We soon arrive at the modern village of Sebustieh, which stands on the site of Samaria and has a population of four or five hundred Moslems, badly disposed towards strangers. The Crusaders built a church here and dedicated it to St. John, but it has been converted into a mosque, that cannot be entered without the use of the magical “backsheesh.” And this has to be applied skillfully, to avoid offense; a very good way is to take the keeper of the mosque into your confidence and do the “backsheesh” business through him Give him a fair allowance of piasters to distribute to the crowd after you have gone, and he will generally set his cudgel at work among them. He is an honorable man, and you can feel certain that he will faithfully distribute the money—to himself. Samaria was a fine city in its time, and the ruins that cover the hill confirm the accounts of the historians. Many of the stones of the old temples and colonnades have been built into the walls and terraces of the modern town so that the extent of the city is not perceptible to a casual observer.
From Nazareth to Nablous, we cross the basin just described, and climb a long ascent to the crest of a ridge. Thence our road is through glens and over hills, but it is less rough than most of the routes we have heretofore traveled. Nablous is a city of about eight thousand inhabitants. This is the ancient Shechem, which was assigned to the Levites and made a city of refuge—a place where a man who had murdered anybody or otherwise shocked the fastidiousness of his neighbors, could live a virtuous and respectable life and be safe from harm. No extradition treaty could touch him, and he might hope in course of time, to become mayor or alderman in his new home, and have a finger in the city treasury. The authorities used to try the refugees who came there, and, in case of wilful murder, the fellows were delivered up to justice. But if the trials were anything like those of murderers in olden times, it was a pretty safe thing for a man to get into a city of refuge, as he could plead accident and insanity, especially the latter, and get off without trouble.
Shechem, or Nablous, is chiefly interesting to-day as the residence of the Samaritans; there are considerably less than two hundred of them and they live now, as they did in Christ’s time, and long before it, following the same occupations, obeying the same laws and worshipping after the ancient manner. We read in the New Testament that “the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans,” and the statement applies at this day and hour as it did when these words were written.
Down to a few centuries ago, there were colonies of Samaritans in three or four of the Oriental cities, but they have all disappeared except this one at Nablous. They date from the Assyrian conquest of Israel and the carrying of the people into captivity. They came from the East, to settle in the deserted cities, and added to their own religion some features of Jewish worship. Rejected by the Jews, they determined to have a temple of their own, and they erected it upon Mount Gerizim, one of the hills overlooking Shechem. They go there now, as they have always done, to celebrate the Feast of the Passover, and follow the mode prescribed in the twelfth Chapter of Exodus. Six lambs are roasted after the ancient method* and eaten by the people, and no infidel Christian, Jew, or Moslem is allowed to touch any of the meat or any part of the culinary apparatus. They accept the first five books of the Bible as their gospel, but reject all others; they accept Moses as the only law-giver, believe that a Messiah is to come, believe in the resurrection of the body, and in a state of future rewards and punishments, and they keep all the feasts and fasts enjoined in the Pentateuch. They also keep the feast of Purim, on the ground that it celebrates the journey of Moses to Egypt to deliver the Israelites, and not as the Jews celebrate it for the release of their people by Queen Esther.
What a strange people! The only remaining adherents of a faith that was once wide spread through Syria—a link binding us to the mystic past, and carrying us back more than thirty centuries of time. They are born, they live, they think, they worship, they die as their ancestors have done for more than a hundred generations. To them the present is a dream, the past the only reality.
They have a synagogue, and by dint of energy and “backsheesh,” we may visit it. They show us the famous Samaritan Codex, the copy of the Pentateuch, which is said to be the oldest MS. copy in existence. It is on parchment, about fifteen inches wide and twenty-five yards long, and is much defaced and injured
