Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/469

 SAMARIA

417

SAMARIA

Smith, Diet, of Greek and Roman Geog., a. v.; Robinson, Siblical Researches in Palestine, III (Boston, 1841), 138-49; The Survey of Western Palestine, Memoirs, II (London, 1882), lCO-1, 211-4; Lyon and Reisneb, The Harvard Expedition to Samaria in The Harvard Theological Review, II (January, 1909), III (April, 1910); Guerin, Description de la Palestine, Samarie II (Paris, 1874-5), 188-209; Heidet in ViQ., Diet, de la Bible, 8. V. Hamarie; Revue biblique (1909), 435-45 (1911), 125-31.

S. Vailhe.

Samaritan Language and Literature. — A. Language. — The original language of the Samaritans was the vernacular of Palestine, that is Hebrew. This language was superseded later by Aramaic. One result of the domination of Islam there was the substitution of Arabic. Hebrew, as the idiom of the Pentateuch, both was and is for the Samaritans the sacred language; and even to-day some of them have a knowledge, although indeed a somewhat im- perfect one, of it. The pronunciation differs con- siderably from that settled by the Masoretic text. As the Samaritans use neither vowels nor diacritical signs, the pronunciation has only been preserved by tradition; yet, notwithstanding isolated varia- tions, it seems to have remained, on the whole, very much the same. Information on this point is given by H. Petermann in his "Versuch ciner hebriiischen Formenlehre nach der Aussprache der heutigen Samaritaner" (Leipzig, 1868). The colloquial lan- guage of the Samaritans from the last centuries be- fore Christ up to the first centuries of the Arab domination was a dialect of western Aramaic largely peculiar to Palestine. WTiat was formerly called the Samaritan language rested almost exclusively upon the polyglot edition of the Samaritan Targum (see below), and most of the lexical and grammatical peculiarities which were ascribed to this idiom have been deduced solely from the incredibly corrupt manuscripts of the Targum. They rest on corrup- tions, arbitrary spellings, mutilated Arabic idioms, and other errors of copyists who were unacquainted with the true idiom of the language. Consequently, the existing Samaritan grammars and lexicons are in the highest degree misleading to those who are not specialists. Among these works are, for example, Uhlemann, "Institutiones lingua? Samaritanaj" (Leip- zig, 1837); Nicholls, "A Grammar of the Samaritan Language" (London, 18.58); Petermann, "Brevis linguae Sam. grammatica" (Berlin, 1873); Castelli, "Lexicon heptaglot ton" (London, 1669). [Cf. Kohn, "Zur Sprache, Litcratur und Dogmatik der Samari- taner" (Leipzig, 1876).] Apart from a decided intermixture of Hebrew idioms, as well as of words borrowed from the Greek and Latin, the real Samari- tan language differed but little from the Aramaic spoken in the other parts of Palestine, especially from that of Northern Palestine, as, for example, it is found in the Palestinian Talmud. Owing to the secluded position of this people, its literature in the course of time must have become more and more isolated. No linguistic value can be attached to the writings in what is called the Samaritan language, produced after the extinction of Aramaic. The authors, accustomed to speak Arabic, strove to write in a language of which they had no mastery.

Leaving out later flourishes added to individual letters, Samaritan written characters represent a more ancient type than the square characters and resem- ble those found on Hebrew coins and the inscrip- tions of seals, but with a greater inclination to the cursive. The script appears to belong to a later development of the writing used in the old Hebrew codices, and, taken altogether, a type of writing common in a part of Palestine in the fourth century before Christ may be preserved in it. It would be well to replace the unsatisfactory Samaritan type used in printing with more suitable characters in closer agreement with the old manuscripts. Among the inscriptions written in Samaritan characters XIII.— 27

the two most important are those at Nablus, the one in the minaret wall of the mosque of El-Hadra, the other belonging to a private individual. [Cf. Rosen in "Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenliindischen Gesellschaft" (hereafter to be cited as ZDMG) XIV (1866), 622. The first inscription is also dis- cussed by Blau in ZDMG, XIII (1859), 275, the second is treated in Lidzbarski, "Handbuch der nordsem. Epigraphik" (Weimar, 1898), 440.] Both inscrip- tions belong apparently to the period before the de- struction of the Samaritan Synagogue by Justinian I (529 B. c). The inscription on the building of the present synagogue (pubhshed by Rosen in ZDMG, XIV, 624) belongs to the year 1711. In regard to some other inscriptions, cf. B. Wright in "Pro- ceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology", VI (1883), November, 25; Clermont-Ganneau in "Revue biblique" (1906), 84; Lagrange in "Revue illustree de la Terre Sainte" (1890), 339 (1891), 83; also in "Revue biblique" (1893), 114; Sobernheim, "Samar. Inschriften aus Damaskus" in "Mit- teilungen und Nachrichten des Deutschen Palastina- Vereins", VIII (1902), 70; Idem, "Sieben samarit. Inschriften aus Damaskus" (Vienna, 1903).

B. Literature. — Samaritan literature consists of writings in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and for the Hellenistic period, Greek. The number of writings at present in the possession of the Samaritan com- munity at Nablus is small. Barton has given in "Biblioth. Sacra", LX (1903), 612 sqq., a list of these books and manuscripts drawn up by JaqAb, the priest at Nablus. From the seventeenth century on, manuscripts have been acquired by various European libraries. The number of these was con- siderably increased through the sale of manuscripts made in 1870 to the Imperial Library of St. Peters- burg by the Karaite Abraham Firkovitch; these writings had been collected by him in the genisoth of the Samaritans at Cairo and Nablus.

Margoliouth, Descriptive List of the Hebrew and Samaritan MSS. of the Brit. Museum (London, 189.'J); Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samar. MSS. in the Brit. Museum (only I voL publ., London, 18991; Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew MSS. in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1886); Harkavy, The Collec- tion of Samaritan MSS. at St. Petersburg (London, 1874) ; Cata- logues des MSS. hibreux et samaritains de la Bibliothique Imperiale (Paris, 1866) ; Supplement by Steinschneider in Zeitschrift fiir hebr. Bibliographic, VI (1902, reprinted at Frankfort-on-the- Main, 1903) ; Geioer, Neue Mitteilungen uber die Samaritaner in Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenldndischen Gesellschaft, XVI- XXII, a review of publications from the Samaritan literature up to 1868. Cf. also Nutt, A Sketch of Samaritan History, Dogma and Literature (London, 1874); Cowley, Sam. Literature and Religion in Jew. Quart. Rev. (1896), 562 sqq.; Montgomery, The Samaritans (Philadelphia, 1907), 270 sqq.

In the remainder of this article a condensed sketch will be given of the most important writings con- tained in the Samaritan literature.

(1) The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Trans- lations of It. — The most important of the works belonging to Samaritan literature is the Samaritan Pentateuch, that is the Pentateuch written in the Samaritan character in Hebrew, which is not to be confounded with the Samaritan translation of the Pentateuch or with the Samaritan Targum (see be- low). In the early Christian centuries this Pen- tateuch was frequently mentioned in the writings of the Fathers and in marginal notes to old manu- scripts, but in the course of time it was forgotten. In 1616 Pietro della Valle obtained a copy by pur- chase at Damascus; this copy came into the posses- sion of the library of the Oratory at Paris and was printed in 1645 in the Paris Polyglot. At the present time the manuscript, which is imperfect and dates from 1514, is in the Vatican Library. From the time of this publication the number of codices, some much older, has been greatly increased, and Kennicott was able to compare in whole or part sixteen manuscripts ["Vet. Test. Hebr." (Oxford, 1776)]. The views of scholars vary as to the antiquity of this Samaritan