Going Through Samaria

143:4.1For more than six hun­dred years the Jews of Judea, and later on those of Gal­i­lee also, had been at en­mity with the Samar­i­tans. This ill feel­ing be­tween the Jews and the Samar­i­tans came about in this way: About seven hun­dred years B.C., Sar­gon, king of As­syria, in sub­du­ing a re­volt in cen­tral Pales­tine, car­ried away and into cap­tiv­ity over twenty-five thou­sand Jews of the north­ern king­dom of Is­rael and in­stalled in their place an al­most equal num­ber of the de­scen­dants of the Cuthites, Sepharvites, and the Hamath­ites. Later on, Ashur­ba­n­i­pal sent still other colonies to dwell in Samaria.

143:4.2The re­li­gious en­mity be­tween the Jews and the Samar­i­tans dated from the re­turn of the for­mer from the Baby­lo­nian cap­tiv­ity, when the Samar­i­tans worked to pre­vent the re­build­ing of Je­ru­sa­lem. Later they of­fended the Jews by ex­tend­ing friendly as­sis­tance to the armies of Alexan­der. In re­turn for their friend­ship Alexan­der gave the Samar­i­tans per­mis­sion to build a tem­ple on Mount Ger­izim, where they wor­shiped Yah­weh and their tribal gods and of­fered sac­ri­fices much af­ter the or­der of the tem­ple ser­vices at Je­ru­sa­lem. At least they con­tin­ued this wor­ship up to the time of the Mac­cabees, when John Hyr­canus de­stroyed their tem­ple on Mount Ger­izim. The Apos­tle Philip, in his labors for the Samar­i­tans af­ter the death of Je­sus, held many meet­ings on the site of this old Samar­i­tan tem­ple.

143:4.3The an­tag­o­nisms be­tween the Jews and the Samar­i­tans were time-hon­ored and his­toric; in­creas­ingly since the days of Alexan­der they had had no deal­ings with each other. The twelve apos­tles were not averse to preach­ing in the Greek and other gen­tile cities of the De­capo­lis and Syria, but it was a se­vere test of their loy­alty to the Mas­ter when he said, “Let us go into Samaria.” But in the year and more they had been with Je­sus, they had de­vel­oped a form of per­sonal loy­alty which tran­scended even their faith in his teach­ings and their prej­u­dices against the Samar­i­tans.