Again, the country can only be developed through the education and enlightenment of the people; but where an administrative system is in itself corrupt and unenlightened, the education and illumination of the masses means their endowment with the faculty of perceiving abuses, and possibly with a determination to resist them; and this danger is so great that it must be averted, even at the cost of the national prosperity. For this reason the government sets its face against the education of Moslems in Christian schools, not because they are afraid of the Moslems being converted to Christianity—there is not the slightest danger of that—but because they are afraid of their imbibing Western ideas of social and political life, which are opposed to the conditions which characterize the existing administration of affairs. In fact they are not opposed to reform, but it must be a reform not suggested from without, nor imposed upon them from within; it must neither be in obedience to diplomatic pressure nor to popular clamour; it must be a reform of their own initiative, and as any such reform, to be effectual, must begin by the authorities with whom it is to originate reforming themselves, the process seems almost hopeless. Still, as I have already remarked, there has distinctly been change, and change for the better, so far as security for life and property and the extension and enforcement of official authority are concerned, during the last twenty years—security of property to the people, be it understood, from their own mutual plundering propensities. Whether this security extends to the demands of the tax-gatherer, and how far it has conduced to their own material welfare and happiness, is quite another question.
[SACRED SAMARITAN RECORDS.]
Haifa, Oct. 15.—The chief interest connected with Nablous lies in the fact that it is the residence of the remnant of those Samaritans who were colonized here by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, when he carried away the children of Israel captive. From the Biblical record (2 Kings xvii.), it would appear that the new settlers were drawn from mixed nationalities and various cities within his dominions. Some came from Babylon itself, some from Hamath, a town between Damascus and Aleppo, and others from Cuthah—probably the Kutha of Arabian geographers, a town and district between the Tigris and Euphrates—some from Ava, which has been identified with the modern Hit, and some from Sepharvaim, once the famous city of Sippara, both cities on the Euphrates, in lower Mesopotamia.
We are also told that the new colonists petitioned the King of Assyria to be taught the religion of the Jews, and that he sent them a Jewish priest to teach it to them, and that they added it on, after a curious fashion, to the various forms of idolatry which they had imported from their different localities, and hence established a mongrel sort of worship, which became afterwards purified, but which nevertheless rendered them especially obnoxious to the Jews of Judea, all the more so because they intermarried with the remnant of the tribes of Israel which had escaped the captivity, thus forming a race as mongrel as their religion. It is about twenty-six hundred years since this event took place, but the ancient worship of the Samaritans exists to this day; so also does the bitter antagonism which they and the Jews entertain for each other.
This is the oldest national feud, probably, in existence, but is as fresh as if it only originated yesterday. Like the Jews, the Samaritans have managed to survive all the vicissitudes of fate, but with the difference that a small remnant has clung through them all to the locality in which they were originally established, though they have dwindled in numbers to one hundred and sixty souls. As an ethnological fraction of antiquity they are, perhaps, the most interesting group of people extant. The first one I ever made acquaintance with was a young man who called upon me in a mysterious manner one day in Haifa. He handed me a document in Arabic, in which, after stating that for certain reasons, which he implied were by no means discreditable to him (he was an outcast from his own people), he implored charity, and requested me “to cast upon him a regard of compassion and benevolence.” The document further said:
“All that I have inherited from my parents and ancestors is a manuscript written in ancient Hebrew, nine hundred years old, containing two chapters of the Bible, including the commandments, which I beg to offer you, in the hope that you will recompense me in return by a sum which will relieve my distress.”
He signed himself “Shellabi, the son of Jacob, the Samaritan.” Now, I knew that Jacob es Shellabi was once the spiritual head of the sect, for he had been in London under the title of “The Prince of the Samaritans,” and the romance which attended his style and dignity had, it was reported, even captivated a fair Englishwoman, who was willing to become a Samaritan for his sake. Fortunately for her “the Prince” was already married, a fact which I believe he only divulged on his return to his native land.
Anyhow, here was the son of a prince in distress, and here was an extremely ancient and curious manuscript for sale. The youth looked such a scamp, however, that he did not enlist my sympathies. I suspected that he had lost his money by gambling, which proved afterwards to be the case; so when he said he considered the manuscript worth ten dollars I offered him one dollar, on which he retired indignantly. A few days later, however, he reappeared, took his dollar thankfully, and I retain possession of the manuscript. It is on coarse parchment of a yellowish-brown color, two feet six long, and fifteen inches wide. It was evidently originally longer, but has been torn off. One edge has been subjected to the action of fire. The writing is in transverse columns, each column thirteen inches long by five wide, and containing from sixty to seventy lines. The characters are of the old Samaritan type, small, rude, and irregular, differing in many important respects from the ancient Hebrew, and illegible to a good modern Hebrew scholar to whom I have shown it. I have no doubt, however, that it could be deciphered by an expert in such matters, who would also be able to establish from the formation of the characters its antiquity.[[6]]
This incident excited my interest in the Samaritan question, and when I was at Nablous I visited the synagogue, examined the ancient Thorah, or book of the law, and have since looked into the subject generally. The ancient synagogue was appropriated by the Moslems some centuries ago. The modern building is a small, unpretentious, oblong structure. The walls are rough and whitewashed, and the roof is vaulted with two little domes in the centre. The mizbah, or altar, is about five feet square, covered with a veil of yellow silk. Within are receptacles for the sacred books. Of these the most valuable are never shown to strangers. One or two persons have, however, seen the most ancient, which the Samaritans claim to have been written by Abishua, the son of Phinehas, thirty-five hundred years ago. It is only seen by the congregation once a year, when elevated above the priest's head on the Day of Atonement.
The Thorah was rolled round a cylinder of wood similar to those used in ordinary Jewish synagogues, and I was gratified to observe that it exactly resembled the fragment in my possession. It was evidently very ancient. The priest who showed me the synagogue was a remarkably handsome, dignified-looking man about forty years old. I asked him whether he was the chief priest. He said he was, and that Jacob Shellabi no longer had any position among them. I then said I had obtained a piece of manuscript from his son, to which he made no reply, but at once turned the subject. I suspect the youth was a mauvais sujet, who committed an act of sacrilegious theft before leaving the paternal mansion, and who did not, therefore, deserve more than he got.