0 



168 REV. J. E. H. THOMSON, M.A., D.D., ON 



deported to Mesopotamia after the capture of Samaria. These 

 would undoubtedly be the larger portion numerically of the nation. 

 The language of the kings of Assyria in the monuments, and their 

 words recorded in the Biblical narrative, are grandiloquent exaggera- 

 tions, in very remote relation probably to fact. Analogy would 

 suggest that the leading men of every class, the teachers, statesmen, 

 literati, the men of wealth and influence, would be carried away. 

 It would be beyond the power, even if it were within the will, of a 

 king of Assyria to transport a great multitude from Palestine across 

 the intervening desert. If a modern instance may be cited — the 

 captive march of our British and Indian soldiers from Kut to Asia 

 Minor — not a third of them in such a case would have survived the 

 journey. Those who were left behind, leaderless and ignorant, 

 were incapable of combination, and found themselves at the mercy 

 of the new settlers, who dispossessed them of their lands and reduced 

 them to the condition of serfs. In all probability a large number, 

 perhaps the great majority, perished of starvation and neglect. Inter- 

 marriage took place between the older inhabitants of the land and the 

 new comers from the east. And it is the fact of this mixed descent 

 which aroused and maintained the antipathy of the stricter Jews of 

 Jerusalem towards their descendants. The measures which Ezra took 

 towards his compatriots who had been led astray were designed to 

 secure them from the influence and consequences of an evil example. 



The fact that the Samaritan Canon of Scripture has never con- 

 tained either the Prophets or the Writings goes far to prove that 

 the Torah was already at the time of the Exile in the possession 

 of the northern peoples, and that they did not receive it either as 

 a gift or as imposed upon them by the Jews returned from Babylon. 

 If they had taken over the books of Moses from the latter, 

 the pre-exilic prophets at least would surely have come into their 

 hands at the same time, and with an equal if not superior recommen- 

 dation. The data are not available for a final judgment. The 

 truth, however, would seem to be that a veto of communication, 

 due partly to mutual suspicion and dislike, existed between the two 

 peoples which was a complete bar to the acceptance on either side 

 of authority or authoritative writings from the other. The Samaritans 

 adhered to their limited Bible," written and handed down in their 

 ancient script. The rabbis of Jerusalem and their successors 

 gradually built up a new and greatly enlarged Canon of sacred 



