16-i REV. J. E. H. THOMSOX, M.A., D.D., OX 



doubtless prophetically called, because in our Lord's time there 

 were a number of Greek towns therein. But, in sending out His 

 Apostles for the first time to" preach, and to heal, He bade them 

 avoid the Gentiles: Go not," said He, "into any way of the 

 Gentiles, and enter not into any city of the Samaritans ; but go 

 rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt, x, 1, 5). To 

 these, as He says elsewhere, He in His earthly ministry was sent 

 (Matt. XV, 24 : cp. 22). 



(The Lecturer hereupon asked Mr. Eouse whether he held the 

 Samaritans to be simply foreigners in our Lord's time, and he 

 answered, Xo : they were intermingled with Israelites, as we 

 gather from Josephus (Ant. XI, viii, 7) : ' Xow when Alexander 

 was dead . . . the temple upon Mount Gerizim remained ; 

 and if anyone was accused by those of Jerusalem of 

 having eaten things common, or of having broken the Sabbath, 

 or of any other crime of the like nature, he fled away to the 

 Shechemites.' ''") 



The Chairmax (Dr. T. G. Pinches, M.R.A.S.) : — I am sure we have 

 all listened with considerable interest to Dr. Thomson's exceedingly 

 valuable paper, and this notwithstanding that the title must have 

 seemed, to many, to have been, in a sense, somewhat unattractive. 

 I think, however, that we may regard both the paper and the 

 discussion it has called forth as being among the most important 

 of the communications with which the Institute has been favoured. 

 We are therefore not only beholden to the Lecturer, but also to those 

 who have taken part in the discussion, and especially to Dr. Gaster, 

 who has given us, from the riches of his Library, and from his own 

 brilliant memory, details concerning the Samaritan Pentateuch 

 which tend to support the author's contention, that the Samaritans 

 are of really Israelitish descent. L^nfortunately, Samaritan is not 

 my subject, and I have only made use of the language for com- 

 parative purposes, but from the domain of Babylonian literature 

 I can bring forward one illustration of a point touched upon by the 

 Lecturer — that of the use of hu, he," for M, she." The same thing 

 occurs in Babylonian, especially in inscriptions of a late date, but 

 in this case it is not due to the confusion of letters which resemble 

 each other, like the Hebrew ^ and ^ , but to the deliberate intention 

 of those who used the language. The words in question are the 

 possessive pronouns -6W and -si, the latter being in certam texts 



