Abstract

In the fragments of the Hellenistic Jewish authors, references to the Samaritans are scanty and mostly related to the exegesis of Gen 34. The authors are typically interested in the enterprise of Simeon and Levi, and in the theme of Jewish endogamy. In spite of the pro-Jewish bias of most fragments, a positive description of Samaria and a hint to Shechem as a «holy city» are found in Theodotus, and the «sacred Argarizim» is mentioned by the so-called pseudo-Eupolemus. Roman authors such as Philo and pseudo-Philo are not interested in the Samaritans, not even with regard to the exegetical concerns of Gen 34. The first Latin author who mentions the Samaritans is Curtius Rufus, with an allusion to the Samaritans at the time of Alexander’s journey to Egypt. In "Annales", Tacitus provides a short report of the conflict between Galileans and Samaritans, with an anti-Jewish, yet not pro-Samaritan perspective. The image of the Samaritans in Flavius Josephus’s "Bellum Iudaicum" is more limited and neutral than that of "Antiquitates Iudaicae". In "Antiquitates", a work which aims at demonstrating the antiquity of the Jewish "ethnos" and the purity of its origins, Josephus highlights the distinction between Jews and Samaritans on ethnic and religious grounds. If the general tendency of Josephus is undoubtedly anti-Samaritan, as apparent from some explicit authorial passages, his testimony on the Samaritans is ambivalent. With such ambiguity the author conforms to a rhetoric of inclusion-exclusion, in order to corroborate Jewish identity after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem; and, between the lines, he portrays the Samaritans as a form of «Judaism» somewhat independent from the mainstream – a phenomenon which the Jerusalem priest would never have openly confirmed. Only in Late Antiquity, as attested by the "Historia Augusta", are the Samaritans perceived as members of a religion different from that of the Jews.