bian writers of the same period speak also of the Samaritans, whom they confound with the Jews.1 2 The first Christian travellers who appear to have noticed this people, are William of Baldensel in A. D. 1336, and Sir John Maundeville about the same time; the former describes the Samaritans as a singular sect, differing alike from Christians, Jews, Saracens, and Pagans; and distinguished from all by their red turbans, as at the present day. The pilgrims of the following centuries appear seldom to have taken this route; and I find no further mention of the Samaritans until Cotovicus in A. D. 1598, who speaks of them as a sect of the Jews, but without affording any particulars concerning them.3 Della Valle, in the early part of the next (seventeenth) century, was the first to give some account of them; Maundrell in A. D. 1697 visited and describes them; and Morison also slightly mentions them in the following year. During the eighteenth century, they appear to have been noticed by very few if any travellers; indeed almost no Frank passed on this route. Within the present century they have again been brought more into notice; although few travellers have taken the pains to visit them." 4 A greater interest however has been excited in behalf of the Samaritans, and more information acquired respecting them, in consequence of their correspondence with several learned Europeans, and the publication of their copies of the Pentateuch. The existence of the Pentateuch among them appears to have been early known to scholars; and Julius Scaliger, in the sixteenth century, was the first, according to De Sacy, to point out the importance of obtaining copies of it in Europe. This wish was first fulfilled by the traveller Della Valle in A. D. 1616. When at Constantinople on his way to the east, he was commissioned by De Sancy, then French ambassador in that city, to purchase Samaritan manuscripts; and after attempting 6 devoted two folio volumes to an “historical, theological, and moral elucidation" of the Holy Land, in which he describes Nâbulus and recounts the ancient history of the Samaritans, makes nevertheless not the slightest allusion to their present existence. 5 Dr Clarke speaks of the Samaritans, but only from Benjamin of Tudela and Maundrell; p. 511 sq. 4to. Buckingham does the same, also without having seen them; p. 528 sq. Within the last twenty years they have been visited by Messrs Jowett and Fisk, Connor, Elliott, and others. 6 De Sacy Corresp. des Samar. p. 7, in Notices et Extr. Tom. XII. 2 it in vain at Cairo, Gaza, and Nâbulus, he was able to procure at Damascus two copies of the Pentateuch. One, on parchment, exhibiting the Hebrew text in Samaritan characters, he transmitted to the ambassador; the other, on paper, containing the Samaritan version, he retained for himself. The former was sent by De Sancy to the library of the Oratoire in Paris, and was published by J. Morin in the Paris Polyglott; the latter was loaned by Della Valle to the same editor, and appeared also in the same work. Both were afterwards reprinted with slight corrections in the London Polyglott. The munificence of archbishop Usher was able to procure, not long after, no fewer than six additional manuscripts of the Hebrew-Samaritan Pentateuch ; another was sent to England by Robert Huntington about A. D. 1672; and the number continued to increase, so that Kennicott was able to collate, for his great work, not less than sixteen manuscripts more or less complete. Of these, six are in the Bodleian Library, and one in the British Museum. 3-The Samaritan-Arabic version of Abu Sa'id has never yet been fully printed; but lies in seven manuscripts in the libraries of Rome, Oxford, Paris, and Leyden. The general merits of all these copies of the Pentateuch, have been investigated by able scholars.5 Long before the wish of the elder Scaliger had thus been fulfilled, in the acquisition and publication of the Samaritan Pentateuch, his son Joseph Scaliger had attempted to open a direct correspondence with that people themselves; and had written to their communities in Ñâbulus and Cairo. Answers were sent from both these places; but although dated in the year 998 of the Hejra, A. D. 1589, they never reached Scaliger, who died A. D. 1609. After passing through several hands, they came into the possession of J. Morin, who made a Latin translation of them, which was published after his death. The 6 horn's Einleit. ins A. T. Vol. I. p. 595. 6 In the work above mentioned, published by R. Simon: Antiquitates Ecclesia Orientalis, Lond. 1682. 8. originals are in the Royal Library at Paris; and the text, with a more accurate version, has been published by De Sacy.1 In A. D. 1671, Robert Huntington, who was then chaplain of the English Factory at Aleppo, and died in 1701 as bishop of Raphoe in Ireland, visited the Samaritans at Nâbulus on his way to Jerusalem. They appear to have received from him, through some misapprehension, the impression, that there were Samaritans in England; and he proposed to them to write to their brethren in that country, giving a summary of their doctrines and rites, and to transmit at the same time a copy of their law. A manuscript of the Pentateuch was accordingly put into his hands, and a letter sent after him to Jerusalem; both of which he forwarded to England. The letter was answered by Thomas Marshall, Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford; and the correspondence thus commenced, continued until A. D. 1688, chiefly through Huntington at Aleppo. This correspondence, extending to six letters from the Samaritans, so far as it has been preserved in passing piecemeal through various hands, has been first fully published by De Sacy.2 In the mean time, another correspondence had been commenced with the Samaritans of Nâbulus, by the celebrated Ludolf. Taking advantage of the return of a Jewish agent to Palestine in A. D. 1684, he sent by him a letter, written in Hebrew with Samaritan characters; and received from the Samaritans two letters in reply, in the same language and character, dated in 1685. These were soon published by Cellarius.3 Ludolf wrote again, and received another letter in 1691, which was not published until long afterwards." For more than a century, these various letters continued to be the only source accessible to the scholars of Europe, from which a knowledge of the tenets and ceremonies of the Samaritans could be derived. In A. D. 1807, the French bishop and senator Gregoire again took up the subject; and, by his influence, instructions were sent to the French consuls in the Levant, to make inquiries respecting the Samaritans. The consul at Aleppo opened a communication with those at Nâbulus, and received from them a letter in 1808, which was forwarded to Europe, written in Arabic by the priest Selâmeh, son of Tobias, probably the same person whom we saw. This letter 1 In Eichhorn's Repertorium für bibl. and morgenl. Literat. Bd. XIII. See also De Sacy Corresp. des Samarit. p. 9, in Notices et Extr. des Mss. Tom. XII. 2 Correspond. des Samar. pp. 9-11, 162-225. 3 Epistolæ Samaritanæ Sichemitarum ad J. Ludolfum, Cize 1688. 4. 4 Cellarius gave some extracts from it in the new edition of his Collectan. Hist. Samar. Halæ 1699. Bruns first published it in full: Epistola Samar. Sichem. tertia ad J. Ludolfum, ed. P. J. Bruns, Helmst. 1781. 4.-The full correspondence is given in Eichhorn's Repertorium Bd. XIII, in connection with the letters to Scaliger. See De Sacy Corresp. des Samar. 1. c. pp 11, 12. came into the hands of De Sacy, who answered it for Gregoire; and received in 1811 a reply in Hebrew, written with Samaritan characters. Another letter arrived for De Sacy in 1820, and also one addressed to a supposed Samaritan community in Paris; for which likewise a second letter came in 1826. These five letters have been published by this learned orientalist, in the collection so often referred to.1 3 2 The published literature of the Samaritans, therefore, consists of the various copies of the Pentateuch in whole or in part; and of this series of their letters at four different periods, stretching through an interval of nearly two and a half centuries. In addition to this, Gesenius discovered, in a Samaritan manuscript in England, a curious collection of hymns, chiefly of a doctrinal nature, which he has published with a commentary. They possess also manuscripts of a work professing to be the book of Joshua, often mentioned in their letters. It has never yet been printed; but a manuscript of an Arabic version, written in the Samaritan character, was procured by Joseph Scaliger for the library of the university of Leyden. The work is a sort of chronicle extending from Moses to the time of Alexander Severus; and, in the period parallel to the book of Joshua, has a strong affinity with that book. Accounts of their tenets and rites have been often drawn up from these various sources, to which I can here only refer.5 4 From the earliest letters of the Samaritans and from the accounts of Della Valle, it appears, that, two centuries ago, they had small communities in Cairo, Gaza, Nâbulus, and Damascus. The three former are mentioned repeatedly in their letters; the latter we know only from Della Valle, who purchased at Damascus his copies of the Pentateuch. They seem to have been only a few families, in the gardens outside of the city; perhaps a temporary establishment; and we hear no more of them. Those of Nâbulus and Gaza appear to have stood in close connection; and one of the letters to England was written from the latter place. In their first answer to the inquiries of 7 1 Corresp. des Samar. pp. 13-18, 50161, 225-235. 2 The letters to Scaliger and Ludolf, as we have seen, are given in full only in Eichhorn's Repertorium Bd. XIII; those to England and France, only in the work of De Sacy so often cited. • Carmina Samaritana e Cod Lond. et Gothanis etc. illustr. G. Gesenius, in Anecdot. Oriental. Fascic. I. Lips. 1824. 4. See also his programm, De Samaritanor. Theologia ex fontib. ined. Comment. Halæ 1823. 4. 4 De Sacy Corresp. des Samar. pp. 124, 196. Bertholdt's Einleitung Th. III. p. 869 sq. 5 See especially De Sacy Corresp. des Sam. 1. c. pp. 18-36. Gesenius de Samaritanor. Theologia 1. c.-Earlier writers are: Cellarius Collect. Hist. Samarit. Cizæ 1688. Reland Dissertat Miscell. II. 1 sq. (Both reprinted in Ugolini Thesaur. Tom. XXII.) Bruns in Staudlin's Beyträge zur Philos. u. Gesch. der Relig. u. Sittenlehre, Bd. I. p. 78 sq. 6 Della Valle Voyages II. p. 128. Paris 1745. Gregoire (A. D. 1808), they say that for more than a century there had been no Samaritans in Egypt; and that they then existed only at Nâbulus and Yâfa.1 There may have been an agent of the community, or perhaps a family or two then at Yâfa; but at the time of our visit, neither they nor any one else spoke of any Samaritans except at Nâbulus; our Samaritan guide certainly knew of no other. It appears to be the last isolated remnant of a remarkable people, clinging now for more than two thousand years around this central spot of their religion and history, and lingering slowly to decay; after having survived the many revolutions and convulsions, which in that long interval have swept over this unhappy land; a reed continually shaken with the wind, but bowing before the storm. The modern history of Nâbulus and the surrounding region, is one of wars and rebellion. These districts were formerly regarded as among the most dangerous in Palestine; and for this reason, during the whole of the eighteenth century, the great body of travellers avoided this route, and passed between Jerusalem and Nazareth by way of Yafa and 'Akka. The country around Nâbulus belonged first to the Pashalik of Damascus, and then nominally to that of 'Akka; but the inhabitants were governed by their own chiefs, who were invested by the Pasha. They were known as a restless people, continually in dispute with each other; frequently in insurrection against the government; and ever ready to plunder the traveller, who might venture among them without proper protection. Even the notorious Jezzar of 'Akka never succeeded in completely subduing them; and Junot with a body of fifteen hundred French soldiers was defeated by them. Such is the account of Burckhardt;3 and when too Dr Clarke travelled from Nazareth to Jerusalem in 1801, he had a military escort, and found the country full of rebels. Indeed, just before the Egyptian conquest, the fortress of Sânûr, often the strong hold of rebels, had 1 De Sacy ibid. p. 69. 2 See above p. 273. Stephen Schulz speaks of having found Samaritans at Antioch; but on looking further, it appears that he merely fell in with two persons, whom he chooses to call Samaritans on account of their behaviour; because, he says they professed to be Muhammedans, Christians, or Jews, as might best serve their turn, although dressed as Muhammedans ! There is not the slightest evidence that the good credulous man heard the name of Samaritans applied to them by any one but himself, or that there was any sort of ground for such an appellation; and the whole matter seems a mere conceit of his own imagination. He did not visit Nâbulus, and never came in contact with the Samaritans. Leitungen des Höchsten Th. IV. pp. 360–371. Paulus' Sammlung, Th. VI. pp. 222-224.-Since writing 'the above, I find a remark of Niebuhr upon this very passage of Schulz; he supposes the persons in question may have been of the Nusairîyeh or some Muhammedan sect; Reisebeschr. II. p. 439. The description of Schulz is indeed very similar to that which Maundrell gives of the Nusairiyeh; see Maundrell, March 4th.· 3 Burckh. Travels in Syria, etc. p. 342. + Travels in the Holy Land p. 505. 4to. 4 |