"While such was the state of things in Ethiopia, the people of
Jerusalem, having come down with the defiled of the Egyptians, treated
the inhabitants in such an unholy manner, that those who witnessed
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their impieties, believed that their joint sway was more execrable than
that which the shepherds had formerly exercised. For they not only set
fire to the cities and villages, but committed every kind of sacrilege,
and destroyed the images of the gods, and roasted and fed upon those
sacred animals that were worshipped; and having compelled the priests
and prophets to kill and sacrifice them, they cast them naked out of the
country. It is said also that the priest who ordained their polity and
laws was by birth of Heliopolis, and his name Osarsiph, from Osons the
god of Heliopolis; but that when he went over to these people, his name
was changed, and he was called Moyses."
Manetho again says: "After this, Amenophis returned from Ethiopia with
a great force, and Rampses also his son with other forces; and
encountering the shepherds and defiled people, they defeated and slew
multitudes of them, add pursued them to the bounds of Syria."--Joseph
contn App. lib. i. cap. 26, & 27.
"Cherilus also, a still more ancient writer [than Herodotus], and a
poet, makes mention of our nation, and informs us that it came to the
assistance of king Xerxes in his expedition against Greece. For in his
enumeration of all those nations, he last of
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all inserts ours among the rest, when he says: "At the last, there
passed over a people wonderful to behold; for they spake the Phoenician
tongue, and dwelt in the Solymaean mountains, near a broad lake. Their
heads were sooty; they had round rasures on them; their heads and
faces were like nasty horse heads, also, that had been hardened in the
smoke."--Whiston's Josephus, vol. iv. p. 299.
EXTRACTS FROM THE FIFTH BOOK OF TACITUS RESPECTING THE JEWS, AS
TRANSLATED BY MURPHY.
"Being now to relate the progress of a siege that terminated in the
destruction of that once celebrated city [Jerusalem], it may be proper
to go back to its first foundation, and to trace the origin of the
people. The Jews we are told were natives of the Isle of Crete. At the
time when Saturn was driven from his throne by the violence of Jupiter,
they abandoned their habitations, and gained a settlement at the
extremity of Libya. In support of this tradition, the etymology of their
name is adduced as a proof. Mount Ida, well known to fame, stands in
the Isle of Crete: the inhabitants are called Idaeans; and the word by
a barbarous corruption was changed afterwards to that of Judaeans.
According to others they were a colony from Egypt, when that country,
during the reign of Isis,
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overflowing with inhabitants poured forth its redundant numbers under
the conduct of Hierosolymus and Juda. A third hypothesis makes them
originally Ethiopians, compelled by the tyranny of Cepheus, the reigning
monarch, to abandon their country. Some authors contend that they were
a tribe of Assyrians, who for some time occupied a portion of Egypt, and
afterwards transplanting themselves into Syria, acquired in their own
right a number of cities, together with the territories of the Hebrews.
There is still another tradition, which ascribes to the Jews a more
illustrious origin, deriving them from the ancient Solymans, so highly
celebrated in the poetry of Homer. By that people the city was built,
and from its founder received the name of Hierosolyma.
"In this clash of opinions, one point seems to be universally admitted.
A pestilential disease, disfiguring the race of man, and making the body
an object of loathsome deformity, spread all over Egypt. Bocchoris, at
that time the reigning monarch, consulted the oracle of Jupiter
Ammon, and received for answer that the kingdom must be purified by
exterminating the infected multitude as a race of men detested by the
gods. After diligent search, the wretched sufferers were collected
together, and in a wild and barren desert abandoned to their misery.