Delphi Complete Works of Manetho (Illustrated)

Fr. 54 (from Josephus, Contra Apionem, I.26-31, §§ 227-287).

(Josephus discusses the calumnies of the Egyptians against the Jews, whom they hate.)

227 The first writer upon whom I shall dwell is one whom I used a little earlier as a witness to our antiquity. 228 I refer to Manetho. This writer, who had undertaken to translate the history of Egypt from the sacred books, began by stating that our ancestors came against Egypt with many tens of thousands and gained the mastery over the inhabitants; and then he himself admitted that at a later date again they were driven out of the country, occupied what is now Judaea, founded Jerusalem, and built the temple. Up to this point he followed the chronicles: 229 thereafter, by offering to record the legends and current talk about the Jews, he took the liberty of interpolating improbable tales in his desire to confuse with us a crowd of Egyptians, who for leprosy and other maladies had been condemned, he says, to banishment from Egypt. 230 After citing a king Amenôphis, a fictitious person, — for which reason he did not venture to define the length of his reign, although in the case of the other kings he adds their years precisely, — Manetho attaches to him certain legends, having doubtless forgotten that according to his own chronicle the exodus of the Shepherds to Jerusalem took place 518 years earlier. 231 For Tethmôsis was king when they set out; and, according to Manetho, the intervening reigns thereafter occupied 393 years down to the two brothers Sethôs and Hermaeus, the former of whom, he says, took the new name of Aegyptus, the latter that of Danaus. Sethôs drove out Hermaeus and reigned for 59 years; then Rampsês, the elder of his sons, for 66 years. 232 Thus, after admitting that so many years had elapsed since our forefathers left Egypt, Manetho now interpolates this intruding Amenôphis. This king, he states, conceived a desire to behold the gods, as Ôr, one of his predecessors on the throne, had done; and he communicated his desire to his namesake Amenôphis, Paapis’ son, who, in virtue of his wisdom and knowledge of the future, was reputed to be a partaker in the divine nature. 233 This namesake, then, replied that he would be able to see the gods if he cleansed the whole land of lepers and other polluted persons. 234 The king was delighted, and assembled all those in Egypt whose bodies were wasted by disease: they numbered 80,000 persons. 235 These he cast into the stone-quarries to the east of the Nile, there to work segregated from the rest of the Egyptians. Among them, Manetho adds, there were some of the learned priests, who had been attacked by leprosy. 236 Then this wise seer Amenôphis was filled with dread of divine wrath against himself and the king if the outrage done to these persons should be discovered; and he added a prediction that certain allies would join the polluted people and would take possession of Egypt for 13 years. Not venturing to make this prophecy himself to the king, he left a full account of it in writing, and then took his own life. The king was filled with despondency. 237 Then Manetho continues as follows (I quote his account verbatim): “When the men in the stone-quarries had suffered hardships for a considerable time, they begged the king to assign to them as a dwelling-place and a refuge the deserted city of the Shepherds, Auaris, and he consented. According to religious tradition this city was from earliest times dedicated to Typhôn. 238 Occupying this city and using the region as a base for revolt, they appointed as their leader one of the priests of Hêliopolis called Osarsêph, and took an oath of obedience to him in everything. 239 First of all, he made it a law that they should neither worship the gods nor refrain from any of the animals prescribed as especially sacred in Egypt, but should sacrifice and consume all alike, and that they should have intercourse with none save those of their own confederacy. 240 After framing a great number of laws like these, completely opposed to Egyptian custom, he ordered them with their multitude of hands, to repair the walls of the city and make ready for war against King Amenôphis. 241 Then, acting in concert with certain other priests and polluted persons like himself, he sent an embassy to the Shepherds who had been expelled by Tethmôsis, in the city called Jerusalem; and, setting forth the circumstances of himself and his companions in distress, he begged them to unite wholeheartedly in an attack upon Egypt. 242 He offered to conduct them first to their ancestral home at Auaris, to provide their hosts with lavish supplies, to fight on their behalf whenever need arose, and to bring Egypt without difficulty under their sway. 243 Overjoyed at the proposal, all the Shepherds, to the number of 200,000, eagerly set out, and before long arrived at Auaris. When Amenôphis, king of Egypt, learned of their invasion, he was sorely troubled, for he recalled the prediction of Amenôphis, son of Paapis. 244 First, he gathered a multitude of Egyptians; and having taken counsel with the leading men among them, he summoned to his presence the sacred animals which were held in greatest reverence in the temples, and gave instructions to each group of priests to conceal the images of the gods as securely as possible. 245 As for his five-year-old son Rapsês, he sent him safely away to his friend. He then crossed the Nile with as many as 300,000 of the bravest warriors of Egypt, and met the enemy. But, instead of joining battle, 246 he decided that he must not fight against the gods, and made a hasty retreat to Memphis. There he took into his charge Apis and the other sacred animals which he had summoned to that place; and forthwith he set off for Ethiopia with his whole army and the host of Egyptians. The Ethiopian king, who, in gratitude for a service, had become his subject, 247 welcomed him, maintained the whole multitude with such products of the country as were fit for human consumption, assigned to them cities and villages sufficient for the destined period of 13 years’ banishment from his realm, and especially stationed an Ethiopian army on the frontiers of Egypt to guard King Amenôphis and his followers. 248 Meanwhile, the Solymites [or dwellers in Jerusalem] made a descent along with the polluted Egyptians, and treated the people so impiously and savagely that the domination of the Shepherds seemed like a golden age to those who witnessed the present enormities. 249 For not only did they set towns and villages on fire, pillaging the temples and mutilating images of the gods without restraint, but they also made a practice of using the sanctuaries as kitchens to roast the sacred animals which the people worshipped: and they would compel the priests and prophets to sacrifice and butcher the beasts, afterwards casting the men forth naked. 250 It is said that the priest who framed their constitution and their laws was a native of Hêliopolis, named Osarsêph after the god Osiris, worshipped at Hêliopolis; but when he joined this people, he changed his name and was called Moses.”

251 Such, then, are the Egyptian stories about the Jews, together with many other tales which I pass by for brevity’s sake. Manetho adds, however, that, at a later date, Amenôphis advanced from Ethiopia with a large army, his son Rampsês also leading a force, and that the two together joined battle with the Shepherds and their polluted allies, and defeated them, killing many and pursuing the others to the frontiers of Syria. 252 This then, with other tales of a like nature, is Manetho’s account. Before I give proof that his words are manifest lies and nonsense, I shall mention one particular point, which bears upon my later refutation of other writers. Manetho has made one concession to us. He has admitted that our race was not Egyptian in origin, but came into Egypt from elsewhere, took possession of the land, and afterwards left it. 253 But that we were not, at a later time, mixed up with disease-ravaged Egyptians, and that, so far from being one of these, Moses, the leader of our people, lived many generations earlier, I shall endeavour to prove from Manetho’s own statements.

254 To begin with, the reason which he suggests for his fiction is ridiculous. “King Amenôphis,” he says, “conceived a desire to see the gods.” Gods indeed! If he means the gods established by their ordinances, — bull, goat, crocodiles, and dog-faced baboons, — he had them before his eyes; 255 and as for the gods of heaven, how could he see them? And why did he conceive this eager desire? Because, by Zeus, before his time another king had seen them! From this predecessor, then, he had learned their nature and the manner in which he had seen them, and in consequence he had no need of a new system. 256 Moreover, the prophet by whose aid the king expected to succeed in his endeavour, was a sage. How, then, did he fail to foresee the impossibility of realizing this desire? It did, in fact, come to naught. And what reason had he for ascribing the invisibility of the gods to the presence of cripples or lepers? Divine wrath is due to impious deeds, not to physical deformities. 257 Next, how could 80,000 lepers and invalids be gathered together in practically a single day? The prophet had bidden him expel the cripples from Egypt, but the king cast them into stone-quarries, as if he needed labourers, not as if his purpose was to purge the land. 258 Manetho says, moreover, that the prophet took his own life, because he foresaw the anger of the gods and...