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229but after this he permits himself, in order to appear to have written what rumors and reports passed abroad about the Jews, and introduces incredible narrations, as if he would have the Egyptian multitude, that had the leprosy and other distempers, to have been mixed with us, as he says they were, and that they were condemned to fly out of Egypt together; 230for he mentions Amenophis, a fictitious king’s name, though on that account he durst not set down the number of years of his reign, which yet he had accurately done as to the other kings he mentions; he then ascribes certain fabulous stories to this king, as having in a manner forgotten how he had already related that the departure of the shepherds for Jerusalem had been five hundred and eighteen years before; 231for Tethmosis was king when they went away. Now, from his days, the reigns of the intermediate kings, according to Manetho, amounted to three hundred and ninety-three years, as he says himself, till the two brothers Sethos and Hermeus; the one of whom, Sethos, was called by that other name of Egyptus; and the other, Hermeus, by that of Danaus. He also says that Sethos cast the other out of Egypt, and reigned fifty-nine years, as did his eldest son Rhampses reign after him sixty-six years. 232When Manetho therefore had acknowledged that our forefathers were gone out of Egypt so many years ago he introduces his fictitious king Amenophis, and says thus:—“This king was desirous to become a spectator of the gods, as had Orus, one of his predecessors in that kingdom, desired the same before him; he also communicated that his desire to his namesake Amenophis, who was the son of Papis, and one that seemed to partake of a divine nature, both as to wisdom and the knowledge of futurities.” 233Manetho adds, “How this namesake of his told him that he might see the gods, if he would clear the whole country of the lepers and of the other impure people; 234that the king was pleased with this injunction, and got together all that had any defects in their bodies out of Egypt. And that their number was eighty thousand; 235whom he sent to those quarries which are on the east side of the Nile, that they might work in them, and might be separated from the rest of the Egyptians.” He says farther, that “There were some of the learned priests that were polluted with the leprosy; 236but that still this Amenophis, the wise man and the prophet, was afraid that the gods would be angry at him and at the king, if there should appear to have been violence offered them; who also added this farther [out of his sagacity about futurities], that certain people would come to the assistance of these polluted wretches, and would conquer Egypt, and keep it in their possession thirteen years: that, however, he durst not tell the king of these things, but that he left a writing behind him about all those matters, and then slew himself, which made the king disconsolate.”
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