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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: Mannaeus had already attended to all these details, because Iaokanann
was a Jew, and, like all the Samaritans, Mannaeus hated the Jews.
Their temple on the Mount of Gerizim, which Moses had designed to be
the centre of Israel, had been destroyed since the reign of King
Hyrcanus; and the temple at Jerusalem made the Samaritans furious;
they regarded its presence as an outrage against themselves, and a
permanent injustice. Mannaeus, indeed, had forcibly entered it, for
the purpose of defiling its altar with the bones of corpses. Several
of his companions, less agile than he, had been caught and beheaded.
From the tetrarch's balcony, the temple was visible through an opening
between two hills. The sun, now fully risen, shed a dazzling splendour
Herodias |
