of 
 trees and fields must every third year be given 
 to the Levites and poor, a third consumed by the 
 owners in Jerusalem ; this last direction is not 
 maintained by later doctors, only by Samaritans 
 and Karaites^. Samaritans, Sadducees, and Kara- 
 ites agree in deducing from Lev. iii. 9 that the 
 tail part of sheep belongs to the priest alone, 
 and may be consumed by no one else, whereas 
 the Eabbanites make no such restriction^. When 
 in Exod. xl. 31 priestly functions are attributed 
 to Moses, the Samaritans alter the text so as to 
 ascribe them to Aaron alone, and thus heighten 
 the dignity of the latter ^ For fear of irrever- 
 
 ^ Greiger, Urschrift, i8i. ^ Ibid. i'j6. 
 
 ' Ibid. 467. ■• Ibid. 381. 
 
38 
 
 ence, the term ha-Sbem was in reading sub- 
 stituted by early doctors for the sacred name 
 Jehovah whenever it occurred ; this custom was 
 afterwards given up, and later again the name 
 Adonai substituted ; the Samaritans still cling to 
 the old habit, employing the term Shema\ In 
 order to avoid anything approaching to an in- 
 delicacy of expression, the Samaritans interpret 
 jmV^'^^ in Exod. XX. 26 (neither shalt thou go up 
 ' by steps' unto my altar), ' with craft,' as if from 
 '?i'?3, and this rendering has been revived by the 
 Karaites'-. The Samaritans allow the directions 
 in Deut. XXV. 5 to be carried out only in the case 
 of a betrothed, not actually married, brother's wife, 
 and with them agree the Karaites ^. The decision 
 as to the exact moment at which the new moon 
 appeared, on which depended the time of all the 
 other feasts, was formerly in the hands of the 
 Sadducees. Gradually the Pharisees wrested this 
 power from them, and out of spite the Samaritans 
 and Boethusians endeavoured by false signals and 
 suborned witnesses to stultify the official intima- 
 tions of their antagonists. The Samaritans and 
 Karaites imitate the Boethusians in counting for- 
 ward to Pentecost in Christian fashion, not from 
 the Sabbath following the first day of the Pass- 
 over, but from the day after the Sabbath, in oppo- 
 
 ^ (jreigcr, Urschrift, 262. - Ibid. 395. ^ Ibid. 235. 
 
39 
 
 sition to the Pharisee rule^ The same agree- 
 ment between Samaritans and Karaites in oppo- 
 sition to the Pharisees is to be found in their use 
 of the skin of a properly-killed animal only, not 
 of an unclean one or of carrion ^ ; in allowing 
 no fire to burn through the Sabbath ^ ; nor any 
 one to move from home on that day ^ ; nor any 
 cooking to be done on festivals ^ : they do not 
 permit a dying animal to be killed and eaten, 
 and hold that the imborn young found in a slain 
 animal has a separate existence and so must be 
 properly slaughtered : the high-priest may, accord- 
 ing to tbem, marry only a virgin (not widow) of 
 priestly family*'. 
 
 In other and more important points also the 
 
 ^ Geiger, Urschrift, 137. 
 
 ■^ Geiger, in Zeitschr. d. D. M. G. xvi. 718. Peterniann, in 
 Herzog's Heal- Ency clop. xiii. 383, mentions that when they go 
 in procession to Garizim they only use shoes made of leather 
 from lambs killed by themselves ; so the famous copy of the 
 Law at Nablus is said to be written on skins of rams which 
 have served as thank-offerings. 
 
 ^ Zeitschr. d. D. M. G. xx. 532. For their later practice, cf. 
 Eichhorn, Repertorium, ix. 32 ; De Sacy, Not. et Extr. xii. 124. 
 
 * Zeitschr. d. D. M. G. xx. 535. As to the Pharisee rule, see 
 above, p. 34. 
 
 ^ Zeitschr. d. D. M. G. xx. 536. 
 
 * Ibid. 561. Frankel {Einjiuss, 252) believes tlmt some prac- 
 tices of the Samaritans were borrowed directly from the 
 Karaites. 
 
40 
 
 Samaritans seem to have borrowed Saddueean 
 theology; for instance, a denial of the resurrec- 
 tion is expressly affirmed of them in the Siphre 
 and Massekheth Kuthim, a testimony borne out 
 by the evidence of the Fathers as well \ Whence 
 or at what time they adopted a behef in a coming 
 Messiah^ is not clear, possibly from then- Jewish 
 neighbours ; as however he was to be a son of 
 Joseph, not of David, it is more probable that 
 the idea had its origin among the Samaritans 
 themselves, and was due to their anxiety to exalt 
 the tribe of Joseph at the expense of Judah^. 
 There was but one point in which they could not 
 accept the creed of their neighbours, and that was 
 the choice by God of Judah as the ruling tribe and 
 Jerusalem as the centre of the national religion ^. 
 For this reason probably they were compelled to 
 reject all the later books of the canon, and letain only 
 
 ' Siphre (on Numb. xv. 31); Massekheth Kuthim, see below, 
 p. 172 ; Derenbourg, i. 130. Cf. R. Elieser in Bah. Sanhedrin, 
 90 b ; Epiphanius, Haeres. ix and xiv ; Leontius, De Sectis, viii ; 
 Gregorius Magnus, Moral, i. 15, &c. 
 
 ^ JohQ iv. 25. ^ See below, p. 69. 
 
 * They could not admit the assertion of the Psalmist that the 
 Lord ' refused the tabernacle of Joseph and chose not the tribe 
 of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, even the hill of Sion 
 which He loved : and there He built His Temple on high, and laid 
 the foundation of it like the ground which He hath made continu- 
 ally. He chose David also His servant .... that he might feed 
 Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance.' Ps. Ixxviii. 68-72. 
 
41 
 
 the Pentateuch and a mutilated portion of Joshua \ 
 In these there was Uttle to wound their suscepti- 
 bihties : Ephraim was stil], an honoured and power- 
 ful tribe, the place which God would 'choose to 
 put His name there ' was still left undetermined ' : 
 nothing was needed but a few slight alterations 
 which should depress tiie hated sanctuary of 
 Moriah and establish the glory of its rival of 
 Garizim 'l 
 
 From the foregomg sketch therefore it appears 
 
 ' Jost {Gesch. i. 53, note) thinks the Samaritans rejected all 
 but the Pentateuch from ignorance of them as being written in 
 a character they did not understand. Loewe (in Allgem. Zeitung 
 d. Judenthums for April 18, 1839) asserts that he found the books 
 of Kings and Song of Songs among them. The anonymous com- 
 mentary described below, p. 134, quotes from the prophets, &c. 
 
 " But in Deut. xii. 14 they read "in3 for "in2"'; cf. Ex. xx. 24. 
 
 ^ In Gen. xxxiii, 18 the Samaritans read DvC* for rh^ , 'Jacob 
 came in peace to the city of Shecheni,' instead of ' to Salem a 
 city of Shechem,' in order to bar the Jewish interpretation of 
 Jerusalem being here intended. The place is identified by 
 Robinson (ii. 279) with Salim near Nablus. In Deut. xxvii. 4 
 they read ' Garizim ' for ' Ebal,' inserting vv. 2-8 and xi. 30 as 
 an additional commandment after Exod. xx. 17 and Deut. v. 21, 
 and adding in xi. 30 the words ' opposite Shechem,' to make 
 certain of its identification, the Jews having asserted that the 
 Garizim and Ebal mentioned in the Pentateuch were not those 
 belonging to the Samaritans : {Sola, 33 b; Jer. Sola, vii. 3 ; and 
 Sijyhre on Deut. xi. 30). For other examples of changes made by 
 the Samaritans see Kohn, De Pent. Sam. 1 1 gqq. That ' Ebal ' 
 must be the true reading of Deut. xxvii. 4 is well maintained by 
 Friedrich [De Christologia Samaritanorum, 57) against Kennicott. 
 
42 
 
 to be abundantly evident that the Samaritans 
 were in no degree the inventors of any part of 
 their theology, that they borrowed it wholly from 
 their neighbours, merely rejecting such ^^arts 
 as did not square with their prepossessions, and 
 that they doggedly held on to the old traditional 
 interpretations, when these had been left by their 
 rivals centuries behind. They did, it is true, 
 modify and enlarge their creed, and that in im- 
 portant particulars, at a later period of their 
 history, but then, as before, by the same process of 
 absorption ; it was in no sense a development of 
 the religious feeling of the people. 
 
 The statements of Jewish writers throw but 
 little light upon Samaritan theology, nor are they 
 by any means uniform in their tenour. In some 
 passages of the Talmud, for instance, the Sama- 
 ritans are looked upon as Tsraehtes by reason of 
 their religious observances, and credited with even 
 greater conscientiousness in carrying them out 
 than the Jews themselves ^ : on account indeed 
 of their misinterpretation of Deut. xxv. 5 mar- 
 riage with them is forbidden, and their slavish 
 adherence to the letter of Scripture is reprehended, 
 but their orthodoxy is extolled with regard to 
 unleavened bread, slaughtering of cattle ^ poUu- 
 
 ^ Holin, 4 a. 
 
 2 Holin, 3 a. So in Jolm iv. 8 the diseii)les do not scrui»le to 
 buy food of the Samaritans. 
 
43 
 
 tion from dead bodies or graves, and purifications ; 
 their testimony also is to be admitted in matters of - 
 divorce^ : while in other passages they are excluded 
 altogether from the community of Israel and their 
 very bread forbidden. It is uncertain when this 
 change of feeling took place and to what it was 
 due ^. No charges of any weight are made against 
 them, merely vague statements such as these ; 
 ' Formerly the Kuthim were plunged in false 
 beliefs, though they observed the Mosaic law ; 
 now they have no idea of it I' R. Elieser ben 
 Arakh relates at full length how a curse was 
 pronounced upon them with all solemnity by 
 Ezra, Zerubbabel, the high -priest Joshua, and 
 six hundred of his attendant pi iests : no Israehte 
 was to eat with them ; to do so would be as if 
 
 ' Neubauer, Geographie, 165; Frankel, Vorstudien, 197; 
 Einjluss, 245, where are very full Talmudical references; Winer, 
 lieal-W.-B. ii. 371, 372. 
 
 ■^ Frankel [Einjluss, 248) attributes it to the influence of 
 R. Simon ben Elieser {Jer. Yebam. i. 6), perhaps the same as 
 Elieser ben Simon {Sola, vii. 3), who reported to R. Meir, in the 
 second century A. c, the Samaritans' falsification of the Penta- 
 teuch, whereupon the latter excommunicated them. R. Simon 
 ben Gamaliel, a contemporary of his, held the Samaritans in 
 great respect, but his son R. Jehuda ha-Nasi considers them as 
 heathen, and is borne out in this by his friend R. Ismael ben 
 Jose. After the time of Diocletian they seem to have been quite 
 excluded from Israel. 
 
 ^ R. Simon, in Jer. Pesahim, i. i. 
 
44 
 
 he ate swine's flesli : no Samaritan was to be 
 received as a proselyte : none would have a share 
 in the resurrection of the dead \ The ground of 
 this exclusion is variously stated : generally they 
 are charged with the worship of a dove", an 
 accusation which originated as early as the second 
 century A.D., is repeated again in a commentary of 
 Eashi^ revived by Maimonides^ and reasserted 
 as late as 1808, though repudiated with horror 
 by the Samaritans themselves ^ Or it is alleged 
 against them that in the time of Diocletian they 
 denied their Jewash orig-in and offered libations 
 to heathen deities, a charge which must be re- 
 ceived with considerable caution*^. Similar accu- 
 sations and apparently equally destitute of proof 
 are, that they worshipped one of the idols hidden 
 by Jacob under the oak by Shechem', or those 
 
 ' Pirke R. EUeser, cap. 38. Cf. Beer. Gesch. LehrPii, &c., i. 35. 
 
 2 Holin, f. 6, et al. 
 
 ^ OnBih.'Ahoda Zara. 26b; 'The Samaritans circumcise in the 
 name of the image of a dove,' quoted iu Dru?ius, Observatt. xiii.,24. 
 
 * On Miihna Berakhoth, viii. 8, in Eeland, De Samaritanis, 
 iii. So Obadiah de Bertinoro, on Mishna Berakhoth, vii. i. 
 Cf. Friech-ich, op. cit. pp. 80 sq., and above, p. 27. 
 
 5 De Sacy, ^01. et Extr. xii. 19, 43, 70, sqq. Cf. Herzfekl, 
 iii. 596. Josephus knows nothing of it. The colonists mni/ 
 have brought the Aj-orship of a dove with them from Xineveh ; 
 see references in Herzfeld. 
 
 ' Jost, i. 61, from Jer. Whoda Zara, v. 4. 
 
 ^ Jer. 'Aboda Zara, v. 4 ; Gen. xxxv. 4, 
 
45 
 
 of the Samaritan colonists which were buried 
 under Garizim ^ ; or that they circumcised in 
 honour of Mount Garizim % or that they wrote 
 Ashima for Elohim in Gen. i. i ^ or that they were 
 no genuine worshippers of Jehovah, only Hon- 
 converts^: charges which the Samaritans were 
 not slow in retorting, accusing their adversaries 
 in turn of anthropomorphism and anthropopathism 
 because they left untouched such passages in the 
 Pentateuch as seem to ascribe human acts and 
 feelings to the Deity ^ 
 
 The testimony of the Fathers with regard to 
 the Samaritans' disbelief in the resurrection of 
 the body has been already quoted; from the 
 same source we also learn their denial of the 
 existence of angels, and of the immortalitv of the 
 
 ^ Epiphanius, Haeres. ix. 
 
 ^ R. Jeliuda, iu Massekhetli Kiithim ; see below, p. 169. 
 
 ^ Aben Ezra, in Introduction to Comment, on EstJier. It was 
 probably from some Jewish legend tliat Mohammed relates in 
 the Koran {Sura, 20) how a certain Sameri (Samaritan) made 
 the golden calf in the wilderness and was punished by Moses with 
 having to cry Id mesdsa (touch me not) to the end of his life. 
 Masudi and Biruni say the Samaritans still used these words in 
 their time (tenth and eleventh centuries a.d.); De Sacy, Chrest. 
 Arahe, i. 304, 343; cf. Abulfath, Ann. p. 175. 
 
 * Bab. Baba Kama, 38 b. 
 
 ^ They themselves wei-e careful to change them ; see below, 
 p. 135- 
 
46 
 
 soul ^ ; and also gain some information with regard 
 to tbe several sects which made their appearance 
 among them ; these notices are supported by the 
 statements of Mohammedan writers and of the 
 Samaritans themselves. It may be as well in this 
 place to say a few words about them before noticing 
 the later developements of Samaritan theology. 
 
 The most important information on the subject 
 is derived from St. Epiphanius in the fourth cen- 
 tury A.i>. He mentions ^ four different sects, the 
 Essenes, Sebuaeans, Gorthenians, and Dositheans. 
 With regard to the first of these bodies nothing 
 further is known, it is however possible that 
 there may have been separatists known under 
 the name among the Samaritans. If so, they were 
 probably an offshoot from the Dositheans, just as 
 the Jewish Essenes were from the Pharisees ; for 
 
 1 Origen, In Matt. p. 8ii ; Leontius, De Sectis, 8; cf. Acts 
 xxiii. 8, as to the Sadducean disbelief in angels. Makrizi, iu 
 De Sacy, op. cit. p. 306, says, ' the Zaiiadiqata (i. e. Sadducees) 
 are of the nation of the Samaritans, sprung from the Sadducees ; 
 they deny angels and the resurrection after death, and all pro- 
 phets but Moses.' 
 
 2 Haeres. i. p. 28 : he is followed by St. John Damascenus, De 
 Haeres. p. 79, and Nicetas, Thesaur. i. 35. For the whole sub- 
 ject see Basnage, livr. ii. chap. 13; JuynboU, Chron. Sam. 112. 
 Epiphanius strangely asserts {Haeres. p. 469) that in his day a 
 feast was held in the summer at Sebaste in honour of Jephthah's 
 daughter, to whom divine honours were paid : a statement which 
 he repeats (p. 1055) with reference to Neapolis. 
 
47 
 
 as the tenets of the latter were a protest against 
 the literal interpretation ^ and negative teaching 
 of the Sadducees, so the Dositheans appear to 
 have had much in common with the Pharisees, 
 and to have in like manner entered the lists in 
 opposition to the Sadducean teaching which, as 
 we have seen before, prevailed in their nation. 
 Nor is the information with regard to the Sebu- 
 
 they are said to have 
 
 ^ Abulpharaj, a Christian writer who died in 1286 [Hist. 
 Dyn. p. 116), makes the Samaritans a Jewish sect Avho received 
 the Law alone and interpreted it in its literal sense. Juynboll, 
 Chron. Sam. 1 1 1 . 
 
 ^ The origin of their name has been sought in ''3D, who, 
 according to the Tanhuma, sect. Wayyeschehh, and the Yalqut, 
 ii. 234, was one of the two Israelite priests sent by the king of 
 Assyria to instruct the Samaritans at the time of the lion-plague, 
 Sebuaeans are mentioned in the Chronicle of Abulfath as oppo- 
 nents of Baba Rabba, the Samaritan reformer about 250 a.d. 
 Sabbaeus was a name in use among the Egyptian Samaritans 
 (Josephus, Ant. xiii. 3. 4). Cf. Herzfeld, iii. 599, for another 
 explanation and an account of these sects. Herzfeld connects 
 the name with their peculiar keeping of Pentecost. Ewald, 
 Gesch. (1868), vii. 135, identifies them with the Masbothaei of 
 Hegesippus, the Basmothaei of Const. Apost. vi. 6. i, the Fasqu- 
 tai of Abulfath. He derives their name from the stress they 
 laid upon the number ' seven,' as, for instance, in the observance 
 of that number of feasts. Petermann (in Herzog, Real-Encycl. 
 xiii. 387) could gain no information from the modern Sama- 
 ritans with regard to any of the foregoing sects. From the 
 subscription of a MS. dated 15 13 it has been supposed that 
 
48 
 
 distinguished themselves by commencing the year 
 in the early autumn : soon after this they held 
 the feast of unleavened bread, Pentecost later, 
 and that of Tabernacles in the spring, when the 
 Jews were celebrating their Easter : these changes 
 were made by them out of animosity to Ezra, 
 and to avoid quarrels with the Jewish pilgrims 
 who were passing tlu-ough Samaria on their way 
 to Jerusalem. Of the Gorthenians, termed Soro- 
 thenians by Nicetas, nothing whatever is known \ 
 With regard to the last of the four sects and 
 their leader Dositheus, it is impossible to recon- 
 cile the discordant testimony of Jewish, Chris- 
 tian, Mohammedan, and Samaritan writers ^ 
 
 a sect of Musawi existed at Damascus, and tliat they may have 
 been connected with Mesawi of Baalbek who lived in the twelfth 
 century, whose tenets bore some resemblance to those of the 
 Druses. Cf. Jost, i. 68. But it is more probable that the name 
 signified orthodox Samaritans, ' followers of Moses.' Cf. Juyn- 
 boll, Chron. Sam. p. 37 ; Comment, p. 60. 
 
 ^ Hegesippus (in Eusebius, Hist. iv. 22) makes them post- 
 Christian heretics, deriving their name from a certain Gortheus : 
 Theodoret {Haer. Fab. i. i) considers them followers of Simon 
 Magus. 
 
 ^ At least three Dosithei, if not more, are mentioned by other 
 writers besides those cited in the text, (i) Dostai the son of 
 .Tannai, sent to Samaria by Sennacherib, with Sabbai another 
 Israelite priest, at the time of the lion-plague. Tanhuma, I. c. ; 
 Yalqut, I. c. ; Pirke Elieser, cap. 38. (2) Also B.C. Philas- 
 trius {Haeres. 4) says he was a Jew, the teacher of Sadoq. He 
 
49 
 
 St. Epiplianius relates of them that they were 
 believers in the resurrection, and austere in their 
 
 held the Law was to be obeyed only according to the flesh, 
 denied the resurrection, Holy Spirit, angels, and last judgment. 
 (3) A post-Christian heretic mentioned by Hegesippus (in 
 Eusebius, Hist. iv. 22) and Hippolytus {ibid. vi. 22; Photius, 
 Bihlioth. 121). According to the Clementine Recognitions, ii. 8, 
 Horn. ii. 24, he was the teacher of Simon Magus, to whom he 
 had to resign his claim to be the Messiah. The testimony of the 
 Apost. Const, vi. 8, and Theodoret, Haeres. i. i, is to the same 
 effect. Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria in 608, was called 
 upon to settle a dispute between the Dositheans and other 
 Samaritans of his day. Photius {Bihlioth. 230), in descinbing 
 this, also makes him coeval with Simon Magus ; he calls him an 
 insulter of God's prophets, especially of the patriarch Judah. 
 His followers held him, the other Samaritans held Joshua, to 
 be the prophet promised by Moses. He denied the resurrection, 
 corrupted the Mosaic Octateuchus [so], applied the prophecies to 
 himself, &c. Origen {Adv. Cels. i. 57, vi. 11 ; in Matt. p. 851, 
 and in Joann. xiii. 27) says Dositheus made himself the 
 Messiah, the Son of God. His followers, who were almost 
 extinct in Origen's time, still had his Avritings, and believed him 
 to be alive. He ridicules the sect {De Princip. iv. 17) for their 
 excessive strictness in observing the Sabbath. Tertullian {De 
 Praescript. Haeret. 45) says Dositheus was the first who dared 
 to reject the prophets. St. Jerome {Adv. Lucif. p. 197) follows 
 him ; but whether they are speaking of (2) or (3) is doubtful : 
 probably of (2), as they make the Sadducees an off-shoot of the 
 Dositheans. 
 
 So much for Jewish and Christian testimony ; that of Moham- 
 medan writers is not more satisfactory. According to Masudi 
 (who died in 956 a. d. ; cf. De Sacy, Chrestom. Arabe, i. 305), 
 there were two sects of Samaritans, Couschan and Rouschan 
 
50 
 
 manner of life, avoiding animal food, some marry- 
 ing but once, others not at all : as to the 
 observance of circumcision, the Sabbath, avoid- 
 ing contact with others, fasting and penance, 
 they were not distinguishable from the other 
 Samaritans. Theu' founder was, he continues, a 
 Jew who for his learning aspired to be chief 
 among his party, but being disappointed in his 
 ambitious schemes, went over to the Samaritans 
 and founded a sect : later he retired to a cave 
 and there starved himself to death out of affected 
 
 (corrected by De Sacy to Cuthana and Dustana ; but according 
 to Juynboll, Chron. Sam. 112, the former word signifies 'truth- 
 telling,' not Cuthite) ; one of these held the world for eternal, 
 i. e. uncreated. Shai-astani (ed. Haarbriicker, Th. i. p. 257), two 
 centuries later, also divides the Samaritans into Dusltanija or 
 Ilfanija (' lying separatists ') and KusanJja (' true people '), the 
 latter believing in a future life and rewards and punishments, 
 the former confining them to this world : the two parties differed 
 in their legal rules and ordinances. Al-Ilfan said he was the 
 prophet foretold by Moses, the ' Star :' he lived about 100 years 
 before the Messiah. (The name Ilfan probably signifies that he 
 was a millenarian ; cf. Vilmar's Ahulfath, p. Ixxii, note : or *a 
 strict observer' [ujia.] of the Law.) To the same effect is the 
 testimony of Abulfeda, two centuries later, in De Sacy, ojp. cit. 
 p. 344. He mentions Dostani or Fani and Cousani, the former 
 denying future rewards and punishments, the latter admitting 
 them. The quotation by Abraham Ecchellensis from an Arab- 
 Samaritan Chronicle in Cardinal ]\Iazarin's library, to be found 
 in De Sacy, op. cit. 337, is probably from Abulfath. Cf. Vilmar's 
 Ahulfath, p. xvii. 
 
51 
 
 piety. This account, it will be noticed, mentions 
 but one Dositheus and one party named after him. 
 But as the preponderance of evidence is in favour 
 of there having been at least two heresiarchs of 
 the name, and two sects taking their title from 
 them, it will perhaps be best to acquiesce in this 
 conclusion, more especially as it agrees with the 
 account transmitted to us by the native Samaritan 
 chronicler Abulfath. He relates that (apparently 
 about the time of Antiochus Epiphanes) a sect 
 appeared calhng themselves Dost^n or ' the 
 friends,' who varied in many respects the hither- 
 to received feasts and traditions of their fathers. 
 Several of their peculiarities are mentioned. They 
 held for impure a fountain into which a dead 
 insect had fallen ^ : altered the time for reckoning 
 the purification of women and commencement 
 of feasts : forbade the eating of eggs which had 
 been laid, allowing those only to be eaten which 
 were found inside a slain bird : considered dead 
 snakes and cemeteries as unclean, and held any 
 one whose shadow fell upon a grave as impure 
 for seven days. They rejected the expression 
 'blessed be our God for ever^,' and substituted 
 
 ^ It is similarly alleged of all the Samaritans in the Masse- 
 kheth Kuthim (see below, p. 170), that they held oil to be unclean 
 into which a mouse had fallen. 
 
 ^ In Mishna BeraMwlh, 9, 5, it is stated that the expression 
 'for ever and ever' was introduced as a protest against the 
 e 2 
 
52 
 
 Elohim for Jehovah ^ : denied that Garizim had 
 been the first sanctuary of God : upset the Sama- 
 ritan reckonings for the feasts, giving thirty days 
 to each month, rejecting the feasts and order of 
 fasts and depriving the Levites of their portions 
 of the olFerings ". They counted the fifty days 
 to Pentecost from the Sabbath, the day after 
 the first day of the Passover, Hke the Jews (i. e. 
 the Pharisees), not from the Sunday Uke the other 
 Samaritans. According to them a priest might, 
 without becoming impure, enter a house suspected 
 of infection, as long as he did not speak. When 
 a pure and impure house stood side by side, and 
 it was doubtful whether the impurity extended 
 to the former as well, the question was decided 
 by watching whether 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 must be 
 done on the previous day. Their high-priest was 
 a certain Zar'a, who had been turned out of his 
 own community for immorality of Hfe. 
 
 'sectarians' (D''3''D) for their disbelief in the resurrection. Dosi- 
 theus' reason seems to have been the same. 
 
 ^ See above, p. 38. 
 
 ^ Cf. the account of tlie Pharisees given above, p. 35. 
 
 ^ That tlicy might not be tempted to break the Sabbatli by 
 dipping them in water to cleanse them. Hcrzfeld, op. clt. iii. 602. 
 
53 
 
 At a later period lived a Jew, a certain Dusis ^ : 
 being condemned to deatli for immorality he was 
 respited on the promise of sowing dissension 
 among the Samaritans by founding a new sect. 
 Accordingly he went to Nablus and formed a 
 friendship with a Samaritan distinguished for his 
 learning and piety. Compelled however to fly 
 for his life on account of a false accusation which 
 he had brought against his friend, he took shelter 
 with a widow-woman, in whose house he composed 
 many writings ; but finding that a hot pursuit after 
 him was still maintained, he retired to a cave, 
 where he perished of hunger and his body was 
 eaten by dogs. Before his departure, however, 
 he left his books with his hostess, enjoining her 
 to let no one read them unless they first bathed 
 in the tank hard by. 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, exclaimed, ' I believe in 
 Thee, Jehovah, and in Dusis, Thy servant, and his 
 
 ^ He is mentioned just after a certain Germon, Avhom Juyn- 
 boll {Chron. Sam. p. 347) takes for Gennanus, bishop of Nal)lus 
 in 323, and therefore puts them both at this time : Petermann 
 {Herzog, R. E. xiii. 391) in the first or second century A. D. 
 The Chron. El-Tholldoth (p. 58), see below, p. 124, appears to 
 pkice him near the time of Zeno, towards the end of the fifth 
 century a. d. 
 
54 
 
 sons and daup'hters :' Levi addino;, when his turn 
 came, ' Woe to us, if we deny Dtjsis the prophet 
 of God.' Whereupon they took the writings of 
 Diisis and found that he had made many alterations 
 in the Law, more even than Ezra. But this they 
 concealed on their return to Nablus, saying only 
 that Dusis had disappeared before their arrival, 
 they knew not whither. At the next Passover 
 Levi had to read out Exod. xii. 22 in the syna- 
 gogue, but for 'hyssop' he substituted 'thyme.' 
 Corrected by the congregation he still persevered, 
 crying, ' This is right, as God hath said by His 
 prophet Dusis, on whom be peace ! Ye are all 
 worthy of death, for denying the prophetic oflSce 
 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!' Whereupon Levi was 
 stoned. His friends dipped a palm -leaf in his 
 blood, and ordained that whoever would read his 
 wTitings 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, kept their feasts only 
 on this day, during which they would not remove 
 their hands from their sleeves. When one of their 
 friends died, they would gird him with a girdle, 
 
55 
 
 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 ever he 
 was laid in the grave, would arise and go to 
 Paradise. — Of the later fortunes of the Dositheans 
 we have no information : they existed however in 
 Egypt early in the seventh century a.d., when 
 Eulogius patriarch of Alexandria was called upon 
 to mediate between them and the rest of the 
 Samaritan community settled there ^ 
 
 This part of the subject would be incomplete 
 without some mention of the person and teaching 
 of the celebrated Simon Magus, though a complete 
 enquiry into his system and an examination of the 
 sources whence he drew it would far exceed the 
 limits of the present sketch. He appears early in 
 the Apostolic histoiy as practising magic arts in 
 Samaria, and giving himself out as 'some great 
 one,' or, as it is otherwise expressed, ' the power of 
 God which is called great ^,' i.e. the Supreme Deity 
 himself, as opposed to angelic powers, the creators 
 of the world. Converted by the preaching and 
 
 ' See above, p. 26, note. Dr. Beer, in his Buch der Juhilaen 
 unci sein Verhaltniss zu den Midraschim, considers that it was 
 compiled in the interests of Dositheanism for the use of Egyptian 
 •Jews ; it is said, on the authority of modern travellers, still to 
 maintain its influence among the Falascha (Jews) of Abyssinia. 
 Jost, Gesch. i. 66, note. 
 
 ^ OvTOS f(TTiv T] dwafiis tov Qeov tj KaXou/neVr/ /ueyaXj;. Acts viii. lO. 
 
56 
 
 miracles of the deacon Philip, he suffered himself 
 to be baptized, but the unworthy character of his 
 motives in so acting was soon displayed in his 
 attempt to bribe the apostles to communicate their 
 supernatural gifts to him, hoping thus to acquire 
 greater powers for his own ends. His answer to 
 the indignant rebuke of St. Peter betokens rather 
 apprehension than contrition, and tradition associates 
 his name with the first entry of Gnostic teaching 
 into the Christian Church. The most trustworthy 
 particulars of his life are given us by his fellow- 
 countryman Justin Martyr in the middle of the 
 following century. According to his account \ 
 Simon was born at Gitton, a Samaritan village, 
 and making his way to Rome in the time of 
 
 ^ Apol. i. 26, 56, ii. 15 ; Tryph. 120. A stone was found on 
 the island of the Tiber in 1574 with the inscription ' Semoni | 
 Sanco I Deo Fidio | Sacrum | Sex. Pompeius Sp(^<rl^) Yiilius) \ 
 CoMlina, sc. tribu) Mussianus | Quinquennalis | Decur(io) Bi- 
 deutalis | Donum Dedit' (Orell. i860, Wilmanns 1300, Gruter 
 96. 5 ; the similar one in Orell. 1861, Gruter 96. 6, is suspected 
 by some critics) ; and Justin Martyr has been accordingly 
 charged with having mistaken this for a dedication to Simon 
 jMagus. The question is discussed in the preface to his works 
 published in Migne's Bibl Patriim, p. 141. It is singular that 
 the deity to whom the inscription refers, the Sabine Semo- 
 Hercules, is, according to Baur's view {Christliche Gnosis, 1835, 
 p. 308), to be identified with the Tyrian Hercules, and that the 
 legend of the latter and of Astarte probably gave rise to the 
 Simon and Helena myth. 
 
57 
 
 Claudius gained so great an influence with both' 
 senate and people by the aid of his magic arts 
 that they honoured him as god, and erected a 
 statue to his honour in the island of the Tiber. 
 As time goes on, more minute and full particulars 
 of his life are given by ecclesiastical writers. The 
 author of the Clementines, for instance, knows the 
 names of his parents, and describes him as having 
 received instruction in Hellenic literature and 
 magic at Alexandria \ Later in life he, with his 
 companion Helena, was among the thirty disciples 
 of John the Baptist, this number having been 
 chosen by the master as representing the days of 
 the month, with a woman among them to signify 
 its incompleteness, as twelve apostles had been 
 selected by our Lord in correspondence with the 
 twelve months of the year. On the death of the 
 Baptist, Dositheus, in the absence of Simon, 
 succeeded to the headship, but after a while was 
 compelled to succumb to the superior powers of 
 his rival. Simon now travelled about in company 
 with Helena (a dissolute woman whom he had 
 picked up at Tyre), practising magical arts, and by 
 their aid making statues to walk, rolling without 
 hurt in the fire, changing into a snake or kid, 
 displaying two faces, &c. But St. Peter con- 
 tinually throws himself in his path ; at Caesarea 
 
 ^ Recogn. ii. 7; Epit. 25. 
 
58 
 
 Stratonis they have a disputation which lasted 
 three days ; flying hence he is pursued by his 
 triumphant antagonist to Phoenicia, Antioch, 
 Laodicea, and at last, according to further ac- 
 counts, is brought to bay at Rome, where, in order 
 to regain his wavering credit with his disciples, 
 he suffers himself to be buried alive, promising to 
 rise again on the third day, but instead miserably 
 perishes. In another version he attempts to fly, 
 but failing in the undertaking owing to the prayers 
 of the Apostle, he falls headlong and loses his life 
 on the spot ; or being horribly maimed, he flings 
 himself in shame and anguish from a rock and so 
 perishes ^ 
 
 However unsatisfactory many of these details of 
 his history may be, a very com]ilete description 
 of his doctrinal system has descended to us in the 
 works of early ecclesiastical writers, among which 
 are to be found long extracts from the heresiarch's 
 own treatise, the ' Great Apophasis,' or Declaration, 
 in which he unfolds all his wisdom and theories of 
 creation ^. He explains that there are six original 
 ' roots' or principles whence all things were derived ; 
 
 ' The various modifications of the story are well described by 
 MoUer in Herzog, Real-Encycl. xiv. 392, who also gives a careful 
 account of his system. Cf. also Ewald, Gesch. (1868), vii. 124 ; 
 Baur, op. cit. ; and the art. ' Gnosticismus ' in Ersch and Gruber, 
 p. 278. 
 
 ^ Hippolytus, Uaeres. vi. 9, x. 12. 
 
59 
 
 in the intellectual world these are voOg and e-n-lvoia, 
 (pwvri and ovoju-a \ Xoyicr/ui.6^ and €v6viui](Ti9 ; and cor- 
 responding to them in the world of sense are 
 heaven and earth, sun and moon, air and water ; 
 but as his whole system is based solely upon the 
 relation of the sexes, all of these 'roots' are 
 arranged, as will have been noticed, in pairs, 
 representing the male and. female principle of 
 thought, speech, and reflection^ respectively. These 
 however by themselves are incapable of production : 
 for this they need the help of the seventh, the 
 highest and first principle of all, the unlimited 
 Power {airepavTo<i Svva/uii?). This exists indeed in 
 all the six, but only in potentiality, not in reahsa- 
 tion (Svi'djiiei ovK euepyela). For its nature is two- 
 fold, it is both hidden and manifest, apparent to 
 the intellect and to the senses (uotirou and alcrQtirov) : 
 it is described as a supercelestial fire, the treasure- 
 house {Qrjcravpo^) of both aicrOrjra and vorjrd, or, to 
 
 use a Biblical image, it is the tree seen in Nebu- 
 chadnezzar's vision whence all flesh was nourished. 
 Now if this fire remain only in potentiality it 
 will vanish, like geometry or grammar from the 
 mind of man, but if it be realised, assume sensible 
 
 ' In Theodoret, Haeret. Fab. i. i, ivvola. I do not venture to 
 translate these terms, being doubtful whether they can be ren- 
 dered accurately. Ewald gives them as Verstand and Verstand- 
 lichkeit, Sprachsinn and Sprache, Gedanke and Ueberlegung. 
 
 ' Or, ' understanding.' 
 
60 
 
 shape {e^eiKovlaOi]), take art (rexi'';), tlien it 
 becomes tlie light of all generation (^co? row yiyuu- 
 /mevcov). Again, it may be described as past, present, 
 and future ^ (ea-rw^, ardg, <TTrj<j6ix€vo<s) : it stands on 
 high in ungenerated potentiality (eV ajewi'iTM hvap-ei), 
 it stood beneath 'on the face of the waters' in 
 generated form {ev eiKoui y€uv}]6eh) ; it will stand on 
 high, if it be realised, by the side of the blessed 
 unlimited Power. The first principle did take 
 form in the person of Simon himself : and by the 
 aid of him, who is the incarnation of it, all men can 
 think and speak and reflect rightly ; heaven and 
 earth, sun and moon, air and water can each 
 perform their appointed task in union with each 
 other. 
 
 So far possibly the system as taught by Simon 
 himself extended, but a further development of 
 it, which may have been due to the imagination 
 and enthusiasm of his scholars, has also come 
 down to us, and in this his companion Helena 
 plays a conspicuous parti According to this he 
 is the hicrhest Power, the Father who is above all, 
 who suffers himself to be called among men by 
 what name they please, the Supreme Mind ; Helena 
 
 • An idea borrowed from the Jehovah of Exod. iii. 1 4 ; the 
 6 i>v Koi 6 rjv Koi 6 fpxofifvos of Rev. i. 4. 
 
 ^ Hippolytus, op. cit. vi. 19; Irenaeus, Ilaeres. i. 23; Theo- 
 doret, loc. cit.; TertuUian, Anim. 34; Epiplianius, Haeres. 21. 
 
61 
 
 is the female principle corresponding to him, his 
 Intelligence, the universal Mother, through whom 
 he first conceived the idea of creating angels and 
 archangels. She springing down into the lower 
 regions produced angels and powers who created 
 the world, and afterwards detained her out of 
 envy, wishing to be thought self-produced. Him 
 they ignored entirely, her they subjected to all 
 contumelious usage, making her pass from one 
 woman's body to another that she might not re- 
 turn to the Father. Thus she was once the Helen 
 for whom Greeks and Trojans fought at Ilium, 
 and who after many transmigrations found her- 
 self at last in a brothel at Tyre. Then it was 
 that the supreme Power came down from on high 
 to rescue this his 'lost sheep:' he passed through 
 all the angel-spheres, assimilating himself to each, 
 till he appeared as man on earth, among the Sama- 
 ritans as the Father, among the Jews as Son, 
 where he suffered death in appearance only, 
 among the Gentiles as Holy Ghosts He over- 
 came the powers of the world, each of them ruling 
 unrighteously and striving for the mastery, freed 
 liis Intelligence, brought salvation to mankind, 
 and likewise delivered them from the bondage 
 of the spirits who created the world. It was 
 
 ^ So Jerome on Matt. xxiv. 5. ' Ego sum Sermo Dei, ego sum 
 speciosus, ego Paracletus, ego omnipoteus, ego omnia Dei.' 
 
62 
 
 they who inspired the prophets, consequently their 
 words are not regarded by those who beheve on 
 Simon and Helena ; these may act as they please : 
 they can do no wrong, for nothing is evil in itself, 
 only by ordinance ; certain things have been de- 
 clared to be so by the creating angels who thought 
 thus to enslave mankind. The result of such a 
 doctrine upon the lives of Simon's disciples may 
 be easily imagined \ 
 
 Greek mythology was also pressed into the 
 service of Simon in order to illustrate the re- 
 lationship of him and Helena: their admirers 
 were fond of representing them under the form 
 of Zeus and Athena (she according to the legend 
 having sprung fully formed from the brain of 
 her sire), and of makmg offerings before images 
 and paintings so depicting them. Such was the 
 strange mixture of Judaism, Christianity, Oriental 
 legend, and Greek mjrthology which took such 
 deep root in Samaria, that, according to the testi- 
 mony of Justin Martyr, nearly the whole nation in 
 his days had given in their adherence to it. One 
 circumstance no doubt powerfully contributed to 
 this end, that the vanity of the people was flattered 
 by the idea of possessing a Messiah of their own 
 whose high pretensions should equal those of the 
 Christ of Nazareth. The sect however had no 
 
 ' Eusebiue, Hist. Eccl. ii. 13. 
 
63 
 
 great vitality, and had almost ceased to exist in the 
 time of Origen\ 
 
 Roused to emulation by the success of Simon, 
 one of his disciples, Menander of Capparetaia ^, 
 another Samaritan village, endeavoured to im- 
 prove upon his system. His pretensions were 
 more modest. Unlike his master, he made no 
 claim to be considered as the highest Power, 
 teaching that this is unknown ; it had however 
 by means of the divine ewoia produced the angels, 
 and by them the world had been created ; his own 
 mission was to set man free from the dominion of 
 these powers, and give them immortality ; this 
 he promised he would do for all, even in this 
 life, who believed and were baptized in his name. 
 He does not seem to have had any great following 
 among his countrymen, the ground having been 
 too completely occupied by his master : he con- 
 sequently migrated to Antioch on the Orontes 
 and there founded a school : some of his disciples 
 were still to be found there in Justin Martyr's 
 day. 
 
 ^ Origen, Cels. i. 57, vi. 11. 
 
 ^ Justin Mart. Ap. i. 26, 56. In Theodoret, op. cit. i. 2, his birth- 
 place is called Chabrai. His teaching is described by Irenaeus, 
 loc. cit. ; Hippolytus, Haeres. vii. 28 ; Eusebius, op. cit. iii. 26. 
 In Hippolytus it is said to have resembled that of Saturnilus, 
 but it is not clear how much of the description given of the 
 latter will apply to him. 
 
64 
 
 Another disciple, Cleobius, though founding a 
 school of his own, appears to have kept so close 
 to his master's teaching as to have been looked 
 upon as an apostle of his. Nothing is known 
 of him, but that he imitated Simon in his hos- 
 tility to Christianity, forging and circulating books 
 in the name of Christ and His apostles \ 
 
 To return after this digression to the question 
 of the religious belief of the Samaritans ; — it would 
 appear from the foregoing sketch that their 
 original creed was wholly boi^owed from their 
 neighbours of Judaea at a time when Sadducean 
 opinions prevailed among them, and that the later 
 Pharisaic views wdiich gradually ousted the former 
 beliefs did not for centuries obtain any hold in 
 Samaria. Thus matters continued till the fall 
 of Jerusalem. This event must have greatly 
 altered the tone of mind with which the Sama- 
 ritans regarded their old enemies. The sight of 
 the Jews' humiliation and dispersion over the 
 face of the earth must have greatly modified the 
 repugnance with which they would naturally have 
 repelled any acceptance of their rivals' views. 
 Accordingly when next we receive any information 
 
 ^ Const. Ap. vi. 1 6. Ewald identifies his followers with the 
 ''EvTvxiTal of Clem. Alex. Sb-om. vii. 17, ascribing the name to the 
 importance ascribed by them to solemn ' supplications : ' they 
 are however termed Ev7-vx'?rat in Theodoret, Haer. \. i, and 
 distinguished from the KKeo^avoi 
 
65 
 
 with regard to the creed of Samaria, we find it 
 greatly changed and many of the Pharisaic articles 
 of faith now forming part of it, to the exclusion of 
 those Sadducean doctrines which had formerly 
 prevailed. Moslem influence also was later 
 brought to bear upon the Samaritans, when in 
 636 A.D. they passed under the rule of the 
 Saracens, and it is no doubt to this, or to the 
 neighbourhood of the Druses \ — that strange 
 eclectic sect which borrowed its principles alike 
 from the Law, the Gospel, and the Koran, — that 
 they owe many Koranic expressions and ideas, 
 for instance, the passionate assertion of the unity 
 of God, the high and peculiar honour paid to 
 Moses as the one prophet, and the notion that 
 the Law was created : ideas all of which find 
 their counterpart in Mohammedan theology. 
 
 Our information with regard to the later de- 
 velopements of Samaritan faith is very full : the 
 sources from which it may be obtained are the 
 hymns and other religious documents published 
 
 ^ The sect was founded by Hakim, the sixth khaliph of the 
 house of the Fatimites that ruled in Cairo, in opposition to the 
 Abbasides of Bagdad. In 1017 a. d. he gave to the inhabitants 
 of Syria liberty of conscience and leave to rebuild their syna- 
 gog-ues. Hamza his disciple taught that God had manifested 
 Himself by prophets, last of all by Mohammed and Hakim. The 
 latter had, in 1020, disappeared to return later. Juynboll, 
 Chron. Sam. 116; De Sacy, Expose de la Religion des Druzes. 
 f 
 
66 
 
 by Gesenius and Heidenheim, the earliest of them 
 dating possibly from the seventh century, the book 
 of Joshua and Chronicle of Abulfath, composed in 
 the thirteenth and fourteenth, the Samaritan cor- 
 respondence with Scahger and others from the 
 sixteenth century downwards, and lastly the very 
 complete information afforded by modern travellers. 
 From a combination of these various documents 
 it would appear that the Samaritans, like the 
 Mohammedans \ had five principal articles of 
 faith ^ : they hold that — 
 
 1. God is One, without partner or associate, 
 without bod}^ and passions, the cause of all things, 
 filling all things ; His nature is inscrutable : His 
 powers were hidden in Him before the creation, 
 and by it His majesty and magnificence were dis- 
 played : He is knowable by reason, by His works 
 and revelation : from the kindness He formerly 
 shewed to His own people in continually pro- 
 tecting them a return of the Divine favour may 
 be expected : to them alone was His great Name 
 revealed on mount Garizim, 
 
 2. Moses is the one messenger and prophet of 
 God, for all time : all other prophets are as nothing 
 
 ^ The five points of the Mohammedan creed are belief in the 
 unity of God and the mission of Mohammed, prayer, alms, fast- 
 ing, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. Cf. Weil, Mohammed, 288. 
 
 ^ Cf. the letter of Meschalmah in Heidenhcim, Viertel- 
 jahresschr. i. 100. 
 
67 
 
 compared with him : he is the glory of prophecy, 
 the end of revelation, the friend and familiar 
 servant of God, the head, the sun, the crown of 
 the world, above all kings and priests ; none will 
 arise ^ like him : he is superior even to the Messias : 
 after ascending into heaven he dwelt in the splen- 
 dour of God. 
 
 3, The Law is perfect and complete, destined 
 for all time, never to be supplemented or abrogated 
 by later revelation : it was created in the six days, 
 before all other creatures ; by the study of it men 
 become partakers of eternal life. 
 
 4. Garizim is the one abode of God on earth, the 
 home of eternal hfe, the 'mount of blessing^ :' its 
 higher eminence is most sacred, it is the ' ever- 
 lasting hillV the 'house of God^;' its lower one 
 is 'Jacob's pillar V the 'stone of Israel^:' there 
 the Tabernacle was placed, there Joshua built the 
 first altar ; there does God manifest Himself by 
 His presence : over it is Paradise, thence comes all 
 rain : they can shew where Adam and Seth raised 
 their several altars, and the seven steps leading to 
 that of Noah : they know where Abraham offered 
 
 ^ The Sam. Targum in Deut. xxxiv. 10 reads Dip'' for the Dp 
 of the Masoretic text: cf. also the Sam. text in Ex. xviii. 7. 
 
 ^ Deut. xi. 29; see above, p. 14, note 6. 
 
 ^ Gen. xlix. 26; Deut. xxxiii. 15; where the Sam. Pent, 
 reads ^V2i . 
 
 * Gen. xxviii. 19. ^ Ibid. xxxv. 14, ^ Ibid. xlix. 24. 
 f2 
 
68 
 
 up Isaac ^ : there still remain the twelve stones on 
 which is written the Law (Deut. xxvii. 4), the site 
 of the former temple "- : below it stood the higli- 
 jmest's house not far from the cave of Makkedah : 
 Garizim was alone spared by the flood when every 
 other mountain was covered ^. 
 
 5. There will be a day of retribution, when the 
 jDious will rise again ; false prophets and their 
 followers will then be cast into the fire and 
 burnt*. 
 
 Other points in their creed may be noticed. The 
 world is twofold, one apparent to the senses, the 
 other spiritual, the abode of angels ; it has not 
 always existed, it was created. Man was formed 
 from the dust of Mount Safra, that is Garizim, 
 in the image of the angels, not of God. The 
 Sabbath is to be rigidly observed ; great rewards 
 await those w^ho honour it. Angels are the powers 
 
 ^ Cf. Petermann in Herzog, xiii. 377. The claim of Garizim 
 as the place of sacrifice in opposition to Moriah in Jerusalem is 
 upheld by Dr. Stanley, Sinai and Palestine (1866), p. 251, but 
 controverted by Ewald, Gotting. Gel. Anz. (1863), p. 638, aod 
 by Thomson, Land and Book (Loudon, i860), p. 474. 
 
 - To this the Samaritans always turn in pi'ayer, as the Jews 
 to Jerusalem and Moslems to Mecca. 
 
 ^ This is borrowed from the Jewish legend that Palestine was 
 not covered by the flood. Beresldth Rahha, 33, and Zehahim, 113b. 
 
 ^ See the Sam. Pent, in Ex. xv. 18 and Deut. xxxii. 35. 
 Yilmar (in Ahidfath, p. xxxvii) thinks that (4) and (5) were 
 later additions to the Samaritan creed. 
 
69 
 
 of the unseen world, and of God: they appeared 
 at the giving of the Law on Sinai ; by one of 
 them, not in person, God spake to Moses \ 
 
 The behef in a coming Messiah or 'EestorerV 
 who plays so conspicuous a part in later Samaritan 
 theology, was probably of home origin, or at all 
 events, even if borrowed from their neighbours, 
 adapted to their own ideas and hopes ^ It is 
 
 ' It is doubtful how the Samaritans regard angels, whether as 
 attributes of the Deity or uncreated existences. Cf. De Sacy, in 
 Not. et Extr. xii. 26. Their belief on this point and also with 
 regard to the resurrection is probably somewhat hazy. De Sacy 
 could extract no satisfactory replies from the priest Salameh. 
 Petermann was informed by the priest that by the ' Spirit of 
 God' and 'darkness' of Gen. i. were signified good and bad 
 angels respectively. He gave him the names of the four greatest 
 angels, Fanuel (Gen. xxxii. 31), Anusa (Exotl. xiv. 25), Cabbala 
 (Num. iv. 20), and Nasi (Exod. xvii. 15), all founded upon a 
 misinterpretation of these passages. The devils are Azazel (Lev. 
 xvi), Belial (Deut. xv. 9), and Jasara (perhaps the ' hornet ' of 
 Exod. xxiii. 28). The descendants of Cain became evil spirits; 
 the Nephilim (Gen. vi. 4) also are evil angels who fell from 
 heaven. He varied in his account of the resurrection ; at one 
 time stating that the spirits of good and evil men would receive 
 their bodies at the last judgment and with them return to Para- 
 dise and hell respectively ; at another, that they would always 
 remain in an incoi-poreal state, 
 
 ■^ Called also in Arabic El-muhdi, the ' guide.' Robinson, ii. 
 278. 
 
 ^ It is not likely that the idea of a Messiah the son of .Joseph 
 would have its origin anywhere but among the Samaritans, who 
 were always eager to raise the tribe of Joseph at the expense of 
 
70 
 
 fiillv explained in the letter addressed by the 
 Samaritans to their 'brethren in Eno-land' in A.H. 
 1096 ( = A.D. 1684)^: 'You have spoken of the 
 arrival of the great Prophet. This is he who was 
 announced to our father Abraham, as it is said 
 there appeared " a smoking furnace and a burning 
 lamp" (Gen. xv. 17): "to him shall the people 
 submit themselves" (ib. xlix. 10) : of him also it is 
 said (Num. xxiv. 17), "he shall destroy all the 
 children of Sheth, and Israel shall do valiantly :" 
 of him, " the Lord thy God shall raise thee up from 
 amidst thy brethren a prophet like unto me, unto 
 him shall ye hearken" (Deut. xviii. 15). Our 
 teachers have said on this point that this prophet 
 shall arise, that all people shall submit to him 
 and believe in him and in the Law and Mount 
 Garizim : that the religion of Moses son of Amram 
 will then appear in glory, that the beginning of 
 
 that of Judah. The summary of Jewish doctrine on the subject is 
 as follows ; Messiah the son of Joseph will come before Messiah 
 the son of David, will assemble the ten tribes in Galilee and 
 lead them to Jerusalem, but will at last perish in battle against 
 Gog and Magog for the sins of Jeroboam. See refeiences in 
 Gesenius, De Sam. Theologia, 43. ^nrin or 2T]^r\ signifies the 
 'restorer.' Ibid. 44 ; Vilmar, p. xlii. 
 
 ^ De Sacy, Not. et Extr. xii. 209. The Samaritans do not 
 interpret ' Shiloh ' in Gen. xlix. 10 of the Messiah, but of Solo- 
 mon, the magician, after whose time the sceptre departed from 
 Judah. Cf. the Samaritan letter to Ludulf in 1691 (Eiohhorn, 
 Heperiorium, xiii. 281). 
 
71 
 
 the Dame of the prophet who will arise will be M ^ ; 
 that he will die and be interred near Joseph " the 
 fruitful bough," that the Tabernacle will appear by 
 his ministry and be estabhshed on Garizim.' As 
 to the time of his appearance the Samaritans were 
 formerly uncertain ; ' no one knows his coming 
 but Jehovah/ says Ab Zehuta in 1589^ : 'it is a 
 great mystery with regard to Hattaheb who is to 
 come and who will manifest his spirit : happy shall 
 we be when he arrives,' writes Salameh in 181 1 ^, 
 But the modern Samaritans are more communica- 
 tive. ' The ap]3earance of the Messias,' writes 
 Petermann in i860, 'is to take place 6000 years 
 after the creation ^ and these have just elapsed, 
 consequently he now, though all unconsciously, is 
 going about upon earth. In 1853 the Samaritans 
 expected a great political revolution, but in 1863 
 the kings of the earth will, according to them, 
 assemble the wisest out of all nations in order by 
 mutual counsel to discover the true faith. From 
 the Israelites, i.e. Samaritans, will one be sent, 
 and he will be the Taheb. He will gain the day, 
 
 1 ' The Messiah has not arisen yet, but he will come, and his 
 name will be Hattaheb :' ibid. Cf. Vilmar, p. xliv. 
 
 ^ In Eichhorn, Repertorium, xiii. 266. The Jews, after 
 repeated disappointments, forbade any one to calculate the 
 arrival of the Messiah. Cf. Bah. Sanhedrin, f. 97 b. 
 
 ' De Sacy, Not. et Extr. xii. 122. 
 
 * This is borrowed from the Jews ; cf. Bah. 'Ahoda Zara, 9 a. 
 
lead them to Garizim, where under the twelve 
 stones they will find the ten commandments (or 
 the whole Law), and under the Stone of Bethel 
 the Temple utensils^ and manna. Then will all 
 believe in the Law, and acknowledge him as their 
 king and lord of all the earth. He will convert 
 and equalise all men, live no years upon earth, 
 then die and be buried near Garizim, for upon 
 that pure and holy mountain can no burial take 
 place. Afterwards will the earth remain some 
 hundreds of years more till the 7000 are com- 
 pleted, and then will the last judgment come inl' 
 
 This part of the subject may be concluded by 
 a sketch of the religious observances of the Sama- 
 ritans at the present day. They celebrate seven 
 feasts in the year, although only one, the Passover, 
 is observed with its former solemnities; for, the 
 former obhgation to sacrifice having ceased with 
 the disappearance of the Tabernacle and the cessa- 
 tion of the divine favour, prayers have been sub- 
 stituted for the former rites. For this feast they 
 prepare themselves some days before by a puri- 
 fication of themselves and their houses : the un- 
 leavened cakes ^ are baked of corn specially bought 
 
 1 See above, p. 20, note 2. ' lu Herzog, xiii. 373. 
 
 3 Their number of days for eating unleavened bread seems to 
 have varied : in the seventeenth century they write to Ludolf 
 ' six ' days (cf. Eichhorn, Repertorium, xiii. 283) ; in this cen- 
 tury, to De Sacy, 'seven.' Not. et Extr. xii. 104, 120. 
 
73 
 
 for the purpose while still in the ear, and not 
 threshed by oxen according to the custom of the 
 country, but prepared by the women of the con- 
 gregation : the lambs must have been born in 
 the previous Tisri (October), and be without 
 blemish of any sort. On the 14th of Nisan the 
 congregation ascend to the lower plateau of Gari- 
 zim and pitch their tents there : at sunset ' on 
 the following day the lambs are slain amid the 
 recitation of prayers, hymns, and passages of the 
 Law describing the original ceremonial, then 
 stripped of their wool, cleaned and sprinkled with 
 salt ; next, sticks are run through the leg-sinews 
 and the animals suspended in a trench lined with 
 stones which has been well heated by a fire lighted 
 within ; wet earth and turf are then piled over 
 and trampled down, so that the hole is hermeti- 
 cally sealed and the lambs thoroughly roasted. 
 At sunset they are brought forth and eaten in 
 haste with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, 
 the men and boys first partaking of them, and 
 afterwards the women and girls, all with staves 
 in their hands as if equipped for a journey : the 
 remainder is consumed with fire. Then follow 
 the morning prayers, lasting for four hours : the 
 next day is spent in general rejoicing and the 
 consumption of fish, rice, eggs, and all sorts of 
 
 ^ Or after noon, wlien the Passover falls on a Sabbath. 
 
74 
 
 delicacies (in which however no leaven may be 
 used), in the drinking of wine and brandy, accom- 
 panied by the recitation of hymns either extem- 
 porary or learnt by heart, suitable passages of 
 Scripture, &c.^ The 21st of Nisan, or last day 
 of unleavened bread, is also counted as a feast, 
 and is marked by a pilgrimage to Garizim, visiting 
 the various sacred spots there, and recitation of 
 the Law. The third feast is Pentecost, com- 
 mencing on the Wednesday previous to the day 
 itself: this is also marked by going to Garizim in 
 procession, visiting the holy places, and reading 
 through the whole Law. The fourth is that of 
 Trumpets, on the first day of the first Tisri : on 
 this occasion the oldest synagogue roll is displayed 
 and kissed by the worshippers, as on eight other 
 occasions during the year. The fifth is the Day 
 of Atonement, on which from sunset to sunset^ 
 no eating, drinking, sleeping, or talking is allowed, 
 but the whole twenty-four hours must be spent 
 ia the synagogue in reading the Law from end 
 
 1 For a minute and interesting account of the ceremonies of 
 the Passover, as celebrated in 1853, for the first time after an 
 interruption of many years, on Garizim, see Petermann in 
 Herzog, xiii. 378; also Dr. Stanley, Jewish Church, i. 513. 
 
 2 Even the children fast (De Sacy, Not. et Extr. 177) : among 
 the Jews they do not till they are twelve or thirteen years of age. 
 F>»r an account of the ceremonies of this day see Mr. Grove's 
 paper in Galton's Vacation Tourists iur i86i. 
 
75 
 
 to end and singing hymns. The first and eighth 
 days of Tabernacles count for the remaining feast- 
 days, the intermediate time is spent in huts of 
 laurel and other fragrant leaves pitched on the 
 slope of Garizim, and employed in daily pilgrim- 
 age to the top. The Sabbath moreover is kept 
 with great strictness : no fire may be lighted on 
 it ^ : the years of jubilee and release are also still 
 observed. The Samaritans have two more days 
 of assembly, though they do not count them as 
 feast-days, termed Summoth ^ sixty days before 
 Passover and Tabernacles respectively: the number 
 of the congregation is then taken, and in return 
 each male over twenty years of age presents the 
 priest with half a shekel (three piastres), in ac- 
 cordance with Exod. XXX. 12-14, receiving from 
 him a calendar for the coming six months pre- 
 pared from a table in his possession, originally, 
 it is said, composed by Adam and committed to 
 writing in the time of Phinehas^: from these 
 offerings, the tenth of the incomes of the congre- 
 gation, and other small gifts, the priest gains his 
 living ^ He may consecrate any of his family 
 
 ^ Not. et Extr. xii. 124 ; Repertorium, ix. 32. 
 
 ^ Cf. the chron. El-ThoUdoth (below, p. 124) in Journ. Asiat. 
 (1869), p. 452. ^ See below, p. 125. 
 
 * The Samaritans allow that then- high-priest is only a Levite, 
 and that the family of Aaron has long died out. Not. et Extr. 
 xii. 30, 218. 
 
76 
 
 that lie pleases to the priesthood, provided the 
 candidate for the office be twenty-five years of 
 age and never have suffered his hair to be cut. 
 Like other Orientals, he never removes his turban, 
 and so is not easily to be distinguished from the 
 rest of the congregation ; but, in accordance with 
 Lev. X. 6, he does not ' rend his clothes ' by wear- 
 ing a slit on his sleeve as other Samaritans, and 
 when the roll of the Law is taken from the ark 
 he, like his assistants, places a tcdUth or cloth 
 round his head. On festal occasions and in the 
 synagogue the Samaritans wear white turbans ; 
 ordinarily they are compelled, by way of distinction 
 from Mohammedans, to wear them of a pale red 
 colour : they may cut their hair or not as they 
 please, but not their beards, this being forbidden 
 in Lev. xix. 27; xxi. 5^ Women must let their 
 hair grow, and may wear no earrings, because of 
 them the golden calf in the wilderness was made : 
 for fear of scandalising the Mohammedans, none 
 but the old ones venture to attend the synagogue. 
 Great rejoicings are lield over the birth of a boy : 
 his circumcision always takes place on the eighth 
 day after birth, even though it be a Sabbath^. 
 Boys marry as early as fifteen or sixteen, girls at 
 twelve : the latter receiving as dowry from their 
 
 ' The Karaites interpret these passages in the same manner. 
 ^ Cf. Eej)ertonum, xiii. 261. 
 
77 
 
 bridegrooms sums varying from £40 to £60. 
 When a man has a childless wife, he may take 
 a second \ but if she also be barren, not a third : 
 divorces, though permitted, are uncommon. The 
 dead are prepared for burial by their own friends^: 
 the whole body is washed, but especially the hands 
 (thrice), mouth, nose, face, ears both inside and 
 out, (all this in Mohammedan fashion), aud lastly 
 the feet : the burial takes place, if possible, before 
 sunset the same day, accompanied with the reci- 
 tation of hymns and of the whole Law. These 
 readings are continued every day to the next 
 Sabbath, the women of the family watching near 
 the grave : on the Sabbath it is visited by the 
 whole congregation (except the near relations), who 
 eat there together, reciting part of the Law and 
 singing hymns, finishing the recitation later in 
 the day with the relations^. 
 
 III. It will be time to pass on to a review of the 
 
 ^ This was not always so. In their letter to Scaliger {Reper- 
 iorium, sXyi. 261) they say, 'we take but one wife, the Jews 
 many.' In their letter to De Sacy [Not. et Extr. xii. 108) they 
 say the same as in the text. 
 
 2 Not by Mohammedans, as reported by M. Pillavoine. See 
 De Sacy, Not. et Extr. xii. 34. 
 
 ^ Some observances the Samaritans appear to have relin- 
 quished : thus in the letters to Scaliger (Repertorium, xiii. 260) 
 and Huntington {Not. et Extr. xii. 178) they say they use the 
 'water of separation' (Num. xix. 21), but in 1820 {ibid. 127) 
 they did so no more. 
 
78 
 
 literature of the Samaritans when a few remarks 
 have been made upon the peculiar dialect in which 
 a great part of it is composed. It is probable that 
 even before the captivity of the ten tribes the 
 closer intercourse which had sprung up between 
 them and neighbouring Aramaean nations had 
 already had some influence upon the Hebrew of 
 northern and central Palestine \ Doubtless also 
 the changes which were brought about by the 
 Assyrian invasion in the removal of the educated 
 classes into exile and the settlement of a mixed 
 Aramaean population in their places must have 
 served still further to corrupt the ancient Hebrew 
 and give rise to a dialect of the Aramaean which 
 under some form or other was spoken from Baby- 
 lonia to the Mediterranean I Other elements also 
 besides Aramaean are observable in the language. 
 The non-Semitic settlers left their mark behind in 
 foreign words which can be traced to no known 
 
 ^ The existence of a vulgar idiom in the north of Palestine 
 verging towards Aramaic is possibly discernible even so early as 
 the song of Deborah. E,enan, Langues Semitiques (i 864), p. 1 43 ^ 
 Ewald, Grammatik (1838), sect. 5. 
 
 2 The eastern branch of Aramaean is still spoken by a con- 
 siderable Christian population on the Upper Tigris, in Koor- 
 distan, and on the lake of Urmia. The western is entirely lost, 
 except in Ma'liila and two neighbouring villages in Antilibanus, 
 and this is not likely to survive long, as the people speak Arabic 
 as well. Noldeke in Zeitschr. d. D. M. G. xxi. 183. 
 
79 
 
 source \ Greek, Latin, Persian, Arabic, and possibly 
 other languages as well, have each contributed 
 something to enrich the vocabulary. The grammar 
 bears all the signs of irregularity which would 
 characterise that of an illiterate people, the or- 
 thography is uncertain, there is a profusion of 
 quiescents, and a complete confusion between the 
 several gutturals and cognate letters respectively; 
 the vowels are uncertain, the A sound being most 
 prominent. Such is the dialect which was spoken 
 in Samaria till the Arabian conquest of the country 
 in the seventh century A. d., when the language of 
 the victors was introduced, and by its superior 
 vio^our gradually overpowered its rival till, probably 
 by about the eighth or ninth century, it had entirely 
 taken its place. The old language however still 
 continued to be understood and written by the 
 priests, so that hke the Jews they had two sacred 
 languages, which however they had not the skill 
 completely to distinguish from each other: the 
 ' Hebrew' consequently which appears in the cor- 
 respondence of Samaritans with Europeans is 
 largely impregnated with Aramaisms ; Arabisms 
 also are not by any means unfrequent. 
 
 In the literature of the Samaritans there is little 
 
 ^ Kolm, Sam. Studien, p. 95. Noldeke however (in Geiger's 
 Zeitschr. vi. 204 sq.) is not disposed to allow this. Kohn recog- 
 nises Aethiopic, Coptic, and Armenian roots as well. 
 
80 
 
 to be found of much interest or value. For thev 
 were a j^eople of neither genius nor originality ; as 
 in their creed, so in their literature, all they could 
 for the most part do was to borrow from their 
 neighbours, endeavouring by alteration and loud 
 assertion to hide the fraud which, from the 
 clumsiness with which it was carried out, became 
 apparent on the first searching investigation it 
 underwent ^. 
 
 But before passing on to such parts of Samaritan 
 literature as have come down to our times it will 
 be as well to notice the remains, in many cases 
 amounting only to a name, of certain Samaritan 
 Hellenists who appear to have lived during the 
 last two or three centuries B.C. Thus Eusebius 
 has preserved for us considerable extracts made 
 by Alexander Polyhistor, an author living at Kome 
 at the time of Sulla, from the writings of a certain 
 Eupolemus^. Many of these have perhaps been 
 
 ' In the Chron. Sam. chaj). xlvii, the Samaritans are stated to 
 have lost the following books in the persecution under Hadrian ; 
 the ' book of selections,' consisting perhaps of proverbs and wise 
 sayings ; songs and prayers for the various offerings ; other 
 hymns ; the ' book of the high-priests,' which traced their line 
 up to Phinehas, and lastly their Annals ; nothing being left but 
 the Law and a similar book of Annals. In Abulfath {Ann. 
 pp. 1 20, 121) this loss is ascribed to the time of Commodus. 
 
 ^ Praep. Evang. ix. Polyhistor himself appears to have been 
 a Samaritan. (JuynboU, Comment, p. 49.) The varied cha- 
 racter of the fragments attributed to Eupolemus in chaps. 17, 
 
81 
 
 wrongly attributed to his authorship, but there 
 is one of which the Samaritan origin cannot be 
 mistaken. It is there related how the Giants 
 after building the tower of Babel were dispersed 
 over the earth, how Abraham was the inventor 
 of astrology and Chaldaean (arts), and after his 
 removal to Phoenicia taught' astronomy to the 
 inhabitants of that country. After rescuing Lot 
 from the Armenians he is entertained at Argarizim, 
 that is, as it is explained, the 'Mountain of the 
 Most High,' where he receives gifts from the priest 
 Melchizedek who reigned there. Passing on later 
 into Egypt, he becomes intimate with the priests, 
 and instructs them in astrology and other sciences. 
 In the same book of Eusebius are preserved some 
 fifty hexameter lines by Theodotus, an Alexandrian 
 poet, taken apparently from a versified history of 
 
 26, 30-34, 39, has induced different writers to take the most 
 opposite view of his opinions, and hold him for a Jew, a Sama- 
 ritan, and a heathen. The whole question has been fully dis- 
 cussed by Freudenthal in the J ahreshericht d. Seminars zu Bres- 
 lau (1874), pp. 82 sq. He believes chaps. 17 and 18 to be the 
 work of some unknown Samaritan, and to have been wrongly 
 ascribed by Polyliistor to Eupolemus. The title Trtpt 'lovBalcov 
 also he thinks to be a mistake. The writer, whoever he was, 
 appears to have known and used the LXX version. The remain- 
 ing chapters are probably the work of a Jew. Eupolemus is 
 also mentioned in Clem. Alex. Strom, i. 21, as giving 5149 
 years from Adam to the fifth year of Demetrius Ptolemaeus, 
 and 2580 from the Exodus to the same time. 
 
 g 
 
82 
 
 Sichem, in which the beauties of its situation are 
 described and its sacred character extolled ; the 
 history of Jacob also is related in connexion with 
 it from his flight 'out of Mesopotamia to the 
 destruction of the town by Simeon and Levi \ 
 The Cleodemus-Malchas also mentioned by the 
 same historian^ would appear to be of the same 
 nationality, and a Samaritan hand has been 
 detected in a passage occurring in the eleventh 
 Sibylline book where famine and pestilence are 
 denounced against the Egyptian Jews during the 
 reign of eight of the Ptolemies^. Thallus also, 
 possibly the freedman of Tiberius mentioned by 
 Josephus*, the author of a work on Syria ^, who 
 notices Moses' leadership of the Israelites^, ex- 
 plains the darkness at the Crucifixion as arising 
 from an eclipse of the sun '', and, like the pseudo- 
 Eupolemus above mentioned, relates how Belus 
 and the Titans rose in insurrection against Zeus 
 and the confederate gods^; he also is supposed to 
 
 1 Cap. 22. Cf. Ewald, Gesch. (1864), iv. 338; Herzfekl, iii. 
 520 ; and Freudenthal, p. 99. No one but a tSaniaritan would 
 have called Sieliem Uprj ^iKifiav : the work was probably not nepl 
 'lovbaicov, but as described in the text. 
 
 ^ Op. cit. ix. 20 ; Freudenthal, p. 100. 
 
 ^ Sihyll. xi. 239-242 ; Ewald, ibid. p. 340. 
 
 * Ant. xviii. 6. 4. '•' Eusebius, ibid. x. 10. 
 
 " Just. jMait. Coh. 9. "^ Syucellus, Chronoyraphla, p. 322. 
 
 * Theoi)hilus, ad Autol. iii. 29. 
 
83 
 
 have been a Samaritan by origin : and another 
 countryman of his is thought to be designated 
 by the ^emtjpwviog 6 Ba/BvXcovio? 6 Hepa-t]^ of the 
 Chronicon Paschale'. It is remarkable that out 
 of the nine writings of Hellenists of Israelitic 
 origin quoted by Alexander Polyhistor and pre- 
 served to us by Eusebius, some five or six appear 
 to have had a decided bias either for or against 
 the Samaritans ; it would seem therefore extremely 
 probable that a considerable controversial literature 
 Ijetween Jews and Samaritans had sprung up by 
 the first century B.C., of which only some few 
 fragments now remain. 
 
 Of the Samaritan literature which has come 
 down to our times, first in importance and order 
 will be the Pentateuch. 
 
 It had been well known to early Jewish and 
 Christian writers that a recension of the Penta- 
 teuch differing in important respects from that in 
 use among the Jews was in possession of the 
 Samaritan community. It was regarded however 
 by these writers in very different lights : the 
 former treat it with contempt as a forgery. ' You 
 
 ^ p. 68. The philosopher Marinus, a convert from Samari- 
 tanism to heathenism, the biographer and successor of the Neo- 
 Platonist Proclus in the school of Athens in 485, speaks of 
 Abraham's having ' sacrificed on Argarizim, where is the most 
 holy temple of the supreme Zeus,' thus betraying his Samaritan 
 origin. Photius, Bibl. p. 345 b. 
 g 2 
 
84 
 
 liave falsified your Law,' savs E. Elieser ben Slmon^ 
 to the Samaritan scribes about i6o a.d., 'and 
 have done yourselves no good by it/ referring to 
 their insertion of the words ' opposite Shechem' 
 in Deut. xi. 30 to obviate the Jewish objection 
 that it was not the Samaritan Garizim here referred 
 to. 'Wlio has led you into error/ says another 
 writer of the same period^, jeering at their 
 ignorance of grammar displayed in the inter- 
 pretation of the ordinance in Deut. xxv. 5 as to 
 marrying a brothers widow. Early Christian 
 writers on the other hand speak of it with respect, 
 in some cases even preferring its authority to that 
 of the Masoretic text. Origen quotes it under the 
 name of to twv HaiiapeiTwi; 'K^paiKoi', giving its 
 various readings on the margin of his Hexapla^. 
 
 ^ Jer. Sola, vii. 3 : the Siphre and Bab. Sota, 33 b, ascribe the 
 saying to R. Elieser ben Jose. There is much valuable informa- 
 tion on the subject of the Samaritan Pentateuch to be found in 
 Frank el's Vorstudien zur Septuaginta, pp. 260 sq., but especially 
 in his Eiiijlass d. paldstin. Execjese auf d. alexandria. Herme- 
 neutik, pp. 237 sqq. English readers may also consult the 
 article in Smith's Bible Diet. iii. 1106. 
 
 ^ E,. Simon ben Elieser, Jer. Jeb. i. 6. He may liowever be 
 the same as R. Elieser ben Simon ; see Frankel, Vorstudien, 
 197; Einjluss, 243. Through ignorance of the use of n locale 
 they took nvinn to be an epithet of nii'J*, and translated it the 
 ' outer wife,' i. e. betrothed, who had not yet entered the house 
 of her husband. See above, p. 42. 
 
 ^ e.g. on Num. xiii. i : cf. xxi. 13, and Montfaucon, Hexapl. 
 Prelim, i. 8, 9. 
 
85 
 
 Eusebius of Caesarea notices the agreement in the 
 chronology of the LXX and Samaritan text as 
 against the Hebrew, and remarks that it was 
 written in a character confessedly more ancient 
 than that of the latter \ Jerome also mentions 
 this fact^: in his comment on Gal. iii. lo he 
 upholds the genuineness of its text over that of 
 tlie Masoretic one, which he considers to have been 
 purposely altered ■\ Cyril of Alexandria mentions 
 that the Samaritan supplies words wanting in the 
 Hebrew * : Procopius of G-aza that portions of 
 Deuteronomy have been inserted in the parallel 
 passages of former books ^ : Georgius Syncellus, 
 the chronologist of the eighth century, is most 
 
 ^ Cliron. I. xvi. 7-11. 
 
 ^ Prolog, to Kings : ' Samai'itani etiam Pentateuchum Moysis 
 totidem literis scriptitant, figuris tamen et apicibus discrepantes.' 
 
 ^ St. Paul has, ' Ciu'sed be he that abideth not in all that is 
 written,' &c. This word appears in the LXX and Samaritan, but 
 not in tl^e Masoretic text of Deut. xxvii. 26, whence it is quoted, 
 though it does in parallel passages such as xxviii. 15. In his 
 coinmeutary on Gen. iv. 8, St. Jerome speaks more favourably of 
 the Hebi-ew : 'Subauditur, "ea quae locutus est Dominus." Super- 
 fluum ergo est quod in Samaritanorum et nostro volumine est, 
 " Transeanius in campum." ' 
 
 * Hap ovdevl rav \oma>v Kilrat ra pt]fiaTa tov Kaiv ra npus 'A/SeX, 
 tlXX' ouSe Trap E^paiois' aXX ev cnroKpixpa cf)naiv' Tvapa bt tols o Kflrai 
 e;^ei 8e avra Koi ro ^afiapfiriKov I mentioned by Migne in a note on 
 the last quoted passage of St. Jerome as attributed to St. Cyril. 
 
 ^ In his commentary on Deut. i. 9, 
 
86 
 
 outspoken in his praise of it, terming it 'the 
 earliest and best even by the testimony of the 
 Jews themselves \' 
 
 Bnt all recollection of this recension afterwards 
 entirely died out, so that the plain statements of 
 Fathers and other early writers were looked upon 
 as misapprehensions, till in 1 6 1 6 Pietro della Yalle 
 succeeded in procuring a complete copy of it at 
 Damascus, which, after much delay, was published 
 in the Paris Polyglott of 1645 '^ The editor of 
 the part which contained this text, Joannes 
 Morinus, priest of the Oratory, seized the oppor- 
 tunity of the discovery of the long-lost treasure 
 for pressing his own peculiar view^s as to the 
 value of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. 
 Ludovicus Cappellus, the learned professor of 
 Saumur, had indeed as early as 1624 attacked 
 the views of the elder Buxtorf and endeavoured 
 to establish the comparatively modern origin of 
 the Hebrew points and accents ^ : and in his 
 
 ^ Chronogrcvplda, p. 83. M€;^pi toIvw tov KaraKkvafiov ko^ws 
 TrpoKftrai 8ia(f)u>i>ovai to. 'E(3paiKa nvriypacpa irpos to ^ap.i.Jp(nwv 
 apx^^'-oTarov Ka\ xopaKTiipai diu'KXaTTOv o kch oiXrjdes etVai Koi npioTOV 
 'E^paloi Ka6opoXoyovmv. 
 
 2 For the history of this edition see G. W. Meyer, Gesch. d. 
 Schrifterkldrung (1804), iii. 153 sq. 
 
 ^ In his Arcanum Punctationis Revelatum ; followed by his 
 Arcani Punctatlonis Vindiciae in 1689, in reply to the rejoinder 
 of Buxtorf the younger. In his Diatriha de Vevis el An'dquis 
 
87 , 
 
 'Critica Sacra,' which after great delay, caused 
 by the opposition of the Protestants, finally ap- 
 peared in 1650, he put forth the view that the 
 Hebrew text of the Old Testament has been in 
 numberless places corrupted by the errors of copy- 
 ists, and that the true reading in such cases is to 
 be found only by comparison of MSS. and ancient 
 translations, and finally by conjecture \ 
 
 But Morinus went to much further lengths. 
 He maintained that the Hebrew original had been 
 so hopelessly depraved by continued blunders and 
 falsifications as to be utterly untrustworthy, and 
 with all a convert's zeal he urged that recourse 
 must under these circumstances be had to the 
 two translations authorised by the Church, the 
 Vulgate, and LXX version^, and in accordance 
 with these views he naturally took up the cause 
 of the Samaritan text, placing it far above the 
 Hebrew for correctness and importance ^. 
 
 The assertion of theories so different to those 
 
 Hehraenrum Literis, 1645, he proved that the Samaritan letters 
 were older than the square characters. 
 
 ' Meyer, ihid., p. 287. 
 
 ^ In his Exercilationes Biblicae, Part i, 1633. Part ii was 
 published after his death in 1669. 
 
 ^ He had first noticed the Samaritan Pentateuch in the 
 preface to his edition of the LXX in 1628, and spoke of it with 
 high praise in his Exercitationes Ecclesiasticae in utrumque 
 Saniaritanoruni Pentateuchum, 163 1. 
 
88 
 
 generally accepted called forth doughty champions 
 on the other side, the most conspicuous among 
 whom were Simon de Muis, archdeacon of Soissons \ 
 and Hottinger, the learned professor of Oriental 
 languages at Zurich^; and the contest was kept up 
 with great vigour on either side for a considerable 
 time. But there was too much party spirit infused 
 into the strife to allow the combatants calmly to 
 weigh the merits of the questions under debate. 
 A more moderate position was taken up by Walton, 
 the editor of the London Polyglott of 1657^ and 
 Kichard Simon the Oratorian^ They neither, 
 with the Buxtorfs, upheld the absolute authority 
 of the Masora on the one hand, nor committed 
 themselves to the extravagances of Mormus and his 
 friends on the other as to the excellencies of the 
 LXX and Samaritan text, but held that the latter, 
 though on the whole of inferior value, had never- 
 
 o 
 
 theless preserved readings which are to be pre- 
 ferred to those of the Hebrew text. 
 
 Thus matters rested for a century, when Houbi- 
 
 ' He published the Assertio Veritatis Hehraicae adversi(,s 
 J. Morini Exercitationes in 1631, and in 1634 Assertio Altera 
 in reply to Morinus' Exercitationes Bihlicae ; later again, in 
 1639, a Caslifjatio A nimadversionum Morini. 
 
 ^ Exercitationes Antimorinianae de Pent. Sam. 1644. 
 
 ' In the Prolegomena to vol. i. 
 
 * In his Hlstoire Critique da Vieux Testament, published in 
 1678, but immediately suppressed by the influence of Bossuet. 
 
89 
 
 gant, also a priest of the Oratory, once more 
 resumed the old weapons of his predecessor 
 Morinus, contending for the authority of the 
 Samaritan Pentateuch in preference to that of 
 the received text ^ : he however found more than 
 his match in Ravius, Oriental Professor at Utrecht^, 
 and tlie same fate befell the Benedictine father 
 Poncet at the hands of J. D. Michaelis^ when he 
 commenced the discussion once more * : since his 
 time no one has again ventured to put forth the 
 same extreme views on the subject ; though a few 
 years later the depreciatory estimate of the Sama- 
 ritan recension put forth by Tychsen, the famous 
 Orientalist of Rostock \ was warmly disputed by 
 Hassencamp of Rinteln, the former holding it for 
 a mere copy of the Masoretic text, the latter on 
 the contrary maintaining its importance and con- 
 tending for the view that from it the Alexandrine 
 version had been made ^. 
 
 ^ In his Bihlia Hebraica of 1753. 
 
 ^ Specimen Ohservationum ad C. F. Huhigantil Prolegomena, 
 1761 ; afterwards reprinted. 
 
 * Cf. Orient und exeg. Bibliothek, xxi. 177-189; Meyer, 
 op. cit. V. 363. 
 
 * lu bis Nouveaux eclaircissements sur Vorigine et le Penta- 
 teuque des Samaritains., 1760. 
 
 ^ Disputatio historico-pMlologico-critica, Biitzow, 1765. 
 
 ® Der entdeckte wahre Ursprung d. alien Biheliihersetzungen, 
 Minden, 1775. The dispute was continued into the present cen- 
 tury in defence of the Samaritan Pentateuch by Alex, a S. Aqui- 
 
90 
 
 In the course of this protracted discussion, ex- 
 tending over a space of two centuries, the merits 
 and demerits of the Samaritan text had been 
 keenly disputed by the various combatants and 
 many personahties exchanged between them, but 
 till the time of Gesenius no one seems to have 
 attempted the only satisfactory solution of the ques- 
 tion. To him the happy idea presented itself of 
 subjecting the recension to a rigid analysis, and 
 arranging its variations under different heads. 
 Later writers who liave approached the subject 
 have in some respects modified and amended his 
 conclusions, but no one has succeeded in upsetting 
 the general result at which he arrived, .that out of 
 the many hundreds of various readings presented 
 in this text some three or four solitary ones, 
 though of little importance, may be genuine, the 
 rest being due in the first instance to improvements 
 introduced for the sake of avoiding obscurities, and 
 secondly to the Samaritans' ignorance of grammar 
 and exegesis, and to alterations made by them in 
 the interest of their national religion \ 
 
 lino, Lobstein, Geddes, Ilgen, and Bertholdt ; the opposite side 
 being maintained by Vater, Eichhorn, Bauer, and Jahn, 
 
 ^ In his De Pent. Sam. Origine, &c. (1815), pp. 26 sqq., he 
 enumerates eight heads of variations : — 
 
 (i) Grammatical emendations, such as the insertion of quies- 
 cents, D""- for Dr, ni- for n-, &c. ; the substitution of commoner 
 for rarer forms of the pronouns, as IJmx for "ijn^ ; of the longer 
 
91 
 
 But with the question of the comparative merits 
 of the two texts, is bound up another which has 
 
 for the apocopated future, as n^jni for Ijni ; of common for 
 ai'chaic forms, as pt^ for ""JSt^ (Deut. xxxiii. i6), DTI for inTl 
 (Gen. i. 24) : alterations of genders, of common nouns to mascu- 
 line or feminine, e. g. Dn? to masc. (Gen. xlix. 20), yMi to fern. 
 (ibid. xiii. 6), "lyj, in the sense of girl, to myj ; the infinitive 
 absolute is changed into a finite verb, 2)^) ']Vn 13{i'''1 (Gen. viii. 
 3) into inU'l 13^n '1, or into a participle, as yiJ S)n^^ {ibid. 
 xliii. 7) into the meaningless '3 yivn ; common forms are sub- 
 stituted for unusual, as nJNn n?]} {ibid. ii. 7) for 'n vj?, &c. 
 
 (2) Glosses received into the text, some being found in the 
 LXX also, others in various versions and Jewish commentaries, 
 most of them therefore the result of exegetical tradition ; as "13T 
 nip:) for ntJ'NI £i"N {ibid. vii. 2), when spoken of animals; ^HNM 
 m3N {ibid. xiii. 18) becomes 'n "^W 
 
 (3) Conjectural emendations of difficulties ; as for ns'D \2bn 
 ibv n'^:^ {ibid. xvii. 17) l^b^H is substituted. 
 
 (4) Words corrected or supplied from parallel passages, as 
 nC'yX X7 {ibid, xviii. 29) becomes n^nC'N N? according to ver. 28. 
 
 (5) Insertions of long passages derived from the same source; 
 for instances see above, p. 41, note 3. 
 
 (6) Alterations to add dignity to the patriarchs, e. g. in the 
 antediluvian chronology of Gen. v, none is allowed to beget his 
 first-born son after the age of 150, consequently years are cut 
 off before the event and added -after, as is required. No post- 
 diluvian patriarch, on the other hand (chap, xi), may beget a 
 son before he is 50, nor may in either case a patriarch live 
 longer than his father. Or changes are made for the greater 
 glory of God, as (Gen. ii. 2) 'on the sixth day God ended his 
 work,' instead of seventli, lest He should be thought to have 
 worked on the Sabbath. 
 
 (7) Samaritanisms ; the substitution of one guttural for 
 
92 
 
 already been incidentally noticed, that of the 
 relation of the LXX to the Samaritan Pentateuch, 
 
 auotlier, as DTin for miS (Gren. viii. 4) ; of forms of the verb 
 especially Samaritan, as ^npn •>* for npn^ [ibid, xviii. 1 6) ; -m^TN 
 for Tin^rn (Exod. XX, 24). 
 
 (8) Alterations in support of Samaritan doctrines; e.g. in 
 the interests of monotheism n^^!?^< may never (as in Gen. xx. 
 13) be joined to a plural, only a singular verb; or to avoid 
 anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisras, thus niD'' PjK Jli'SJ"' 
 (Deut. xxix. 19) becomes '>•< 'n nn'' ; D\lbN saM (Num. xxii. 20) 
 becomes '^N ']i6^2 '""I ; ' Take all the heads of the people and hang 
 them up before the Lord ' becomes ' Order that the men be slain 
 that were joined unto Baalpeor,' lest God should seem to have 
 ordered the punishment of the innocent with the guilty, or Moses 
 to have been directed to act himself as executioner. Other 
 instances will be found below when the Samaritan commentaries 
 are discussed. Four i-eadings alone of the Samaritan Penta- 
 teuch Gesenius is inclined to prefer to the corresponding ones 
 of the Masoretic text ; the insertion of ni^'n n^b: in Gen. iv. 8 
 as the words of Cain; nnx b'H for inS 'N, ibid. xxii. 13 (also 
 found in five fragments of old Jewish MSS. at St. Petersburg, 
 see Journ. AsiaL 1866, i, 542); Dnj m?Dn {ibid. xlix. 14) for 
 013 'n, in the same sense; Va-JH nx pT-l {ibid. xiv. 14), he 
 * counted,' for p'T'1, he 'led forth ;' all of them of very slight im- 
 portance, which moreover have been rejected by later commen- 
 tators; cf. Frankel, Einjiuss, 242. 
 
 Many of the classes into which Gesenius has divided the valu- 
 ations are evidently cross-divisions : the number has cons^e- 
 quently been reduced by Kohn {De Pent. Sam. p. 9) to three : 
 (i) Samaritan forms of words, (2) corrections and emendations, 
 
 (3) glosses and corruptions for religious purposes, and perhaps 
 
 (4) blunders in orthography. Kirchheim in his Karme Shoineron 
 gives them somewhat differently, making thirteen divisions. 
 
93 
 
 for from the time of the first discovery of the 
 latter, its striking resemblance in numerous 
 passages to the Alexandrine version had been 
 noticed by all \ 
 
 The earliest explanation given of this fact was 
 that the LXX had been translated from the 
 Samaritan : . this was the view of De Dieu, Selden, 
 and Hottinger, a theory favourably regarded in 
 later times by Hassencamp and Eichhorn, and of 
 late revived again by Kohn. Grounds such as the 
 following have been alleged for it. 
 
 The evidence of Origen, supported and amplified 
 by that of St. Jerome, goes to prove that the LXX 
 must have been translated from a Samaritan 
 original, because that in certain MSS. of the LXX 
 existing in their day the word mn"' was retained in 
 the ancient Hebrew (i.e. Samaritan) characters ^ 
 
 Frankel {Einfluss, 238 sq.) notices, in addition to the remarks 
 of Gesenius, the insertion of passages from Onkelos and the 
 LXX, the latter being often mistranslated ; the employment of 
 late technical expressions from the Mischna ; the improper use 
 of the imperative, as '\y\\>T\ for nipn (Lev. vi. 7); and the 
 approximation in orthography and forms of Avords to Pales- 
 tinian Aramaic, but with continual blunderings. 
 
 ^ Hassencamp {pp. cit. p. 215) reckons up some 1900 places 
 in which the LXX agrees with the Samaritan Pentateuch. 
 Gesenius {pp. cit. p. 10) calculates them at more than 1000, 
 while in as many the Hebrew and LXX agree against the 
 Samaritan. 
 
 - See below, pp. 100-102. 
 
94 
 
 not in those used at their time, Ezra, according to 
 tradition, having introduced other letters after the 
 captivity ^ It is clear, however, from the state- 
 ment made by St. Jerome on this point that the 
 remark of Origen can apply only to the Aramaic 
 or square characters, not to those in use among the 
 Samaritans, and consequently the argument based 
 upon his words must Ml to the ground. 
 
 Another reason which has been alleged in sup- 
 port of the LXX having been derived from a 
 Samaritan original is that only on this supposition 
 can its variations from the Hebrew text be ex- 
 plained ; they must, it is said, have arisen from 
 a confusion between letters which resemble each 
 other in the Samaritan, and not in the square 
 alphabet. On a closer examination, however, it 
 will be found that although many various readings 
 are evidently due to such mistakes between similar 
 letters, yet that these may have occurred quite as 
 well in the square alphabet, the error being equally 
 possible in either case. 
 
 Or again, the following argument has been used : 
 —the Samaritans had already brought out for 
 their own use a Greek translation, that known 
 under the name of to 'ZafxapeiriKov ; the translators 
 of the LXX tinding this convenient for their 
 
 ' Origen, Ilexapla, ed. Montfalcon, i. 86 ; St. Jerome, Epi- 
 stila 136 (cd. Mignc, 25), ad Marcellam. 
 
95 
 
 purpose with their imperfect knowledge of Hebrew, 
 took it for the basis of their own transhition, 
 altering it m parts after the Hebrew original to 
 suit their own ideas \ 
 
 There is however a great objection to this theory, 
 that no one knows of the existence of any such 
 Samaritan Greek Version at so early a period of 
 their history : there is no trace of the translation 
 so called (even if it was a complete one, and not 
 emendations of particular passages) before the 
 third or fourth century A, d. ^ And moreover, 
 if the foregoing sketch of the Samaritan history 
 be trustworthy, it is most unlikely that a people, 
 who had on all other occasions shown themselves 
 powerless to invent, only capable of feeble imitation, 
 should in this one instance have distanced their 
 rivals in the production of so great a literary w^ork 
 
 ^ Kuliii, De Pent. Sam. p. 36. 
 
 ^ Kolm supposes that the additions of the LXX in Gen. xxxv. 
 4, Kai aTTcoXeo-ev avra ecos ttjs (rfjfiepov fjfiepas, were originally inserted 
 in the Samaritan Greek text to stop Jewish cavils at their 
 idolatry, and thence copied inadvertently into the LXX : that 
 they do not appear in the Samaritan Pentateuch because its text 
 was then closed and the difficulty had till now been overlooked ; 
 but this gives much too early a date to the Samaritan Greek 
 version : it is quite impossible that the LXX should have had 
 time to copy from it by the third century B. c. The most 
 singular theory was that of Isaac Voss, who held that the 
 Masoretic text was translated from the LXX : he was refuted 
 by Hody. 
 
as a Greek translation of the Pentateuch : it was 
 onlv the versatile Jewish spirit, in snch a place 
 as Alexandria, w4iere the union of Eastern and 
 Western civihsation gave rise to a busy literary 
 activity, that could have produced such a work. 
 It is most unlikely moreover that the Jews, with 
 their intense hatred of the Samaritans, would have 
 received the LXX translation, manifestly grounded 
 upon the Samaritan recension, largely departing 
 from the Hebrew. Even if the Alexandrian Jew^s 
 could have been induced to admit it, would their 
 Palestinian brethren have received with respect a 
 text differing widely from that to which they had 
 been accustomed, one moreover not varying of set 
 purpose to overcome difficulties, but ignorantly 
 borrowed from Samaritan interpretations ^ 1 
 
 This explanation, accordingly, of the similarity 
 of the two texts must be given up. The next one 
 for consideration is the theory of Grotius, Usher, 
 and others,- that the Samaritan Pentateuch was 
 corrected from the LXX. This is true to a certain 
 
 ^ Cf. Geiger in Zeitschr. d. D. M. G. xix. 6ii sq. The 
 Samaritans would have no such scruple in borrowing and then 
 claiming the text for their own. Abusaid continually copies 
 from Saadiah in his Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, all the 
 while heaping maledictions on him. The Bab. Talmud {Megillah, 
 f. 9) speaks of the LXX with respect ; later the Palestinian 
 .Tews became suspicious of it and unwilling to admit it into 
 their synagogues. Frankel, Vorstudien, p. 61. 
 
97 
 
 extent ; many passages occur in the former which 
 bear all the marks of being interpolations from the 
 Alexandrine version \ But still the explanation 
 is inadequate to solve the problem proposed ; it 
 gives no reason for the correspondence which exists 
 between the two texts in very many minute 
 instances which cannot be due to alterations made 
 in deference to religious feeling ^. How moreover, 
 on this supposition, are the equally numerous 
 passages to be accounted for in which the Sama- 
 ritan Pentateuch differs from the LXX, sometimes 
 in these cases agreeing with the Hebrew, at others 
 departing from it '^ ? 
 
 1 E.g. Gen. xxiii. 2, pOJ? bn yaiNH nnp3 = eV TToXft 'Ap^6it, ^ 
 €(TTiv iv Tw KoiXwjuart: ibid, xxvii. 27, N??D mKTI PinD = ws oayLt] 
 aypov irXrjpovs : ibid, xliii. 28, D^^i?N^ ^<'l^^ ^''iiT) "Ilia : Exod. V. 
 
 13, D3^ jn: pnn nrnn -ik^nd : xxxii. 32, Nt:' djindh xK>n dx : 
 
 the Hebrew of these examples bears strong trace of a Samaritan 
 origin ; see other examples of interpolations in Fraukel, Einfluss, 
 161, 162, 238. On the other hand, portions of the Samaritan 
 Greek version (see below, p. 115) have apparently found their 
 way into the LXX ; see Frankel, op. cit. 108, on the insertions in 
 Exod. xxii. 4 (5), and xxiii. 19. This fact raises a doubt 
 whether the insertions from the LXX formed part of the original 
 text of the Samaritan Pentateuch or were later additions. 
 
 ^ E.g. the conjunction 1 is added about 200 times in the 
 Samaritan Pentateuch and omitted about half as often ; in this 
 closely agreeing with the LXX. 
 
 ^ Asaria de Rossi (in his Meor 'Enaim, iii. 8, 9) put forth 
 two theories : — (i) 'That the Alexandrian Greeks corrupted the 
 LXX out of hostility to the Jews.' This however must have 
 h, 
 
98 
 
 One theory alone remains, that suggested by 
 Gesenius, which seems to answer fully all the 
 requirements of the case. He supposes that both 
 the LXX and Samaritan Pentateuch were derived 
 from Jewish MSS. which bore a great resemblance 
 to each other but contained a text varying from that 
 preserved in our Hebrew Pentateuch. The origin 
 of- this difference, he thinks, is to be sought for in 
 the misdirected zeal of revisers and their endeavours 
 to make the text run smoothly and harmoniously, 
 and it was in this manner he considers that many 
 glosses and conjectural emendations found their 
 way into the text. Add to this the blunders of 
 successive generations, made especially in the 
 mistaking of similar letters, and a satisfactory 
 explanation can be given of the divergence of the 
 LXX and Samaritan Pentateuch from the older 
 and more difficult readings which were religiously 
 
 been done before the time of Philo, and so the authors of the 
 corruption must have been heathen : but why should they have 
 troubled themselves about the matter, or who would have 
 trusted their work? The variations of the LXX also imply 
 ignorance more than deliberate falsification. (2) 'That the 
 LXX was rendered from an Aramaean translation dating from 
 the time of Ezra, the inaccuracies, paraphrases, and corruptions 
 of which caused the variations in the Alexandrine text.' No 
 trace however of such a version exists, and the variations of the 
 LXX seem to originate partly from a misunderstanding of the 
 
 Hebrew and partly from following a different text. Frankel, 
 
 Vorst. 33 sq. 
 
99 
 
 preserved in the MSS. of Jerusalem. That the 
 copy which came into the hands of the Samaritans 
 and that which found its way to Alexandria may 
 have originally diifered from each other is quite 
 possible, and both may have received subsequent 
 corrections at the hands of their owners. The 
 Samaritans, it is evident, set about the work of 
 revising their Pentateuch without scruple, and the 
 Alexandrine Jews may not have been entirely 
 guiltless with regard to their own copies \ It is 
 quite possible also that the two texts were more 
 alike formerly : that of the LXX had become much 
 corrupted even in Origen's time, and it is very pro- 
 bable that his exertions have partly contributed to 
 its still further decay from the reception of many 
 of his glosses and corrections into the text itself ^ 
 
 To the question of the time at which the 
 Pentateuch first passed into the hands of the 
 Samaritans, about which so many theories have 
 been held ^, no satisfactory answer can be given : 
 if however the view maintained above be correct, 
 
 ^ In the Prophets and Hagiographa the LXX varies from the 
 Hebrew still more than in the Pentateuch. Ibid. 36. 
 
 ^ Gesenius, op. cit. p. 1 4 ; Montfalcon, Prelim, in Hexapl. 
 cap. iv. 
 
 ^ From the ten tribes they succeeded, or from the priest sent 
 by the king of Assyria during the lion-plague (2 Kings xvii), or 
 from Manasseh their first high-priest Smith's Bible Diet. iii. 
 1112 ; Herzfeld, op. cit. iii. ^53; Gesenius, op. cit. 3. 
 ' h2 
 
100 
 
 tliat Samaritan doctrines were not of home growth 
 but a late importation from Judaea after Sadducaean 
 views had had time to develop themselves there, 
 then it would seem to be highly probable that the 
 Pentateuch also found its way at a late date into 
 Samaria. However this may be, it is quite certain 
 that it cannot have assumed its present form till it 
 had been subjected to long and continued revisions 
 by its new possessors. 
 
 With regard to the question incidentally alluded 
 to above, the discontinuance by the Jews of the 
 old Hebrew, or as it is now called Samaritan, 
 character for transcribing their Law, the testimony 
 of the Talmud, Samaritans, and Fathers* is unani- 
 mous in ascribing it to the age of Ezra\ It is 
 
 ' Bah. Sanhedr. f. 21 and 22. 'At fii'st the Law was given 
 to Israel in the Hebrew writing and in the holy language : once 
 more again in the time of Ezra in the Assyrian writing and the 
 Aramaean language. Israel then chose the Assp-ian writing and 
 the holy language, leaving to the ignorant the Hebrew writing 
 and the Aramaean language. Who are the ignorant 1 R. Hasda 
 says the Samaritans. What is the Hebrew writing 1 R. Hasda 
 says that of the Libonai;' i.e. according to Rashi, that of the 
 inhabitants of Libanus ; the character employed in writing- 
 amulets and mezuzoth. (See Luzzatto in Kirchheim, op. cit. in.) 
 Again, ' Although the Law was not given through him (Ezra), 
 yet the writing was changed by him. Why is it called Assyrian ? 
 Because it was brought up with them from Assyria :' Chaldaea 
 and Babylonia being included under the wider name of Assyria. 
 Here and in Jer. Megillah, i. 11, the ' Hebrew ' character is 
 
101 
 
 clear from Neh, viii. 8 that a change in the 
 language had then taken place \ The Hebrew 
 which till the captivity had been spoken in Jeru- 
 salem, the language in which the Law was written, 
 had during the exile been so much modified by 
 admixture with cognate Aramaean dialects that 
 the grandchildren of those who had been carried 
 captive by Nebuchadnezzar found it hard to under- 
 stand the ancient language of the Scriptures, and 
 had thus become dependent for an explanation 
 of them upon the more learned portion of the 
 community. With this new Aramaic dialect a 
 corresponding alphabet also probably had come 
 into use, and it was in this most Hkely, not in 
 the square character of three or four centuries 
 later, that Ezra according to tradition commenced 
 
 termed 'broken.' Other derivations are given of the name 
 'Assyrian.' R. Jehuda the Holy {B. Sank ibid.) says it was 
 so termed as being the 'blessed;' Abr. de Balmis and J. D, 
 Michaelis as ' upright :' it is also termed the ' square ' character. 
 For Samaritan testimony cf. Eichhorn, Repertorium, xiii. 266, 
 288. Origen {Hexapl. i. 86, ed. Montfalcon) says, 'They say 
 that Ezra used other (letters) after the captivity.' So Jerome, 
 in his Prolog, to the Kings. For the whole subject see Lenor- 
 mant, Alphabet Phenicien, i. 176 sq., 282 sq. ; Herzfeld, iii. 76 ; 
 and the article on ' Writing* in Smith's Diet. iii. 1788. 
 
 ^ ' They read iu the book, in the Law of God distinctly and 
 gave the sense, and caused (them) to understand the reading.' 
 Herzfeld (iii. 58) does not so interpret the passage ; he thinks 
 that Hebrew was still spoken by the Jews on their return 
 from Babylon, and that Aramaean did not come in till later. 
 
102 
 
 the practice of transcribing copies of the Law', 
 The former chaiacter still continued to be used on 
 coins, just as Latin still appears on our present 
 money, long after the general use of it has died 
 out". But the Samaritans could not afford to 
 give it up. With a reputation to acquire as the 
 genuine representatives of ancient Israel they 
 naturally clung to everything which would seem 
 in any way to support their claim ; even to the 
 present day they employ a form of it for the 
 transcription of the Law ^. 
 
 It may be of interest, before passing on to other 
 
 ' It has been suggested by Phil. Luzzatto as an additional 
 reason for the change of alphabet, besides the fact that the 
 Aramaic may have now been more familiar to the Jews, that it 
 became desirable to be able to distinguish the Jewish copies of 
 the Law from those altered by the Samaritans. Jost, i. 52, note. 
 
 ^ They were also likely to be used in neighbouring countries, 
 such as Phoenicia, where an almost identical alphabet was in 
 use ; hence it would be convenient to keep the old character. 
 Herzfeld, iii. 89. The old thick shekels, with inscriptions in a 
 character resembling the Samaritan, though with differences, 
 which have been attributed by Cavedoni, Levy, and Madden to 
 Simon Maccabaeus (b. c. 138), are now assigned by Vaux, De 
 Saulcy, and Lenormant to the times of Ezra and Nehemiah. 
 They differ materially in execution from the thin ones struck by 
 the Maccabees. This alphabet was employed on Jewish coins as 
 late as the revolts under Titus and Hadrian. 
 
 ^ The Sidonian element also (see Josephus, A7it. xii. 5. 5) in 
 the Samaritan people may have had something to do with the 
 retention of the character so nearly I'csembling the Phoeniciau. 
 
103 
 
 subjects, to give some particulars as to the extant 
 MSS. of the Samaritan Pentateuch. The first 
 which found its way to Europe was purchased, 
 as before observed, at Damascus in 1 6 1 6 by Pietro 
 della Valle, and a few years later was presented 
 by Achille Harley de Sancy to the library of the 
 Oratory at Paris. After appearing in the Paris 
 Polyglott Bible of 1645, it was twelve years 
 afterwards reprinted by Walton in the London 
 Polyglott \ Since that time many more copies 
 have been brought into the West, and most of 
 the public Hbraries of Europe now possess some 
 specimens of this Pentateuch either in fragments 
 or complete codices ^ All of these are written on 
 
 1 The text of the Pentateuch in the Paris Polyglott was very 
 indifferently edited by Morinus, being prepared from this MS. 
 alone, with a Latin translation appended which was intended to 
 serve for both the Pentateuch and Targum, though in many 
 places they widely difier. Morinus endeavoured later to supply 
 some of its deficiencies by the publication of his ' Variae Lec- 
 tiones,' which appeared among his 'Opuscula' in 1657, derived 
 from a collation of four other MSS. The Pentateuch text in 
 the London Polyglott of the same year is almost an exact reprint 
 of the Paris one, only the most glaring typographical blunders 
 having been corrected, but a much more complete and exact list 
 of variations was appended, the Latin version to some extent 
 amended, and the deviations of the Targum from the Pentateuch 
 noted. 
 
 ^ Kennicott's list of the MSS. of the Samaritan Pentateuch 
 existing in his time in European libraries, with some additions, 
 is to be found in Smith's Diet. iii. 11 13. 
 
104 
 
 sioparate leaves, none are in the shape of rolls. 
 At Nablus however, as is well known from the 
 descriptions of modern travellers, there is still 
 preserved in the synagogue, and only brought 
 out with much solemnity on certain festivals, an 
 ancient parchment roll, purporting by its in- 
 scription to have been written by the hand of 
 the great-grandson of Aaron himself, thirteen years 
 after the original settlement of the Israelites in 
 Canaan ^ ! It is written on the hair-side of the 
 
 ^ ' I, Abisha, son of Pliinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron 
 the priest — upon them be the favour of Jehovah — in His honour 
 I wrote this holy Law at the entrance of the Tabernacle of 
 Testimony on Mount Garizim, even Bethel, in the thirteenth year 
 of the taking possession of the land of Canaan and all its boun- 
 daries about it by the children of Israel.' (Letter of Meschalmah 
 ben Ab Sechuah in Heidenheim, i. 88 ; of. also Not. et Extr. xii. 
 p. 179.) This inscription was not to be found in the time of 
 Huntington's visit in 1671 (Fpistt. pp. 49, 56). It had been 
 there, so the Samaritans told him, but had been erased by some 
 evil-minded person. It has lately been found again, we are told, 
 by Messrs. Kraus and Levysohn, who saw the famous MS. in 
 1 860 while it was being transferred from its old case to a new 
 one. They obtained a collation of Deut. xix. 8 sq. from the 
 priest's nephew, and restored the character, as they best could, 
 from memory, not being able to procure an exact tracing. Their 
 description of it and facsimile are given by Dr. Eosen in the 
 Zeitschr. d. D. M. G. xviii. p. 582. It has been thought that it 
 may have been written for Manasseh's Temple on Garizim, but 
 it is most improl)able that the MS. can be so old. Some guess 
 as to its age might perhaps be made if a j)hotograph could be 
 
105 
 
 skins of some twenty rams that served as thank- 
 offerings, so says the priest. They are of miequal 
 size, some containing five, some six cohunns of 
 writing, worn quite thin, torn and in holes, 
 blackened as if ink has been spilt over it : perhaps 
 some half of the whole MS. may still be legible. 
 Other old MSS. are also mentioned as existing 
 there; one has the date of a.h. 35 ( = a.d. 655) 
 inscribed on it ; another claims to be the very 
 identical copy of the Law which figured in the 
 trial between Zerubbabel and Sanballat in the 
 presence of the king of Babylon, when the 
 respective merits of the Jewish and Samaritan 
 versions were in dispute, as is truthfully set 
 forth in the 'book of Joshua ;' still bearing on its 
 worn page the mark where Zerubbabel spat upon 
 it in order to break the charm, after it had twice 
 sprung unhurt from the fire into which he had 
 
 procured of it which could be compared with other old MSS. 
 This the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund are said 
 already to have done (see Journal of Sacred Literature, x. 
 p. 240) ; it is however very doubtful whether they have obtained 
 one from the genuine MS. Mr. Mills, who spent some weeks at 
 Nablus, says he saw three rolls kept in similar cases. Dr. "Wilson 
 was shewn one in leaves, and told it was the famous old one ! 
 An endeavour was made to impose on Robinson (ii. 281) also. 
 The same happened to ' T. L. D.' also, as described by him in 
 the Times of April 6, 1874. He speaks most severely of the 
 greed, ignorance, and laziness of the Samaritans. 
 
106 
 
 thrown it : tlie third time it came out again un- 
 damaged, only the spot was scorched \ It is held 
 in great veneration by the Samaritans ; the priest's 
 blessing in Num. vi. 22 has become black from the 
 frequent kisses of the worshippers. 
 
 Next after an account of the Samaritan Pen- 
 tateuch itself will come that of the various trans- 
 lations it underwent, into Samaritan, Greek, and 
 Arabic. Of the date and origin of the first of 
 these no more satisfactory explanation can be 
 given than of the Pentateuch itself. It no doubt 
 must have been submitted to many revisions and 
 modifications before it reached the form in which 
 we now possess it, but in its first beginnings it 
 probably was long anterior to the Christian era. 
 The Samaritans, it must be remembered, were in 
 the same condition as the Jews : each nation was 
 
 ' Rosen, I. c. This identical MS. was a few years ago offered 
 to the Bodleian for the modest sum of £500; Imt the bid was 
 not accepted. The same author {D. M. G. xiv. 622) gives a 
 description of two ancient stone tablets, one containing the Ten 
 Commandments in an abbreviated form (cf. Heidenheim's Viertel- 
 jahresschr., iii. 486, for the description <jf a similar MS.), built 
 into the wall of a mosque at Nablus ; the other is apparently 
 of later date, found not long ago in a rub!)ish heap ; it contains 
 the ten commands of Gen. i ; it probably belonged to some 
 former synagogue. Dr. R. thinks them to be anterior to the 
 time of Justinian, Dr. Blau (Z>. Af. G. xiii. 275) to have belonged 
 to the Temple on Gariz!m destroyed by Hyrcauus. For a further 
 account of the synagogue rolls see below, p. 155. 
 
107 
 
 in the possession of sacred books which were un- 
 intelligible to the mass of the people. In conse- 
 quence of this there very early arose among the 
 Jews, as we know, the custom, instituted according 
 to Talmudical tradition by Ezra himself \ of mtro- 
 ducing extemporary translations of certam portions 
 of the Law into the synagogue services. In pro- 
 cess of thne a body of weU-known and recognised 
 renderings of Scripture thus came into being, 
 which were however for many centuries preserved 
 by oral tradition only, not being committed to 
 writing for fear they shoidd gain an undue in- 
 fluence and overshadow the authority of the Law 
 itself. Gradually however this scruple was over- 
 borne by a feeling of the grave mconvenience 
 which might ensue from the prevalence of unsatis- 
 factory expositions, and thus the earliest Targum 
 which we possess, that of Onkelos on the Penta- 
 teuch, was first committed to writing, probably 
 about the tliird century A.D., in the schools of 
 Babylon ^. 
 
 The same causes were no doubt operatmg in 
 
 ' For references see Smith's Diet. iii. 1638. The passage in 
 Neh. viii. 8 is thus explained : " ' they read in the book of the 
 Law ' — this is Mikra (the original reading in the Pentateuch) ; 
 'C11Q0, clearly' — this is Targum." Bah. Meg. 3a; Bah. Ned. 
 
 ^ This however is disputed, many holding the Targum of 
 Jonathan ben Uzziel on the prophets to be older. 
 
108 
 
 Samaria as well to produce a similar resvilt, and it 
 is not unreasonable to ascribe the original redaction 
 of the Samaritan Targum to about the same time 
 as that of Onkelos, or perhaps a little earlier. 
 Later it cannot well be, for the Samaritan Greek 
 version which appears to have been formed on it, 
 is already quoted by Fathers of the third and 
 fourth centuries. Samaritan tradition apparently 
 ascribes it to a certain Nathanael who died about 
 20 B.C. \ but to this testimony no importance need 
 be ascribed. From the many Arabisms which 
 occur in this version it has been held to be even 
 subsequent to the Mohammedan invasion of 632 -: 
 it is possible however that these may be interpo- 
 lations, not parts of the original text. It must also 
 be remembered that tlie Samaritans were a mixed 
 race, with Arabs included among them '\ and that 
 possibly the translator himself may have been 
 one. Many hands seem to have been employed 
 
 ^ Winer, J)e vers. Sam. indole, p. 9 ; JuynboU, in Orienlalia 
 (1846), ii. T16. 
 
 2 Frankel (in Verhandlungen d. ersteu Versammlung deutscher 
 und ousl. Orientalisten in Dresden, 1844) holds that, before the 
 dominion of the Arabs, Arabic expressions seldom occur in 
 (Jhaldee and Palestinian authors ; that the Targums, Midrashim, 
 and Talmud know them not. E,. Lewi alone among Midrash 
 authors explains by means of Arabic. 
 
 ^ Cf 'Geshem the Arabian,' Neh. ii. 19 and vi. i ; ' tlie 
 Arabians,' ibid. iv. 7. Cf. Kohn, Sainaritaniscloe Studlen, p. Co. 
 
109 
 
 upon it before it assumed its present form : the 
 first thirty chapters of Genesis are apparently 
 the oldest \ containing many so-called Samaritan 
 words which cannot be traced to any known 
 source : differences in the use of the conjunctions 
 are observable in the various books : mistakes 
 which occur in the rendering of one passage do 
 not repeat themselves in the parallel phrase of 
 another book. At some period or other the 
 version has been greatly indebted to that of 
 Onkelos, so much so that many critics, such as 
 Hottinger, Eichhorn, and Kirchheim, have held it 
 to have been copied from it. This however seems 
 to be rather an overstating of the case : it is true 
 that a-wa^ Xeyofxem and words of uncertain meaning 
 are often rendered by identical or similar expres- 
 sions in both : moreover when Onkelos borrows 
 from Jewish tradition, the Samaritan Targum 
 often follows him. And yet the two are inde- 
 pendent ; the latter falls into serious blunders from 
 which the version of Onkelos should have pro- 
 tected it; it often retains difficulties of the Hebrew 
 text where the other gives a translation. It 
 would seem therefore to have been at the outset 
 an original translation, but in course of time and 
 during the various manipulations it underwent 
 to have been interpolated largely from the version 
 
 1 Kohn, ibid. pp. i8 sq. 
 
110 
 
 prevalent among the Jews. It is In general 
 minutely literal, not however always following the 
 text of the Samaritan Pentateuch, but sometimes 
 deserting it for the Hebrew, although in so doing 
 it displays very little skill or knowledge of the 
 language, falling occasionally into the most gro- 
 tesque blunders from a confusion of similar words \ 
 The sense of numberless easy passages is per- 
 verted ; in difficult ones the Hebrew is retained or 
 rendered by equally ambiguous words, or by such 
 as refuse to have a certain meaning affixed to 
 them by a comparison with cognate dialects. In 
 the style of translation it comes between the pro- 
 lixity of the Targumists and the slavish literalness 
 of Aquila: like the Pentateuch, it is carefid to 
 avoid phrases which might seem to impair the 
 reverence due to the Deity by the imputation of 
 human feelings or parts, and also to change ex- 
 pressions which might be thought to savour of in- 
 delicacy into others more suitable to the dignity of 
 
 ^ e.g. in Deut. i. 44, Dnhl, 'bees,' is confounded with Dnan, 
 'words,' and translated rT'TO : to leave you a 'remnant,' JT'INK', 
 is rendered p^ttn, 'dough,' as in Lev. xxi. 2 "Mi'^, a 'blood- 
 relation,' is confounded with INC' , ' dough,' and translated "l''»y : 
 ^a, 'anger' and 'even,' are confused (Lev. xxvi. 44), and NIDN 
 (Gen. xliii. 1 1) rendered nmN : Dn''Ji:' (Gen. iii. 7) is confounded 
 with DiTNJK', and translated p.T'^y ''Sm : Dn^'n {iOid. xxxi. 27), 
 with 'songs,' is rendered D''J3in : Nnnnc:' ir (ibid. 47) 3n"in 
 nnnyo : in Num. xix. 6 ny^lD "'JC^ is rendered ' two worms ' 
 instead of 'scarlet wool.' 
 
Ill 
 
 the subject. For purposes of exegesis tlie version 
 is entirely useless : it is simply interesting as 
 faithfully representing the religious ideas and 
 literary progress of that strange offshoot and 
 counterfeit of Israel, the Samaritan people ; valu- 
 able also for philological purposes as being the 
 most trustworthy monument of an important 
 Semitic dialect, though of only a debased one 
 M^hich has not a literature worthy of the name. 
 It is to this Targum always that recourse must 
 principally be had for settling the forms of the 
 Samaritan language, thojiigh it is an unsatisfac- 
 tory witness to them from the number of Hebra- 
 isms it contains and the interpolations it has 
 undergone ; but all the later documents we 
 possess are still more untrustworthy from the 
 uncertainty attending their age and the possi- 
 bility that they may have been written while 
 the language was no longer spoken \ It is of 
 considerable importance therefore that we should 
 possess a thoroughly critical edition of the text, 
 and it is as a contribution to this end that the 
 present fragment has been edited. 
 
 The oldest MSS. hitherto known to exist are 
 both at Eome, the Barberini triglott and the 
 Vatican. The former was bought by Peiresc at 
 Damascus in 1631, and bequeathed by him to 
 
 ^ Cf. Noldeke in Greiger's Zeitschr. vi. 204 sq. 
 
112 
 
 Cardinal Barberini, in whose library it still remains. 
 It is written on parchment, with the Hebrew- 
 Samaritan text of the Pentateuch, the Arabic 
 version of Abusaid, and the Samaritan Targuni 
 in three parallel columns. It is imperfect : the 
 oldest parts were written in a.d. 1226, and the 
 end of Deuteronomy was supplied by a later hand 
 m 1482. It has never been published : only a 
 single page of it, with some of the variations of 
 its Targum and Pentateuch, and a specimen of 
 the Arabic version, have as yet appeared \ 
 
 The Vatican MS. was bought by Pietro della 
 Valle at Damascus in 1616 : it is much later 
 than the one just described, on paper, dated 15 14 
 A.D., with considerable lacunae of words and even 
 verses I This is the only text that has ever been 
 
 1 It is described by De Sacy in Mem. de I'Acad. des Inscr. 
 t. 49, p. 3 ; by J. B. de Rossi at the end of bis Specivien Varr. 
 Lectt. (1783) ; by Adler in his Bibl Krit. Beise (1783), p. 139. 
 A triple page was transcribed by Blanchini in his Evangeliarium 
 (1749), ii. 604. See also Hwiid, Specimen ined. vers. Arab. 
 Sam. Pent. (1780). It seems to have been lost at the end of 
 the last century, but has since reappeared. Some of the varia- 
 tions of its Pentateuch and Targuni may be found in Castellus' 
 Animadvv. Samar. in vol. vi. of the London Polyglott of 1657, 
 and also in Morinus' Opuscula Hehr. Sam. (1657), pp. 103-196, 
 of. also p. 96. The text has lately been collated by Heidenheim 
 with a view to its publication. 
 
 '^ It is fully described in Assemani, Bibl. Vatican. Catal. i. i. 
 p. 464. 
 
113 
 
 published : it appeared in the Paris Polyglott of 
 1645, ^^^ ^^^ thence copied, without however a 
 fresh collation of the MS., into the London Poly- 
 glott of 1657. The most glaring blunders were, 
 it is true, corrected by conjecture in the process of 
 revision by the editor Castellus, but the results are 
 eminently unsatisfactory ^ The Latin translation 
 also, being intended to serve as a version both of 
 the Hebrew-Samaritan text of the Pentateuch and 
 also of the Samaritan Targum, is not to be depended 
 upon. It is hoped therefore that the publication 
 of the present very ancient fragment may prove of 
 some assistance for a future critical edition of the 
 Targum I 
 
 The MS. is undated, but from the character of 
 the writing and condition of the parchment it is 
 in all probability considerably older tUan the 
 Barberini triglott. From the circumstance that 
 no Arabic translation, as in the case of the MS. 
 just mentioned, appears by the side of the Sama- 
 ritan text, it may be conjectured that it was 
 copied at a time when the language was still 
 
 ^ See Kohn, ojj. cit. p. 22 sq. 
 
 ^ Prof. Petermann of Berlin is publishing an edition from 
 MSS. collated by him at Nablus ; they are on parchment, 
 I understand, and of the seventeenth century. Genesis only has 
 as yet been published. Dr. A. Briill also is reprinting at Frauk- 
 furt-am-Main Walton's text in Hebrew characters; Genesis, 
 Exodus, and Leviticus have already appeared. 
 i 
 
114 
 
 understood, and had not as yet been superseded 
 by Arabic. In the character of the writing it 
 resembles the ancient MSS. still existing at 
 Nablus described by Dr. Eosen \ The text varies 
 very considerably from that of the Vatican MS., 
 and also from the printed specimens of the Barbe- 
 rini fragment. It has unfortunately suffered many 
 corrections from a later hand, most frequently in 
 grammatical forms, sometimes in whole words ^ ; 
 but as they have not been carried out with con- 
 sistency it has generally been possible by com- 
 parison with other parts of the MS. to restore 
 the origmal form with certainty. In all such 
 parts of the MS. as are in good presei-vation the 
 connections are easily to be detected, and these 
 are distinguished in the printed text by round 
 brackets : additions made by the editor from con- 
 jecture are enclosed in square brackets : as this 
 has been done with the greatest care, the present 
 text may be relied upon as a faithful reproduction 
 of the original. The punctuation of the MS. may 
 be seen from the photograph appended. I find no 
 
 1 See above, p. 104, note i. The facsimile on the frontispiece 
 is the exact size of the original. The MS. is numbered 0pp. 
 Add. 8vo. 29. When it first came into the possession of the 
 Bodleian it had but thirty -nine leaves, another has lately been 
 added by the liberality of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, in 
 whose collection it was found. 
 
 2 See the notes appended to the text j^assim, especially p. 25. 
 
115 
 
 traces of any such elaborate system as is described 
 by the Abbe Barges in his notice of some frag- 
 ments of a Samaritan Pentateuch in his posses- 
 sion, nor are the vowels marked \ Occasionally 
 however, not always, the mascuHne and femi- 
 nine possessive pronouns are distinguished from 
 each other, the former by a dot, the latter by a 
 line, over the n. The marginal notes are of the 
 same age as the body of the MS., but they have 
 in many cases become illegible, and the sense 
 of those which can be deciphered is often very 
 obscure I 
 
 The second translation in order of time which 
 the Pentateuch underwent at the hands of the 
 Samaritans was that into Greek : whether, like 
 the LXX in the case of the Jews, for the benefit 
 of the flourishing community of Alexandria^ is 
 uncertain. By many writers its existence has 
 
 ^ Notice sur deux fragments d'un Pentateuque Hehreu-Sama- 
 ritain (1865), p. 15. Ewald (Gotting. Nachrichten, 1867, p. 
 221) thinks many of the signs noticed by Barges to be identical, 
 and the whole question doubtful. The Samaritan use of diacritic 
 points is described by Geiger, Zeitschr. d. D. M. G. xxi. 172. 
 
 ^ I had hoped to have added to this edition another fragment 
 belonging to Trinity College, Cambridge, of which a notice 
 appeared in the Journ. Asiat. (1870), p. 525 ; it is to be found 
 in the Catalogue of Hebrew and Samaritan MSS. of Trinity 
 College, p. 234. Not however having succeeded in procuring 
 the loan of the MS. I have been obliged to bring out the present 
 one by itself. ^ See above, p. 26. 
 
 i 2 
 
116 
 
 been denied \ and the quotations^ of Fathers of 
 the third and fourth centuries from to HaniapeiTiKov 
 have been understood to refer to the version of 
 Symmachus, or the Samaritan Targum, or the 
 Pentateuch, or the LXX I It is doubtful whether 
 it was a complete version or only consisted of 
 emendations of particular passages ; possibly the 
 latter, and if so, it may have related to difficulties 
 in the Samaritan Targum *. 
 
 The third translation was into Arabic. At first 
 the Samaritans did not scruple to use the trans- 
 lation of Saadiah, who died in a.d. 942, but in the 
 succeeding century^ Abusaid set about preparing 
 
 ' e. g. Isaac Vossius. His theory is ably discussed by R. Simon 
 in his Hist. Critique du V. T. (1680), p. 261. 
 
 ^ They are to be found collected in Hottiuger, Exercitt. Anti- 
 morin. p. 29 ; see also Eichhorn's Einleitung, i. p. 388 ; Walton, 
 Prolegg. to London Polyglott, xi. 22. 
 
 ^ Winer, De vers. Sam. indole, p. 7. Noldeke, in the Gotting. 
 Gel. Anzeig. (1865), p. 1312, considers the "EafxapuTiKov to be the 
 Hebrew text as received from the Samaritans. De Wette, 
 Einleitung ins A.T. (1B52), 89, doubts whether it was an inde- 
 pendent translation, or extracts fi'om the Samaritan Targum, 
 or corrections of the LXX. Epiphanius {De Mens, et Pond. 
 p. 172) mentions that Symmachus, in the time of Severus, made 
 his version after the Samaritan [? Greek] translation, but this 
 seems douljtful. Origen takes no notice of it, though mention- 
 ing the Hebrew-Samaritan text. Eichliorn, i. p. 387. 
 
 * Kohn, De Pent. Sam. p. 68 ; Winer, De vers. Sam. p. 7. 
 
 ^ Probably about 1070. Saadiah was an Egji^tian Jew; 
 Abusaid was also in all probability of the same country. Cf. 
 
117 
 
 one which should be more in accordance with the 
 tastes of his Samaritan countrymen. He appears 
 to have employed the Hebrew-Samaritan text, the 
 Targum, and also Saadiah (when the latter does 
 not differ from the Samaritan), though he never 
 quotes liim without abusing him. Like his 
 countrymen generally, he is careful to alter phrases 
 which seem to impute human qualities or parts 
 to the Deity, or in any sort to offend against 
 delicacy : Hke them, he loses no opportunity of 
 exalting the position of Moses, nor depressing the 
 dignity of Judah. He occasionally substitutes 
 later geographical names for those of the text : 
 his style is marked by many vulgarisms, and 
 many Hebrew and Samaritan expressions are to be 
 found in it. About the year 1208 his translation 
 underwent a revision at the hands of Abu-1-barakat, 
 in Syria as is generally supposed, receiving both 
 corrections and annotations from him : the two 
 versions became intermixed, and are now not to 
 be distinguished from each other. 
 
 Next in importance to the Pentateuch and its 
 translations will come the historical literature of 
 the Samaritans comprised in various chronicles 
 
 Juynboll, in Orientalia, ii. ii6. The three first books of the 
 Pentateuch according to Abusaid's rendering have been edited 
 by Kuenen. It is described by De Sacy in Mem. de I'Acad. des 
 Inser. vol, xlix, and by Van Vloten in his Specimen Philologicum, 
 1803. 
 
118 
 
 which have come down to us. In them however 
 it will be a mistake to look for any sober narrative 
 of facts : nothmg was further from the mind of a 
 Samaritan chronicler than to give an exact relation 
 of past events. His object was rather to stir up 
 the minds of his degenerate countrymen to an 
 emidation of the mythical past glories of their 
 race and the heroic deeds of their ancestors, to 
 console them in their present troubles by the hope 
 that, when like their forefathers they returned to 
 the earnest study of the Law and practice of its 
 requirements, the same Divine favour would be 
 shewn them as had attended the nation in the 
 happy and glorious days of old. He has no idea 
 of a continuous narrative, but selects passages of 
 past history which will best suit the purpose of 
 his tale. These he chooses from any source which 
 may be open to him, chiefly from the Bible and 
 Jewish legend, distortmg, amplifying, and omitting 
 till the result proves satisfactory to his taste. In 
 accordance with Oriental fashion he endeavours to 
 enliven his narration by the introduction of hymns 
 and proverbs, and for the same purpose he puts 
 long speeches into the mouths of his heroes. His 
 efforts, however well meant, prove highly un- 
 satisfactory ; he only succeeds in producing a dull, 
 wordy parody of a chronicle, full of the most 
 astounding historical blunders. 
 
 All these characteristics are found exemplified 
 
119 
 
 in the 'Samaritan Chronicle,' or 'Book of Joshua' 
 as it is termed, composed in all probabiHty in 
 Egypt at the close of the thirteenth century ^ : 
 so termed because its greater part is occupied with 
 narrating the glories of Joshua, the successor of 
 the one great prophet of Israel, himself born of 
 the tribe of Ephraim and therefore unconnected 
 with the hated Judah, in whose time Shechem 
 and Garizim derived new honours from the solemn 
 rites and ceremonies there performed by him. 
 After a short preface, the book relates Joshua's 
 assumption of office, the history of Balaam, and 
 the slaughter of the Midianites, in the main fol- 
 lowing the Biblical account, though with many 
 amplifications, such as the falling down of the 
 wall of Midian at the blast of the trumpet, Balaam 
 being found within the temple speechless from 
 terror, and his slaughter by the soldiers against 
 the desire of Joshua. Next comes an account 
 of the last words of Moses, Joshua's lamentation 
 over him, the renewal of the covenant between 
 God and Israel, the ordering of the army, the 
 
 ^ Published by Juynboll (Leyden, 1848) from an Arabic MS. 
 written in Samaritan character, the earlier part of which is 
 dated A. d. 1362, the latter 15 13 (there is another copy in the 
 British Museum, dated 1502). The author appears to have 
 woven into his book one Samaritan and three other Arabic 
 chronicles, besides employing commentaries on the Pentateuch 
 and annals of the i^riests. 
 
120 
 
 sending out of the spies (who endeavour to scare 
 the Canaanites to flight by tales of what Israel 
 had done to Sihon and Og, Midi an and Moab), 
 the passage of the Jordan, the taking of Jericho, 
 the theft of Achan, who steals 2250 lbs. weight 
 of gold (though no mention is made of Ai), the 
 craft of the Gibeonites, the slaughter of the 
 Canaanites, and the division of the land between 
 the several tribes. This part of the narration ends 
 with the appointment of Nabih as king of the 
 tribes east of Jordan, and for the next twenty years 
 Israel enjoys a profound peace, all wending their 
 way thrice in each year with joy and gladness 
 to the ' Mount of Blessing.' This calm is broken 
 by a formidable confederacy of the king of Persia, 
 the greater Armenia, the lesser Rumia (Asia 
 Minor), and others against Israel ; they send 
 a challenge to Joshua, who is greatly alarmed at 
 the missive, but puts on a bold fxce before the 
 messenger and sends back a defiant reply : in an 
 hour's time he mounts 300,000 men, the half of 
 Israel, and seeks his foes, but is by magic sui- 
 rounded by seven walls of iron. Nabih however, 
 the king of Israel on the other side of Jordan, 
 informed of his danger by a letter brought to him 
 by a dove, soon comes to the rescue, slays Shaubak 
 the king of Persia by throwing a dart up into 
 the air which in its fall transfixes man and horse, 
 and piercing the ground causes a fountain to burst 
 
121 
 
 forth. The walls raised by magic art collapse at 
 the first blast of the priests' trumpets, at Joshua s 
 bidding the light stays, the mnds aid him, the 
 enemies' swords turn against them, and a mighty 
 slaughter ensues so that the horses wade in blood 
 to their nostrils, and the enemy are utterly de- 
 stroyed. During the happy reign of Joshua, which 
 with that of his nine successors lasted for 260 
 years, Israel observed the Law, kept the Sabbaths 
 and Feasts, observed the sabbatical year and the 
 payment of tithes, all crime was immediately 
 detected, the sacrifices were duly offered on Gari- 
 zim. But after the reign of Samson, the hand- 
 somest and strongest of all the kings, Israel falls 
 into sin, the divine glory disappears from the 
 Temple, 'Ozi the high-priest hides the sacred 
 vessels in a cave on Garizim, Eli the apostate 
 priest builds an opposition temple at Shiloh, and, 
 after instructing his pupil Samuel in all the 
 magical arts in which he himself excelled, perishes 
 at receiving the news of the death ' of his impious 
 sons in battle and the loss of the ark. The 
 chronicle now makes a leap of some hundreds of 
 years to the time of Bokhtonasar (Nebuchad- 
 nezzar) king of Persia, who reigned at Mausul. 
 He carries away, not Judah, but Israel into cap- 
 tivity; but on the complaint of the new colonists 
 that a blight rested upon the produce of the land, 
 suffers Israel, to the number of 300,000, to return, 
 
122 
 
 the colonists maldng way for them. The Jews wish 
 to build a temple at Jerusalem, the rest of Israel 
 on Garizim, and on an appeal to the King the 
 famous trial of the merits of Sanballat's and 
 Zerubbabel's copies of the Law is made in his 
 presence, when the latter is at once burnt on 
 being cast into the flames, the former jumps out 
 thrice unhurt ^ ; Judah repents, and all Israel 
 worships on Garizim. Then comes another break 
 in the narrative till the time of Alexander, the 
 whole of whose history as it appears in the 
 chronicle is borrowed from Jewish history. Thus 
 the Samaritans, and not the Jews, refuse to 
 break their league with Persia and give aid 
 to Alexander ^ : he marches against Shechem, 
 not Jerusalem, but spares it, overawed by the 
 dignity of the Samaritan, not the Jewish high- 
 priest, whose figure had appeared to him in 
 dreams and promised him victory. The tale of 
 Alexanders three days' journey to the land of 
 darkness, the dust of which was rubies and 
 pearls^; of his ascending to the clouds in a car 
 
 ^ See above, p. 105. 
 
 "^ Josephus, Ant. xi. 8. 3. There it is told how the Jewish 
 high-priest Jaddua refuses to break his league with Darius, 
 which Sanballat (ihid. 4) at once does. Alexander marches 
 against Jerusalem, but at the sight of Jaddua prostrates himself 
 before him (ihid. 4, 5). 
 
 ^ To be found with variations in Tamid. 32 a, and Josephus 
 ben Gorion, ii. 16. 
 
123 
 
 drawn by eagles who rose or fell according as 
 the lumps of flesh which they endeavoured to 
 catch were held above or below them^; the 
 device by which the priests evaded the king's 
 injunction of erecting statues to him by calling 
 all new-born sons by his name^ — all these can 
 be traced to Jewish sources, whence they have 
 been drawn by the Samaritan chronicler for his 
 own purposes. Next follows a narrative of the 
 great revolt under Hadrian, during which Jeru- 
 salem falls into his hands by means of two 
 Samaritans ; a confusion probably with the cap- 
 ture of Bettar, as the latter is said to have been 
 betrayed by Samaritan intrigue^. The whole 
 concludes with a short account of the high-priest 
 'Aqbun, his son Nathanael, and grandson Baba 
 Babba, the last of whom was born in grievous 
 times, when the Boman hand lay heavy upon the 
 Samaritans, when circumcision was forbidden, and 
 no worshipper might approach the holy mountain, 
 a miraculous bird being set there to warn the 
 Boman guards when a Samaritan approached, who 
 thereupon would issue forth and kill him. Baba 
 Eabba endeavours to alleviate his country's sorrows, 
 
 ^ Jer. 'Aboda Zara, iii. i. This was a common mediaeval 
 legend ; it is related of Nimrod by the Moslems ; of. Weil, Bibl. 
 Legend, p. 77. 
 
 ^ Also to be found in Josephus ben Gorion, ii. 7. 
 
 3 Ewald, Gesch. vii. (1868), p. 418. 
 
124 
 
 and sends his nephew Levi to Constantinople, there 
 to acquire all the learning of the enemy, that, con- 
 cealing his birth and faith, he might rise to 
 honour, and returning to Nablus, destroy the fatal 
 bird, and thus enable his countrymen to ascend 
 the mountain and obtain by their prayers dehver- 
 ance from the enemy. In this he completely 
 succeeds, and the narrative breaks off abruptly 
 at the point when, after thirteen years' absence, 
 he pays a visit as Archbishop to Nablus. The 
 above sketch will shew how much genuine light 
 we may expect to have shed upon Samaritan 
 history by the truthfulness and historical skill 
 of native chroniclers. 
 
 The next chronicle to be noticed, El-Tholidoth \ 
 or The (book of) Generations, is of a more modest 
 character. In the first instance it professes to 
 have been written by Eleazar ben Amram in (a.h. 
 544-.) 1 1 49 A.D., copied and continued by Jacob 
 ben Ismael 200 years later, and carried down by 
 other hands to 1859, when the present MS, was 
 written by Jacob ben Aaron the high -priest ^. At 
 
 * Called also by Abulfath iLJi^Jl or the ' catena.' 
 "^ Published by Neubauer in the Journal Asiatique for 1869, 
 pp. 385 sq. He gives the Samaritan, or rather Hebrew, text 
 with notes and translation, citing the Arabic translation when 
 the sense is not clear. His text is that of the Bodleian MS. 
 numbered Bodl. Or. 651, collated in some passages with one 
 belonging to a private owner. 
 
125 
 
 its commencement it relates how Adam received 
 from God through the mediation of angels the 
 method of calculating the months and years for 
 the proper arrangement of the calendar of festivals. 
 This passed by tradition through the patriarchs to 
 the tune of Phinehas the grandson of Aaron, in 
 whose days it was committed to writing by his 
 son Abisham, and according to this record, which 
 is still in the hands of the Samaritan high-priest, 
 is the sacred calendar still every six months com- 
 piled \ Each period of seven years ends with a 
 shemittah (year of release) ; seven of these form 
 a jubilee : the first shemittah counts from the entry 
 of Israel into Canaan. Three books are mentioned 
 as having been given to the Fathers from the time 
 of Adam to Moses, the book of 'Wars,' that of 
 ' Astronomy,' and that of ' Signs -.' Next are given 
 the ages of the patriarchs from Adam to the death 
 of Moses, and then a list of high-priests down to 
 the present times : interwoven with this latter are 
 a few" scattered notices of important events, such 
 as the Babylonian captivity, the return from it, 
 the death of our Lord ^ &c. ; but as these have all 
 
 ^ See above, p. 75 ; Peterinauu, in Herzog, xiii. 376, note. 
 
 ^ See below, p. 132. 
 
 ^ ' In the time of Jehonathan was put to death Jesus the son 
 of Miriam, the son of Joseph the carpenter, Ben Hanahpheth, 
 at cursed Salem {th\^ nilNn nQH^n p), under the reign of 
 Tiberius king of Rome, by Palitah his governor.' pp. 402, 438. 
 
126 
 
 been inserted in the chronicle of Abulfath which 
 will next be noticed, they need not be further 
 here described. The chronicle is of interest to 
 geographers as, while mentioning the various 
 Samaritan families settled in Damascus, Palestine, 
 and Egypt, it incidentally introduces the names 
 of a considerable number of places inhabited by 
 them^ 
 
 The third chronicle to be noticed is that of 
 Abulfath, composed by him at the request of the 
 high-priest in a.d, 1355, and continued by other 
 hands to later times I Its literary and historical 
 merit is no greater than that of the two just 
 described, considerable portions of which were 
 copied into the present work by its author ^. The 
 same distortion of facts in the interest of national 
 vanity, the same confusion between different 
 periods, the same omission of important events, 
 
 ^ The importance of this chronicle for comparison with the 
 ' Book of Jubilees ' is shewn by Ronsch in his Buck der Jubilden 
 (1874), p. 361. 
 
 '^ Published from four MSS. by Ed. Vilmar, Gotha, 1865. It is 
 written in Arabic containing many vulgar grammatical forms. 
 
 ^ Besides these two, Abulfath also appears to have had at his 
 disposal several other books, viz. ohc entitled the (^jJlJI ^Jai, 
 probably an account of the division of the land among the 
 twelve tribes, other chronicles bound up in one volume with the 
 book of Joshua, three more in Hebrew obtained from Damascus, 
 a book termed the ,_;«ly or 'quires,' and a chronicle of Sadaqa ; 
 the last however he does not appear to have used. 
 
127 
 
 the same unacknowledged borrowing from Jewish 
 sources, is observable. It commences at the Crea- 
 tion, which is placed at 4350 B.C. ; from this point 
 to the settlement of Israel in Canaan, which, 
 together with the 250 ensuing years of peace 
 under the rule of Joshua and liis successors to 
 Samson, makes altogether a period of 3050 years, 
 was the Eidvan or time of the Divine Favour. 
 Then the royal and pontifical dignities were both 
 preserved, then the 'king' with the aid of his 
 seventy elders and twelve princes of the tribes 
 guided the state in accordance with the Divine 
 will, the high-priest in company with the priests 
 and Levites rightly performing the services of the 
 Temple, while the rest of the people each in his 
 proper station fulfilled the requirements of the 
 Law. Then the Divine Presence manifested itself 
 in the shrine on Garizim, whence the fire of the 
 Lord came forth and each day consumed the 
 sacrifices offered upon the two altars of the holy 
 Mount. With EH's schism commenced the period 
 of Fanuta, or 'disappearance' of the Divine 
 Favour and of its visible sign : Israel fell into 
 idolatry : Saul, the schismatical monarch set up by 
 the apostate prophet Samuel, persecuted the true 
 people of God and prohibited their approach to 
 Garizim ; many therefore fled their country to avoid 
 his tyranny, and thus commenced 1000 years of 
 migrations and exiles to the time of Alexander, 
 
128 
 
 whicli is placed at 250 B.C. David proceeds to 
 yet greater lengths, usurps the priestly offices of 
 benediction and sacrifice, appoints Jerusalem as 
 the Qiblah whither Israel should turn in prayer, 
 and there establishes the schismatical ark of Shiloh, 
 though formerly he too had offered on Garizim. 
 Solomon's wisdom and glory are beyond denial: 
 he is the ' Shiloh' after whose days the sceptre 
 departed from Judah^ Rehoboam was the last 
 king who reigned with any show of right, having 
 been elected at Shechem ^ in an assembly of the 
 tribes. Jeroboam, corrupted by his residence in 
 Egypt, introduced the worship of the calves at 
 Sebaste ^ and Dan : Elijah and Elisha are also 
 deserving of the deepest reprobation for the part 
 they took in seducing Israel from their true 
 allegiance. Divine vengeance comes at last in 
 the shape of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion, who 
 destroys Jerusalem and Sebaste : 'Aqbia the high- 
 priest buries the sacred vessels in Garizim, and 
 with his countrymen departs to exile in Harran 
 and Edessa, carrying with him a copy of the Law ; 
 the Jews with their king 'Jumaqim' proceed to 
 Babylon. Seventy years later, 3790 years after 
 the Creation, Israel returns from captivity, but 
 
 ^ Gen. xlix. 10. ^ i Kings xii. i. 
 
 ^ Not at Bethel (or Luz), for that is the higher summit of 
 Garizim. See above, p. 67. 
 
129 
 
 a second exile ensues 120 years later, which lasts 
 for fifty-five years ; the subsequent return from 
 this, by permission of King Surdi, took place not 
 long before that of the Jews from Babylon \ Then 
 ensues the famous contest between Zerubbabel 
 and Sanballat as to whether Jerusalem or Garizim 
 should be the Qiblah of Israel, ending in the 
 defeat of the Jews and the re-establishment of 
 sacrifice on Garizim. Kesra, the next king of 
 Persia, suffers the Jews to return and build Jeru- 
 salem : his successors were Zaradushti, Ah ash- 
 varush, Artahast, Darius. This last king favours 
 the Jews, and subjects Samaria to them, which 
 accordingly is cruelly oppressed : a revolt ensues 
 in which Jerusalem is destroyed, but the rising' 
 is quelled, the Samaritans severely punished, and 
 the exercise of their religion interdicted: many 
 thereupon fly to Kutha, and from this circumstance 
 the name of Kuthim was maliciously fixed upon 
 them by the Jews in order to rob them of their 
 true designation of Israehtes. Alexander died 
 A.M. 4100, about 1000 years before the era of 
 Mohammed. It is false that the Jews only trans- 
 lated their Pentateuch into Greek : King Ptolemy 
 
 ^ In No. xxvii. p. 290, Codd. Or. Bibl. Acad. Reg. Sclent. 
 Lugd. Bat., is an excerpt from a historical work, relating how at 
 this time ' Abdeel the high-priest gave his son in marriage to 
 the daughter of Sanballat, telling Sanballat at the same time to 
 instruct him in the Law.' Cf. De Jong's Catal. p. 62. 
 k 
 
130 
 
 sent for Samaritan translators as well, and after 
 hearing the arguments on both sides as to the 
 merits of the respective copies of the Jewish and 
 Samaritan Law, pronounced in favour of the latter 
 and offered sacrifice on Garizim ^ In a.m. 4350 
 Christ was born, and crucified by the procurator 
 of Tiberius: John the Baptist had before this 
 suffered at Sebaste by the order of Herod. Vespa- 
 sian's reign is passed over in silence : the events 
 occurrincr in those of Hadrian and Commodus are 
 apparently confused I In the days of Alexander 
 (Severus) Baba Rabba restored the independence 
 of Samaria and the study of the Law, though in 
 many of his enactments he departed from the 
 polity established under the Ridvan. He ended 
 his days in captivity at Constantinople, having 
 been aUured there by the promises of the Emperor 
 Philip. Notices occur of the reign of Marcian, 
 when the possession of the tombs of the patriarchs 
 was decided by single combat between a Christian 
 and Samaritan in favour of the latter, and of the 
 persecution of Zeno, &c. to the time of Mohammed, 
 whose flight is fixed at 700 A.D., and with this 
 
 ' The legend of the three days' darkness which came over the 
 world at the translation of the Law (Abulfath, Annal. p. 95) is 
 to be found in the Hlkoth Gedoloth Taanith, ed. Yen. f. 39 b : 
 cf. (jlr'atz, Gescli. iii. 430. 
 
 2 The destruction of Samaritan books is attributed to Corn- 
 modus, which in the book of Joshua, cha]). xlvii, is ascilbcd to 
 Hadrian. Vilmar's Abulfath, p. Ixv. 
 
131 
 
 the original chronicle of Abulfath appears to have 
 terminated, though later events have been added 
 by other hands, together with a list of high-priests 
 down to the present time. 
 
 From the foregoing sketch it will be seen how 
 little trustworth}^ a source of information is in 
 this chronicle presented to us, in consequence of 
 the large gaps and historical blunders occurring 
 in it. For instance, the Assyrian invasion is 
 ignored, not a single fact related which occurred 
 between the reigns of Tiberius and Hadrian, nor 
 for the hundred and more years which elapsed 
 between Zeno and Mohammed ; Zerubbabel and 
 Ezra are made contemporaries, Hadrian builds a 
 Christian church on Garizim ; the Arab Philip 
 rules at Constantinople, Gordian incites the Jews 
 to rebuild Jerusalem. Amid this general con- 
 fusion it would be unwise to accept anything as 
 genuine which comes to us recommended only 
 by Samaritan authority. 
 
 Hardly to be distinguished from the class of 
 literature just described is one which may be 
 classed under that of 'Agadah.' A specimen 
 of this may be found in the 'Legends ascribed 
 to Moses,' a commentary on which is preserved 
 in the British Museum ^ It borrows largely from 
 
 ^ Add. MS. 19656, fol. 1-29. The title is _^^ p>-»-^ 
 ^^L-^1 . It has been translated by Di-. Leitner in Heidenheim, 
 k 2 
 
132 
 
 Jewish sources. Adam and Eve, we are told, 
 spent eight days in Paradise : the former instructs 
 Lamech in the ' Book of Truth ' for 1 80 years ; 
 after leavmg Paradise he dwells in Safra, that is 
 Nablus, and is afterwards buried at Hebron : Noah 
 collects three wTitings called the ' Books of the 
 Covenant,' viz., the 'Book of Adam,' or of 
 ' Wonders/ that of ' Nagmuth,' or Astronomy, 
 and the Book of 'Wars^' Enoch dies and is 
 buried opposite Garizim in Navus on Mount Ebal, 
 lamented by Adam. Jared founds Salem Babtha 
 or Nablus, in which God foretold that Mel- 
 chizedek should hereafter reign : there also is 
 Noah buried. Great honour is given to Abraham : 
 he is cast by the tyrant Nimrod into the fire, but 
 escapes unhurt, and Haran is killed by it : 6000 
 years are to mtervene between the Creation and 
 the ' day of vengeance.' 
 
 Of a similar type is the ' Jewelled necklace in 
 praise of the Lord of the human race,' composed 
 in (a.h. 944 = ) A.D. 1537 by Isma'Il Ibn Badr Ibn 
 
 iv. 184. Identical witli, or similar to this, must be the chronicle 
 on sixteen leaves written by Moses, extending from the creation 
 to the end of the world, still preserved by the high-priest at 
 Nablus. The Samaritans have also a similar one in Arabic by 
 .Jacob Besini, who lived before Mohammed. Petermann in 
 Herzog, xiii. 376. 
 ' See above, p. 125. 
 
133 
 
 Abu-l-'Tzz Ibn Kumaih \ in honour of Moses ; it 
 sets forth his divine nature, and extols the glories 
 of his birth and miracles. 
 
 With this may be classed a ' tract ' in which is 
 contained a ' complete explanation of the chapters 
 on Balak ' by Ghaz^l Ibn ad-Duwaik ^, with re- 
 flections on the same for the edification of the 
 reader ; and another small tract by the famous 
 Abii Sa'Td explaining the cause of the fear felt by 
 Jacob on his way to Egypt (Gen. xlvi. 1,3). and 
 by Abraham after the conquest of the five Kings 
 {ibid. XV. i)^ with a third by an unknown author, 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 19021. ^-i-J\ x.^ ^.A* J^^^je^^ jJbt.!\ 
 by ^^j ^. jjtJIjjl tj^.jM ij^. J-^U-'l (The same author also 
 wrote a book termed e:^) ijJ i^^^^^s ^j/^^-^"^' rj^ '^^ ' ^^ expla- 
 nation of the 72 laws.' Geiger, in Zeitschr. d. D. M. G. xxii. 
 531.) Another copy of this MS. is described by Neubauer in 
 Journal A siatinue (1869), p. 467. This and tlie other MSS. there 
 mentioned as belonging to Dr. Pusey now form part of the col- 
 lection of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, which also con- 
 tains, besides the works mentioned in the text, a Pentateuch 
 containing Gen. i. 12 to Deut. xxix, and fragments to xxxi. 13, 
 dated a.d. 121 i; another with Arabic version in Samaritan 
 characters (not that of Abusaid, as I understand from Dr. A. 
 Lbvvy), dated a.d. 1328 ; another, apparently a copy of the last, 
 containing most of Genesis and Exodus ; nine liturgical volumes, 
 written a.d. 17 2 2-1 794 ; some astronomical treatises, fragments 
 of Pentateuchs, &c. 
 
 ^ jJb j^^ ^^ l/*-^ (J IJLl. by ebj jJl ^\ Jlji , MS. xxv'd 
 Bibl. Acad. Reg. Scient. Anist. pp. 265-289. 
 
 ^ Ibid. pp. 292, 293, 
 
134 
 
 in which the fifteen occasions are quoted from 
 Exodus and Numbers when the Israehtes by 
 their complaints and abuse of Moses and Aaron 
 tempted God, and the times mentioned at which 
 the divine glory appeared ^ 
 
 Of great importance for ascertaining the doc- 
 trinal views of the Samaritans, especially as 
 shewing the tenacity with which they clung to 
 ancient traditional interpretations, are their com- 
 mentaries on the Pentateuch. Probably one of 
 the oldest now extant is in the Bodleian Library : 
 it was composed (a.h. 445 = ) a.d. 1053 by an un- 
 known Samaritan for the benefit of a certain Abu 
 Sa'id Levi, possibly the well-known translator^; 
 certainly it was written before his translation of 
 the Pentateuch was made, as this is never quoted 
 in it. Like others of his countrymen who will be 
 afterwards quoted, the author was well acquainted 
 Axith the works of Arabian grammarians, but the 
 triliteral system for the formation of verbs dis- 
 covered by Hayug was unknown to him. He is 
 singular in quoting not only from the Pentateuch, 
 but also from the former and later prophets, 
 Nehemiah, the Mishnah, &c., but strangely enough 
 
 ^ MS. xxvii. Bibl. Acad. Keg. Sclent. Amst. pp. 294-296. 
 
 "^ 0pp. Add. MS. 4". 99. At its commencement it has two 
 short Samai'itan liturgies. It has been described at length by 
 Neubauer in the Journ. Asiat. (1873), pp. 341 sq. It is written 
 in Arabic, and dated (a.h. 749=) a.d. 1348. 
 
135 
 
 does not mention the Samaritan Targum. Like a 
 genuine Samaritan be shuns anthropomor])hisms, 
 attributing to angels actions ascribed in the ori- 
 ginal to God Himself, but he is singularly peaceful, 
 sometimes even agreeing with Rabbanite interpre- 
 tations, but never taking occasion to attack them. 
 
 Another interesting and important one is that 
 of ' Ibrahim from the family of Jacob/ now pre- 
 served at Berlin \ He thoroughly represents the 
 national feeling as exhibited in opposition to the 
 Rabbanite school of thought among the Jews. 
 For instance, he points out the error of the latter 
 in interpreting the 'I am come down' of Exod. 
 iii. 8, as of actual change of place on the part of 
 God, rather than of the direction of His Omni- 
 potence to a certain point .-^so he renders ' I will 
 stretch out My hand' (ver. 20) as 'power,' imputing 
 a literal interpretation of the expression to the 
 Jews: the Lord ' repented' of the evil (xxxii. 14) 
 must signify 'turned from,' 'wiped away.' This 
 extreme anxiety to avoid anything approaching 
 anthropomorphism has been often pointed out 
 before. His desire to glorify Sichem and its sur- 
 roundino^s mav be seen bv his remark on Gen. 
 iii. 23, that Adam, on being driven out from 
 Paradise, was sent back to Garizim, for from thence 
 
 ^ Large extracts are given from this by Geiger in the Zeitschr. 
 d. D. M. G. xvii. 723 sq., XX. 147 sq., xxii. 532 sq. 
 
136 
 
 had he been taken, Jered (ih. v. i8) he tells us 
 built Salem Rabtha, the city of Melchizedek, but 
 Achidan built Zion, with regard to which the Jews 
 have a tradition that 'the Law of Truth shall 
 go forth from Zion and abrogate the Law of 
 Moses,' but rather perish the Law of Ezra ! Like 
 a true Samaritan he places Abraham's sacrifice, 
 Jacob's dream, &c., at Nablus. Very character- 
 istic also is his anxiety to uphold the fame of 
 Joseph against the charge of having married a 
 daughter of Potiphar or Dinah, and to rescue 
 the great prophet Moses from the imputation of 
 having postponed the circumcision of his son ; the 
 means by which he effects this last point is a 
 miracle of exegetic ingenuity. So all connected 
 with Moses must likewise have no shadow of 
 suspicion resting upon them : Jethro is no idola- 
 trous priest, Zipporah is no 'Ethiopian' (Numb, 
 xii. i), but 'beautiful:' — these instances are suf- 
 ficient to give a just idea of the style of his 
 commentary. 
 
 Of just the same type is an anonymous com- 
 mentary on Genesis preserved in the Bodleian 
 Library, brought from the East by the learned 
 Bishop Hunthigton \ The great reverence of the 
 Samaritans for all belonging to the priesthood 
 
 ' Hunt. MS. 301. The forty-ninth chai)ter was publisliod 
 by Schnurrer in Eichiioru's Repertonum, xvi. 154. 
 
137 
 
 has been already noticed, they felt It . therefore 
 necessary at all hazards to explain away the 
 severe judgment of Jacob upon his son Levi for 
 his slaughter of the Shechemites in conjunction 
 with Simeon. Consequently the words ' my 
 soul, come thou not into their secret' &c, (xlix. 6) 
 are thus explained, ' they had no occasion to take 
 counsel of me, for they knew that their counsel 
 was right, seeing that their zeal was ri_L'hteous.' 
 So in the next verse, 'Cursed ("ll^N') be their 
 anger' &c. is paraphrased, ' Most excellent ("IHn) 
 is their anger/ or, ' exceeding is their generosity 
 and fortitude:' '1 will divide them in Jacob,' he 
 prays that their strenuousness may remain and be 
 distributed in Jacob. On 'thy father's children 
 shall bow down before thee' (ver. 8) he remarks, 
 ' Some weak people interpret it, " they will bow 
 towards thee because the Qiblali is in thy domain," 
 but this is false, for the Qiblah is in the territory 
 of Ephraim.' He paraphrases ver. lo thus, 'know- 
 ledge of the Law and obedience towards God shall 
 not fail, or a lawgiver from between his feet till 
 Shiloh (Solomon) shall arise, who shall change the 
 Law, and many shall follow him, since they love 
 license and are prone to it.' 
 
 In this class must also be included an agadic 
 commentary on the Pentateuch containing Genesis 
 and Exodus, termed tlie 'dissipater of darkness 
 from the secrets of revelation,' written in 1753-4 
 
138 
 
 by Ghazal Tbn Abu-s-Surur as-Safawi al-Yusufi 
 al-Musawi al-Ghazzi ^ ; and another containinor 
 fragments of a commentary on Genesis, Exodus, 
 and Leviticus, often quoted by Castellus in his 
 notes on the Samaritan Pentateuch I Other 
 writers seem to have devoted their energies to 
 tlie same subject, but nothing now remains to us 
 but their names and the titles of their books. For 
 instance, Manga Ibn asli-Shaar is mentioned as the 
 author of three commentaries on the Pentateuch ^ : 
 Abu Sa'id of schoHa on the Decalogue ^; Amin 
 ad-Din Abu-1-Barak4t of a commentary on the 
 same^ : commentaries on the Pentateuch are said 
 to have been composed by the celebrated poet, 
 ]»hilosopher, and physician, Sadaqa Ben Mang^ 
 Ben Sadaqa ^ who, after living high in the favour 
 of al-Malik al-'Adil the Ayyubid prince ruling at 
 Damascus, died near it in a. d. 1223; by Muhadh- 
 dhib ad-Din YAsuf Ben Abu Sa'id Ben Khalaf, 
 
 ^ Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 19657 ; title ^l^^l ^s^ ^W^' "-^^ 
 >_^]^1 by isyi^\ Lf^^\ iJ^t^J^ ^j-'^-^^^ j3;--^^ jV ^. J]}^, or, 
 as his name is otherwise written, ^\ JIlc ^jj\ j^^\ y\ ^ Jljx 
 
 '^ Brit. Mus. I/arl. MS. 5495. 
 
 ' Amst. MS. xxvii, p. ^o^jsXjuW ^j\ Ls^. 
 
 * Ibid. p. 315. '•> Ihid. p. 314. 
 
 '' (not Ls^v" or ljLsr>., cf. Juyuboll, Comm. p. 56) Ls-^-° ^. sJxo 
 uis^ ^^.. He wrote a coninientaiy on the aphorisms of llip- 
 ])oerates. 
 
139 
 
 pupil of the famous Ibrahim Shams al-Hukamcli, 
 and vizier to al-Malik al-Amgad Magd ad-Din 
 Bahram Shah, sultan of Baalbek ; he died in I2 27\ 
 Under the head of miscellaneous theology must 
 be classed a number of works many of which are 
 closely connected with those just described. To 
 this will belong a work of Abu-1-Hasan of Tyre, 
 of which the title probably should be the ' book 
 of cookery,' i.e. relating to lawful and forbidden 
 meats, or ' of force I' In it the peculiar dogmas 
 of the Samaritans as differing from those of the 
 Jews are set forth and supported by arguments 
 
 ' "Wiistenfeld, Gesch. d. Arab. Aerzte, p. 121; Juynboll, Cotn- 
 ment. p. 56. Yusuf's nephew Abu-1-Hasan Ben Grhazal Ben 
 Abu Sa'id was noted for his acquirements in medicine, natural 
 history, and astronomy, composing many books on these sub- 
 jects. Embracing Islamism, he entered the service of his uncle's 
 patron, and later into that of al-Ma!ik as-Salih Isma'il Ben 
 al-Malik al-'Adil, sultan of Damascus, who made him his vizier. 
 His library is said to have consisted of 10,000 volumes. Another 
 celebrated Samaritan pliysician, Muwaffaq ad-Din (^^jJl J^^ 
 (j^LJl ^'-.i^jJl *jLi (jj^' j_^.l (^J>1 ^j^-ajtJ L_Lyojjy_l) lived in 
 the same century: he wrote a commentary on the canon of 
 Avicenna (Bodl. MS. Marsh. 464), on logic and theology; cf. 
 Wiistenfeld, op. cit. p. 144 ; Haji Khalfa, v. 160, 472. For other 
 notices of commentaries see below, p. 158. 
 
 2 Bodl. MS. Hunt. 24; title ^L-i^Jl t^bT by ^^^^U y\ 
 ijjyal\; see notice of a similar MS. in Journ. Asiat. (1869), 
 p. 468. He appears to have lived some time in the eleventh 
 century ; before Abu Sa'id, who translated the Pentateuch about 
 1070 A. D. Cf. Juynboll in Orientalia, ii. 117. 
 
140 
 
 drawn from the Pentateuch : it treats, e.g. of the 
 dignity and perpetual succession of the high- 
 priests ; of animals which may be eaten ; of the 
 sabbath ; that believers must have a Qiblah 
 whither they may turn in prayer, i.e. Garizim ; 
 of the differences between Karaites and Rabbanites 
 as to the fixing of the new moon ; of angels ; that 
 there is no distinction of Persons in the Deity, 
 nor conjunction of the human nature Avith the 
 divine, &c. Closely resembling this is a work 
 entitled 'a book sufficing to those who satisfy 
 the knowledge of the book of God,' by Muhadhdhib 
 ad- Din Yusuf Ibn Salamah Ibn Yusuf al-'Askari, 
 commenced in a.d. 1041 ; it treats of the office 
 of the priest, of purifications, of tithes, usury, &c., 
 thus corresponding to the Mishneh Thorah of 
 Maimonides ^ 
 
 Another work by the same Abu-1-Hasan has 
 come down to us, containing long and somewdiat 
 uninteresting disquisitions in proof of a future life, 
 witli arguments drawn from the Pentateuch ^. 
 
 In the same class must be included an ' abridof- 
 
 1 Brit. Mus.Add. MS. 19656. (2); title J^ ^ j\S^^\ ^'cS' 
 ^lyo sJJl i_3l::>J di,jt^\j by ^_ »^X-j ^^ i__ft^aj rH'^^ 't-'-M-" 
 i^.5C-jJl u_a^o. The commentator Ibrahim mentioned above 
 quotes him iu proof of the reason why for a stolen ox fivefold, 
 for a lamb fourfold should be restored. Zeitschr. d. D. M. G. 
 XX. 569. 
 
 2 Bodl. MS. Hunt. 350. ( i) ; title .iUll ^\:S. 
 
141 
 
 ment of the Mosaic Law according to the Sama- 
 ritans,' by Abu-1-Farag Ibn Ishaq Ibn Kathar ^, a 
 work occupied in scholastic questions of the Kalam ; 
 everything according to it is to be decided by 
 means of logic applied to the Law. The author 
 knows the 613 precepts, 248 of which, equalling 
 the limbs in number, are positive in their character, 
 while the 365 corresponding to the days of the 
 solar year are prohibitory ; like the Rabbanites 
 he distinguishes between local and temporary com- 
 mands and such as are of universal application. 
 
 By one of the same family, in all probalnlity, 
 is the 'book of penitence,' a work in which are 
 collected together such passages of the Pentateuch 
 as relate to repentance and a reformation of morals, 
 with observations thereupon by the author himself 
 
 ^ Paris, Bihl. Nat. Ancien fonds, 5, Peiresc. His name is 
 ,lii ^\ j.s^' j^.l ^ji]\ y\ ^^>J1 ^_^--^ (not , 1:5^, see Zeitsclir. 
 d. D. M. G. xxii. 532-538, where will be found a quotation from 
 this or a similar work given by Ibi^ahim the commentator on 
 the meanings of niJO and yi3, PIDS and ]^3p ; his view is also men- 
 tioned as to the increase of the Israelites in Egypt and with 
 reference to Moses' staff. It is probable that he wrote a com- 
 mentary also). The ^^ (' word,' ' discourse,') was a dogmatic 
 or scholastic philosophy which originated among Mohammedans 
 in the second century of the Higra : so called either because it 
 first was occupied with questions with regard to the divine 
 ' word ' addressed to the prophets, or because it is equivalent to 
 mantiq or logic. Cf. Munk, Melanges de Philosophie Juive et 
 Arabe, p. 311 ; Guide des eyares, i. 335, note 2. 
 
142 
 
 and others of his coiuitrymen \ In the same MS. 
 are other works of miscellaneous character: one 
 treating of the nature of God and man and the 
 worship due to the former bj arguments drawn 
 from the Pentateuch, its authorship is ascribed to 
 the Sadaqa Ben Mang4 Ben Sadaqa mentioned 
 above ^: questions and answers, with interpreta- 
 tions of the Pentateuch ^ : and in the same work 
 allusion is made to the ' special enactments of the 
 holy Law ' by Muwaf][aq ad-Din al-Gahbadh *: the 
 list may be closed by the mention of a treatise 
 on the second exile by Ghazal Ibn ad-Duwaik, 
 followed by two homilies by Salih Ibn al-Marhum 
 Surur Ibn Sadaqa and by Abu Said '. 
 
 The liturgical remains of the Samaritans are 
 very extensive. They consist of prayers and 
 hymns arranged in twelve parts for use on 
 sabbaths and festivals throughout the year, and 
 
 ^ Amst. MS. xxvii. p. 304: ijjdl L^liS^by ^^1 ^^,^^1 
 
 - He is here named i^x^ ^^j jJl (jj^^ : Uni Abi Osaibi'a as- 
 signs two works to him, the ^Ui^"^! ^^, or ' book of faith,' 
 which may possibly be the present MS. (iJmj><. xxvii. p. 223), 
 and aj^Ji}\ j^jjJol ^jl::^ U-*— j J>-:w^:Jl ^^9 aJLLo, or 'treatise 
 on religion,' surnamed ' the treasure which concerns deliverance.' 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 297. 
 
 * Ibid. p. 3 10 s.^^ ^J^.JJ1 (Ji^* • ^i^t ^^^ ^ame as the ]\Iuwaffaq 
 ad-Din mentioned above, p. 139 : Juynboll, Comment, p. 60. 
 
 ^ Journ. Asiat. (1869), p. 458: aJ^jJl ^^^ &-^LiJl UUil 
 ebjjJl ^:» Jl^ ^^1 ,_iJlJ iLJUl. 
 
143 
 
 also for special occasions, sucli as circumcisions, 
 mairiages, and funerals. Several of the former 
 have been published by Heidenheim from the 
 lich stores of the British Museum : the following, 
 occurring at the end of the ' Litany of Marqah,' 
 may serve as a specimen. ' Lord, for the sake of 
 the three perfect ones, of Joseph the interpreter 
 of dreams, of Moses chief of the prophets, of the 
 priests, the masters of the priests, of the Thorah, 
 most sacred of books, of Mount Garizim, the 
 everlasting- hill, of the hosts of ano;els — destrov 
 
 O ' CD ^ 
 
 the enemy and foe, graciously receive our prayers, 
 Everlasting, grant us relief from these troubles, 
 open to us the treasure of heaven \' 
 
 The hymns of the Samaritans, their sole poetical 
 inheritance, are of little devotional or literary merit, 
 nor does there seem good reason for ascribing any 
 very great antiquity to them, however august and 
 remote may be the parentage assigned to them. 
 The earliest pieces, so we are informed, were sung 
 by the angels on the occasion of the completion 
 of the tabernacle and the death of Aaron, others 
 
 ^ Heidenheim, ii, 487. The British Museum possesses nineteen 
 volumes of prayers and hymns, besides the fragments of liturgies 
 from Damascus published by Geseuius in his ' Carmina Sama- 
 ritana,' and edited again by Kirchheim in the ' Karme Shomeron :' 
 three ' prayers of Moses and Joshua ' and five ' prayers of the 
 angels' (from the 'Defter') are printed in Petermann's Gram- 
 rnatica Samaritana (1873), p. 18 sq. 
 
144 
 
 are ascribed to Marqali and Amram Darl who 
 lived some time B.C., others again to Abisha in 
 the thirteenth century. The present Samaritans 
 have two collections, w^hich they call Durr4n 
 ('string of pearls') and Defter ('book'), the latter 
 comprising the former, the arrangement of which 
 they ascribe to the above-mentioned Amram Dari \ 
 The language in which they are written varies ; 
 some are in almost classical Hebrew, others in a 
 dialect resembling that of the Targum but with 
 peculiarities, containing an admixture of Arabisms 
 and Hebraisms : to some a translation in Arabic 
 tinged with Hebrew, Aramaean, and Samaritan is 
 appended. The metre also differs considerably ; 
 some stanzas are arranged in distichs, others in 
 tristichs, others again in tetrastichs ; some poems 
 are alphabetical, in others the verses rhyme ; the 
 rhythm also varies, that in use among both Arabs 
 and Syrians being employed. From the general 
 style of their composition and the fact that many 
 of the authors bear Arabic names it is most probable 
 that they were mostly written at a time subsequent 
 to the Mohammedan invasion, in some cases long 
 after it ^. 
 
 * Petermann in Herzog, xiii. 376. 
 
 ^ For instance, the metre employed in Marqah's Pasclial liymn 
 (Heidenlieim, iii. 96) does not seem to have been known before 
 the ninth century a.d. : see Geiger in Zeitschr. d. D. M. G. 
 xxii. 534. Some of the titles of the pieces published by Heiden- 
 
145 
 
 The Samaritans, following the example of the 
 ancient Jews, calculate their year by the lunar 
 months, and, in order to bring it into harmony 
 with the solar year and the revolution of the 
 seasons upon which their feasts depend, are ac- 
 customed each year to intercalate a thirteenth 
 lunar month. The arrangement of this, and also 
 the authoritative fixing of the exact moment at 
 which the new moon may be considered to have 
 appeared, upon which depended the festival at the 
 beginning of each month, were among the Jews 
 
 lieim may be of interest : e. g. (i. 279, 408) titles of the prayers 
 to be used throughout the year : one festival with two suppli- 
 catory hymns (i. 421) : dream of the priest Abischa (ii. 80), who 
 sees Moses on mount Garizim and is taken by him to visit 
 heaven and Eden: the prayer of Ab Gelugah (ii. 213) : pass- 
 over hymns of Phineas and Eleazar (iii. 94) : a passover hymn 
 (iii. 474) containing an invocation of the Holy Spirit : a prayer 
 of Marqah (iv. 237), and of Amram {ibid. 243) : three prayers 
 of Amvam (iv. 390), one ending with the Mohammedan sentence 
 'there is only one God:' a prayer {ibid. 545) in which are 
 described the order and ministry of the angels and the motions 
 of the twelve planets, these being likened to the twelve tribes of 
 Israel. There is a volume of prayers and hymns in the Paris 
 Bibl. Nat., numbered ancienfonds, 4, Peiresc, apparently of the 
 fifteenth century, and a liturgical MS. numbered Add. MS. 334, 
 in the Univ. Library, Cambridge, of which the title has been 
 kindly communicated to me by Mr. Bensly the Sub-Librarian. 
 
 It is ,-\^>^ .p I .myntJ'n /»2V .ni:?2N 1 .^y^ain .p^nn .intr 
 jroK I pa I inn^^Di | .ni,T .pv-i | ,nrh .D^Jprni | .D^jn^n. It is 
 dated A.H. ii85=a.d. 1771. 
 
 1 
 
146 
 
 left in the hands of the high-priest for the time 
 being, and formed, as we have seen before, a 
 fruitful source of dispute between the rival factions 
 of Pharisees and Sadducees \ Till long after the 
 captivity of Babylon it is probable that actual 
 observation and not calculation of the appearance 
 of the new moon was practised by the Jews^. 
 The Samaritans, as has been already remarked^, 
 claim to possess astronomical tables drawn up by 
 the great-grandson of Aaron himself, and every 
 six months the high-priest draws up a calendar 
 for the use of the congregation. Scaliger pub- 
 lished two such, and De Sacy has also edited one 
 with a translation "* : several more MSS. of the kind 
 have found their way to Europe, one written (a.h. 
 1164 = ) A.D. 1750, another commencing with 574 
 of the Jezdegird era ( = a.d. 1204), written (a.h. 
 1101=) A.D. 1689; a third, which calculates also 
 according to the Jezdegird era, dated (a. h. 1137 = ) 
 A.D. 1724^: St. Petersburg also possesses several 
 specimens ^. 
 
 In grammar and lexicography the Samaritans 
 have nothing of much value to shew. Possessed 
 of little learning themselves and living secluded 
 
 ^ See above, p. 38. 
 
 2 De Sacy, Not. et Extr. xii. p. 34. 
 
 3 See above, p. 125. " Op. cit. pp. 135, 153. 
 ^ See Journ. Asiat. (1869), pp. 467, 468. 
 
 ^ See below, App. i. 7. 
 
147 
 
 from their neighbours, enclosed in their limited 
 circle of ideas, they did not imitate the Jews in 
 taking advantage of any opportunity of self- 
 improvement which offered itself to them. The 
 latter, as soon as ever the system of vowel points 
 had been introduced among the Syrians and Arabs, 
 eagerly took it up and for centuries patiently toiled 
 at the work of improving and adapting it to 
 Hebrew ; then, dissatisfied with the results of 
 their labour in the Assyrian punctuation, threw 
 it over and took up the one now in use, the 
 Palestinian, in its place. Whatever fault may 
 be found with minute details of the system, 
 still the warmest thanks of scholars are due to 
 those who elaborated it with so much patience 
 and skill for having thus rendered Hebrew gram- 
 mar possible. The Samaritans attempted nothing 
 of the kind, but trusted entirely to tradition for 
 the pronunciation of their Hebrew Scriptures ; it 
 consequently must have deteriorated and become 
 more uncertain from age to age under the influence 
 of the living Aramaean and Arabic with which it 
 had to cope. Thus matters went on till the 
 tenth or eleventh century, when the literary 
 activity of the Arabs communicated itself at last 
 even to the sluggish spirit of the Samaritans, 
 and they set about enquiring into and settling 
 the laws of Hebrew grammar. But it was then 
 too late : the fatal bar of a corrupt and uncertain 
 I2 
 
148 
 
 pronunciation met them at the ontset and rendered 
 all their efforts fruitless \ 
 
 The truth of these remarks will be seen by an 
 examination of three grammatical treatises of 
 Samaritan authorship which have been published 
 from a MS. at Amsterdam I The first of the three ^ 
 is an extract made by the high-priest Eleazar, 
 the son of Phinehas the son of Joseph, probably 
 about 1400 A.D., from the second, a grammar* 
 l)y Abu Ishaq Ibrahim Ben Farag Ben Mariith, 
 surnamed Shams al-Hukamai, whose name has 
 already occurred above in connection with his 
 celebrated pupil Muhadhdhib ad-Din ; the third 
 is a tract by Abu Sa'id, probably the famous 
 commentator of that name, intended to correct 
 the faults of pronunciation prevalent in his time ^ 
 They are built entirely on the philological views of 
 Arabic grammarians, some sections, such as those 
 on transitive and intransitive verbs, being copied 
 word for word from their works, but the writers 
 have not proved themselves such apt scholars as 
 their Jewish brethren. From their want of a 
 system of punctuation, their varying orthography, 
 
 ' Cf. Geiger in ZeitscJir. d. D. M. G. xvii. 718. 
 
 2 By Noldekc in Gutting. Nachnchien (1862), pp. 337, 385. 
 
 3 iii^jJl i_>b:5~^ ^^-S'^^l : they are from the Amst. MS. xxvii. 
 mentioned above, pp. 1-220. 
 
 * Title 1^31^1 liJJ! j^^ J i^jjJl ^l:^ 
 '•> Title l^ill ^.^\y. 
 
149 
 
 and the complete or partial disappearance from 
 their language of sounds still written in Hebrew, 
 they are especially uncertain in the parts of 
 grammar concerned with these particulars ; the 
 arrangement also of the second of these tracts is 
 very unskilful, needlessly full in some parts, defec- 
 tive in others \ Old Samaritan blunders, which 
 had before been pointed out by Jewish opponents, 
 recur again in Abu Sa'id, as for instance the 
 mistaking of n local for a post-positive article ; 
 he also misunderstands the n of the Hiphil, taking 
 it for a strengthening particle. Transcriptions of 
 Hebrew words into Arabic, shewing the Samaritan 
 pronunciation of the eleventh century, will be found 
 in the anonymous commentary quoted above '^. 
 The commentator Ibrahim, who has been quoted 
 above, does not appear to have made any advance 
 beyond the views held by his countrymen, as far 
 as one may judge from the grammatical views 
 expressed in his work^. 
 
 ^ E. g. on account of the irregularities of npb a separate 
 chapter is devoted to verbs ^'a : in some cases the vowels are 
 expressed by letters as 'T'Dlti'n, but generally by the three 
 Arabic vowels which are naturally unsuited to express the 
 niceties of punctuation : a distinction is sometimes made be- 
 tween great (^ and 7) and little (-) fatha, that between long and 
 short vowels is generally overlooked, as also between full and 
 half- vowels. 2 g^^ a^joye, p. 134. 
 
 ^ See the extracts by Geiger in Zeitschr. d. D. M. G. xvii. 
 723-725- 
 
150 
 
 So much for the grammatical acquirements of 
 the Samaritans seven or eight centuries ago. 
 Their present system of pronunciation has been 
 made the subject of an elaborate enquiry by 
 Professor Petermann, who has transcribed the 
 whole book of Genesis after the manner in which 
 it is now read in the synagogue of Nablus, to- 
 gether with a Hebrew grammar embodying the 
 views of the present Samaritans on the subject \ 
 It is possible that in some points the system now 
 in vogue among them may be an improvement 
 upon that invented by the Masoreths^ but at 
 this period of time it is naturally more difficult 
 (or rather impossible) to decide even than in the 
 days of Abu Sa'id how much of the system is 
 due to genuine tradition and how much to Syrian 
 and Arabian influence ; the enquiry is consequently 
 not of much practical value ^. 
 
 In the matter of lexicography there is little 
 information to give. Of dictionaries proper none 
 have as yet come to light : at Paris there is a 
 concordance of forms occurring in the Scriptures 
 with the corresponding Arabic and Samaritan 
 word in parallel columns, and a similar one is 
 
 ' Published in Ahhandl. fur d. Kunde d. Morgenlandes 
 herausg. von d. D. M. G. (1868), Bd. v. Th. i. 
 
 ^ Cf. Noldeke in Gotting. Nachrichten (1868), p. 485 sq. 
 ^ Cf. Dereubourg in Cahen's Archives Israel, xvi. 532. 
 
151 
 
 preserved at Cambridge, in which however the 
 Samaritan equivalent is omitted \ 
 
 With this account of the hterature of. the Sama- 
 ritans my task is concluded. In the notes ac- 
 companying the foregoing sketch reference has 
 been made to all the important works I have met 
 with bearing on the subjects discussed, but I have 
 not thought it either necessary or desirable to 
 swell the volume by the mention of such literature 
 as has now been superseded by better works, which 
 
 ' Bihl. Nat., ancien fonds, 6, Peiresc, it is dated a.d. 1476 ; 
 the Bodleian MS., numbered Bodl. Or. 466, is a copy of it : the 
 Cambridge MS. is in the library of Christ's College : it is dated 
 (a.h. 1188 = ) A.D. 1774, its title is ^jL*j»y:Jl i_jL::3 and it was 
 arranged by the priest Phinehas. It is an independent com- 
 pilation, but nearly corresponds with the Paris MS. : e. g, in the 
 former are found ^^]3 CJT, |j-Jl-» D''3r, (^.Ju-U CiT; in the 
 latter n''JNT njIT, ^hii.ti D"'3r, T-DS nJT. See also below, App. I, v. 
 
 There is a very vague notice of the MSS. still preserved at 
 Nablus given by Lowe in the Allg. Ze.it. d. Judenthums, 1839, 
 No. 47 (see above, p. 41). In Mills' Nablus, p. 317, is to be 
 found a rough list drawn up by the priest Amram. He there 
 mentions, in addition to the works described in the text, (i) 
 commentaries {^j^) on the Law, in Hebrew with Arabic trans- 
 lations, by ]\Iarqah (termed ' El-Amir,' '^j^^\, N'T'DN'^N), Ibrahim 
 el Kaisi, Grhazal ibn ad-DuAvaik, Musalem el Murjam (^.a. Al 1), 
 Ghazal al Matri, El Hhabr (^il T) Ya'qub; (2) various 'orders' 
 (i_>^\j) of prayers in Hebrew for the various festivals; (3) 
 miscellaneous works, including one on marriage (_\Xljl ^i jls:^^), 
 and another on inheritance (cIjI^I l-jLi^ by Abu-1-Barakat ; an 
 explanation of the feasts entitled J-^1^1 jW*l i^^j by the 
 
152 
 
 were moreover written at a time when fuller in- 
 formation was obtainable than by preceding 
 authors ; references however to the earlier litera- 
 ture will be discovered by any one interested in 
 the subject by turning to the books quoted by me K 
 In the two appendices that follow will be found, 
 i. an interesting description of the Firkowitsch 
 Collection of Samaritan MSS., recently added to 
 the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, with which 
 I have been kindly supplied by Dr. Harkavy ; and 
 ii. a translation of the Massekheth Kuthim, an 
 important Talmudical tract written probably in 
 the second century a.d. 
 
 priest Eleazar, and a book of ' direction ' for the same, called 
 i\jjji\ ilL^, by^ Ibrahim el Abi; an anonymous history of the 
 Samaritans {■jj\J); and, lastly, a treatise on the astronomical 
 work 4-^— JJ, pi'Tin, which is described above (p. 125) as 
 attributed to Adam. 
 
 ^ See also the list iu Zenker, Bibl. Orient. (1861), ii. 149, 150. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 The Collection of Samaritan MSS. at St. Peterslmrff. 
 
 In the year 1870 the Russian Minister of Public Worship 
 purchased from the well-known Karaite traveller and 
 archaeolog-ist Abraham Firkowitsch his collection of Sama- 
 ritan MSS. for the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg-, 
 It consists almost exclusively of fragments, this circum- 
 stance arising from the fact that the collector during 
 his stay in Nablus and Egypt completely ransacked the 
 Samaritan Genizoth ^ (that is to say, the garrets and 
 cellars of the synagogues whither their worn-out books 
 were conveyed), thus acquiring several fragments of Sama- 
 ritan Pentateuch rolls — none of which have before this, to 
 
 * The word HT'^JJ in Hebrew is equivalent to the Sama- 
 ritan iT^JODD, as seems to be proved by an epigraph quoted 
 by Rosen (Zeitsch. d. D. M. G. 1864, p. 588); as however he 
 has misunderstood it, I give it here with a new translation: 
 
 niD^ojo^ nit^ cycrni n^v:)^) nixo ^'^n n^c ntJ'npn nninn mn 
 jn^n X33 .nm >dv bv t^x p mnt^o ]'\bii ^ba npbo) ij'n p 
 
 .D^"la^< N''D31 bll^n, that is to say, 'This Holy Law was a.h. 
 598 in the Matamra, in a chest : the Matamra caught fire, but 
 the Law was preserved from fire by passing out of it through 
 the window ; (|17X accordingly must not, with Rosen, be trans- 
 lated ' oak,' but be taken for \)br] , a various reading for the 
 same word in Gen. viii. 6) : this happened in the days of our 
 lord Baba the high-priest and prince of Abraham.' 
 
154 
 
 the writer's knowledge, ever readied Europe — about 6000 
 parchment and paper leaves from various Pentateuch 
 ]\ISS. written in the shape of books, several fragments 
 of commentaries on the Bible, liturgical, grammatical, 
 and lexicographical works, and lastly a number of mar- 
 riage-contracts. The writer of the present notice received 
 directions from the Minister to make a complete catalogue 
 of the collection, and the first portion of it is alread}' in 
 ])rint ; the MSS. shall now be briefly described in general 
 terms. 
 
 A collection such as the present could on account of its 
 fragmentary character hardly have claimed any particular 
 attention on the part of the learned world had it con- 
 tained another and better known literature. It is different 
 however when the literary remains of a people are con- 
 cerned whose existence, though an unimportant one, 
 extends over a historical past comprising thousands of 
 years, and who now are threatened with extinction ; a 
 people moreover whose inner life and intellectual activity, 
 though they were earlj'- developed, have hitherto remained 
 almost unknown. Every fragment accordingly, however 
 slight it may be, which belongs to the literature of such 
 a people has a value of its own, as being capable of giving 
 information on many points which interest the learned 
 world, especially too at a time when so great activity is 
 being displayed in the field of Semitic studies, and an 
 attempt made to follow the example of Aryan scholars by 
 enquiring more closely into separate peoples and stems, and 
 thus gradually to gain an idea of the whole Semitic race. 
 
 In describing the collection, the existing divisions have 
 been preserved ; the first accordingly will consist of — 
 
 i. Fragments belonging to twenty-seven parchment 
 Pentateuch rolls. None of this kind, as has been already 
 
155 
 
 remarked, have hitherto been discovered in any European 
 library, all the existing* ones being in the shape of books ; 
 the reason of this appears to be that the Samaritans hold 
 such rolls as especially sacred from their being- intended 
 for use in the synagogues, and so will part with them for 
 no sum, however large, to those of another faith. Accord- 
 ingly in 1811 the high-priest Salameh ben Tobiah made 
 answer as follows to the request received in a letter 
 from the well-known senator Abbe Gregoire, that he 
 would sell him two Pentateuchs ; ' As to your request that 
 we would send you the holy book of the Law, we could 
 only do so if ye were Samaritans like us, and had like us 
 observed the ordinances prescribed to you ^.' As however 
 the Samaritans had already frequently sold MSS. of the- 
 Pentateuch (for instance, to Pietro della Valle and Hunting*- 
 ton in the seventeenth century), this ' non possumus ' of the 
 high-priest must refer to rolls used in the synagogue. 
 
 Be this as it may, these fragments have been till now 
 the only ones known in Europe, and so they are of con- 
 siderable importance for explaining to us how the Sama- 
 ritans write their sacred Law for use in Divine worship. 
 Unfortunately, as might have been guessed from the place 
 where they were found, they are for the most part in very 
 bad condition ; and as Samaritan palaeography is not yet 
 in a condition to decide with certainty upon the age of an 
 undated MS., it is only such as contain dated epigraphs 
 whose age can be without doubt ascertained. Only six of 
 the fragments contain such notices, and only three of this 
 number have their dates perfect ; one (no. 4) was written 
 (a.h. 599 = ) 1202-3, another (no. 10) in (a.h. 605 = ) 
 
 ^ De Sacy, Not. et Extr. xii. 25, 105, 121. So Robinson, 
 Palestine (1867), iii. 130. 
 
156 
 
 i2o8-9, the third (no. 15) in (a.h. 808 = ) 1405: it is 
 however quite certain that several other fragments in the 
 collection belong to a much earlier age. 
 
 It is interesting to notice the way in which the Sama- 
 ritans insert these epigraphs in their Pentateuchs. For 
 this purpose the column of text in the roll or page of 
 the book is divided down the middle by two perpendicular 
 lines, the interval between the lines being left vacant, 
 except for the insertion of such letters from the text as 
 serve the writer to compose the epigraph. For instance, 
 the first word in general will be "'JN, or nj>?, signifying 
 ' I : ' the writer will wait till an J< presents itself in or near 
 the middle of a line of text, he sets this in the space intei'- 
 vening between the two lines and goes on with his writing 
 till he reaches a 2 in the middle of a line, this he sets in 
 the same space, doing the like with "^ or Tl, and so on to 
 the end of the epigraph, which is thus made to extend 
 over several columns or pages without a single letter being 
 added to the text of the Pentateuch, Avhich thus itself, so 
 to speak, supplies the materials for a memorial both of 
 the writer and of the person who ordered the MS. to be 
 written. ****** 
 
 Among the fragments of about 300 Pentateuch MSS. 
 written on parchment or paper are to be found the oldest 
 Samaritan MSS. known in Europe, viz. of a.h. 571 and 
 577, corresponding to 1176-7 and 1181-2; the dated 
 ones however are not by any means the oldest, and it may 
 without exaggeration be asserted, if one may judge from 
 the writing and appearance of the MSS., that some go 
 back to the eleventh or tenth century, if not even further. 
 The collection offers the richest spoil for Samaritan palaeo- 
 graphy which is to be met with, not in Europe only, but 
 throughout the world, Firkowitsch having completely 
 
157 
 
 stripped the only archives belonging- to the j)eople, the 
 above-mentioned Genizoth ^. 
 
 ii. The collection contains also many fragments of the 
 Samaritan- Arabic translation, as well as of the Samaritan 
 
 ^ The only.palaeographical note known to me in Samaritan 
 literature is an epigraph at the end of a Bodleian MS. {Hunt. 
 24), which reads thus, ojJLll ij-is*^ kib ^jL^jJl >— ij^a- xJus. 
 j'a'N ^— »;-» j^p^^cj f^\ , &c. : then follows the usual alphabet, 
 called by Gesenius {lion. Phoen. tab. 3) 'letters of the MSS. ;' 
 by JuyuboU {Book 0/ Joshua) 'larger letters.' (j"-^ ^ must 
 be taken in the sense of ' official,' or ' settled,' ' abiding,' so 
 'square' writing. ^:J\ ^_p^Jl Wi-b ^\;-^^ '—^3r^ '-^^ "'^J 
 1'3'2'x 1—9/^ ^^^..gj, &c. : (here follow the characters called 
 by Gesenius the 'Gotha' letters, by Juynboll 'ordinary.' Li* 
 j_^fiJaJI I take in the sense of iy~\D as used in the Bab. Baha Kama, 
 f. 98, and explained in tlie Aruch, 'erased,' 'unclear' writing: 
 according to Arabic lexicons ^j.^ signifies to renovate faint 
 writing). There is also an allusion to Samaritan writing in an 
 epigraph inserted at the beginning of Deuteronomy in the Bodl. 
 MS. Pococke, 5 : Tl^nS n'Cr\ p n^3U -12 Tl^ip 3N p nj? 3N DJK 
 
 IN n''3t^D'i miDni nmnai n-i''p^i nji^nx!? nn::"'np nmniN mn 
 nnx Ti^^^i r\^^v^ ncc^ia nooii ns* na nin'' nny n'^it^'D na ny 
 n3n3 pi-iN .: ''i^d x^ni ^ycc'^^ .p .n .31 .x n^c^ njnn nT3 
 jDN D^J3 ^J3i D^in^ ns^ND n^^o^ n^^iCNi p hv ni,T ns* miK 
 
 JDN. The words nC'yD n?2t^n3 may mean 'tasteful,' 'beautiful' 
 writing, or may signify a particular style. I have fully ex- 
 plained the expression |"I1"IN .J ^1^J3 N^■^1 and the like in my 
 catalogue, pp. 49, 50. I forgot to mention in the text that our 
 Pentateuch fragments are also of gi-eat value for the Samaritan 
 text, as, quite by chance and without searching for them, I have 
 discovered a great number of variations from the Samaritan 
 text of the Polyglotts which are also unmarked by Kennicott. 
 Many of these I mention iu my catalogue, the rest I keep 
 for a special work. 
 
158 
 
 Targum, with the restoration of which the learned are now 
 so much occupied; for instance, Petermann and Geiger in 
 Berlin, Kohn in Pesth, Briill in Frankfurt- am-Main, &c.^ 
 
 iii. Another division contains smaller or greater portions 
 of several commentaries on the Pentateuch. These are 
 
 ^ I add in this place a collation of some passages in the 
 Targum edited by Mr. Nutt with a fi-aginent to which I have 
 not yet given a number, and which I accordingly designate by 
 the provisional number put on it by Firkowitsch, ii. 29. 
 
 
 
 Nutt. 
 
 F. ii. 29. 
 
 S^um 
 
 xxviii. 9. 
 
 D^D3 nniJ^b 
 
 : nD^D3 nmD 
 
 
 
 V3DJ1 
 
 : .131031 
 
 
 10 
 
 nmc^a naiB' 
 
 : nn3t^•3 nn[3C'] 
 
 
 
 pn'3D:i 
 
 }in^3iD:i 
 
 
 II 
 
 ^c^x-im 
 
 ^Bnai 
 
 
 
 |nn?:N 
 
 plDN 
 
 
 12 
 
 D^D3 (twice) 
 
 : no^on 
 
 
 
 nn '\£h 
 
 mns nnsl? 
 
 
 
 m n^ib 
 
 mnN nn:)i^ 
 
 
 13 
 
 D^oa 
 
 nD^D3 
 
 
 
 m -\ni2i6 
 
 mnN m^n!? 
 
 
 14 
 
 pn^^DJi 
 
 p,T31D31 
 
 
 
 nj>K 
 
 nrn 
 
 
 
 nn ns^ 
 
 mns' niD^ 
 
 
 
 niymi nan^ nya 
 
 niyani nian^ nyn 
 
 
 
 nn -\r\i2i6 r\yii 
 
 mnN mcs^ nrn 
 
 
 
 nnimna 
 
 nnnnn 
 
 
 15- 
 
 Dy J 
 
 ^y 
 
 
 
 pn^3D3i J 
 
 |in^31D31 
 
 
 16. 
 
 noy nynsn 
 
 nDyn-iN3 
 
 
 17- 
 
 pn : 
 
 pnn 
 
 
 
 Here is a lacuna. 
 
 
 24. 
 
 mm : 
 
 niyn 
 
159 
 
 of the greatest importance for a knowledg-e of the relig-ious 
 and moral views of the Samaritans, their relations with 
 those of another creed, and their theory of the universe ; 
 these also possess especial value in the general dearth of 
 their literature as frequently citing fragments of ancient 
 theological, philosophical, poetical, and other works ^. 
 
 Num. xxviii. 24 
 
 Iin>3D:i : n.TJiD:i 
 
 25- 
 
 ]vbsi 
 
 jni?D 
 
 26. 
 
 iy^3 
 
 jn^a 
 
 27. 
 
 nini 
 
 : niyn 
 
 
 p-li-lDN 
 
 plttN 
 
 28. 
 
 m -ish 
 
 mnN niDi? 
 
 
 m -)3n^ 
 
 mnx mm^ 
 
 29. 
 
 m -\nj2i6 
 
 mnN moN^ 
 
 
 nnnt3N 
 
 nn?2x 
 
 31- 
 
 pn^DDJi 
 
 prf^iDJi 
 
 xxix. 1. 
 
 jy^a 
 
 in^s 
 
 xxxi. 51. 
 
 12)]) ■ 
 
 naiyn 
 
 52. 
 
 i-p-. 
 
 p^pno ?] 
 
 54- 
 
 in^Ni 
 
 i^yNi 
 
 xxxii. I, 
 
 •<:d p:pi 
 
 ^:iD |N^jpi 
 
 
 rp 
 
 |N>3P 
 
 2. 
 
 ^n*DjS 
 
 ^N^Djh 
 
 3- 
 
 lyni 
 
 lym 
 
 4- 
 
 PP 
 
 IN^jp 
 
 5- 
 
 (O^(i'pn)K'N 
 
 njHDnt^'x 
 
 
 pnayn 
 
 i3J-i3i?n 
 
 6. 
 
 ])bv^'' \\ynt< 
 
 p^ir^ pa^nx NH 
 
 7- 
 
 -i3y 
 
 ■laycT 
 
 8. 
 
 j[i:3]N 
 
 pna 
 
 9- 
 
 n^Nan 
 
 n^N 
 
 ' Especially 
 
 nteresting are the quotations from earlier 
 
 writings or poetical productions in 
 
 the Aramaic dialect. I 
 
160 
 
 iv. To the same class belong fragments of Samaritan 
 law-books ; these are very rarely to be found in Europe ^. 
 
 quote some passages from MS. F. iii. 2, a fragment of a Mid- 
 rash-like commentary on the Pentateuch : 
 
 (r) JJl ^ n:: »jJj jl np-\io J\ ^j...:\\ Jy.!l dJi x>j.>^ 
 njoN D^n^Ni n^m nna inai inn "pyp^^o p^^3 Jyb il U^j^ 
 pryo pNi inai inn ^d ui? n^c'o nin r^n jsna njo I'^ni 
 
 . f\S~iU pryD. Marqa and his son Nana were, as is well known, 
 the earliest writers of hymns among the Samaritans. The first 
 word p''''3 is doubtful, can it be for p:N3 1 The remainder is 
 plain enough. 
 
 (2) r^ps^: nn^D nin (npnto Jy ^^u) iJj5 dUi Jlc Jaj L« 
 ni6v rhbn u^ nnmi ncypi n'-n" n^^^on n?:2o h::np pyco 
 130 npD:i nn:^•N ub n^jyi ny^n ny-ini n'^i n^bn )ib nnmi 
 
 .^nip^n n^i^n p U^ nny^l naC'n. A person might say he had 
 a bit of the Sohar before him. The phrase n''Dl HD^n is im- 
 jjortant for the interpretation of 1JD''!?n3 in the Samaritan Tar- 
 gum (Gen. xli. 2), as it shews that the latter word is no mere 
 copy of the Hebrew ^HXZl as many people supposed. Moreover 
 Petermann in his edition has not the word in question. 
 
 (3) u_aJuJl (^ x^ jl npnn Jl [sic] L_>j— >-iJ U» dJi Jo^ U.*j 
 ^yiJ Jyb il nnn nana i^nN J_ji j ^^^Jlc 5.UI ^^1^^ ^^y-^Jl 
 nnpyn nnn^ n^j2 n\^ nc^n i^y nnnD nmnijNi nctr »j^ JJl 
 
 . DpJ DV ^y nyp n^n2) N-13 D'^n^X ******: have also col- 
 lected fragments of philosophical works written in the Samaritan 
 dialect, the publication of which I reserve for myself 
 
 ^ Among the law-books are some fragments written in Arabic, 
 but in Samaritan characters, e. g. F. iv. 18 ; here is a specimen : 
 
 ♦ NDna p^jyn^ ndi ivi^ni n\nDn^s axn ♦ 
 -iKj^Ni No^s*2 pDDpa N:n3y \ni djj^n n^Nrx snwyo nnNnD^s' 
 ■>^-lL:n^N nr ^nba nxnoi?N jn J^llj NomnNa j'nn^ nd xnja 
 ND1 ji^n^s' xni inj^N ND1 -ina^K n»i ndd^n no nno am 
 Ty nnoDi inxD nxDps ny[2]iN ^^y nN^Di^Ni py^N ndi n^a^N 
 
161 
 
 V. The fifth division contains fragments of grammatical 
 works and of Hebrew-Arabic dictionaries, or Tardesche- 
 man's (Interpreters), as they are termed by Samaritans 
 and Arabs. These last are of so much greater importance, 
 because in the only example of such a dictionary hitherto 
 known to exist ^, that preserved in Paris ^, three letters 
 at the commencement {H, 2, and half J) are missing, 
 and now fortunately may be supplied from the present 
 fragments ^. * * * * * * 
 
 hdnj: .ts nijn n^s ini d:: s*ni mnsDl^x N''•t^'s•^s* p no^xn 
 n-insD^N nxopsi ^> •■•.■■• ^ nn^pn noxji^x ••^y jCdt '•n^x ini 
 HTnt^n DT^'' xtD nxixDD^x pD n^noi no'-a^i nv^nn nnx^n 
 :DpQ mnxn q6^ xd xnjni jxnjnxn dt^^ xo xn^ci nnx^n^xa 
 ixnjnxa n^xi n:»"'n-) ynr nn^:^! n^''^ np ^nro mnxD or!'"' n^xs 
 n» NDD ^no nx^n^xa nbxi nTni nyivn ^no &c. 
 
 ^ [But see above, p. 151. J. W. N.] 
 2 [See above, p. 151. J. W. K] 
 
 ^ These dictionaries are termed in Samaritan pPD, in Arabic 
 ,\ at-i' : there are six fragments in the collection ; viz. 
 (i) F. V. 7 ; 21 leaves, from •]"'ax to '<b:i. 
 
 (2) F. V. 7 ; 2 leaves, from D\li?X to 13"iX. 
 
 (3) F. V. 8 ; 46 leaves, from nx to acy. 
 
 (4) F, V. 9 ; 33 leaves, from V'^^nn to ntri. 
 
 (5) F. V. 10 ; I leaf, from "[UX to ""JIX. 
 
 (6) F. V. 10 ; 2 leaves, from 5:^23 to TV]}- 
 
 The only copy which has the beginning perfect has the fol- 
 lowing inscription on the title-page : (.^^aMJl ijU-ayJl JJI *.-.^ 
 jj*^r^ i_yi C>-4^ LiJwy*. I— iJlj ^j-» p?D t_>l:o [sic] \xa 
 
 Jl [■?] (^jJJ »_-^yj«j' dJ^j ^^1 cr°^ '^-^^ S*^- cr^^j-^ ly^- b^j 
 
162 
 
 vi. In this class are works containing- historical matter, 
 not only the already edited Book of Joshua and Annals of 
 Abulfath, but such as have never yet appeared ; for instance, 
 fabulous tales of the birth and death of Moses i. 
 
 vii. To this division belong- several astronomical works, 
 some entire, some imperfect. These are unique of their 
 kind, for as far as the present writer knows, no public 
 library in Europe has any such to shew^; from them 
 alone however can we discover how the Samaritans reckon 
 their time, arrange their feast-days, &c. Two eras are 
 employed by them, one dating from the entry of the 
 Israelites into Canaan, and the other from the Persian 
 king Jezdeg-ird : two more are also used, most frequently 
 the Mohammedan, and, much less often in epigraphs, the 
 Creation of the AVorld ; as for instance in the epigraph of 
 the Pentateuch numbered Add. MS. 22369 in the British 
 
 At the end of ?13 is the following epigraph : 
 
 ^^j->.,MH^j K^sU-j (so) cia.;^ ^U jSuo j^ a djLll &jtj(j"!!l ^L^ 
 
 (♦-'' i^-^^ c^-=^'j i*-*-^ cA C"^' ^Hl-^yj '^ <J^^ ^^ j^ C^-^ 
 
 From the first epigraph we see that the autlior of tlie Meliz 
 was called Phinehas, but this gives us no information as to 
 the date of its composition, as there have been very many 
 Samaritan high-priests of this name. I reserve to myself 
 the supi)l}ing of full information with regard to these fragments 
 and the Paris MS. 
 
 ^ [See above, p. 132. J. "W. N.] 
 
 ^ [For similar works, see above, p. 146. J. W. N.] 
 
163 
 
 Museum. Calendars also for a single year, giving the por- 
 tions which are to be read each Sabbath from the books of 
 Moses, are to be found in the collection ^. 
 
 viii. This part consists of very varied fragments which 
 have not yet been carefully examined, but it may be 
 mentioned that it contains a good deal relating to medi- 
 
 ^ [See above, p. 75. J. W. N.] The epigraph in Brit. Mus. 
 Add. MS. 22369 is written in after the manner described above 
 in p. 156. As this is almost the only instance, as far as I know, 
 in which the three eras are put together, I give the jDassage. It 
 commences at Deut. xv, and runs thus : "iJlN "13 Dn"i3X ''3N 
 
 >nin3 mnan n-ijn p^y ^n^< p mon ns» p nyoN ^as* -a jy^'j 
 D^D^K n:^^^' T\y^ n\i Wv^u' mij^cD^ njjr nixo ynm D>:rc'i 
 .nin'' riN nis* nhii nxnai' mc* n^jot^^i D'j::'i nixo yac^i. In 
 
 the astronomical tables the eras mentioned are 3u'1?D? "ipyn ^^E> 
 |y33 pS ^N"i:r'' ^J3 and ^-\T[vb -\\>V^ "•r^. The tables themselves 
 are called in the epigraph n^yn 3ti'ncn (as at the beginning of 
 Neubauer's chronicle) : single technical expressions are D''!71JD ; 
 
 D^m; niyn; nn^nc^; n^?n, mpn; n^jc^, nwt^; D^aaiti'; 
 niJ3 ; nipnv aipD, pn^*n DipD, pnvcn DipD ; (or n^^n "jin) nn^n 
 D^c'nnni (or ninD:m) mynjni m^-apn ^-l^^ m^iJD; nii^ijo n^^n 
 mycni o^o^n n^n; D''t^'■^^^1 myojni nivnpn pjnn k'ni ni^^n; 
 niyD'ni onon p;nn c'xi nn^n ; nns' pr m^ b nc^D^-^ mnr pen 
 pi^n : D p DV^n : n npim?:) nanpoi ; p r^u'o^i nj3'^m nnc^ 
 
 c^n jD nt^D ityo nrij' ic'y yen ^ai nn"'t: j?o mnn; ddhd 
 }nn 13^ pD'pNi pJs* nni n-inr ^:b .^pn noD ^D^^ nyjn i?:^: ^pn 
 -iioyi 3^31 ; pn nnsn nnntr^ n:^3n i^ji?: ^T *<in *i»t2VN' nni 
 
 no"! riMn J1pri2 N"12. The names of the twelve signs of the 
 zodiac are aC'a; nitJ'; NTia ; pL5"iD; n^N; n^lK'; |riO; mpy; 
 nt^'p ; ""nil ; v"t ; pJn ; partly, it will be observed, Hebrew, and 
 partly Arabic. 
 
 m 2 
 
164 
 
 cine, though it is doubtful whether all belongs to Sama- 
 ritan authors. Some fragments of historical works have 
 also found their way by mistake into this division. 
 
 ix. In this are contained, according to a rough list 
 made of them, fragments of 276 MSS. of a liturgical 
 character, written on 6300 leaves, partly composed in 
 Arabic also. The knowledge of Aramaic idioms in general, 
 and of the Samaritan dialect in particular, gained from 
 the small collection of hymns published by Gesenius 
 and Heidenheim, makes one long to see the whole cycle 
 of Samaritan hymns and prayers in print, at all events 
 such as are composed in Aramaean; then only, when 
 this is done, will it be possible to bring out a Samaritan 
 dietionaiy worthy of the name. The said cycle consists of 
 at least twelve quarto volumes, of which the twelfth is 
 contained in Add. MS. 19019 belonging to the British 
 Museum; should the various parts which are now dis- 
 persed among all the libraries of Europe — Rome, Paris, 
 London, Oxford;, Berlin, Gotha — ever be united, still it will 
 never be possible from them to make up (auftreiben) a per- 
 fect copy. By means however of the vast number of 
 fragments belonging to the St. Petersburg collection one 
 may hope to fill up these lacunae, and so make an edition 
 of the whole cycle possible ; though this cannot be decided 
 with certainty till these fragments have been more care- 
 fully examined and collated with those of other European 
 libraries ^. 
 
 ^ A very imperfect idea will be gained of the liturgical 
 hymnology of the Samaritans from a study only of the speci- 
 mens published by Gesenius, Heidenheim, and quite lately by 
 Petermann. Some that have never been edited are far from 
 heavy, and not without a certain poetical vigour. The following 
 is from Cod. Firkowitsch, iii. 3 : 
 
165 
 
 X. The last section contains twenty-two documents in 
 Arabic relating to civil matters, and ranging" from the 
 seventeenth to the nineteenth century, about seventy con- 
 tracts of marriage, and six amulets. As regards the con- 
 tracts, none had hitherto been discovered older than the 
 seventeenth century, and Firkowitsch in a memorandum 
 
 These are a few lines from the eighth part of the Samaritan 
 liturgy [Berlin, Coll. Petermann, No. 7) : 
 
 mnn p)v^b : ^ni3 ^^dd b inc^ ^y 
 
 ni^n np^n nx : na^ |^ nons 
 
 m^aoo nn^o lyoK'i : nry innsxi ixp^riN 
 
 mt'n np^n i^y : nryn myma D31 
 
 NDun -iintDn •'nara : nnsn -idti ma^n np^n 
 
 nn ^i? nxDT 2\^v' : njx nn^n mtiri npbn 
 
 "lonn Dvn "liN : "iroTi ma^n npbn 
 n^ ^xi? c*^ pNi : njn ^jn D^yc^nn 
 
 i^D3 ^JD Q^yt^-in : i^m ifo^n ni^n npi^n 
 
 •'K'sn bv i^"^?" IT^fn J ''t^^n i6) "inTi mc'n np^n 
 
 n*" bab ty^ p^*^ * ^^'^ ^^ '^^ pmnxi 
 
 N'e'jo ^Jiy ^nj : nc'SJ ^y n»^n mt:>n npi'n 
 
 ^^> ^N^ c'^ pNi : nc'npn minn ^jo p^mnx 
 
 hD3 Dvn ^nnro : b)prt ai^^n mt^'n np^n 
 
 "•^js* noTii : '•ann mcj'n npi'n 
 n^ ^N^ B'^ psi : ^32^ ^JNi^ p b 
 
 I hope very soon to publish a good deal of similar matter in 
 a separate work. 
 
166 
 
 attached to the collection asserted that the Samaritans had 
 none till this time, when they learnt from a Karaite 
 traveller how to compose them. This is however a 
 mistake, as the present writer not long ago published 
 one dated (a.h. 916=) 1510-11, which was found by 
 him among" the fragments of a Pentateuch belonging to 
 the collection ^ Before this nothing had been brought 
 out but two badly copied specimens by Wilson 2. The 
 whole number should however be edited, first because 
 each begins with a solemn hymn specially composed for 
 the occasion, which accordingly offers a new Samaritan text ; 
 and secondly, because the names of persons and families 
 are of special interest, and present rich materials for a 
 Semitic Onomasticon ^. 
 
 ' In Hanieliz, 1873, no. 8, pp. 62, 63. 
 
 ^ The Lcmds of the Bible (1847), ii. 689-695. 
 
 ^ I here communicate some personal names from contracts of 
 marriage. The appended numbers betoken the years (a.h.) when 
 the documents were written. Of women's names the following are 
 of interest: HID^'N (1068, 1103, 1134, 1181), mV^N (1209, pro- 
 bably identical with the foregoing), |NnnVN (1132), nann (1148, 
 1 158, 1 191, 1202, 1 2 16), rvi'iri (? with the article, 1181), niHT 
 
 ('moon,' 1181), mi:n(ii7o), n^ji^n (1142), .1303(1134), nnnsD 
 (1149), nmns (iri8, 1148, 1218), nano (1177), n-iDi» (1180), 
 ■ji^o (1084), NniJ (ii4-)> 'i-ia (1242), r\\)>-\^ (1161, 1164, 1175, 
 
 1 194), pv (1220, 1268), .n^^V (1198, probably the same as the 
 foregoing), nsv (1158), nn2n (II 18), TSB'n nan (' very beauti- 
 ful,' 1 1 18), pnni (916, iioi, 1 154), nn (noi), mNy> (1203, 
 
 1234), mc> (1165, both probably identical with Tr\'^), rh^ 
 
 (121 1), nnib*ki> (1244), r\rh^ (1124, 1143, 1146, &c.), n'ob^ 
 (1146, 1209), niDK' (1191), non (1223), no'^on (1244), nQun 
 
 (1149, 1 168), nsi:n (121 1, probably the same). 
 
 Of men's names I will mention — mnt (1149, 11 68, also a 
 
167 
 
 The collection contains also the following objects: (i) a 
 case for a Pentateuch-roll made of brass plates and adorned 
 with a variety of figures, Samaritan and Arabic proverbs ; 
 (2) the capital of a column found on Garizim, taken possibly 
 from the old Samaritan temple there ; (3) the stone tablet 
 from the Samaritan synagogue at Nablus, on which are 
 inscribed several verses of the Pentateuch for liturgical 
 purposes, as described by Dr. Rosen and Prof Rodiger ^. 
 
 Dr. a. Harkavy. 
 
 woman's name), v\)m'n i'SyOtf'^ ("80), mn^ 12]} (1103, 11 16, 
 1 191, &c., probably in imitation of the Arabic 5JJI ■X^^-c-), 
 |00n 12V (iioi, 1209, probably the same as miDDn), nJIJn *iny 
 
 (i 142, 1 190, &c.), T'C'yn nny (i 191, 1248), nnsn nny (i 168, 1 244), 
 
 mtJ* (1273), ni?t^ (1209, 12 1 1, &c., also a woman's name). 
 
 The family names most frequently occurring are nriDH (also 
 
 written nnsiJi), nnOTH or nn»"nn (also nncny), nm^ (not the 
 
 patriarch), "lUO, n''m», nSV: once occur msv (1158), '•xnaiV 
 (11 18), .TDnn (1244), &c. The expression pxn ''jna pi is twice 
 (1068, 1084) used; can it mean 'priests of the altar]' Com- 
 pare also the family names mentioned in Neubauer's chronicle. 
 There is a specimen of a letter of divorce to be found in Brit. 
 Mus. Add. MS. 19956, f. 96. 
 
 [In the Cambridge dictionary described above, p. 151, is a 
 marriage contract, dated a.h. 1188, between ^J^ ^\js- ^\ j^j^ 
 (jizil .5^ dwelling at Joppa, and the daughter of ^^.\ *— a--^ 
 (j: Jail J 5^ jjjl sjji-«J of Nablus. 
 
 In a later account Dr. Harkavy draws attention to some more 
 peculiarities of Samaritan Pentateuchs. In Exodus ii, where 
 the birth of Moses is related, the following epigraph is inserted : 
 7\2'h I^TIS nni rxohv VaiD 'Hail to the 'Almah (Jungfrau) and 
 to her offspring !' Exodus xiv or xv generally has the title mn"' 
 n^nip ^yVi: ' The Lord is Victor in fights.' J. W. N.] 
 
 1 Zeitschr. d. B. M. G. xiv. 622-634. 
 
APPENDIX 11. 
 
 The Massekheih Kuthhn^ or Tract on the Samaritans'^. 
 
 i. As to the usages of the Kuthim, in some they re- 
 semble heathens, in some Israelites, but in most of them 
 Israelites. We do not accept from man or woman among 
 them who has been afflicted with an issue or from their 
 women after childbirth offerings of doves or pigeons 2, nor 
 sin-offering, nor trespass-offering, but we receive from 
 them vows and free-will offerings : we do not suffer them 
 to acquire immovable property ^, nor do we sell them 
 sheep for shearing*, nor crops to cut, nor timber still 
 standing^, but we let them have cattle for killing. We 
 do not sell them large cattle though wounded, nor foals, 
 nor calves *^, but we let them have cattle that are wounded 
 
 ^ I have mostly followed the text of the Massekheth Kuthim 
 as amended by Kirchheim, but many important variations are 
 to be found in the Mishnah, Tosifta, and the two Talmuds, for 
 which the reader is referred to Kirchheim's elaborate notes. 
 
 ^ Lev. XV. 14, 29. 
 
 ^ Because they might sell it to heathens : 23nri N? (Deut. vii. 2, 
 ' Thou shalt not shew mercy upon them ') was read by the Eabbis 
 DJnri 'Thou shalt not settle them :' Bah. ' Ahoda Zara, 20a. 
 
 * They might sell it to heathens, and so the first of the fleece 
 (Deut. xviii. 4) might not be given to the priests; so with 
 regard to crops also. 
 
 ® Lest they might have a claim upon the ground ; Bah. ^ Ahoda 
 Zara, 20 b. 
 
 ® As they might sell or lend them to heathens, and the 
 provisions of Exod. xxii. 9 sq. not be observed. 
 
169 
 
 beyond the possibility of a cure. We sell them no weapons 
 nor anything- which could damage persons : we neither 
 give nor take wives from them, but we give and borrow 
 on usury with them : we let them have the gleanings, and 
 that which is forgotten, and the corners of our fields ^ ; and 
 they too have the same custom with regard to that which 
 is forgotten and the corners of their fields, and are to be 
 relied upon to carry out all these practices in their proper 
 time and the tithe for the poor in its year ^ ; the fruit of 
 their trees is held for untithed, as that of heathens, and their 
 instrumentality in the ' Erubh ' is as if done by heathens ". 
 A daughter of Israel may not deliver a Samaritan woman 
 nor suckle her son^, but a Samaritan woman may perform 
 these offices for a daughter of Israel in her (the Israehte's) 
 house ; an Israelite may circumcise a Samaritan, and a Sama- 
 ritan an Israelite, though R. Jehuda says a Samaritan 
 should not do so, for he circumcises in honour of mount 
 Garizim. We may stand a beast in the stable of a Sama- 
 ritan or hire a Samaritan to follow and tend our cattle ^, or 
 give a son in the charge of a Samaritan to teach him a trade : 
 we associate and converse with them everywhere, as is not 
 the case with heathens. A Samaritan suffers the halisah 
 from his sister-in-law ^ and gives a letter of divorce to his 
 wife : he may be trusted to bring such from beyond the 
 sea to an Israelite. The following are things we do not 
 sell to them, — that which has died of itself, what has been 
 torn, abominations, reptiles, the abortion of an animal. 
 
 Lev. xxiii. 22 ; Deut. xxiv. 19. 
 
 Every third year; Deut. xxvi. 12. 
 
 See above, p. 34, note 3. 
 
 As she might be rearing the child for idolatry. 
 
 Exod. xxii. 19. '^ Deut. xxv. 9. 
 
170 
 
 oil into which a mouse has fallen, an animal that is 
 mortally ill, and a foetus, (though these last two are eaten 
 by Israelites,) because in so doing- we should be leading* 
 into error. And as we do not sell such things to them, 
 so neither do we buy them from them, as it is written, 
 ' For thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God^;' in- 
 asmuch as thou art holy, thou shalt not make another 
 people more holy than thyself. A Samaritan may be 
 trusted to say whether there is or is not a sepulchre [in 
 a field], or of an animal whether it is first-born or not, 
 of a tree whether it is four years old or still impure, and 
 also is credible with regard to grave-stones, but not with 
 regard to spreading* trees ^ nor stones projecting from walls, 
 nor with regard to the land of the Gentiles'^, nor to a 
 field in which a sepulchre has been ploughed up, inasmuch 
 as in these things their belief is open to suspicion. In 
 fine, they are not to be trusted in a matter in which their 
 belief is open to suspicion. 
 
 ii. We do not buy meat from a Samaritan butcher except 
 such as he himself eats, nor strings of birds unless he has 
 first put them into his mouth ; it is not enough that he 
 offer them to an Israelite, as before now they have been 
 
 ' Deut. xiv. 21. 
 
 - They can be trusted with regard to grave-stones, as these 
 are distinctly marked : not with regard to a spreading tree or 
 a stone projecting from a wall, under which a dead body might 
 have been buried ; these would be considered by the Eabbis as 
 a tent, and cause pollution to any one sitting below. The Sama- 
 ritans are not of this opinion, and so their testimony would not 
 be received, as they would naturally be careless in the matter. 
 
 ^ Probably because the Jews would hold it for unclean, which 
 the Samaritans would not do. 
 
171 
 
 suspected of giving- us to eat what had died of itself. A 
 Samaritan and Israelite are on the same footing with 
 reo-ard to all damages mentioned in the Law : an Israelite 
 who kills a Samaritan, or a Samaritan who kills an Israelite, 
 goes into exile ^ if he have done it unwittingly ; if of set 
 purpose^ he suffers death : if the ox of an Israelite gores 
 the ox of a Samaritan the master escapes free, but if the ox 
 of a Samaritan gores one belonging to an Israelite, should 
 it be the first offence, half the damage is paid; should 
 warning before have been given, the whole ^ : R. Meir says 
 that if the ox of a Samaritan gores one belonging to an 
 Israelite, whether for the first time or not, the whole 
 damage must be paid, and as if the animal had been of 
 the best. The cheese of Samaritans is allowed : R. Simeon 
 Ben Eleazar says that of householders only, while that 
 of dealers is forbidden : their pots and presses are for- 
 bidden, because they make wine and vinegar with them. 
 The priests of Israel may share with the Samaritan priests 
 in Samaria, inasmuch as they are, as it were, thus rescuing 
 their property from their hand, but not in the land of 
 Israel, in order not to establish their claim to the priest- 
 hood : a Samaritan priest while unclean may give what he 
 is eating to an Israelite, but not if he be clean ^. We buy 
 no bread from a Samaritan baker at the end of the Pass- 
 over until after three bakings, nor from householders till 
 three Sabbaths are past, nor from villagers till it has been 
 made three times '^. When is this to be observed ? When 
 
 1 To the city of refuge; Numb. xxxv. 25 sq. ^ Exod. xxi. 36. 
 
 ^ Because what he eats when unclean must be a common, not 
 a holy thing. 
 
 * See Kirchheim's note. Leavened bread baked during the 
 Passover was forbidden. 
 
172 
 
 the)^ do not keep the feast of unleavened bread simul- 
 taneously with Israel, or have anticipated us by a day: 
 if they keep it with us, or commence a day later, then their 
 bread is allowed ; thoug-h R. Simeon forbids it, as they do 
 not know how to keep the feast like Israel. At first our 
 doctors said the wine of Gador is forbidden, because of the 
 wine of Kephar Panshah^: this they afterwards modified, 
 saying-, in every place of which the inhabitants are sus- 
 pected for their intimacy with heathens, wine that is open 
 is forbidden, and what is fastened up allowed. R. Meir 
 says all their wine is allowed except what is open in the 
 market: our doctors say, what is open in any place is 
 forbidden, what is fastened up is permitted; what has 
 been perforated and then fastened up is as if always 
 fastened up ; their jars if new are permitted, if old for- 
 bidden. Why are the Samaritans forbidden to come 
 into the congregation of Israel ? Because they are mixed 
 up with the priests of the heights, R. Ishmael says, at 
 first they were genuine converts; why were they then 
 excommunicated? Because of the spurious children they 
 have begotten ^ and because they do not marry their 
 brother's widow 3. When shall we receive them? When 
 they give up their faith in mount Garizim and acknow- 
 ledge Jerusalem and the resurrection of the dead : thence- 
 forth he who robs a Samaritan will be as one who robs 
 an Israelite. 
 
 Neubauer, Geographie, p. 137. 
 
 By unlawful marriages, Geiger, Urschr. p. 54. 
 
 See above, p. 38. 
 
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