em, and pursued them
as far as the bounds of Syria."

29. 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