DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5074#0097
THE SAMAKITANS.
88
there is another small pit, where they are cleaned,
and a trough into which the calcined bones are after-
wards thrown ; when all is ended the oven is unbuilt,
and the stones dispersed, lest infidel hands should touch
them. The Passover is eaten standing, with a staff in
the left hand, while, with the right, each person seizes
from the animal whatever portion of meat he can reach; •
they afterwards wipe the grease from the hand with
handkerchiefs, which are then thrown into the fire—and
the remaining bones are burned. They have no objection
to Mooslim or Christian being present at the sacrifice,
but they must not taste the lamb — and they have been
sometimes obliged to pay a penalty of five thousand
piasters to a Turkish Governor, rather than allow him
to eat of the smallest morsel of it.
A little above this place there is a natural ledge of
rock cropping out, divided at rather equal distances by
chance cracks,—these, they say, are the twelve stones
brought by Joshua from the Jordan. They also declare
that a sloping mass of bare, smooth rock near this is
the spot where Abraham commenced the offering of
Isaac, and they show the natural cavern evidently exist-
ing underneath as the pit into which the blood was in-
tended to run off. This sloping rock they believe to
have been also the scene of Jacob's vision of the heavenly
ladder. Some old ruins on the summit of the mountain
(which is 2650 feet high) have been thought to be the
remains of the Samaritan Temple, but Dr. Eobinson
considers them to be some of the stones of the fortress
built by Justinian: the church which then stood there
is now represented by a small Mooslim wely: probably
the Temple of the Samaritans enclosed the sloping rock
and that they had chosen it in imitation of the Sacred
Eock in the Temple of Jerusalem: they entertain the most
88
there is another small pit, where they are cleaned,
and a trough into which the calcined bones are after-
wards thrown ; when all is ended the oven is unbuilt,
and the stones dispersed, lest infidel hands should touch
them. The Passover is eaten standing, with a staff in
the left hand, while, with the right, each person seizes
from the animal whatever portion of meat he can reach; •
they afterwards wipe the grease from the hand with
handkerchiefs, which are then thrown into the fire—and
the remaining bones are burned. They have no objection
to Mooslim or Christian being present at the sacrifice,
but they must not taste the lamb — and they have been
sometimes obliged to pay a penalty of five thousand
piasters to a Turkish Governor, rather than allow him
to eat of the smallest morsel of it.
A little above this place there is a natural ledge of
rock cropping out, divided at rather equal distances by
chance cracks,—these, they say, are the twelve stones
brought by Joshua from the Jordan. They also declare
that a sloping mass of bare, smooth rock near this is
the spot where Abraham commenced the offering of
Isaac, and they show the natural cavern evidently exist-
ing underneath as the pit into which the blood was in-
tended to run off. This sloping rock they believe to
have been also the scene of Jacob's vision of the heavenly
ladder. Some old ruins on the summit of the mountain
(which is 2650 feet high) have been thought to be the
remains of the Samaritan Temple, but Dr. Eobinson
considers them to be some of the stones of the fortress
built by Justinian: the church which then stood there
is now represented by a small Mooslim wely: probably
the Temple of the Samaritans enclosed the sloping rock
and that they had chosen it in imitation of the Sacred
Eock in the Temple of Jerusalem: they entertain the most