132 



SAMARITAN 



SAMOA 



529 revolted against the rulers of the eastern 

 empire. On the ruined site of the ancient place, 

 now called Sebastiya, there still exist parts of a 

 colonnade of the age of Herod, remains of a temple 

 to Augustus, and an old crusading church (now a 

 mosque) built over the tomb of John the Baptist. 

 The tombs of six or eight ( t inn i. Ahab, Jehu, &c.) 

 of the kings of Israel and those of the prophets 

 Obadiah and Elisha were also at Samaria. See 

 Memoirs of Palestine Survey. 



Samaritan Pentateuch, a recension of the 

 Hebrew text of the Pentateuch, in use with the 

 Samaritans, and accepted by them as canonical to 

 the exclusion of the other Old Testament writings. 

 That such a recension hail once existed had always 

 been known from certain allusions in Origen, 

 Jerome, and Eusebius, and also in the Talmud ; 

 but Julius Scaliger was the first modern scholar to 

 suggest that it might still be recoverable, and to 

 point out its possible importance if obtained. Early 

 in the 17th century the famous traveller Pietro 

 della Valle succeeded after much inquiry in pro- 

 curing at Damascus a copy not only of the original 

 of this Pentateuch of the Samaritans, but also of 

 the ancient translation, or Targum, of this in the 

 Samaritan dialect ; both documents passed in 1623 

 into the hands of the Oratorians in Paris, and were 

 published in 1631 in the Paris Polyglott by J. 

 Morinus. In his Ejcercitationes Ecclesiastics, with 

 which Morinus accompanied the Pentateuch of 

 the Samaritans, he placed it far above the 

 received Hebrew text, a view which had a polem- 

 ical bearing on current theological discussions 

 between Protestants and Catholics about the ' rule 

 of faith,' and led accordingly to prolonged contro- 

 versy, the principal disputant on the Protestant 

 side being the Zurich theologian, J. H. Hottinger. 

 Both the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Samaritan 

 Targura of Morinus were afterwards printed by 

 Brian Walton in the London Polyglott (1657), 

 with a collation of the various readings of the 

 Massoretic and Samaritan Hebrew texts. Through 

 Ussher and others a number of additional Samar- 

 itan codices were brought to Europe in the course 

 of the 17th century, so that Kennicott was able to 

 use for his Hebrew Bible sixteen MSS. more or 

 less complete. The first to arrange the variants 

 in a systematic way, and to determine with any 

 scientific accuracy the kind and amount of author- 

 ity that can be claimed for the Samaritan recension 

 of the Pentateuch was Gesenius (De Pent. Sam. 

 origine, indole, et autoritate, 1815). Its various 

 readings are most of them of a quite trifling nature 

 and do not at all affect the sense, representing 

 merely a different fashion in spelling or gram- 

 matical expression ; and perhaps the only one that 

 would seem to indicate an essentially different 

 point of view from that of the Massoretic text is 

 the substitution of Gerizim for Ebal in Dent, 

 xxvii. 4. As is well known, the Samaritan Penta- 

 teuch varies from the received text in the figures 

 it gives in Gen. v. and xi. and also in Exod. \ii. 40, 

 thus presenting a scheme of chronology materially 

 different both from the Massoretic and from that 

 of the I. XX. Of the MSS. that have reached 

 Europe none are older than the 10th century. All 

 are written in a peculiar modification of the old 

 Semitic character which nsed to be spoken of as 

 Samaritan or Phoenician (see ALPHABET), but is 

 now known to have been at one time common to 

 the entire Semitic domain, and also to have con- 

 stituted the basis of the Greek alphabet. There is 

 no ground, either external or internal, for assign- 

 ing to the Samaritan Pentateuch an age earlier 

 than the 4th century B.C., though, from its use in 

 northern Palestine, it was formerly argued that 

 it must have originated before the fall of the 

 northern kingdom, or even before the revolt of 



Jeroboam. The Samaritan Targum, a translation 

 of the Hebrew Samaritan Pentateuch into Samar- 

 itan Aramaic-, is hardly older than the 4th Christian 

 ri-iitury. It wan printed in a very corrupt form 

 in the Paris and London Polyglot!*, ami then- is 

 a critical edition by Peieriiiiiiin ami Vollers (Pen- 

 tnteufhut XiimtiritiiHiu, ad fidem libnirum Mti/iti- 

 scriptorum apud Nubltuianos rrj>t itnnnn, 1 872-91 ) ; 

 see also Nutt, Fragment* of a Srnntirilnii Tiin/inn 

 (1874). The Samaritan Targuiii of Genesis, in 

 Hebrew characters, is given in Heidenhcim's 11,/i/iu- 

 tlirai SemaritaHa ( 1SH4). There is also an Arabic 

 translation of tin- Samaritan Pentateuch, made in 

 the llth or 12th century by Abu Said, based on 

 the work of Soadio. The Samaritan Pentateuch 

 itself can be read in the Paris and London Poly- 

 glotts, or in the separate edition, in square Hebrew 

 characters, by Blayney (Oxford, 1790). 



Samax-da. See VEDA. 



Saillblial. an Indian town in the N. W. Prov- 

 inces, 23 miles S\V. of Moradabad ; pop. 37,000. 



Samlior. a town in Austrian Galicia, on the 

 Dniester, 41 miles SW. of Lemberg. Pop. 13,586. 



Sambourne, EDWARD LINLEY, cartoonist, 

 born in London, 4th January 1845, at sixteen was 

 apprenticed to marine engineer works at Green- 

 wich, but in April 1867 began his connection with 

 Punch. He has also illustrated Kingley'a \\'atcr- 

 babies, Andersen's fairy Tales, &v. 



Sainhrc, a tributary of the Meuse or Maas, 

 rises in the French dept. of Ai*ne, flows 112 miles 

 in a north-easterly direction, and at Naiinir in 

 Belgium joins the Mense from the left. It is navi- 

 gable up to Landrecies, 90 miles, and is connected 

 with the Oise by a canal 40 miles long. Valuable 

 prehistoric remains have been discovered in caves 

 in the Sambre valley, and are now preserved in 

 the neighbouring museums of Charleroi, Floreffe, 

 and Nam u r. 



Samlml. See MUSK-PLANTS. 



Samblir (Cervut aristotelis), a species of stag 

 abundant in the forest-land of some parts of India, 

 Burma, and China. It stands about five feet high, 

 is a powerful animal, and is much hunted. The 

 colour is dark brown; the antlers are rounded, 

 and belong to a type known as Kusine. 



Sainlaiul. a district of the province of East 

 Prussia, stretching between the Frisches Half and 

 the Kurisches Haff. Its western coast is known 

 as the Amber ( Bernstein ) coast. This district gave 

 title to a bishopric from 1249 to 1525. 



Samnites an ancient Italian people of Sabine 

 origin, who occupied an extensive and mountainous 

 region in the interior of Southern Italy. They were 

 surrounded on the north by the Peligni, Mai si, and 

 Marmcini; on the west and south-west by the 

 Latins, Volscians, Sidicini, and Campanians ; on 

 the south by the Lucanians ; and on the east by 

 the Apulians and Frentani. It was not till after 

 a long series of wars (of which the first began in 

 343 B.C., and the third did not conclude till 272 

 B.c.) that the Romans conquered the Samnites, 

 ultimately making them allies ; see ROME, Vol. 

 VIIL p. 788. It was in the second Samnite war 

 that the Romans endured the humiliation of the 

 Caudine Forks (q.v.). 



Samoa. The Samoa or Navigators' Islands 

 are a group of islands in the \Vestern Pacific, 

 lying in 13J" to 14$' S. lat. and 168 to 173 W. 

 long. They are some 350 miles N. of Tonga, and 

 between 400 and 500 miles NE. of Fiji. From 

 Auckland in New Zealand their sailing distance is 

 1580 miles, and from Sydney in New South Wales 

 2570. The group consists of nine islands, in addi- 

 tion to rocks and islets. They are all, with the 

 exception of Rose Island, of volcanic formation. 



