THE SAMARITAN PASSOVER

Shannon News, 25 May 1926, Page 4

THE SAMARITAN PASSOVER

WORSHIP ON MOUNT GERIZEM. AN ANCIENT RACE. (By H» G. Luke, in “The Times.”) Picture a valley flanked on the north by a mountain covered with prickly pear, on the south by one of almost equal height with occasional patches of cultivation struggling through the stones, a valley contain- ; ing at its straightest part, where the | lower slopes of the two mountains ) almost meet, a town of tall stone ! houses of great age. The town is , compressed by the walls of the valley into a shape peculiarly long and narrow, and only to the south-west does it burst its geographical bonds by * throwing a feeler into a cleft of the southern mountain. This feeler, jthe poorest and remotest quarter of the town, has a significance which owes nothing to material considerations, for it contains in the black tunnels that do service as its streets, in its crabbed and tortuous little alleys, all that is left of the oldest and . the smallest sect in the world.

: Here, in a few houses huddled around a plain little synagogue, 132 • Samaritans preserve a flicker of life in a people once numerous and powerful, a. people whose separate history goes back to the days of the Babylonian captivity. And the Samaritans’ antiquity as a people, impressive though it be, is as nothing compared with that of the city they live in. Although their ancient stronghold now bears a name which means “New Town” —-for Nablus is but an Arabic corruption of Neapolis, the title bestowed upon Shechem more than eighteen centuries ago Shechem was already known when Abraham and his household, having departed out ,of Haran, went forth into the land of Canaan “unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh.” It was an inhabited place when Jacob spread his tent in its fields and there set up his altar. Here the' children of Israel buried [ the bones of Joseph “in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the I sons of Hamor, the father of fhechem, for an hundred pieces of silver,” the reputed tomb being shown to this day in the outskirts of Nablus; here Joshua assembled all the congregation of Israel to hear the law of Moses, making of the northj ern mountain, Ebal, the mountain of i i curses, of the southern, Gerizim, the ! } mountain of blessings. And, later, it j was in Shechem -hat Rehoboam fori feited by his folly the allegiance of ! the • northern tribes and brought about the division of his people between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The Holy Mountain. It is amid surroundings preserving a continuity with some of the earliest incidents of recorded history that tlie Samaritans have struggled doggedly to maintain, in the face of many obstacles and tribulations, their sad and precarious existence. Ever at enmity with the Jeivs, since these, on their return from captivity, rejected their advances, they have adhered to Mount Gerizim as the one true site for the temple’ of Jehovah, as the only lawful gibieh. -To the Samaritan Moriah is not Zion, but their own Moreh, and' they have never ceased to regard Jerusalem and its temple as the shrine of a , heretical people. With the exception of a dozen souls dAvelling in the neighbouring town of Tul Keram and of a similar number in Jaffa, they have not been heard of outside Nablus for several centuries, yet ’time was when they were many and truculent withal. In the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Zeno they fell upon the Christians, being punished for this act by their expulsion from Mount Gerizim; in the reign of Justinian they killed the Bishop of Neapolis, massacred all priests and monks who fell into their hands, and ’'burned the churches between Bethlehem and Beisan. Justinian’s reprisals- drove the ’ Samaritan army across Jordan, where it ivas annihilated, 20,000 Samaritan prisoners being sold into Persia and India, while others embraced Christianity. When Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela travelled in Palestine and Syria in the twelfth century, he found only 1000 Samaritans in all, scattered between Nablus and Ascalon, Caesarea and Damascus; and, after the battle, of , Hattin, the sect fell on yet more evil | days. From that time onward the survivors have scarcely ventured be-- ’ yond Nablus, where, they have clung ' to life for the pursuit of two ideals: ! to perpetuate the existence of their race, and to maintain their worship . on Mount Gerizim. :

On three occasions in the year "do the Samaritans repair in pilgrimage to their holy mountain, a mountain so sacred that, according to their belief, the waters of the Flood refrained from covering it. The Feasts of Weeks and of Tabernacles arc celebrated on its slopes, but the most solemn occasion is the Passover, when the entire community, men, women and children, sound and sick, walk, ride or are carried to their camping place on a ridge below the summit. Here some forty tents have been' spread around a piece of level ground that has been cleared as far ,as possible of the stones that abound on Gerizim, and here, for the ensuing week, all that is left of this little people takes up its habitation, a religious encampment that suggests those of the Exodus or the Book of Numbers. For the Samaritan’s dress is probably not dissimilar from that worn by the Israelites in the days of the Patriarchs, and they have preserved, by their jealous refusal to inter-marry with strangers, a Biblical physiognomy that accords well with the only blood sacrifice still offered to Jehovah. The Sacrifice. By sunset of the eve of the Pass-

over preparations for the sacrifice are compete. Beside the camping place is a small, oblong plot of ground, marked out with a low rubble wall as a prayer enclosure; here a trench lias been dug, while on a

rough altar of hewn stone Avater is' being boiled in copper cauldrons. A few yards away, excavated in a piece of higher ground, is a round pit or kiln, some 6ft. in depth, and lined with stones, where the sheep are to be roasted after having been slaughtered on the altar, and this is being brought to the requisite state of heat by the burning of brushwood inside it. The animals, each one “a lamb without blemish, a male of the first year,” which up to this time have been browsing unconcernedly about tlie camp, are now being* 1 collected by the young men and brought to the altar, and the worshippers proceed to the first. part of the sacrifice, consisting of the “sacrificial prayers.” Clothed, for this occasion, in robes of white linen, they face the rock on the summit of Gerizim which marks the site of the Holy of Holies of the Samaritan temple, the High Priest taking his place at the head of the congregation. It is to be noted that each man, before praying, performs ablutions similar to the ritual ablutions of Moslems, that he stand on a prayer rug or cloth, and that he prostrates himself at certain parts of his service with his forehead touching the ground in precisely the same manner as does the Moslem. These practices, together with several Samaritan liturgical formulae which have curiously exact counterparts in the Koran, suggest that the Samaritans have made substantial contributions to the ceremonies and devotions of Islam.

As the sun drops to the horizon the High Priest turns to face the congregation, and begins to read the twelfth chapter of Exodus, so timing himself that the passage “and the whole congregation of Israel shall kill it” is reached as the sun disappears. At the word “kill,” each of the three ritual slaughterers, Who have been standing over the lambs, swiftly cuts one throat and then jumps to. the next animal for the same purpose. To the spectator unaccustomed to such sights this process, and the animals’ ensuing death struggles, can hardly be said to afford a pretty spectacle, but to the assembled Samaritans the cutting of each'throat is the signal for an outI burst of joy, the people shouting, singing and clapping their hands. A young priest now collects some of the paschal blood in a basin, stirs it with a bunch of wild thyme, and daubs with it the lintel 1 of every tent, in accordance Avith 1 the injunction of , Exodus xii., 22. Next, boiling water is poured over the lambs, so that the wool can be plucked off ;., for the skin is left intact in order to protect the flesh in the oven. As soon as the animals have been fleeced, they undergo a rigorous ritual inspection, and any of them found to be no£ absolutely flawless are rejected. Noav comes the actual sacrifice to the Almighty. The viscera, fat and kidneys of the animals are collected and placed upon the altar, beneath which the fire is kindled anew, and here tlie burnt offering remains until it is entirely consumed. Meanwhile the carcases have been prepared for the oven. From the hindquarters 'one particular -sinew has been removed, in accordance with Genesis xxxii., 32 (for the Samaritans claim to know the very tendon which Avas touched by the angel in the hollow of Jacob’s thigh), and much salt is rubbed into the flesh in obedience to Levictieus ii., 13. The anmals are then spitted and loAvered into the kiln, by this time red hot, the top being sealed With a wickerwork lid covered with earth. While this is being done the worshippers shout aloud: “There is no God but one,” a phrase significant as the prototype, in all probability, of the Moslem’ profession of faith — la illalia ilia ’llah.

More prayers and readings now occupy the time until the meat is cooked, and, in the course of these, the High Priest raises aloft before the people one of their scrolls of the Pentateuch, all of' the Scriptures that the Samaritans accept. -Then, when the lambs have been sufficientlyroasted, the oven is opened, the meat is distributed and eaten “in haste . . . with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs”; and the ancient rite is brought to its close.