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,