To this period also (and not, as Josephus states, to the time of Alexander) belongs the constitution of the Samaritan community on an independent footing by Manasseh, a Jewish priest of rank.  He was expelled from Jerusalem by Nehemiah in 432, for refusing to separate from his alien wife.  He took shelter with his father-in-law Sanballat, the Samaritan prince, who built him a temple on Mount Gerizim near Shechem, where he organised a Samaritan church and a Samaritan worship, on the Jerusalem model, and on the basis of a but slightly modified Jerusalem Pentateuch.  If the Samaritans had hitherto exerted, themselves to the utmost to obtain admission into the fellowship of the Jews, they henceforward were as averse to have anything to do with these as these were to have any dealings with them; the temple on Mount Gerizim was now the symbol of their independence as a distinct religious sect.  For the Jews this was a great advantage, as they had no longer to dread the danger of syncretism.  They could now quite confidently admit the Amme haarec into their communion, in the assurance of assimilating them without any risk of the opposite process taking place.  The Judaizing process began first with the country districts immediately surrounding Jerusalem, and then extended to Galilee and many portions of Peraea.  In connection with it, the Hebrew language, which hitherto had been firmly retained by the Bne haggola, now began to yield to the Aramaic, and to hold its own only as a sacred speech.

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11.  JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

The post-Deuteronomic legislation is not addressed to the people, but to the congregation; its chief concern is the regulation of worship.  Political matters are not touched upon, as they are in the hands of a foreigner lord.  The hierocracy is taken for granted as the constitution of the congregation.  The head of the cultus is the head of the whole; the high priest takes the place of the king.  The other priests, though his brothers or his sons, are officially subordinate to him, as bishops to the supreme pontiff.  They, again, are distinguished from the Levites not only by their office but also by their noble blood, though the Levites belong by descent to the clergy, of which they form the lowest grade.  The material basis of the hierarchical pyramid is furnished by the contributions of the laity, which are required on a scale which cannot be called modest.  Such is the outward aspect of the rule of the holy in Israel.  Inwardly, the ideal of holiness governs the whole of life by means of a net of ceremonies and observances which separate the Jew from the natural man.  “Holy” means almost the same as “exclusive.”  Originally the term was equivalent to divine, but now it is used chiefly in the sense of religious, priestly, as if the divine were to be known from the worldly, the natural, by outward marks.