Intent on avoiding even the appearance of competing with John, whose disciples the Pharisees had goaded into a quarrel with his own, Jesus decided to withdraw from Judea to pursue his mission in Galilee. To do so, however, he must either travel by way of Perea, fording the Jordan twice as many of his countrymen did, or cross the full length of Samaria, which divided the two provinces. It was a choice of no mean significance inasmuch as the Jews and the Samaritans had long since severed relations with bad blood between them.

Because the Samaritans had intermarried with their Assyrian conquerors, the Jews had denounced them as a mixed breed, impure before the law, and therefore to be held in contempt. Moreover, they crowned this conviction by denying the Samaritans a part in the rebuilding …