of a great temple, and this increased their confidence in selecting it to be the seat of a great sanctuary which might rival that at Jerusalem. The next step was but a little one and was soon taken, and in the passage of the Deuteronomist where Ebal is specified as the place of the altar, the name was changed into Gerîzîm.' Thus easy and rapid was the degeneration of the larger freedom of which the Samaritans boasted. Even the Pentateuch was not on the whole maintained among them in its antique form so conscientiously as among the Judeans; and a community which grows up outside an everprogressive culture, and then suddenly turns towards it, can only with difficulty guard against violent ideas and changes. The real source of the strength of the Samaritans lay in the mistakes committed by the leaders of the community in Jerusalem, which proceeded from their scrupulousness and their strict tendency towards the hagiocracy. Larger freedom formed the basis of this new disruption in exact antagonism to the spirit which now came to predominate more and more in Jerusalem; and this greater liberty and facility remained amid every subsequent change the prevailing feature of these 'enemies of Judah and Benjamin.' Moreover, this new community of the ancient religion of Jahveh had its partial justification in its opposition to the one-sidedness in vogue at Jerusalem, and this for a time secured to it honour and power. The first centuries of its existence were those of its greatest brilliance, when its rivalry with the Judeans was not unattended with success, as we see from many indications, and in particular from the bitter jealousy which was now established in Jerusalem more firmly than ever. But its want of a historical position was the cause of deeper imperfections. In opposition to Jerusalem, it desired to go back right into the primitive age of Israel, and prided itself on being the continuation of the real ancient people. But it broke loose from the continuous culture which had gone on without interruption in Judea and Jerusalem from the time of David, except during the half century of the exile; and while it contended against the Judeans, it nevertheless derived from them alone all its best spiritual possessions. It was not possible for the Samaritans, therefore, to produce any great development of their own. The brilliance of their early period In the now famous passage, Deut. xxvii. 4, where the LXX do not once agree with the Samaritan text. Some modern writers have vainly attempted to defend the Samaritan reading. 2 Cf. the bitter expression of it even in a didactic book, where, moreover, it stands next the writer's signature, which gives it just the same importance as if it were placed at the opening of the book, Ecclus. 1. 25 sq. was followed by increasing disorganisation and weakness, until step by step they sank into the condition of almost total extinction, in which they at present exist, after more than two thousand two hundred years.' At what time the temple on Gerîzîm was actually erected, and whether its construction was begun by Manasseh, with the powerful aid of Sanballat, we do not exactly know. It is true that even in the Persian times, and still more in the Greek, the Samaritans, like the Judeans, certainly had their historians. In particular, they possessed trustworthy records of the succession and fortunes of their chief-priests, who, like the high-priests in Jerusalem, constituted the only continuous links in their history.2 Special mention is made of a chief-priest named Hezekiah, who composed sacred songs, and was still alive at the time of Alexander. But it is much to be regretted that the only works which we now possess from the Samaritans treating of their own ancient history are of very late date and extremely unsatisfactory. So far as we can see from the traces which still survive, a small sanctuary at any rate was in existence on Gerîzîm before Alexander, chiefly under the zealous interest of Manasseh of Jerusalem, whose name continued to be honoured among the Samaritans for a long time afterwards to a quite remarkable extent.5 A larger sanctuary, for which fresh permission from the supreme government was requisite, in consequence of the necessary cost of building and the continuance of large expenditure, was probably not erected there until the Greek supremacy. It is undeniable that the old city of Samaria was still the capital at the time of Zerubbabel; but the greater fame which Shechem very soon acquired' could (Arabic Imams) probably contain the most important portion of the genuine historical traditions in this Chronicle. The most recent information about the Samaritans, their sanctuaries, and the ruins on Gerîzîm, besides what is contained in Bargès' book (cf. the Jahrbb. der Bibl. Wiss. vol. vii. p. 124 sq.), is to be found in Grove's Nablous and the Samaritans (London, 1861), and Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church, vol. i. p. 513 sqq. Of the first Samaritan temple and the points in which it differed from that at Jerusalem, we have no definite knowledge; it was subsequently destroyed and then rebuilt; the figure of it which has been preserved on coins of the time of Antoninus Pius (see Mionnet, Déscription des Médailles, vol. v. p. 500, suppl. viii. pl. 18) only represents it as it was restored after the war of Hadrian. 2 As we may see clearly from Abulfatch's Chronicle. These dates of the succession and duration of the chief-priests 6 3 See Paulus's Memorabilien, vol. ii. p. 54, and the brief extract from a fragment of Abulfatch, hitherto unprinted, in the Acta Eruditorum, Lips. 1691, p. 169; cf. p. 173. The Chronicle of Abulfatch is far more deserving of being completely edited and translated than the now published Liber Josue; but if so, it must be better done than the fragments from it published by Schnurrer. See Paulus's Memorab. vol. ii. p. 120; Lib. Jos. cap. 47. Ezr. iv. 10; comp. with 2 Kings xvii. 24. The Samaritans were already called 'Shechemites' in Ecclus. 1. 26, as well as in the narrative already referred to, Jos. only have been due to the Temple on Gerîzîm. When the new Greek period dawned in Canaan, and the relations of the two communities of the people of God' which had so long been hostile, were suddenly unchained, they showed their real nature openly for the first time in their respective endeavours to get the start in the favour of the conqueror, and this paltry little drama became from this time more and more frequent. Nor, in general, could anything prove more destructive of any further expansion and invigoration on the part of Israel than the increasing difficulty of reconciling the opposition between the two communities, both of which laid claim to the ancient rights and honours of the people of Israel, while neither of them could completely annihilate the other either by justice or force. With growing susceptibility and hostile feeling each employed every weapon to persecute the other, starting from views so entirely antagonistic that they forgot the elements common to them both. And if on some occasions a great common danger or any other circumstance compelled them unexpectedly to work side by side, their co-operation was speedily dissolved again into still keener enmity. Such was the bitter but also the righteous punishment of the first wrong step into which the new Jerusalem was led immediately after its foundation' by the obscure purpose which was lurking in it. In other respects, however, the narrative in Josephus only supplies us with a picture of the wonderful character of Alexander and his expedition in the vivid form in which it was long after preserved by tradition. It contains also a reminiscence, which is far from obscure, of the fact that no hesitation was displayed in Jerusalem about exchanging the Persian supremacy for another, and no one ventured to strike a blow in its favour, even though an endeavour was made to proceed at first somewhat prudently, which is sufficiently explained by the events which had taken place not long before. Of the Ant. xi. 8, 6. It might certainly be conjectured that the transformation of the name Shechem into Zvxáp, John iv. 5, was one of the ways in which the hatred of Judah towards it was expressed, perhaps occasioned by some play upon the word, which we can no longer recognise in its original form, as though the name did not mean shoulder,' i.e. point or height, according to Gen. xlviii. 22, but 'drunkenness,' for which reference might be made to Is. xxviii. 1; but the correct explanation is given in my Geschichte Christus', p. 273, and in the Johanneischen Schriften, vol. i. p. 181. : P. 103 sqq. 3 The stories in the Chron. Arab. Samarit. (published at Leyden in 1848, but incorrectly translated), cap. 45 sq., about the history of Nabuchodrozzor (to whose expedition against Jerusalem it actually applies literally the words of Gen. xiv. 1 sq.), and the destruction and re-erection of Jerusalem, about the dispute of Zerubbabel and Sanballat before the Persian king (where their relative ages are reversed, and Sanballat is made much the older), and about the expedition of Alexander, all belong to the frivolities of much subjugation of Jerusalem or Samaria by the Greek army and the overthrow of the Persian power, we no longer possess any accurate information; but since they were at that time merely dependencies of larger cities and countries, it is a matter of comparative indifference. Our ignorance, however, increases the importance of the consequences which speedily developed themselves, and which we must now examine with more attention. later history. The one object which they serve is to show that the Samaritans also in later times were fond of reversing the historical narratives which came to them from other books, on account of their one sided character, and that the one-sidedness only became more blind and hardened among themselves. Thus an uncorrected error actually passes current amid a whole community for thousands of years. SECTION II. THE HAGIOCRACY UNDER THE GREEKS AND MACCABEES DOWN TO THE OMNIPOTENCE OF ROME. THE Conquests of Alexander and the varied characters of his ambitious successors effected a rapid and wonderful transformation in the relations of the nations of Asia. Those which had lived on from a fairer youth had become aged and languishing. Only a few in this hour of trial remembered the fame of their ancient greatness with the desperate courage of the Tyrians; and Israel alone, under the oppression of the Persian government, regained so much strength in its immortal possessions as to enable it to look forward in the midst of this great change to a new and better future. But the Greco-Macedonian storm was powerful enough to convulse them all to the very depths and hurl them against one another, and, if they were not instantly dashed to pieces, to rouse them violently to assume new forms; yet its action was not pure or continuous enough to create any pure or healthy results, or even to secure the permanent success of any new advantages which might spring from it. All the youthfulness and beauty which peculiarly distinguished the Greek spirit, was finally combined in the person of Alexander with the rarest intensity and power to produce the most marvellous daring; but the incurable corruption already lurking in the fair youth of this spirit of humanity was exhibited strongly enough in his own case, and to a much greater degree by the majority of his successors.1 In Israel, also, at once so old and so young, far more violent changes were speedily produced by this storm and its after effects than by the Persian supremacy. On the soil of its ancient fatherland it had again acquired sufficient strength and The biographies of Alexander the Great hitherto produced, even the most recent, are all composed too exclusively from the purely Greek and heathen point of view to give a correct estimate of the hero in his connection with the history of the world. Even in the case of the greatest of all the military and royal heroes of antiquity we ought not to forget those features in his career which made it a prolific source of injury and wrong. I consider that every biography of Alexander takes a wrong view which does not point out that in him were prefigured not alone Seleucus I. and the three first Ptolemies, but all the other Ptolemies and Antiochuses and Seleucids, together with the Antigonids. |