subject to certain other kinds
of distempers, in the days of Bocchoris, king of Egypt, they fled to the
temples, and got their food there by begging: and as the numbers were
very great that were fallen under these diseases, there arose a scarcity
in Egypt. Hereupon Bocehoris, the king of Egypt, sent some to consult
the oracle of [Jupiter] Hammon about his scarcity. The god's answer
was this, that he must purge his temples of impure and impious men, by
expelling them out of those temples into desert places; but as to the
scabby and leprous people, he must drown them, and purge his temples,
the sun having an indignation at these men being suffered to live; and
by this means the land will bring forth its fruits. Upon Bocchoris's
having received these oracles, he called for their priests, and the
attendants upon their altars, and ordered them to make a collection of
the impure people, and to deliver them to the soldiers, to carry them
away into the desert; but to take the leprous people, and wrap them in
sheets of lead, and let them down into the sea. Hereupon the scabby and
leprous people were drowned, and the rest were gotten together, and sent
into desert places, in order to be exposed to destruction. In this case
they assembled themselves together, and took counsel what they should
do, and determined that, as the night was coming on, they should kindle
fires and lamps, and keep watch; that they also should fast the next
night, and propitiate the gods, in order to obtain deliverance from
them. That on the next day there was one Moses, who advised them that
they should venture upon a journey, and go along one road till they
should come to places fit for habitation: that he charged them to have
no kind regards for any man, nor give good counsel to any, but always to
advise them for the worst; and to overturn all those temples and altars
of the gods they should meet with: that the rest commended what he
had said with one consent, and did what they had resolved on, and so
traveled over the desert. But that the difficulties of the journey being
over, they came to a country inhabited, and that there they abused the
men, and plundered and burnt their temples; and then came into that land
which is called Judea, and there they built a city, and dwelt therein,
and that their city was named Hierosyla, from this their robbing of the
temples; but that still, upon the success they had afterwards, they in
time changed its denomination,