IV. prevailed throughout the East, still it was probably, CHAP. like that of the Jews, by no means distinct or definite. It is generally supposed that the Samaritans, admitting only the law, must have rested their hope solely on some ambiguous or latent prediction in the books of Moses, who had foretold the coming of another and a mightier prophet than himself. But though the Samaritans may not have admitted the authority of the prophets as equal to that of the law; though they had not installed them in the regular and canonised code of their sacred books, it does not follow that they were unacquainted with them, or that they did not listen with devout belief to the more general promises, which by no means limited the benefits of the Messiah's coming to the local sanctuary of Jerusalem, or to the line of the Jewish kings. There appear some faint traces of a belief in the descent of the Messiah from the line of Joseph, of which, as belonging to the tribe of Ephraim, the Samaritans seem to have postea moriturus et sepeliendus Samaritan letters, and references IV. CHAP. considered themselves the representatives.* Nor is it improbable, from the subsequent rapid progress of the doctrines of Simon Magus, which were deeply impregnated with Orientalismt, that the Samaritan notion of the Messiah had already a strong Magian or Babylonian tendency. On the other hand, if their expectations rested on less definite grounds, the Samaritans were unenslaved by many of those fatal prejudices of the Jews, which so completely temporalised their notions of the Messiah, and were free from that rigid and exclusive pride which so jealously appropriated the divine promises. If the Samaritans could not pretend to an equal share in the splendid anticipations of the ancient prophets, they were safer from their mis-interpretation. They had no visions of universal dominion; they looked not to Samaria or Sichem to become the metropolis of some mighty empire. They had some legend of the return of Moses to discover the sacred vessels concealed near mount Gerizim ‡, but they did not expect to see the banner raised, and the conqueror go forth to beat the nations to the earth and prostrate mankind before their re-established theocracy. They might even be more inclined to recognise the Messiah in the person of a purely religious re * We still want a complete and critical edition of the Samaritan chronicle (the Liber Josua), which may throw light on the character and tenets of this remarkable branch of the Jewish nation. Though in its present form a comparatively modern com pilation, it appears to me, from Hist. of the Jews, ii. 160. IV. former, on account of the overbearing confidence CHAP. with which the rival people announced their hour of triumph, when the Great King should erect his throne on Sion, and punish all the enemies of the chosen race, among whom the "foolish people," as they were called, "who dwelt at Sichem* would not be the last to incur the terrible vengeance. A Messiah who would disappoint the insulting hopes of the Jews would, for that very reason, be more acceptable to the Samaritans. Sanhedrin. The Samaritan commonwealth was governed, Samaritan under the Roman supremacy, by a council or sanhedrin but this body had not assumed the pretensions of a divinely inspired hierarchy; nor had they a jealous and domineering sect, like that of the Pharisees, in possession of the public instruction, and watching every new teacher who did not wear the garb, or speak the Shibboleth of their faction, as guilty of an invasion of their peculiar province. But, from whatever cause, the reception of Jesus among the Samaritans, was strongly contrasted with that among the Jews. They listened with reverence, and entreated him to take up his permanent abode within their province; and many ✓ among them distinctly acknowledged him as the Messiah and Saviour of the world. Still a residence, longer than was necessary in the infected air, as the Jews would suppose it, of Sama *There be two manner of nations which my heart abhorreth, and the third is no nation. They that sit upon the mountain of Sa maria, and they that dwell among IV. } racle in Ca pernaum. CHAP. ria, would have strengthened the growing hostility of the ruling powers, and of the prevailing sect among the Jews. After two days, therefore, Jesus proceeded on his journey, re-entered Galilee, and publicly assumed, in that province, his office as the Second mi- teacher of a new religion. The report of a second, a more public, and more extraordinary miracle than that before performed in the town of Cana, tended to establish the fame of his actions in Jerusalem, which had been disseminated by those Galileans who had returned more quickly from the passover, and had excited a general interest to behold the person of whom such wonderful rumours were spread abroad.* The nature of the miracle, the healing a youth who lay sick at Capernaum, about twenty-five miles distant from Cana, where he then was; the station of the father, at whose entreaty he restored the son to health (he was probably on the household establishment of Herod), could not fail to raise the expectation to a higher pitch, and to prepare the inhabitants of Galilee to listen with eager deference to the new doctrines.t Nazareth. Inhospitable recep One place alone received the son of Mary with cold and inhospitable unconcern, and rejected his tion of claims with indignant violence- his native town of Nazareth. The history of this transaction is singularly true to human nature. Jesus. * Matt. iv. 13. 17.; Mark,i. 14, 15.; Luke, iv. 14, 15.; John, iv. 43-45. + John, iv. 46–54. Luke, iv. 16-30. There ap Where Jesus was pears to be an allusion (John, iv. 44.) to this incident, which may have taken place before the second miracle. IV. unknown, the awe-struck imagination of the people, CHAP, excited by the fame of his wonderful works, beheld him already arrayed in the sanctity of a prophetical, if not of a divine, mission. Nothing intruded on their thoughts to disturb their reverence for the commanding gentleness of his demeanour, the authoritative persuasiveness of his language, the holiness of his conduct, the celebrity of his miracles: he appeared before them in the pure and unmingled dignity of his public character. But the inhabitants of Nazareth had to struggle with old impressions, and to exalt their former familiarity into a feeling of deference or veneration. In Nazareth he had been seen from his childhood; and though gentle, blameless, popular, nothing had occurred, up to the period of his manhood, to place him so much above the ordinary level of mankind. His father's humble station and employment had, if we may so speak, still farther undignified the person of Jesus to the mind of his fellow-townsmen. In Nazareth Jesus was still "the carpenter's son." We think, likewise, that we discover in the language of the Nazarenes something of local jealousy against the more favoured town of Capernaum. If Jesus intended to assume a public and distinguished character, why had not his native place the fame of his splendid works? why was Capernaum honoured, as the residence of the new prophet, rather than the city in which he had dwelt from his youth? the syna It was in the synagogue of Nazareth, where Jesus Jesus in had hitherto been a humble and devout listener, that gogue. |