Note 42 — Chapter IV · THE EVOLUTION OF THE CULT

What does emerge clearly is that Samaria played a considerable part in the beginnings of Christism. In a curious passage of the fourth gospel (viii, 48) the Jews say to Jesus, “Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a daimon?”: and he answers with a denial that he has a daimon, but makes no answer on the other charge. The fact that Matthew makes the Founder expressly forbid his disciples to enter any city of the Samaritans, while an interpolator of Luke42 introduces the story of the good Samaritan to counteract the doctrine, tells that there was a sunderance between Samaritan and Judaizing Christists just as there was between the Judaizers and the Gentilizers in general. From Samaria, then, came part of the impulse to the whole Gentilizing movement; and the Samaritan Justin shows the anti-Judaic animus clearly enough.