was terrified at the apprehension of them, did not eject these diseased people out of his country, but, as Manethon relates, gave them that city to inhabit, which had belonged to their forefathers, and was called Avaris, where they made choice of the high-priest of Heliopolis for their governor. This priest first ordained that they should neither worship the gods, nor abstain from those animals that were adored by the Egyptians, but kill and eat them; that they should associate with none but their confederates; and he bound the multitude by oath to the observance of these laws. In fine, they fortified Avaris, and took up arms against the king, sending to Jerusalem for assistance, with a promise of putting Avaris into their hands; not doubting but from thence, upon a conjunction, they might easily obtain possession of all Egypt.

He further says, that they advanced with two hundred thousand men: but that Amenophis, king of Egypt, because he would not fight against the gods, took his flight into Ethiopia, and took Apis, and other sacred animals, along with him. That the Jews, afterward breaking into Egypt, laid their towns waste, fired the temples, put their nobility to the sword, and committed outrages without mercy or distinction. That the priest who settled their polity was a native of Heliopolis, by name Osarsiph, so called from their god Osiris; but that he afterward assumed the name of Moses. That Anenophis fell into Egypt, out of Ethiopia, with a mighty armament, in the thirteenth year after his expulsion, and joining battle with the shepherds, and the polluted people, overcame them, slew many of them, and pursued the rest as far as the bounds of Syria.

Manethon did not here reflect that his stories are totally unconnected and improbable; for though the diseased people, and the multitude that were with them, might deem it, at first, a hard measure, to be treated with such rigour by the king at the instance of the prophet, yet, when they were freed from the slavery of the mines, and allowed a commodious habitation, they must certainly have entertained a more candid opinion of him. Or admitting their aversion to have been implacable, they would rather have contrived some secret practice upon his person, than involve not only their countrymen, but nearest relations, in the calamities of

a war.

Their contest was with men, not with the gods; neither

would they act contrary to the laws in which they had been trained up. We owe our acknowledgments to Manethon, for declaring that the ringleaders of this outrage were none of those that came out of Jerusalem, but the very Egyptians themselves, and especially their priest, who had bound them by oath to those practices. How absurd it is to suppose, that, when they found none of the relations or friends of the diseased could be prevailed upon to revolt, nor bear any part in a war, they should send to Jerusalem for succour! Could it be on the score of friendship or interest betwixt them? Certainly not; for on the contrary, they were professed enemies, from a total repugnance in manners and customs.

Manethon affirms, that they immediately complied, upon the promise of being put in possession of Egypt: as if they could be ignorant of the condition of that country out of which they had been driven by force. Had they been in a necessitous state, they might have undertaken so hazardous an enterprize; but to suppose that people, living at ease, and in a much more fruitful and agreeable country than Egypt, should incur such danger for the sake of enemies, and those so nauseously distempered, argues a degree of folly bordering on phrenzy. They could not foresee the flight of the king at the head of three hundred thousand men ; for that was the number, according to the fabulist, he brought to Pelusium to encounter the revolters.

He charges also upon the army from Jerusalem, the seizure of the Egyptians' corn and provisions, the embezzlement of their stores, and the commission of the most horrid acts. What less could be expected from an open and declared enemy, especially when the Egyptians had done the same things before, and bound themselves by oath to continue the same practices?

In what light shall we view the story of the rout Amenophis gave his enemies, together with the slaughter and pursuit of them to the borders of Syria? Does Egypt lie so open on all hands? and would not those who had the conduct of the war, when they were informed he was upon the march, have secured the avenues out of Ethiopia, and drawn an army together to oppose him? But, says the fabulist, he followed them over the sandy desert, and pursued the slaughter as far as Syria. A very probable supVOL. IV.

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position! to pursue an enemy over a desert hardly passable, and that without any interruption. It is evident, even from Manethon's own account, that we neither derived our origin from the Egyptians, or ever intermixed with them. As to the diseased part of them, it is not doubted but that many died in the quarries, more in the war, and great numbers in this last action and flight. But we now proceed to examine into the validity of what Manethon advances concerning Moses.

The Egyptains universally acknowledged Moses to have been a man of singular wisdom and integrity; and for that reason, it seems, they were desirous of having it thought that he was of their country, and therefore represented him as one of the priests of Heliopolis, who was ejected, amongst the rest, as an infected person. It has been demonstrated, from their chronological records, that Moses lived five hundred and eighteen years earlier, and conducted our forefathers out of Egypt into the country which we now inhabit. That he was subject to no bodily distemper, is evident from his own words; for he positively prohibited any lepers from being admitted into any towns or villages; enjoined them to live apart, and declared, that whosoever touched them, or lived under the same roof with them, should be reputed unclean. He farther ordained, that whosoever should be cured of that disease, and restored to a former state, should pass certain purifications, wash with fountain water, shave off the hair, and offer particular sacrifices, previous to their reception into the holy city. If Moses had been affected with this distemper himself, he would never have been so rigidly severe upon others.

Nor were these laws ordained for persons afflicted with the leprosy only, but they disqualified any man for the sacerdotal office, who had maim or corporeal defect. Nay, if any priest, already initiated, should have such a calamity in future, he was deprived of his function. Can it then be supposed, that if Moses had been a leper, he would have ordained laws to his own reproach?

Nor is there any probability of his changing his name from Osarsiph to that of Moses, as there appears not the least affinity between the one and the other. Moy, in the Egyptian language, is water; and Moyses signifies a person who is preserved out of the water. Upon the whole, it is presumed, I have rendered it

evident, that, while Manethon followed the ancient records, he was not far wide of the truth; but where he is guided by fiction and fable, there is no longer any connexion or truth in his history.

I shall now inquire into the merits of Cheremon, another Egyptian historian, who supposes the same names and persons of Amenophis, and his son Ramessis, with Manethon. He relates that the goddess Isis appeared to Amenophis in his sleep, and reprehended him severely for suffering her temple to be demolished in the war. But that Phritiphantes, a sacred scribe, suggested to the king, that if he would clear Egypt of all persons labouring under foul and malignant distempers, he should never more be troubled with those frightful apparitions. That Amenophis accordingly chose out two hundred and fifty thousand of those that were thus diseased, and cast them out of the country, under the command of Moses and Joseph, two of the number, and holy men. That their names were originally Egyptian; Moses being called Tisitles, and Joseph, Peteseph. That they found at Pelusium three hundred and eighty thousand, that Amenophis had left there, refusing them a passage into Egypt. That they struck a league, and joined in an expedition against the Egyptians; but that Amenophis, not being able to sustain their attacks, fled into Ethiopia, leaving his wife pregnant behind him. That she lay concealed in a cavern, and there brought forth a male child, whom she called Messenes, who, when he was grown to man's estate, drove about two hundred thousand of the Jews into Syria, and brought back his father Amenophis out of Ethiopia. Thus much for the account of Cheremon.

To invalidate the credit of these writers, it will be only necessary to confront them. Truth and error can never be reconciled, nor can truth be divided against itself. When men have recourse to fable and fiction, what they write may be deemed fancy rather than history. Manethon imputes the expulsion of the lepers to the desire of Amenophis to see the gods; Cheremon to the vision of Isis. The former makes the priest Amenophis the adviser of the expulsion of the distempered people out of the king's dominions; the latter affirms, that it was Phritiphantes. They agree equally exact with respect to their numbers as their stories; the former computing them at eighty thousand men, the latter at two hundred

and fifty thousand. Manethon again sends the lepers first to the quarries, and after that transports them to Avaris, whence they apply to the Jews for assistance, and make that the rise of the war. Cheremon, on the contrary, affirms, that, being driven out of Egypt, they availed themselves of the three hundred and eighty thousand men that Amenophis had left at Pelusium, invaded Egypt, and caused Amenophis to fly into Ethiopia. But, strange to observe! he gives us no information who these men were, nor whence they came; whether they were Egyptians or foreigners, or why Amenophis would not receive them. After forging the dream as the supposed cause of the expulsion of the lepers, he writes that Moses and Joseph were expelled together; whereas the latter was dead four generations before the time of Moses, which space makes almost one hundred and seventy years. According to Manethon, Ramesses, the son of Amenophis, was a young man, assisted his father in the war, left the country with him, and fled into Ethiopia. By Cheremon's account, he was born in a cave after the death of his father, in process of time overcame the Jews in battle, and drove about two hundred thousand of them into Syria. What incoherence! what inconsistency! What the three hundred and eighty thousand were, we are as yet to learn: as we are the manner in which the other eighty thousand perished, whether they fell in battle, or went over to Ramesses. But what is yet more extraordinary, we cannot gather from Cheremon who they were that he calls Jews, or to which of the two parties he applies that denomination, whether to the two hundred and fifty thousand lepers, or to the three hundred and eighty thousand that were about Pelusium. It would, however, be loss of time to dwell upon the confutation of those writers, who evidently confute themselves.

To former fables, I shall add those of Lysimachus, whose forgeries and inventive faculties far exceed those before mentioned, and demonstrate his rancorous hatred of our nation. His words

are these:

"In the reign of Bocchoris, king of Egypt, the Jews were so leprous, purulent, and overrun with foul distempers, that they pressed into the temples to beg for charities. There died great numbers of them of contagious diseases; upon which there fol