THE SAMARITAN FENTATEUCfl. 189 



Let us here observe that the facts of philology are as real as 

 those of any other science. They cannot be brushed aside. 

 They stand in all the majesty of truth, and must be respected 

 even as the facts of physical science are in their sphere. 



When we analyze the language of the Samaritan translators 

 of their Pentateuch into their own dialect, v^e find that there 

 are three different Semitic elements present and these are very 

 imperfectly fused. Sometimes one element is used, sometimes 

 another. 



Now philological science shows us that such a state of 

 language marks a recent formation : that is to say, unless some- 

 thing has haj)pened to stereotype this state of things and make 

 it permanent, the elements will get welded together and a 

 certain uniformity will take the place of the heterogeneous. 



Here, then, we have philological facts which prove the 

 Samaritan dialect to be a recent formation, composed of 

 elements which we can quite easily identify, viz., Aramaic, 

 Assyrian Aramaic, and Hebrew. For the particulars I must 

 refer you to any of the Samaritan grammars, and for a general 

 outline and discussion of the elements I may refer you to what 

 I have tried to show in Chapter V of Samaritan Pentateuch and 

 Modern Criticism. Suffice it here to say that these philological 

 facts shut us up to the conclusion that a population composed 

 of elements speaking Aramaic or common Syriac, Assyrian 

 Aramaic or Biblical Aramaic, and Hebrew, more or less in 

 equal proportions, have in the use of these languages reached 

 the stage of lingual development represented in the Samaritan 

 translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch ; that this union is quite 

 recent, unless some important literary work read and studied by 

 the whole population had previously stereotyped the language. 



Now, there is no such work other than this translation itself 

 which could have thus affected the language and arrested its 

 further development. Therefore this translation stands at the 

 source of the Samaritan dialect, and must have been made 

 shortly after the Samaritan colonists and the remainder of the 

 old Hebrew with the Syriac or Aramaic part of the population 

 had come together. 



The historical inquiry which this problem in philology raises 

 is this : when did these three elements exist together in 

 Samaria ? If we can answer that question, we have solved the 

 problem of the date of the translation of the Samaritan Pen- 

 tateuch into the Samaritan dialect. 



We are in the happy position of being able to answer that 

 historical question. There was one period and one alone, when 



