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Pilgrimage in the Holy Land

St John Phocas, tr. Stewart, 1889

Chapter 13

Next, after a journey of about fifteen stadia, is Sichar, the chief city of the Samaritans, which afterwards was called Neapolis,¹ lying between two hills, upon the lower parts of each whereof its foundations encroach for a considerable distance. Of these mountains, that on the right-hand,² according to the Samaritans, is that whereon God talked with Abraham and demanded Isaac in sacrifice, and hereon, according to their tradition, the patriarch consummated the sacrifice, albeit they know not what they say; for that holy mountain is the rocky Golgotha, upon which the Saviour endured His passion for the salvation of the world. At the foot of this hill is the place which Jacob gave to Joseph his son, wherein is the well of the same Jacob, where the Lord sat down when weary and talked with the woman of Samaria, as is told in the holy Gospel. It was about this same hill that the woman said to the Lord, ‘Our fathers worshipped in this mountain,’ and the Lord taught all men, by His conversation with her, how those who worship in spirit and truth ought to worship.

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