1.267
Now Manetho does not reflect upon the improbability of his lie;
for the leprous people, and the multitude that was with them, although
they might formerly have been angry at the king, and at those that had
treated them so coarsely, and this according to the prediction of the prophet;
yet certainly, when they were come out of the mines, and had received of
the king a city, and a country, they would have grown milder towards him.
However, had they ever so much hated him in particular, they might have
laid a private plot against himself, but would hardly have made war against
all the Egyptians; I mean this on the account of the great kindred they
who were so numerous must have had among them. Nay still, if they had resolved
to fight with the men, they would not have had impudence enough to fight
with their gods; nor would they have ordained laws quite contrary to those
of their own country, and to those in which they had been bred up themselves.
Yet are we beholden to Manethe, that he does not lay the principal charge
of this horrid transgression upon those that came from Jerusalem, but says
that the Egyptians themselves were the most guilty, and that they were
their priests that contrived these things, and made the multitude take
their oaths for doing so. But still how absurd is it to suppose that none
of these people's own relations or friends should be prevailed with to
revolt, nor to undergo the hazards of war with them, while these polluted
people were forced to send to Jerusalem, and bring their auxiliaries from
thence! What friendship, I pray, or what relation was there formerly between
them that required this assistance? On the contrary, these people were
enemies, and greatly differed from them in their customs. He says, indeed,
that they complied immediately, upon their praising them that they should
conquer Egypt; as if they did not themselves very well know that country
out of which they had been driven by force. Now had these men been in want,
or lived miserably, perhaps they might have undertaken so hazardous an
enterprise; but as they dwelt in a happy city, and had a large country,
and one better than Egypt itself, how came it about that, for the sake
of those that had of old been their enemies, of those that were maimed
in their bodies, and of those whom none of their own relations would endure,
they should run such hazards in assisting them? For they could not foresee
that the king would run away from them: on the contrary, he saith himself
that "Amenophis's son had three hundred thousand men with him, and
met them at Pelusium." Now, to be sure, those that came could not
be ignorant of this; but for the king's repentance and flight, how could
they possibly guess at it? He then says, that "those who came from
Jerusalem, and made this invasion, got the granaries of Egypt into their
possession, and perpetrated many of the most horrid actions there."
And thence he reproaches them, as though he had not himself introduced
them as enemies, or as though he might accuse such as were invited from
another place for so doing, when the natural Egyptians themselves had done
the same things before their coming, and had taken oaths so to do. However,
"Amenophis, some time afterward, came upon them, and conquered them
in battle, and slew his enemies, and drove them before him as far as Syria."
As if Egypt were so easily taken by people that came from any place whatsoever,
and as if those that had conquered it by war, when they were informed that
Amenophis was alive, did neither fortify the avenues out of Ethiopia into
it, although they had great advantages for doing it, nor did get their
other forces ready for their defense! but that he followed them over the
sandy desert, and slew them as far as Syria; while yet it is rot an easy
thing for an army to pass over that country, even without fighting.
1.278
Our nation, therefore, according to Manetho, was not derived from
Egypt, nor were any of the Egyptians mingled with us. For it is to be supposed
that many of the leprous and distempered people were dead in the mines,
since they had been there a long time, and in so ill a condition; many
others must be dead in the battles that happened afterward, and more still
in the last battle and flight after it.
1.279
It now remains that I debate with Manetho about Moses. Now the Egyptians
acknowledge him to have been a wonderful and a divine person; nay, they
would willingly lay claim to him themselves, though after a most abusive
and incredible manner, and pretend that he was of Heliopolis, and one of
the priests of that place, and was ejected out of it among the rest, on
account of his leprosy; although it had been demonstrated out of their
records that he lived five hundred and eighteen years earlier, and then
brought our forefathers out of Egypt into the country that is now inhabited
by us. But now that he was not subject in his body to any such calamity,
is evident from what he himself tells us; for he forbade those that had
the leprosy either to continue in a city, or to inhabit in a village, but
commanded that they should go about by themselves with their clothes rent;
and declares that such as either touch them, or live under the same roof
with them, should be esteemed unclean; nay, more, if any one of their disease
be healed, and he recover his natural constitution again, he appointed
them certain purifications, and washings with spring water, and the shaving
off all their hair, and enjoins that they shall offer many sacrifices,
and those of several kinds, and then at length to be admitted into the
holy city; although it were to be expected that, on the contrary, if he
had been under the same calamity, he should have taken care of such persons
beforehand, and have had them treated after a kinder manner, as affected
with a concern for those that were to be under the like misfortunes with
himself. Nor ;was it only those leprous people for whose sake he made these
laws, but also for such as should be maimed in the smallest part of their
body, who yet are not permitted by him to officiate as priests; nay, although
any priest, already initiated, should have such a calamity fall upon him
afterward, he ordered him to be deprived of his honor of officiating. How
can it then be supposed that Moses should ordain such laws against himself,
to his own reproach and damage who so ordained them? Nor indeed is that
other notion of Manetho at all probable, wherein he relates the change
of his name, and says that "he was formerly called Osarsiph;"
and this a name no way agreeable to the other, while his true name was
Mosses, and signifies a person who is preserved out of the water, for the
Egyptians call water Moil. I think, therefore, I have made it sufficiently
evident that Manetho, while he followed his ancient records, did not much
mistake the truth of the history; but that when he had recourse to fabulous
stories, without any certain author, he either forged them himself, without
any probability, or else gave credit to some men who spake so out of their
ill-will to us.
