n which it was situated were both known as Samaria. The
principal facts pertaining to the origin of the Samaritans and the
explanation of the mutual animosity existing between that people and the
Jews in the time of Christ, have been admirably summarized by Geikie
(_Life and Words of Christ_, vol. i, pp. 495-6). Omitting his citation
of authorities, we quote: "After the deportation of the Ten Tribes to
Assyria, Samaria had been repeopled by heathen colonists from various
provinces of the Assyrian empire, by fugitives from the authorities of
Judea, and by stragglers of one or other of the Ten Tribes, who found
their way home again. The first heathen settlers, terrified at the
increase of wild animals, especially lions, and attributing it to their
not knowing the proper worship of the God of the country, sent for one
of the exiled priests, and, under his instructions, added the worship of
Jehovah to that of their idols--an incident in their history from which
later Jewish hatred and derision taunted them as 'proselytes of the
lions,' as it branded them, from their Assyrian origin, with the name of
Cuthites. Ultimately, however, they became even more rigidly attached to
the Law of Moses than the Jews themselves. Anxious to be recognized as
Israelites, they set their hearts on joining the Two Tribes, on their
return from captivity, but the stern Puritanism of Ezra and Nehemiah
admitted no alliance between the pure blood of Jerusalem and the tainted
race of the north. Resentment at this affront was natural, and excited
resentment in return, till, in Christ's day, centuries of strife and
mutual injury, intensified by theological hatred on both sides, had made
them implacable enemies. The Samaritans had built a temple on Mount
Gerizim, to rival that of Jerusalem, but it had been destroyed by John
Hyrcanus, who had also levelled Samaria to the ground. They claimed for
their mountain a greater holiness than that of Moriah; accused the Jews
of adding to the word of God, by receiving the writings of the prophets,
and prided themselves on owning only the Pentateuch as inspired;
favoured Herod because the Jews hated him, and were loyal to him and the
equally hated Romans; had kindled false lights on the hills, to vitiate
the Jewish reckoning by the new moons, and thus throw their feasts into
confusion, and, in the early youth of Jesus, had even defiled the very
Temple itself, by strewing human bones in it, at the Passover.

"Nor had