Residents of Cuthah and from other places in Mesopotamia and Babylon who were exiled by the Assyrian king to Samaria. They continued to worship Babylonian gods even after they accepted some of the laws of the Torah. They were called converts through fear (…Heb. gere arayot – lit., "converts of the lions") because of the biblical episode describing their conversion (II Kg. 17:24–41). During the period of the Mishnah and the Talmud, the distinction between the Cutheans and the Samaritans was often blurred.
Tensions between the Jews and the Cutheans lasted from the Return to Zion (Shivat Zion, 538 BCE) until the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE). The building of the wall around Jerusalem was subsequently interrupted as a result of the ensuing confrontations. According to one tradition, the Cutheans petitioned Alexander the Great to destroy the Temple and attempted to defile it at the time of the Passover sacrifice. Their hostilities against the Jews included the disruption of the Jewish calendar, which they achieved by deliberately misleading the exiled Jews as to the correct first day of the month (Rosh Hodesh).
Initially, the Cutheans were regarded as true converts and their idolatry was not suspected. According to the Tosefta, "Cuthean ground is pure and so are their mikva'ot" (Mik. 6:1). It was thought that they observed the Sabbath and gave tithes from their produce. Eventually, their sincerity was questioned and it was decided: "They do not observe the laws, nor even a semblance of the laws; they are suspect and corrupt" (TJ. Pes. 1:1). After the discovery on Mount Gerizim of a Cuthean idol in the form of a dove, it was determined that they were wholly un-Jewish, and intermarriage or eating with Cutheans was forbidden (TB. Hul. 6a). In talmudic writings the word "Cuthean" was used as a euphemism for non-Jew so as to evade censorship and censure in countries of exile.
