Benjamin of Tudela, in [his] Itinerary: “Gerizim,” he says, “is a mountain pleasant with springs and gardens; but, on the contrary, Ebal [is] arid, full of rocks and stones. And that one [Gerizim] indeed was situated toward the South, but this [Ebal] toward the North.” But in what part of the land of Canaan they are situated is controversial. The common opinion, he says, [is] that [they are] near Shechem — which was afterward called Neapolis, and in the time of the cited Benjamin was commonly called everywhere “Naples” or “Nables,” not “Nebilas,” as its [Hebrew] Interpreter renders. For thus the Gauls today still call Italian Neapolis; of which [Jews], in Benjamin’s age, [there was] the greatest multitude in the Holy Land — namely about 500 years ago. But, a few years since, the Geographic discipline — a man excellent (as [is] clear from his notes on Ptolemy and the Tables of the world), as Masius, familiar to him, relates — judged [them] to have been near Ai, and this very city [Shechem] to have stood on the high ridge of Gerizim. His reasons [are] these. The first: The 12 stones — concerning which before, and again afterward — were transferred from the Jordan to these mountains. Not, therefore, so far from the Jordan were these mountains, as they would be if they were at Shechem. The second: Shechem was as it were in the middle of the Canaanite enemies. To go there now, therefore — the enemies not yet destroyed — and to lead down the whole unwarlike crowd of elders, women, and children — what prudence would that be? what temerity [would it not be]? The third: Since Moses was beyond the Jordan when he prescribed this very ceremony, he seems to have pointed out these very mountains by hand and finger, as if they were near and in the eyes of all, when he said (Deut. 11:30, from the Hebrew word for word): “Are not these (mountains) in Transjordan, behind the way of the sunset?” The fourth: Abraham is recorded to have placed an altar between Ai and Bethel (Gen. 12:8). Therefore it is likely [that] God willed [that] which the people were building on Ebal to be built in the same place, and plainly in the same footstep. For this greatly availed for imitating Abraham’s faith, and for exhorting the people by that old memory. The fifth: St. Jerome (book on the Hebrew places): “There are, near Jericho, two neighboring mountains, looking at each other, of which one is called Gerizim, the other Gebal [Ebal]. But the Samaritans think these two mountains to be near Neapolis: but they err vehemently. For they are very far distant among themselves; nor can the voices of those blessing or cursing be heard between them, which scripture commemorates.” And when he had said [they were] near Golgol (which [is] also Galgal [Gilgal]), the mountains Gerizim and Gebal, he subjoins: “The Samaritans, therefore, err, who wish to show the mountains Gerizim and Ebal near Neapolis, since scripture attests them to be near Galgal.” And similar [things] are in St. Epiphanius (bk. 1, heresy 9), as I will note again toward the end of the question. Abulensis seems doubtful. For here (q. 20) he says [they are] near Ai, and Deut. 11 similarly; where, however (as I will show afterward), he says [they are] near Shechem.
Yet from the common opinion I am not driven off. First: Because scripture clearly, without any ambiguities — so that there be no place for tergiversation — recounts Gerizim near Shechem (Judg. 9:7): “Jotham stood on the top of Mount Gerizim, and, with raised voice, cried out and said: Hear me, ye men of Shechem.” If he could be heard by the men of Shechem, surely it is necessary [that] this mountain was nearest [to them]. The Geographer answers [that] Mount Gerizim was, by a long and perpetual [continuous] ridge, produced [extended] from Shechem all the way to Ai, and further even to Jericho, and near to Galgala [Gilgal]. But this is to feign mountains which are none, nor indicated by any Geographer or ancient Historian. For between Ai and Shechem itself and Gerizim are the mountains Bethel and Ephraim; and from these to Shechem [is] a very long plain. And it is confirmed from Genesis (ch. 12, v. 8), where Abraham, descending from Shechem, is said at length to have come to the Eastern mountain, which is at Bethel — as if a great Plain intervened, and after it that Bethel mountain. Secondly: Josephus — born and reared in those places, who surveyed the same places, and long and constantly defended [them] by arms — says our Joshua set out ἀπὸ σημείων [apo sēmeiōn, “from the appointed positions”] with the whole people, and there, where Moses had foretold, set up an altar. And again (bk. 5, ch. 9) most plainly: ὑπέρκειται τῇ Συχέμ τὸ ὄρος Γαριζίμ [hyperkeitai tē Sychem to oros Garizim, “Mount Gerizim lies above Shechem”]. Thirdly: All the Rabbis feel the same, so that in tractate Sanhedrin (ch. 6) and tractate Sotah (ch. 7) they say these mountains [are] about 60 miles distant from the Jordan. And yet, if there had not been a certain and explored opinion among all the Israelites, either — as I indeed think — they would have denied these [things] to have been done on Gerizim, by that name, because on it was built the temple adversary to the Jerusalem [temple] (of which I spoke in [my commentary on] Maccabees), and because they hated the Samaritans exceedingly — to whom Eusebius attributes that opinion — nor would they have conceded to them so much glory and celebrity of this deed. Fourth: Benjamin, cited at the beginning of this question: “The city Shechem,” he says, “lies in a deep valley between the mountains Gerizim and Ebal; in which [city] there are about a hundred Cuthites, observers of the Mosaic law only.” These, as I said, they call Samaritans. Fifth: Christians, who either inhabit those places or visit [them], all attest the same — among whom, in the description of the Holy Land, Brocardus: “Not far from the southern gate of Shechem is the well of Jacob, on the way which leads to Jerusalem, where the Lord, sitting on the well, asked drink from the Samaritan woman (John 4). Above that well, to the right, is a high mountain having two heads, of which one is Mount Gerizim, the other Mount Ebal.” Abulensis (Deut. 11, before question 8): “Mount Gerizim is distant from Shechem a little more than as it were half a league, or nearly one. Ebal is a little beyond, more toward the East, so that it is as it were a league and a half, or not so much.” Sixth: In the Bordeaux Itinerary these too are read: “NEAPOLIS. There is Mount Agarizen [Gerizim]. There the Samaritans say Abraham offered sacrifice; and they ascended to the top of the mountain by 300 steps in number.” Seventh: In Photius (p. 564), Damascius, an Ethnic [pagan] writer:
ὁ διάδοχος Πρόκλου ὁ Μαρῖνος γένος ἦν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐν Παλαιστίνῃ Νέας πόλεως, πρὸς ὄρει κατῳκισμένης τῷ Ἀργαρίζῳ καλουμένῳ, ἐν ᾧ Διὸς Ὑψίστου ἁγιώτατον ἱερόν, ᾧ καθιέρωτο Ἀβραάμος, ὁ τῶν πάλαι Ἑβραίων πρόγονος.
[That is: “The successor of Proclus, Marinus, was by race from Neapolis in Palestine, [a city] settled near the mountain called Argarizon [Gerizim], on which [is] the most holy temple of Zeus Hypsistos [the Most High], to which Abraham, the ancestor of the ancient Hebrews, had consecrated [it].”] Which the Latin Interpreter (p. 373) so renders that he thinks “ᾧ” [to which], not “ὃς [who] had consecrated,” is to be read; but the Ethnic writer himself put, for God, the impious name of his own god, “Διός” [of Zeus]. Eighth: That I may make the end in that [scripture] from which I began: Sacred Scripture seems to signify sufficiently [that] these mountains are far distant from the Jordan, when Deut. 11:30 says: “Which are beyond the Jordan, behind the way which turns toward
(col. 943)
the sunset, in the land of the Canaanite who dwells in the plains, over against Galgala [Gilgal], which is near a valley reaching and entering afar.” For, first, in the Transjordan he places them. Secondly: Not [near] the Jordan properly, but at a sufficiently long interval, behind the way by which one comes to the sunset: far from Ai, where the Amorite was (above, ch. 7, v. 7) — namely, in the land of the Canaanite, not of any [Canaanite], but of him who dwells in the plain, or in the plains which are opposite the Gilgal-place, that is, as it were directly [across]; so that, if in Gilgal, placed in the East, a line be drawn straight toward the West, these Canaanites are touched, in whose land these mountains are. Thirdly: And that all error may be removed, there is added, in the Hebrew, “near the oak [terebinth],” or “the trees [of] Moreh.” But these were near Shechem. For thus thou hast in the Hebrew (Gen. 12, v. 6): “and Abram passed through into the land, as far as the place [of] Shechem, as far as the tree [of] Moreh” — where our [Vulgate] renders, “as far as the noble valley.” Why he did so, and again in Deuteronomy rendered “a valley reaching and entering afar,” see Abulensis (Deut., ch. 11, at the end of the Commentary). Ninth: Finally, the common opinion is confirmed by the dissolution of all those [reasons] which the Geographer disputed against [it].
To the first: It was denied (ch. 5, in [the questions] on those [things] which happened after the crossing, q. 6).
To the second: [He] who dared to cross the Jordan [and] to carry himself into Canaan — why would he not dare to advance further into it too? What imprudence is it, when thou hast so many thousands of warriors with thee, [when] the way is convenient, [when] no enemy meets [thee], [and when] thou placest [thy] hope in God, [and] with Him [as] leader, to proceed into hostile [territory], however far [off]?
To the third: Moses did indeed point [his] finger at the whole Transjordan region, and, seeing it as [it were] depicted on a little tablet, and showing [it] to others, was speaking — just as if, speaking of the Alps or nearer mountains, I should stretch out [my] hand toward the East, and point out the Trans-Rhenane [region].
To the fourth: Abram raised an altar near Shechem too, and indeed earlier than near Ai (Gen. 12) — so that that [was] the first of all the altars of Abraham himself in Canaan, and indeed for this cause, that God appeared to him and promised him this land. And therefore Shechem had more of moment for imbuing the Israelites with faith, and with the holy imitation of Abraham, and with the religion of the place, than the neighborhood of Ai. And “on that [mountain],” says St. Jerome (Questions on Genesis), “Jacob grew strong [convaluit] from his lameness, and was made salem — that is, whole [unharmed].”
To the fifth: Into that opinion of his, Eusebius was led rather than St. Jerome — [Jerome being] only the Interpreter of that cited booklet [of Eusebius] — the words of the 70 being ill understood. For when [in] Deut. 11 they say τὸ τοῦ Χαναὰν ἔθνος ἐχόμενον τοῦ Γολγελ εἶναι [that the nation of Canaan is next to Golgol], he [Eusebius] thought “ἔχεσθαι” [echesthai] to mean “to be near Galgat [Gilgal],” whereas — as I said above from the Hebrew — it means “to be opposite, over against.” And therefore the opinion of the Samaritans, which he calls an error, was, both to Jews and to Christians hitherto — even after this disputation of Eusebius — the most received by all. But it must be noted [that] among the 70 [it] is always written γαριζείν & γαιβάλ; in Josephus it is declined γάριζις & γαιβάλος; among the Latins [it] is written now “Hebal,” now “Gebal,” or “Ebal” — because it begins from the same rough [aspirate] letter from which [the name] Ai was said (ch. 7, q. 11) to begin. In the before-cited Epiphanius (bk. 1, heresy 9) it is written χαρζείν. And he seems even to place those mountains near Jericho, beyond the Jordan, and says the Samaritans were wont to turn themselves toward those mountains when they prayed — because four idols of their peoples were hidden there: and so [they were wont] to admit idolatry secretly, and as it were unknowingly, as is repeated in 2 Kings 17. But because to the Hebrews “Har” is “mountain,” from it and “Garizim” [the word] was conflated — as we saw in Damascius — ἀργάριζον, as it were “mount Gerizim,” as [is] noted in the notes on Photius (fol. 977); and also in the above-cited Bordeaux Itinerary, “Agaresen” for “Argaresen,” or, with the article, “Hagaresen.”