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The feud between the Jews and Samaritans, engendered by the refusal of the former to permit their participation in the rebuilding of the Temple, ripened into a mutual hostility of the most bitter description.

The Jews were perpetually reminding the Samaritans that they were “Cuthites,” mere “strangers from Assyria.” They loved to call them “proselytes of the lions” (2 K. xvii.25), and to accuse them of worshipping the idol-gods buried long age under the oak of Shechem (Gen. xxxv.4). To such an extent did they carry their dislike, that they cursed them publicly in their synagogues; declared their testimony was naught, and could not be received; affirmed that any who entertained a Samaritan in his house was laying up judgments for his children; that to eat a morsel of his fare was to eat swine’s flesh180; refused to receive him as a proselyte, and declared that he could have no part in the resurrection of the dead. Moreover they would have no dealings with them that they could possibly avoid, and in travelling from the South to the North preferred to take the long circuit through Peræa rather than pass through their hated country.