More on the Samaritan Passover during the Passion

The Dositheans would not have slaughtered any lambs on the mountain. Their religious service after sunset on the 15th of the first would have been in a synagogue or near the booth on the Balata Meadow at the foot of the mountain, or otherwise in a synagogue wherever they lived. They could not have had any slaughtering of lambs, for exactly the same reason as modern Jews can’t have it. Note that I said “can’t”, not “don’t”. The Torah says the lambs are to be slaughtered outside the Sanctuary. But there is no Sanctuary, not in Jerusalem and not on the mountain. If there is no holy place, there is no profane place outside it to be contrasted to it. “He said there was no holiness in the time of error” (A.F.) “They made the Festivals common” (A.F.) (Not sacred in the full sense of having Priests in a state of holiness inside the Sanctuary. This is the Jewish position since the PROFANATION [not destruction at first] of the sanctuary. Disregard the prevalent reading “They made a substitute for the Festivals”. This comes from inability to read Arabic mss. The word is not بدلوا [baddalû] but rather بذلوا [badhdhalû] ). At the service, in the synagogues or on the meadow in the central Dosithean provisional worship place set up by Sakta, they expressed the hope of restoration of the Sanctuary. The mountain had no holiness in itself, though it was the appointed place for the Sanctuary. “They said Mt. Gerizim was a mountain like any other mountain, and whoever prayed facing Mt. Gerizim might as well pray facing a graveyard” (A.F.). The Sanctuary was expected to reappear, at the prayers of the Ta’eb, and then all the sacred days could be observed on the mountain in a state of holiness. “He said: ‘From this booth we will go up to Mt. Gerizim’ “ (A.F.). This is why Josephus says the Samaritans were not on the mountain, but intended to go up the mountain. They did intend to go up, but not till the appearance of the Ta’eb and the reappearance of the Sanctuary. They certainly would have expressed this hope in their liturgy. I agree that they probably expected something special on the night Jesus was arrested. The Dositheans probably did have religious services in a synagogue on the mountain, but not as part of the observance of any of the three Pilgrim Festivals [Hebrew regalim] which require appearance at the Sanctuary if feasible, that is, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles or Booths [Sukkot]. “He died without ever having gone up Mt. Gerizim in his life” (A.F.). This sentence inits context only means he never went up the mountain in the sense of fulfilling the requirement of the three Regalim. I think that what they did at Passover was to have a Passover meal on the meadow, but without having slaughtered any lambs, and then go up the mountain after sunset and pray for the restoration of the Sanctuary.

This is what I think happened. Jesus wanted the end of the holiness of both Jerusalem and Mt. Gerizim (John IV). It doesn’t matter whether he considered himself a Samaritan or a Jew or a Galilaean. Actually, I don’t think he made any distinction, at least in an eschatological context. He wanted to end the Dosithean expectation of the reappearance of the Sanctuary on the mountain, and equally well wanted to end the status of the mountain in the view of other Samaritans (the Gorothenians), that the mountain was holy in its own right. He also wanted to end the holiness of the temple in Jerusalem.

The Last Supper was either in Jerusalem, or otherwise on the meadow at the foot of the mountain. Either way, it was as far from the mountain in symbolic distance as anywhere could be. I think Jerusalem. There were two attacks, one on Jesus and his immediate closest followers on the Mount of Olives, and one on a group of Samaritans on the lower slopes of Mt. Gerizim as they were going up. I have read your argument that Pilate’s attack would only have aroused the reaction it did if it was an attack on Christianity. I’m convinced by this argument. But I’m not convinced the account in Josephus is wrong. I do think Josephus chose to mention the attack on the Samaritans to draw attention away from his omission of the reason for the arrest of Jesus. He doesn’t give a date, and this is deliberate. But the two attacks were at the same time. Even if the Samaritan Passover was two days later than the Jewish one, the two attacks were near enough in time, and both were on the 15th of the first. That is why Josephus’s trick works so well. But how can the two be said to be one? Because both were an attack on the same movement. The attack on the Samaritans was as much of an attack on Christianity as was the arrest of Jesus. What keeps coming up before and after the arrest? The end of the Jerusalem temple. The Son of Man as depicted in Daniel, the inaugurator of what is to replace the temple and its associated religious system, something that is to be worldwide, permanent, You might well ask how this can be connected with an expectation of the reappearance of the Mosaic Tabernacle. My suggestion is that the Dosithean insistence on the inadequacy of the mountain without the Tabernacle and the expectation of the appearance of the Tabernacle led to an expectation of the original Mosaic Tabernacle, the Heavenly Tabernacle, of which the earthly Tabernacle is only a copy. One is temporary and only the concern of a certain category of people (the Israel according to the flesh); the other is by definition permanent and the concern of the whole world. So you see I suggest that the accusation against Jesus “Thou art a Samaritan” was made by someone that saw that some Samaritans held the same expectation as Jesus, or Jesus held the same expectation as some Samaritans. I think Vitellius understood all this. Yes, it was an attack on the Christos or Chrêstos, as the documents say, and yes, this had to be the Christos in the Samaritan sense. But Jesus only ever accepted the title in the Samaritan sense. It was as you say Marcus Agrippa that was the Christos or anointed one in the sense of Nagid, and it was this meaning that Jesus rejected for himself. Both the attack on the Samaritans and the attack on Jesus were an attack on the same movement. This movement didn’t distinguish between Jews or Samaritans or Galilaeans. The members hoped for the end of the earthly tabernacle in Jerusalem and the end of the period of waiting for its reappearance on the mountain. Instead, they awaited access to the original Heavenly Tabernacle, the pattern of Creation. The Son of Man is Adam Kadmon, the pre-existent Man, bearing in the details of the form of his body the pattern of Creation. Jesus is the High Priest of the Heavenly Tabernacle after his death and ascension, but he is also the embodiment of the Son of Man of Daniel who is Adam Kadmon who has authority even over the Sabbath.

Pilate attacked the same movement in two places at once. The Emperor was displeased about both, because both had the same purpose. Vitellius removed Pilate for one reason, Pilate’s two-pronged attack on Christianity. I use the word Christianity because it was a movement expecting a Christos, in the Samaritan sense. Marcus Agrippa was the instrument of the end of the sanctity of Jerusalem. Acts at this time aimed at ending the sanctity of the mountain come across in a confused way in A.F. I would guess the confusion is deliberate, not in A.F., but in his source. The end of the sacred place symbolises and makes possible and brings about and starts the end of the old dispensation. Marcus Agrippa is the last king under the old dispensation, the last משיח נגיד, but his actions are part of what is needed to bring about the new dispensation. The actions of Jesus would not have been enough on their own. This is why Jesus can use the word Paraclete, which translates a word referring to Moses and then to the second Moses. Jesus was the second Moses, but access to the Tabernacle was brought about by Marcus, and if Marcus did this, then he did what Moses did, though in a different way. After 70 A.D., Marcus was the first king of the new dispensation. As this dispensation had a heavenly source, there could be no earthly successor to Marcus. He showed the fact of the new dispensation by first being imprisoned and then dying without a successor.