people as the Samaritans. De Wette thinks that the Samaritans regarded Simon as an angel in human form, because angels were called by them "powers of God" (Svváμeis). Others suppose that they regarded him as the Messiah-"the highest power of God." But most probably all that is meant was, that they looked upon him as a person endowed with supernatural powers; they regarded his magical arts as real miracles; and perhaps formed some indistinct notion that he was a being of supernatural origin. According to the tradition of the church, an altar was erected to Simon at Rome, where he was worshipped as a god. (See note to ver. 24.)

Ver. 12. When Philip came and preached the kingdom of God-the Messianic kingdom-and Jesus as the Messiah; and when he confirmed his preaching by real miracles, which not only cast the false miracles of Simon into the shade, but disclosed their falsehood, the Samaritans became converts, and were baptized. They were more disposed to believe on Jesus Christ than the Jews, because they do not seem, like the Jews, to have expected the Messiah as a temporal deliverer, but rather as a moral restorer.

Ver. 13. Ὁ δὲ Σίμων καὶ αὐτὸς ἐπίστευσε—and Simon also himself believed. Here we have a simple statement of a fact, that Simon himself believed as well as the Samaritans. Some suppose that Simon here merely acted the hypocrite: that what he did believe was not that Jesus was the Messiah, but that Philip was a greater magician than himself; and that he attached himself to Philip, in order either to hide the shame of his defeat, or to discover the secret of Philip's miraculous powers (Grotius, Limborch, Kuinol). Certainly his offer to purchase the Holy Ghost appears to justify this view of the subject. But perhaps he was for a time impressed he felt the falsehood of his own pretences, and the reality of Philip's powers. The idea that Jesus was the Messiah may have forcibly struck him; and thus, overcome by the power of truth, he made profession of his faith in Jesus, and was baptized. That these impressions were temporary, that his heart was unchanged, the result soon

showed.

'EţioTaTo-he was astonished.

As Simon had

astonished the Samaritans by his sorceries, so he in his turn was astonished by the miracles of Philip. It is the same word which had been used in vers. 9, 11 to express the impression which Simon's sorceries made on the Samaritans ; a fact which is lost sight of in our English version by the word being there translated "bewitched," whilst here it is more properly rendered "wondered."

ON SAMARIA.

The district of Samaria was the middle portion of Palestine. It was bounded by Galilee on the north, the Jordan on the east, Judea on the south, and the Mediterranean on the west. It included the possessions of the tribes of Ephraim, and that part of Manasseh which lay west of Jordan, and perhaps a small portion of the tribe of Issachar. "The country of Samaria," observes Josephus, "lies between Judea and Galilee: it begins at a village that is in the great plain (Esdraelon), called Ginea, and ends at the toparchy of Acrabbene (in the lower part of the tribe of Ephraim)." (Bell. Jud. iii. 3. 4.)

The Samaritans were originally colonists planted in the district by Shalmaneser, or, according to others, by Esarhaddon, the king of Assyria. "The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria, instead of the children of Israel" (2 Kings xvii. 24). And Josephus says: "Shalmaneser removed the Israelites out of their country, and placed therein the nation of the Cutheans, who had formerly belonged to the inner parts of Persia and Media, but were then called Samaritans by taking the name of the country to which they were removed" (Ant. x. 9. 7). "They are called in the Hebrew tongue Cutheans, but in the Greek Samaritans" (Ant. ix. 14. 3). Some suppose that the Sa

maritans were purely of Gentile origin, and only mixed with those Jews who afterwards came among them as renegades. Others suppose that they are a mixed people, composed partly of the Israelites who remained after the Assyrian captivity, and partly of the colonists implanted. Whichever opinion is the more correct, it is probable that Gentile blood constituted the chief element of the nation; and that the Israelites whom the Assyrians left, if there were any, were exceedingly few.

The Samaritans, however, at an early period in their history, forsook their idolatrous practices, and embraced the Mosaic religion. On the return of the Jews under Ezra, they made proposals to unite with them in rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem; which proposals, however, the Jews rejected. Similar advances made to Nehemiah met with a similar refusal. Irritated at this treatment, they erected a temple for themselves upon Mount Gerizim, and consecrated the renegade Manasseh, the son of the high priest Joiada, as their first priest (Neh. xiii. 28), and thus set up a rival worship to that at Jerusalem. In the division of the empire of Alexander, Samaria along with Judea fell to the lot of the Syrian kings. During the severe persecutions of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes, the Samaritans joined their adversaries, and gained the favour of the Syrian king by dedicating their temple on Mount Gerizim to Jupiter. They were at length conquered by John Hyrcanus, who destroyed their temple, and incorporated them into the Jewish kingdom. On the dissolution of this kingdom by the deposition of Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great, they passed over to the Romans, and became part of the province of Syria. Although bitter enemies to the Jews, yet they were involved with them in the same calamities during the Jewish war; Josephus informs us that Cerealis, one of Vespasian's generals, slew 11,600 Samaritans at Mount Gerizim (Bell. Jud. iii. 7. 32). After this there is little mention of them as a nation, until the reign of Zeno toward the end of the fifth century, when they were nearly extirpated in consequence of an outrage committed by them

on the Christians at Shechem. They remained in obscurity until the sixteenth century, when the correspondence between them and the illustrious Scaliger again brought them into notice.

The Jews and the Samaritans entertained the most violent hatred toward each other. Although both professing the Mosaic religion, and living under the same government, they regarded each other as enemies. We find in the Gospels that the Samaritans prevented Jesus and His disciples passing through their country, because they were going to keep the passover at Jerusalem. Josephus informs us that they waylaid and robbed the pilgrims from Galilee to Jerusalem (Ant. xx. 6. 1); and that once they designedly polluted the temple, by scattering dead men's bones in the cloisters (Ant. xviii. 2. 2). When the Jews were in prosperity, the Samaritans professed themselves to be Jews; but when they were in adversity, they joined their enemies, and asserted their Gentile origin (Ant. ix. 14. 3). The Jews, on the other hand, repaid this enmity of the Samaritans with interest. "To be a Samaritan and to have a devil" was the strongest expression of reproach which they could pronounce. They would have no dealings with them (John iv. 9), and regarded them as aliens. "There are two manner of nations," says the wise son of Sirach, "whom my heart abhorreth, and the third is no nation: they that sit on the mountain of Samaria, and they that dwell among the Philistines; and the foolish people that dwell in Shechem" (Ecclus. 1. 25, 26). The accumulated mutual wrongs of ages embittered the resentment of these two nations; the foreign origin of the Samaritans caused them to be despised by the Jews; and especially the erection of a temple on Mount Gerizim as the rival to that on Mount Zion, and the destruction of the Samaritan temple by John Hyrcanus, must have perpetuated

their hatred.

The Samaritans from the time of Manasseh, their first high priest, received the law of Moses in all its strictness and purity. They rejected the traditions of the elders; but along with them they seem also to have rejected the other

writings of the Old Testament. It is a mistake to suppose that their religion was a mixture of heathen superstition and Judaism; it was the rigid observance of the Mosaic law. Like the Jews, they expected the coming of the Messiah : "I know," said the woman of Samaria, "that Messias cometh, who is called Christ;" but they do not appear, like them, to have entertained the notion of a temporal Messiah. Besides, they do not seem to have been so intolerant and bigoted, and to have entertained that contempt for other nations which the Jews displayed, and which was so great an obstacle to their reception of that religion which knew no difference between Jew and Gentile. Thus the Samaritans were in a measure prepared for the reception of the gospel. The Jewish prejudices against the Christian scheme did not exist among them; and as worshippers of the true God, and believers in Moses, there were points of connection between them and Christianity which did not exist in the case of the idolatrous Gentiles. The seed also was already sown among them by the short residence of Christ Himself in their country. And thus it happened that the gospel had great success among them, and multitudes of them embraced the Christian faith.

The Samaritans are still settled at Shechem, or, as it is now called, Nablous, a corruption of the Greek name Neapolis. This interesting people are greatly reduced in number: according to Winer, there are not more than thirty families, and according to Hessey about two hundred persons. They still regard Mount Gerizim as the holy mount set apart by Moses, their great lawgiver, to be the peculiar spot for the worship of Jehovah, and to it they direct their prayers. We are informed that they are strict observers of the Sabbath and the Jewish festivals; that they celebrate the passover with minute attention to the enactments of the Mosaic law; that they carefully attend to the practices of circumcision and holy washings; that they are firm believers in the unity and spirituality of God; that they permit no image of Jehovah to be made; that they live in the expectation of the Messiah; and that they are believers in the existence of