could not foresee that the
king would run away from them: on the contrary, he saith himself that
"Amenophis's son had three hundred thousand men with him, and met them
at Pelusium." Now, to be sure, those that came could not be ignorant of
this; but for the king's repentance and flight, how could they possibly
guess at it? He then says, that "those who came from Jerusalem, and made
this invasion, got the granaries of Egypt into their possession, and
perpetrated many of the most horrid actions there." And thence he
reproaches them, as though he had not himself introduced them as
enemies, or as though he might accuse such as were invited from another
place for so doing, when the natural Egyptians themselves had done the
same things before their coming, and had taken oaths so to do. However,
"Amenophis, some time afterward, came upon them, and conquered them
in battle, and slew his enemies, and drove them before him as far as
Syria." As if Egypt were so easily taken by people that came from any
place whatsoever, and as if those that had conquered it by war, when
they were informed that Amenophis was alive, did neither fortify the
avenues out of Ethiopia into it, although they had great advantages for
doing it, nor did get their other forces ready for their defense! but
that he followed them over the sandy desert, and slew them as far as
Syria; while yet it is rot an easy thing for an army to pass over that
country, even without fighting.

30. Our nation, therefore, according to Manetho, was not derived from
Egypt, nor were any of the Egyptians mingled with us. For it is to be
supposed that many of the leprous and distempered people were dead
in the mines, since they had been there a long time, and in so ill
a condition; many others must be dead in the battles that happened
afterward, and more still in the last battle and flight after it.

31. It now remains that I debate with Manetho about Moses. Now the
Egyptians acknowledge him to have been a wonderful and a divine person;
nay, they would willingly lay claim to him themselves, though after
a most abusive and incredible manner, and pretend that he was of
Heliopolis, and one of the priests of that place, and was ejected out
of it among the rest, on account of his leprosy; although it had
been demonstrated out of their records that he lived five hundred and
eighteen years earlier, and then brought our forefathers out of Egypt
into the country that is now inhabited by us.