THE SAMARITANS
Meyer supplies some valuable information about the Samaritans in
Gaza on pages 71-2, from which I gratefully cull a few sentences. He
writes of their having settled there early, maintaining themselves as
a separate community till the modern period. A complete history is
impossible, because of the meagreness of the record. It is remarkable
how this little sect spread all over Palestine, and even into Egypt.
There are records of the Samaritans at Gaza from the fourth to the
seventeenth centuries. According to the Samaritan Chronicle of the High
Priest Eleazar, the territory of Palestine, and other parts of Syria
and Egypt, were assigned to various Samaritan families at the time of
Baba the Great (end of fourth century). That extending from Gaza to the
River of Egypt was given to Israel ben Machir, and Shalum was assigned
to it as Priest; the territory from Carmel to Gaza to Laib ben Becher,
with Joseph as its Priest. All the Samaritans who settled at Gaza were
of the tribe of Benjamin, excepting Mouzaf ben Mitpalel of the tribe of
Ephraim. The Martyr Paul of Gaza, _c._ A.D. 300, before his death at
Cæsarea, prayed for the Samaritans of his native town.
During the reign of Justinian, _c._ A.D. 529, the imperial troops once
occupied the city on the occasion of an uprising of the Samaritan
inhabitants of the district, and the citizens were greatly disturbed.
The Bishop Marcianus stepped into the breach, and settled the affair by
organising a militia to which the matters in dispute were referred.
The imperial troops were withdrawn, and peace was restored.
There were many Samaritans at Gaza in the seventh century. After the
Muslim conquest, A.D. 634, the Samaritans of Gaza deposited their
property with their high priest, and fled to the east.
The five hundred Samaritans who had been captured at Shechem by
Bazawash, governor of Demascus, _c._ A.D. 1137, were redeemed by a
co-religionist of Acre. Many of these settled in Gaza.
In A.D. 1674 the Samaritans living at Gaza addressed a letter to Robert
Huntington, who was deeply interested in their religion and literature.
Clermont-Ganneau reports the finding of a Samaritan liturgical
inscription at Gaza, but does not produce it either in the original
or in translation. Able also reports a fragment of a decalogue in the
Samaritan script of the Mohammedan period.
Among the _Gleanings from the Minute Books_ of the Jerusalem Literature
Society, November 1849, Mr. E. T. Rogers remarks that the Samaritans
are still quite a distinct set of people, as they were in the time of
our Saviour. They make no proselytes; never intermarry with people of
other sects, and are particularly clean as a people; none others are
known than those now in Nablus. Their principal distinction in the
oriental crowd is that they wear a crimson turban.
When the Rev. Dr. E. H. Thomson visited Nablus, in May 1898, he asked
after the fate of the Samaritan community that was still surviving in
Gaza when Baron Sylvestre de Sacy, _c._ 1829, corresponded with the
Samaritans of Nablus. He was informed that the community in Gaza had
ceased to exist some sixty years before. Now, at all events, these one
hundred and sixty Samaritans resident in Nablus are all that remain of
the Samaritan race and creed.
Mr. J. G. Pickard, writing from Gaza in _The Quarterly Statement_ P. E.
F., July 1873, reports on the newly discovered Samaritan Stone of which
the inscription is a passage in Deuteronomy iv. 29-31. It has been
suggested that this stone belonged to a Samaritan synagogue in Gaza.
The spot where the stone was discovered is about a mile and a half from
the sea shore.