CHAPTER IV.

The Samaritans.

The Samaritans were originally heathens, consisting of persons from the several nations, to whom the king of Assyria gave the lands and cities of the Israelites when they were made captives by the said monarch.

This sect was called Samaritans from the fact of their having been settled in the city of Samaria, the metropolis of the kingdom of Israel. When these people were first carried to Samaria, they adopted the idolatrous worship and customs of the surrounding nations from among whom they came.

History informs us that Samaria was infested with lions, which the people supposed to be a judgment from heaven for their idolatrous and superstitious practices.

The king of Assyria being of the same opinion with the rest of the people, sent a Jewish priest to instruct them in the Jewish religion, and to put away their idolatry.

Notwithstanding the instruction they received from the Jewish priest, these people could not easily be weaned from their old practices; and, therefore, to conciliate all parties, as they supposed, they made up among themselves a system embracing the principles of both the Jewish and the heathen religion.

At the return of the Jewish nation from the Babylonish captivity--and after the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem--the religion of the Samaritans underwent a revision, and an alteration in many points, under the following extraordinary circumstances.

One of the sons of Jehoiada, the high priest, married the daughter of Sanballat, the Horonite, contrary to the Mosaical law, which prohibits the inter-marriage of the Israelite with any of the other nations.

Nehemiah in his day zealously endeavored to reform the people among whom this innovation had spread itself to an alarming extent. He compelled all those men who had married strange women to repudiate them.

Manasseh, unwilling to obey the order of Nehemiah, together with many others who acted in concert with him, left Jerusalem with their wives, and settled themselves under the protection of Sanballat, the governor of Samaria.

From that time onward, the worship of the Samaritans came much nearer to that of the Jews. At a later date, they obtained permission from Alexander the Great, to build a temple on Mount Gerizim, near the city of Samaria, in imitation of the temple at Jerusalem, where they followed the same system of worship, with some few exceptions.

This sect bears some affinity to the Sadducees--it being the prevailing opinion among the learned, that they rejected all other sacred writings excepting the five books of Moses.

This circumstance created a strong hatred between the Samaritans and the original Jews. It was considered in those days a great reproach among the Jews to be designated a Samaritan. So violent was the animosity on both sides, that the one would not in any way associate with the other, nor even perform any acts of civility to each other, and thus all friendly intercourse ceased among them.

The Samaritans, as well as the Sadducees, are sometimes called by the Jewish Rabbins, "Cutheem."