AMONG THE SAMARITANS
I have just had an interview with a lineal descendant of Aaron, the
brother of Moses. I refer to Jacob, the high priest of the Samaritans.
He belongs to the tribe of the Levites, who in ancient times were at the
head of the priesthood, and he claims a genealogical tree reaching from
that day to this. His family has lived in Palestine for more than three
thousand years, and high priest has succeeded high priest until this man
took the position at the age of fifteen, succeeding his childless uncle.
He is now almost eighty, and he looks, I imagine, as Aaron and Moses may
have looked in the latter part of their lives. Over six feet tall, he has
the face and form of a prophet. His long beard falls down upon his chest
and his scholarly face is refined and spiritual looking.
I met Jacob here at Nablus on the site of old Shechem, within a stone’s
throw of the well where Christ talked with the woman of Samaria. It is
not far from a farm which Abraham owned, and about on the spot where
Joshua gathered together the tribes of Israel and read them the law of
Moses.
Our conversation took place in the heart of the city in the synagogue of
the Samaritans. I had to go through vaulted passageways and cave-like
streets to reach it. I had an interpreter with me, and as we talked the
high priest showed me what he said were the original parchments of
the five books of Moses as they were written by Abou, the son of Ben
Hassan, the son of Eleazar, who, you remember, was one of the two sons
of Aaron by Elisheba, his wife. The high priest tells me that these five
manuscripts were written only twelve years after the Israelites came into
the Promised Land, and that they are now nearly four thousand years old.
They are the oldest Bible manuscripts in existence. They are written in
the Hebrew of the times of Moses, upon long sheets of parchment about two
feet in width. The scrolls are rolled upon three rods each tipped with
a silver knob as big as a teacup, and they can be rolled and unrolled
as they are read. The ink is still clear and the letters are distinct
although the parchment is yellow with age. The manuscript is treasured
by the Samaritans, being kept in a brass case inlaid with gold. It is
said to have been dug up about three hundred years ago, and has formed a
subject of controversy among oriental scholars. The Samaritans believe
that it was written by the grandson of Aaron, as the high priest here
claims; but the Jews reject it as false, denouncing the Samaritans as
pagan outcasts from the tribes of the Children of Israel.
I was surprised to find that there were any Samaritans living. I had
supposed that they had been swallowed up by the people of other faiths. I
find, however, that there are about two hundred in Nablus, and that they
practise the same religion as they did when Christ came.
They annually celebrate the feasts of the Passover and Pentecost on Mount
Gerizim. These feasts are different from those of the latter-day Jews.
At the time of Jesus the Feast of the Passover was eaten reclining and
as though at the end of a journey rather than at the beginning. The
Samaritans eat their Passover with their shoes bound upon their feet and
staves in their hand as though ready to start out on their wanderings in
the wilderness.
They do this on the top of the mountain, going up there _en masse_ and
camping in tents. They smear the blood of the sacrifice upon the tents
to commemorate the passage of the angel of death over the houses of
Israel. They dress in white garments and kill the animals which are burnt
according to the methods in use when Aaron lived. The sacrifice consists
of buck lambs each of which is carefully examined that it may be without
wound or blemish. At a given signal the throats of the lambs are cut,
and at the same time some of the blood is caught in tin tubs and smeared
over the tents. As the blood flows the people shout out again and again
the words “There is but one God.” At the same time there is a service,
beginning with a hymn praising Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and followed by
a prayer of thanksgiving.
The meat for the sacrifice is cooked over a fire in the earth. As soon
as the animals are killed they are scalded and the wool is pulled off.
The entrails are removed and salted. A pole is thrust through each lamb,
and it is laid on the hot coals of a fire made in a trench. The meat is
then covered with brush and earth. As it cooks, the people continue to
pray, and keep on praying until the sunset approaches. At ten minutes
after sunset they begin to eat the meat, throwing the bones into the fire
without breaking them.
In my talk with the high priest he contended that the Samaritans were the
only true Israelites, and spoke of the prophet Samuel as a sorcerer. He
paid his respects to the Jews in no measured terms. He gave me a little
book he had written concerning the religion of the Samaritans, and at the
close was by no means averse to a present of silver for which he thanked
me in a dignified way. After I returned to my camp on the outside of
Nablus some of his followers brought me his photograph and a model of the
five books of Moses which they offered to sell for a song. The Samaritans
are exceedingly poor and are despised by both Moslems and Jews.
It was at Jacob’s Well, not far from Nablus, that Christ met the
Samaritan woman and told her of the water of which, if one drinketh, he
shall never thirst, but there “shall be in him a well of water springing
up into everlasting life.” You will find the story in the fourth chapter
of St. John. This well is one of the holy sites of Palestine about which
there can be no doubt. The village of Sychar corresponds to the village
of Askar, which stands on Mount Ebal, perhaps a thousand feet away from
the well where the Samaritan woman lived. The well itself lies just below
the road from Jerusalem. I went through an olive orchard to reach it. It
is surrounded by a wall and is in the middle of a garden now owned by
the Greek Church, which has made it a resting place for pilgrims. Over
it they have built a stone chapel where services are held several times
every day.
Some of the priests went with us down the steps to the well. It lies
right in the floor of the chapel and is about three feet in diameter,
built up with stones. One of the monks brought a pan tied to a rope in
such a way that it remained level. Upon this he placed a lighted candle
and then slowly lowered it into the well. It descended perhaps sixty feet
before it came to the water. The sill of the well is of marble and shows
the marks of the ropes which for ages have been let down into it. It is
some distance above the floor and may have been the original stone upon
which Christ sat at that weary hour of noon.
Jacob’s Well has been known and visited by pilgrims for many years. It
probably used to be even with the surface of the earth, but the débris
and earth-washings from the mountains near by have filled up the valley,
and it is now considerably below the present ground level. Excavations
have uncovered in the garden the remains of a church which was built over
the well some fifteen hundred years ago. I found immense granite columns
lying in the garden as well as many pieces of the stone wall of the
church.
While I was here a party of travellers conducted by one of the great
tourist agencies arrived. They were Americans “doing” the Holy Land at so
much per day, and they were bound to get the worth of their money. One I
shall never forget. He had such a gigantic frame that I shall call him
Goliath. When the party went down to the well the services in the chapel
had just begun, and after pointing out the hole in the floor, the guide
brought them out. As they came into the churchyard I heard Goliath remark:
“I ain’t satisfied.”
“About what?” said the guide.
“I ain’t satisfied about that well. How do I know there’s a well there?”
“You saw it,” said the guide.
“Naw, I only saw a hole in the floor. How do I know there’s a well? How
do I know it has water? I tell you I ain’t satisfied. Here I come five
thousand miles to see Jacob’s Well, and how can I prove that I’ve saw
it?”
The man protested so much that the guide took him back, stopped the
service, and had them let down the candle. Further than that, he brought
up some of the water which Goliath drank at a gulp. I have run across
this huge doubting Thomas before on the trip. He would not believe in the
spot where our Lord was baptized in the Jordan, saying that the banks
were too steep, and that if he couldn’t crawl down them no one, not even
John the Baptist, could do so.
It took me just one day to come from Jerusalem to Shechem. My outfit was
a three-horse team harnessed to an American wagon. The horses were good,
and we drove up hill and down on the trot. We started at Jaffa Gate,
passed the Place of the Skull, where General Gordon thought the Saviour
was crucified, and then crossed the valley of Kedron. We climbed Mount
Scopus, which joins Olivet, and rode under the hill on top of which was
Mizpah, where Samuel was buried and Saul was publicly chosen King of
the Jews. There is a mosque on that spot and the place is holy to Jews,
Christians, and Moslems alike, all of whom worship at Samuel’s tomb.
Mizpah lies on a peak about three thousand feet above the Mediterranean,
and on one of the highest of the Judean mountains. Here an army of
crusaders stood with Richard the Lion-Hearted and got their first sight
of Jerusalem. As they looked King Richard knelt down and thus prayed:
“O Lord God, I pray Thee that I may never again see Thy Holy City if I
may not recover it from the hands of thine enemies.”
That prayer was uttered seven centuries ago when Jerusalem had already
been in the hands of the Mohammedans for about six hundred years.
The road we took to Samaria was the one over which came the boy Christ
and the Holy Family when they travelled up to Jerusalem to celebrate
the Passover. It is one of the highways of the Holy Land, and is still
travelled by thousands. About ten miles beyond Mount Scopus we stopped
at Beeroth, a stone village surrounded by green orchards of figs and
pomegranates. Tradition says that Nablus is the place where Joseph
and Mary as they were returning to Nazareth discovered that their
twelve-year-old boy was not with them and went back to find Him teaching
the wise men in the temple.
A little farther on we came to Bethel where the Benjamites lived, where
Abraham reared an altar and called on the name of the Lord, and where
Jacob took stones for his pillow and dreamed that he saw the ladder
extending to heaven and the angels ascending and descending thereon. The
name Bethel, which means the House of God, has been changed to Beitin. It
is a poor stone village of about five hundred people, with a ruined tower
and a church.
Shiloh, just off the road a little farther on toward Samaria, is now
called Seilun, and, as Jeremiah prophesied, it is nothing but ruins.
Where it stood is a mound covered with débris, broken columns, and
rubbish, so that one is reminded of the passage: “But go ye now unto
... Shiloh ... and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people
Israel.”
Nevertheless, Shiloh is one of the most interesting spots of the country.
Here Eli dwelt and here Hannah came every year with a new coat for her
little son Samuel, whom she had given up to the Lord. It was here that
Joshua divided the land and the Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant.
I am surprised at the caravans which are continually crossing these
Palestine mountains. There seems to be a great trade north and south, and
the roads are full of odd-looking people. On my way here I saw crowds of
men and women on donkeys coming up to Jerusalem. Some were from Galilee,
others from Damascus, and not a few from the mountains of Lebanon. One
crowd told us that its people were Mohammedans, and that they were making
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the tomb of Moses. There were many women
among them. They sat astride upon donkeys and some of them carried babies
in their arms.
We passed many camels. Some were loaded with white building stone slung
in a network of rope on each side of their humps. They were carrying the
stone to Jerusalem. Others were ridden by women and men. I saw one with
two veiled women clad all in black on its back and two boxes below them,
each box holding a baby.
Another party was composed of Samaritan women on their way to a Moslem
festival. They were red haired and as straight as royal palm trees.
They carried their baggage in bundles on top of their heads and walked
single file. Behind them were women from Lebanon walking barefooted and
singing in Arabic. They were tattooed on lips, chin, and cheeks, and
their bare heads were frowsy and dusty. They were clad in long cotton
gowns embroidered with red. Only a few were good looking and all seemed
prematurely old.
[Illustration: When a Palestinian was asked why he did not use horses for
ploughing he said: “They walk too fast; I would have to hurry to keep up”]
[Illustration: But the Jewish colonists have lost no time in adopting
modern farm machinery on their lands, with most gratifying results]
[Illustration: The sheep that was lost is found by the roadside, and the
shepherd is all smiles. At night, several shepherds will gather their
sheep in one place. In the morning each calls to his own charges, who
know his voice and will always come to him]
I am now living in my tents outside this old town of Shechem. My
camp faces Mount Ebal, and above me is Gerizim, the holy hill of the
Samaritans. It is very near the spot where the laws of Moses were read by
Joshua to the assembled Children of Israel. The country is in the shape
of a great amphitheatre of which the hills form the walls. These hills
are, it is said, a natural sounding board, so that one can talk on one
mountain and be heard on the other, and for this reason the place was
chosen for reading the laws.
Shechem, or Nablus, is one of the oldest towns in history. It was founded
long before Jerusalem was built and even before Jacob’s time. It is
within about six miles of the city of Samaria, where Ahab had his ivory
palace and where Herod the Great owned a royal mansion. Here, so it
is said, he gave that birthday party at which his stepdaughter Salome
danced. You remember the story. Her dancing, which I doubt not was that
of the nautch girl, so delighted King Herod that he told her she should
have whatever she asked, even to the half of his kingdom. She thereupon,
as her mother insisted, demanded the head of John the Baptist, who was
lying in prison near by, and this bloody gift was brought in on a great
plate or charger.
There is a Spanish legend that Salome, as divine punishment for causing
the murder of John the Baptist, was herself beheaded some years later.
According to the story, she married a Roman general and went to live in
Spain. While skating on a river there she fell in, and her body is said
to have struck the edge of the ice with such force as to sever her neck,
and her head went skidding over the frozen surface.
The old town of Samaria has long since fallen to ruin. Its site is a
mound with some broken pillars and other débris lying near it and an
olive orchard not far away in which more of the columns are still to be
seen.
As for Nablus, it thrives, and is one of the liveliest towns in the Holy
Land. It is the chief commercial centre between Damascus and Jerusalem,
and its population of thirty thousand is almost entirely Mohammedan.
There are some Jewish merchants, but neither Jews nor Christians are
much welcomed. I have been told to watch out as I go through its narrow,
filthy streets and to take care not to provoke any one. Several times
the boys have thrown stones at our party, and men spit as we pass them.
People yell out “Nazarenes” at us, and my guide refuses to let me
photograph them, saying picture-taking would surely get us into trouble.
The city is so fanatical that even the Christian women go about with
veils over their faces. The English nurse who is working here in the
Charity Hospital is veiled like a Mohammedan when she goes out on the
street. Otherwise she would cause much comment, and her reputation and
work would be ruined.