Shechem is the first Syrian town mentioned in the history of Abraham, and the ground round Jacob's well was the first possession of Jacob in the Holy Land. Shechem is recognised in the Pentateuch as the capital of central Palestine, ranking with Hebron in the south, and Kadesh in the north, as a city of refuge. Later on we find Rehoboam crowned here, and indeed it is not too much to say that Shechem may be considered the natural capital of Palestine. Its central situation, its accessibility, its wonderfully fine water-supply, are advantages not enjoyed by any other city in the land. The one disadvantage which perhaps as early as the time of Rehoboam prevented its being selected as a capital, consists in its being commanded by a hill on either side so close to the town, that the old geographer, Marino Sanuto, in the fourteenth century, considers the place to be untenable by any military force, because stones might be rolled down upon the houses from either Ebal or Gerizim. It was at Shechem that the solemnities which were to be performed on the conquest of the country--the reading of the law and erection of the altar--were commanded by Moses to be performed, yet, soon after, we find the religious capital at Shiloh, and, in a few years after the great schism, the political capital of Israel was removed to Tirzah, and afterwards to Samaria.
But while the town is interesting from its antiquity and from the vicissitudes of its history, the Samaritan people are yet more so.
Who are the Samaritans? What is their origin, and relation to the other natives of the country? The answer is usually a short one. They are Cuthim, strangers from beyond Jordan--settlers who replaced the Israelites led away by Sargon. It seems to me, however, that these conclusions must be received with great reserve.
Soon after my arrival we received a visit from Amram, the Samaritan high-priest, accompanied by Jacob Shellaby. The high-priest was a wonderfully handsome old man, with fine aquiline features, and he wore the crimson turban distinctive of his race. He could speak no languages except Arabic and Samaritan, and his ideas were perhaps rather limited, as he pronounced Gerizim to be the highest mountain in the world. We represented to him that Ebal, close by, was nearly 230 feet higher. He allowed that it appeared to be so, but could not in reality be, because Gerizim was the highest mountain in the world. This fine old dignitary died in 1874. It was thought that his successor was to be a mere doll in the hands of Jacob Shellaby; a gentleman who is an accomplished savant. In England he appeared for some time in the character of a Samaritan prince. He supplied travellers with many ancient Samaritan hymn books, purloined, it is said, while the congregation were reverently prostrating themselves. He described to us with immense gusto the mode of preparing ancient manuscripts, by steeping a skin in coffee-grounds, and placing it for a month or two under the pillows of the diwan. Many an unwary traveller has been taken in by his false antiquities, stones, and manuscripts. It was thought that Shellaby would succeed, on the death of Amram, in obtaining the ancient roll of the law itself; but this is the Samaritan Fetish, and the young high-priest would not connive at such a deed--which would indeed have been the killing of the golden goose, as the manuscript brings in a yearly income--and excommunicated Jacob, who, after holding an heretical passover of his own on Gerizim, finally left the congregation and repaired to Jerusalem, where I saw him in 1875.