CHAP. 
VI. 
NAPOLOSE. 277 
presume to identify the coffins of their Patriarchs 
and Prophets\ When it is once understood 
what the real monuments are, to which those 
traditions allude ; the veneration always paid 
by that people to a place of sepulture; their 
rigorous adherence, in burial, to the coemeteries 
of their ancestors ; the care with which memo- 
rials are transmitted to their posterity ; and 
other circumstances connected with their 
customs and history, which cannot here 
be enumerated ; it is not merely probable, 
but it amounts almost to certainty, that the 
sepulchres they revere were originally the 
tombs of the persons to whom they are now 
ascribed. 
In the time of Alexander the Great, Sichem 
was considered as the capital of Samaria'^. Its 
inhabitants were called Samaritans, not merely 
as people of Samaria, but as a sect at variance 
(3) Gerrans, translator of the^ Hebrew \\:\neiavy oiRd^hhi Benjamin, 
published ia 1783, makes use of an allusion to the Prophet Daniel's 
coffin, as a proof of the spurious nature of the Work. (See Dissert. 
p. 10. prefixed to the volume.) There is every reason to believe that 
Benjamin's Itinerary is a mere compilation ; but the objection thus 
urged does not impeach its veracity. The tradition alluded to was 
probably borrowed from former Writers. 
("i) JosepJais, Antiq. lib. xi. c. 8. 
