, and hast a
devil,' said the Jews, to Jesus, in Jerusalem.... A Samaritan egg, as
the hen laid it, could not be unclean, but what of a boiled egg? Yet
interest and convenience strove, by subtle casuistry, to invent excuses
for what intercourse was unavoidable. The country of the Cuthites was
clean, so that a Jew might, without scruple, gather and eat its produce.
The waters of Samaria were clean, so that a Jew might drink them or wash
in them. Their dwellings were clean, so that he might enter them, and
eat or lodge in them. Their roads were clean, so that the dust of them
did not defile a Jew's feet. The Rabbis even went so far in their
contradictory utterances, as to say that the victuals of the Cuthites
were allowed, if none of their wine or vinegar were mixed with them, and
even their unleavened bread was to be reckoned fit for use at the
Passover. Opinions thus wavered, but, as a rule, harsher feeling
prevailed."

That the hostile sentiment has continued unto this day, at least on the
part of the Jews, is affirmed by Frankl and others. Thus, as quoted by
Farrar (p. 166 note): "'Are you a Jew?' asked Salameh Cohen, the
Samaritan high priest, of Dr. Frankl; 'and do you come to us, the
Samaritans, who are despised by the Jews?' (_Jews in the East_, ii,
329). He added that they would willingly live in friendship with the
Jews, but that the Jews avoided all intercourse with them. Soon after,
visiting Sepharedish Jews of Nablous, Dr. Frankl asked one of that sect,
'if he had any intercourse with the Samaritans?' The women retreated
with a cry of horror, and one of them said, 'Have you been among the
worshipers of the pigeons?' I said that I had. The women again fell back
with the same expression of repugnance and one of them said, 'Take a
purifying bath!'" (idem, p. 334). Canon Farrar adds, "I had the pleasure
of spending a day among the Samaritans encamped on Mount Gerizim, for
their annual passover, and neither in their habits nor apparent
character could I see any cause for all this horror and hatred."

2. Sychar.--The town where dwelt the Samaritan woman with whom Jesus
conversed at Jacob's well, is named Sychar in John 4:5; the name occurs
nowhere else in the Bible. Attempts have been made to identify the place
with Shechem, a city dear to the Jewish heart because of its prominence
in connection with the lives of the early patriarchs. It is now
generally admitted, however, that Sychar was a small village on the si