on thus: "The goddess Isis appeared
to Amenophis in his sleep, and blamed him that her temple had been
demolished in the war. But that Phritiphantes, the sacred scribe, said
to him, that in case he would purge Egypt of the men that had pollutions
upon them, he should be no longer troubled with such 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: that Moses and Joseph were scribes, and Joseph was a sacred
scribe; that their names were Egyptian originally; that of Moses had
been Tisithen, and that of Joseph, Peteseph: that these two came to
Pelusium, and lighted upon three hundred and eighty thousand that had
been left there by Amenophis, he not being willing to carry them into
Egypt; that these scribes made a league of friendship with them, and
made with them an expedition against Egypt: that Amenophis could not
sustain their attacks, but fled into Ethiopia, and left his wife with
child behind him, who lay concealed in certain caverns, and there
brought forth a son, whose name was Messene, and who, when he was grown
up to man's estate, pursued the Jews into Syria, being about two hundred
thousand, and then received his father Amenophis out of Ethiopia."

33. This is the account Cheremon gives us. Now I take it for granted
that what I have said already hath plainly proved the falsity of both
these narrations; for had there been any real truth at the bottom, it
was impossible they should so greatly disagree about the particulars.
But for those that invent lies, what they write will easily give us very
different accounts, while they forge what they please out of their own
heads. Now Manetho says that the king's desire of seeing the gods was
the origin of the ejection of the polluted people; but Cheremon feigns
that it was a dream of his own, sent upon him by Isis, that was the
occasion of it. Manetho says that the person who foreshowed this
purgation of Egypt to the king was Amenophis; but this man says it was
Phritiphantes. As to the numbers of the multitude that were expelled,
they agree exceedingly well [24] the former reckoning them eighty
thousand, and the latter about two hundred and fifty thousand! Now, for
Manetho, he describes those polluted persons as sent first to work in
the quarries, and says that the city Avaris was given them for their
habitation. As also he relates that it was not till after they ha