THE PENTATEUCH OF THE SAMARITANS. 



161 



a High Priest, and could therefore not have exercised any influence 

 upon the religious system of the Samaritans, which must have 

 rested upon a sacred book long before in their possession. 



I venture to differ from Professor Thomson about the priests 

 who are supposed to have brought back with them from the captivity 

 the old Pentateuch. The Cuthseans and other nations settled by 

 the Assyrian Kings in Samaria were only a military garrison like 

 the Persian and Jewish garrison in Assouan, and that is why the 

 Jews from that garrison appealed to the Military Government in 

 Palestine, Sanballat and his sons, for protection, whilst they also 

 approached the Jewish High Priests in Jerusalem. Those nations 

 worshipped gods in the shape of animals, and therefore they asked 

 for native priests to come and banish these wild beasts. The 

 people themselves continued to live in large numbers on the old soil, 

 and when Hezekiah attempted a reconciliation between North and 

 South, by altering the date of the Passover so as to fit in with the 

 calendar of the Northern tribes, a number of the latter responded 

 to the appeal, whilst the majority of these tribes, still mentioned by 

 their separate names, refused mockingly that invitation. The 

 historic unity of Israel and Judah was a commonplace among these 

 tribes. All throughout the historic period of the Bible they were 

 conscious of their common origin ; their festivals were the same, 

 which all rest on historic reminiscences, like the going out of Egypt 

 or the giving of the Law ; and in the Bible their history is recorded 

 as being part of that of the common stock. Israel and Judah 

 were both the descendants of the same forefathers ; they were 

 indissolubly linked together, and Jeroboam had to take forcible 

 measures to prevent Israelites from going to Jerusalem. All this 

 points to one fact, that they must have been in possession, not 

 merely of traditions, but of identical laws and prescriptions, for 

 sacrifices, for purity and impurity, for the observance of festivals 

 and other details, which make up the life of man. 



That the Jews as well as the Israelites may have been ignorant 

 of the Law is not to be wondered at. The religious evolution of 

 every nation follows the same line. The book containing ethical 

 principles is long in existence before the people are trained up to 

 the ideal position in which that law becomes to them sacred and 

 inviolate. From paganism and heathen superstitions which 

 surrounded them on all sides, the Israelites and Jews had slowly 



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