The Form and Function of Manetho’s “Second” Account of Jewish Origins

Matthew Connor Sullivan

The Form and Function of Manetho’s “Second” Account of Jewish Origins

I. Introduction

Two of the more persistent legacies—or perhaps stigmas—of the Hellenistic national

historian Manetho, each stemming from the harsh critique of the first-century Jewish apologist

Josephus, are his negligible value as a historian of Egyptian antiquity and his pivotal role in

promulgating anti-Jewish sentiments in the ancient world. Concerning the former legacy,

Manetho is a notorious component of the muddled picture that is Egyptian chronology. The

verdict handed down by one of the most famous Egyptologists, J. H. Breasted, was

uncompromisingly negative: “Wherever he can be controlled, Manetho is generally wrong in his

figures, and any chronology based on his data is hopelessly astray.”1 When it comes to the latter

legacy, the Egyptian historian has been rounded up thrown into the line-up of ancient anti-

Semites,2 including such antagonistic characters as Lysimachus, Chaeremon and Apion.3 What

sets Manetho apart from all the others, however—at least in Josephus’ estimation and,

consequently, that of posterity—is that he was the first to give voice to this nasty bias. As a

result, some would like to draw a direct line from Manetho to modern anti-Semitism in the

proper sense, regardless of how unfair this seems.4

One of the reasons for which Manetho has been left at the mercy of Josephus is that the

various works of the Egyptian nationalist have survived in such meager, fragmentary selections

that we have virtually lost all trace of his unique “voice.” Of the eight works attributed to him by

ancient writers,5 on topics ranging from Egyptian history and religion to the production of a

1 J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt: Vol. 1, The First Through Seventeenth Dynasties (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001; original, 1906), 32, n. a; J. P. Sørensen, “Native Reactions to Foreign Rule and Culture in Religious Literature,” in Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt, (eds.) P. Bilde, T. Engberg-Pedersen, L. Hannestad, and J. Zahle (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1992), 166, writes—not entirely correctly—of Manetho’s account: “Already Josephus demonstrated that it is impossible to make any historical sense of this story; and modern egyptology could only add to his objections.”

2 Anti-Semitism is an anachronistic and usually inappropriate term for this period, in general, typically eschewed for terms like anti-Judaism, anti-Judaic, or anti-Jewish. Anti-Semite is used here to point out the reality of the persistent stigma accompanying Manetho.

3 All of who feature prominently in Josephus’ Contra Apionem; again, this association and legacy are due entirely to the activity of Josephus.

4 While not the central thrust, this is a basic assumption underlying J. Assmann’s article, “Ancient Egyptian Antijudaism: A Case of Distorted Memory,” in Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past, (ed.) D. L. Schacter (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 365-376.

5 Modern scholars, supposing that several of these attributed works might have been sections or specific topics of larger works, rather than independent endeavors in their own right, imagine the number of works to be much lower. Some posit as few as two. See the discussion of W. G. Waddell in the Loeb edition, Manetho, with an English


particular kind of incense (kyphi), most have not survived in any form other than a brief extract

or indirect reference. For instance, there is one extant citation of each of the works On Festivals

and On the Making of Kyphi,6 and while Manetho is said to have written a book criticizing

Herodotus on numerous points, we know only of his concern for the etymology of the word for

“lion.”7 The only work preserved to a considerable extent is the Aegyptiaca, or The History of

Egypt, but in its most basic, skeletal form consisting of lists of Egyptian rulers preserved by the

Christian chronographers Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius of Caesarea. It seems that an

Epitome of Manetho’s History had been made at an early date and, apart from a few brief notes

concerning remarkable events, the narratives of that history were omitted.8 The only source

reproducing anything approaching an extensive citation from the History, thus hinting at the kind

of material now lost, is the Contra Apionem of Josephus. Unfortunately, given the strong

polemical agenda of this writer and the likelihood that he did not know Manetho’s work directly

but only through an intermediary source—equally polemical, it is understood—scholars have

long debated the authenticity of various details in the passages.9 While it is unlikely that

Josephus’ polemic has completely skewed the material he reproduces from Manetho, thus

allowing us to hear something of the latter’s “voice,” his forceful criticisms of Manetho’s

professional and personal shortcomings have left a lasting impression on subsequent evaluations

of this Hellenistic historian.

An additional reason for the perpetuation of Josephus’ bias is that for students and

scholars of Jewish history, Manetho has remained a means to an end. Many studies of Manetho

have focused on the origins of anti-Judaism in the ancient world, in general, and of the Egyptian

variety, in particular. The result, of course, is that Manetho remains exactly what Josephus said

he was. M. Stern, the editor of the invaluable Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism,

holds that it is precisely his pivotal role in historical anti-Judaism (-Semitism) that bolsters the

translation, vol. 32 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940), xv. Additionally, one particular work, The Book of Sothis, is considered to be a product of the third century CE, falsely attributed to Manetho by George Syncellus, xiv-xv; see Appendix IV, 234-235, n. 1.

6 Waddell: fr. 84, 198 and fr. 87, 202f, respectively. 7 Waddell: fr. 88, 2 similar citations; there are also two similar passages not attributed directly to Manetho, 204-

205, n. 3. 8 Waddell, xvi. 9 See the review and discussion in M. P. Ben Zeev, “The Reliability of Josephus Flavius: The Case of

Hecataeus’ and Manetho’s Accounts of Jews and Judaism: Fifteen Years of Contemporary Research (1974-1990),” in Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Period 24.2 (Leiden: 1993), 215-234.


significance of our Egyptian historian.10 What is more, critical studies of the “Manethonian”

fragments have been concerned with the reliability of Josephus and his sources, not those of

Manetho.

For those interested in deciphering Egyptian chronology, however, one the primary

sources for the lists of dynasties and lengths of their reigns has been the skeletal lists based on

Manetho’s History preserved by the Christian chronographers. Recalling the decisively negative

judgment concerning his competence as a historian handed down by Breasted, one has to wonder

what value is to be found in Manetho’s “scanty notes.”11 Are Manetho’s figures really “not

worthy of the slightest credence”?12 I am by no means qualified to take point with a preeminent

Egyptologist such as Breasted, but a few simple words in the Egyptian’s defense are in order.

First, the continued use of Manetho is discussions of Egyptian history, even when his figures

require “controlling,” is witness to his ongoing importance. Second, Breasted’s work was and

remains a milestone in Egyptology, not only playing a crucial role in the development of the

discipline in the United States, but also in discovering and deciphering invaluable archeological

records for illuminating Egyptian history. His work has fostered the move away from the

admittedly difficult lists found in Manetho—again, via the Christian chronographers—to a

reliance on ancient sources, the likes of which had not been known since the time of the

Hellenistic historian himself. Finally, the process of transmission that has brought us Manetho’s

now “scanty notes” was surely a turbulent one. Neither the Christian chronographers nor

Josephus had direct access to Manetho’s original History, but only through intermediary sources.

In the former case, their source seems to have been gutted of all the original narrative; in the

latter, his source was likely as polemical as he was. Furthermore, the aim of the chronographers

who preserved these lists “was to compare the chronologies of the Oriental nations with the

Bible”13 and, given the skeletal nature of the Epitome and their strong investment in the subject

matter, it is not surprising that there are numerous disagreements between the extant lists.

10 M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism: Vol. 1, From Herodotus to Plutarch (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974), 62: “The historical importance of Manetho assumes greater dimensions if we regard him as the first literary exponent of the anti-Jewish trend in Graeco-Roman Egypt and as the man who was instrumental in creating, or at least in popularizing, some of the oft-recurring anti-Semitic motifs.”

11 Breasted, Vol. 1, 32, n. b. 12 Breasted, Vol. 1, n. b. 13 Waddell, xvi.


Similarly, Josephus was as if not more invested when trying to prove the antiquity of the Jewish

people, and thus his choices are always selective and sometimes distorted and unexplainable.14

Manetho’s contribution may still be evaluated positively in a more general sense, in that

it was he who first divided up Egyptian history into the series of dynasties still employed

today—a system that has proved effective in developing a general understanding of the nation’s

political history.15 That this politically-focused approach has its shortcomings is readily

admitted, as all divisions of history are to some extent arbitrary, especially in terms of social and

cultural continuity and development.16 But some of the historical records known today, several

of which are often used to “control” Manetho, provide lists of rulers with no real indication of

dynastic succession. While his divisions are sometimes incorrect or uncertain, most of them are

still used today to outline that succession, a perspective that is often vital for understanding the

political and even social history of ancient Egypt.17

While it is clear that information from Manetho’s extant work retains a certain value and

it is very likely that some of the elements deemed inadmissible in that information may have

more to do with the process of transmission—or even with the sources to which he had access

originally—than with his ineptitude as a historian, it is not my intention to defend his historical

veracity. Nor is there any need. Manetho certainly had his faults. For instance, he sometimes

produces impossibly large numbers for the lengths of individual reigns and dynasties, an error

likely resulting from his failure to consider the possibility of co-rulers in a given period.18 Other

difficulties, however, may originate not in his ideal perspective of history (i.e., one ruler at a

14 The muddled picture of the period of Hyksos rule is case in point. While Josephus is considered to most accurately transmit the list of six Shepherd-kings of the Fifteenth dynasty, his figures are unacceptable. Most scholars prefer the length of 108 years provided by the Turin canon, predating Josephus by nearly a millennium, since the reign of the Hyksos is capped at about a century. Josephus, however, counted over five (511). Africanus, who also has six rulers in his list—not all of whom coincide with Josephus—provides a somewhat better figure of 284 years. Eusebius, however, wins the prize with six rulers—half of whom agree with Josephus, half with Africanus—and an overall reign of 103 years. Unfortunately, he places them all in the Seventeenth dynasty, preceded by two dynasties of native rulers from Diospolis and Thebes. Africanus, on the other hand, records two additional dynasties involving Hyksos rulers after the Fifteenth (16 all Hyksos; 17 Hyksos and Theban).

15 I. Shaw, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, (ed.) I. Shaw (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1: “This essentially political approach has served very well over the years as a way of dividing up Egyptian chronology into a series of convenient blocks, each with its own distinctive character.”

16 Shaw, 1. 17 In addition to “controlling” Manetho, some texts support him and verify his data; see W. Stevenson Smith,

“The Old Kingdom in Egypt and the Beginning of the First Intermediate Period,” in The Cambridge Ancient History: Vol. 1, Part 2, Early History of the Middle East, (eds.) I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, and N. G. L. Hammond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971, Third edition), 195, 197.

18 Shaw, 13.


time), but in his use of a particular type of source different from the king lists and official annals,

such as the Turin canon, of which Egyptologists like Breasted have been so fond. In order to

consider this other type of source, however, we must first turn to the context and specifics of

Josephus’ criticisms.

The root of Josephus’ discontent lies in the perceived differences between two passages

from Manetho reproduced in his Contra Apionem that he considers to have some bearing on the

antiquity of the Jewish people. In the first, the Jews are supposed to be a historical group of

conquerors in the time of a certain king Tutimaeus, the so-called Hyksos (“king-shepherds”19),

who overrun and despoil the better part of Egypt for over five centuries20 before being driven

back by the kings of the Thebaid to the city of Avaris, a Hyksos stronghold. A prolonged,

frustrated siege eventually gave way to a treaty whereby the Shepherds left Egypt with 240,000

persons, journeyed across the desert into Syria, and “built in the land now called Judaea a city

large enough to hold all those thousands of people, and gave it the name of Jerusalem.”21

Josephus essentially accepts this account as a more or less accurate record of the biblical

Exodus—stripped, of course, of a few essential components in need of correction, which he is

more than happy to supply.

In the second, the Jews are supposed to be a band of polluted, leprous Egyptians, 80,000

in number, who, on the basis of an oracle, are rounded up by a certain king Amenophis and

forced to endure hard labor in quarries east of the Nile. After extended grievances, the lepers are

allowed to inhabit Avaris, the former stronghold of the Hyksos, and under the leadership of a

polluted priest from Heliopolis, Osarseph, they waste no time in re-fortifying the city and

sending an emissary to the Hyksos, now in Judea, to assist them in re-conquering Egypt and

sharing in its spoils. This they do, and Amenophis, responding to yet another oracle of the

19 For a discussion of the meaning of this term and how Manetho and/or Josephus misunderstood it, see B. Gunn and A. H. Gardiner, “New Renderings of Egyptian Texts,” in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 5 (London: 1918), 37-38; and D. B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 106f.

20 See n. 14, above. 21 Contra Apionem 1.90, in Stern, 69. There is a justifiable suspicion about the authenticity of this connection,

especially since it occurs only in Josephus’ summary of Manetho, as opposed to the direct quotations, which is not always consistent. E.g., most “defenses” come in removing anti-J bias or denying authenticity; not imagining “positive” strategies. Nevertheless, as there are cogent arguments for and against the authenticity of this bit, and since the burden of proof lies more on disproving that the information belongs to Manetho, this paper adopts a “pious” assumption in order to reevaluate the persistent assessment of the Egyptian historian. After all, dismissing this piece of information necessarily leads to dismissing much if not all of the second account, in which case there would be no paper to write!


inevitable conquest, flees to Ethiopia with the sacred animals in train for a period of thirteen

years, after which the Hyksos (here called Solymites) are once again expelled, along with the

lepers. At the end of the account comes the crucial twist: Manetho writes, “‘It is said that the

priest who framed their constitution and their laws was a native of Heliopolis, named Osarseph

after the god Osiris, worshipped at Heliopolis; but when he joined this people, he changed his

name and was called Moses.’”22

Needless to say, this second account did not sit as well with Josephus and it was certainly

in his interest to dismiss or disprove it. In addition to pointing out various contradictions with the

biblical account (the Jews weren’t Egyptians!), Josephus appeals to his readers’ sense of logic

and time. How could the Exodus have taken place at this time, when it had already happened

centuries before as Manetho had previously related? It does not seem to occur to him that the two

narratives could serve as complementary accounts, either depicting two stages of the history of

the Jewish nation or perhaps, as this paper suggests, differentiating between contemporary

Judeans in the Jewish polity and the Judeans/Jews residing in Egypt. In any case, Josephus’ next

strategy—a far more effective one—was to make a distinction between the type and value of the

sources underlying each version. Whereas he spoke formerly of Manetho’s access to and use of

ancient, official records of Egypt,23 he now prefaces the second version by making the following

claim about Manetho: “by offering to record the legends and current talk about the Jews, he took

the liberty of interpolating improbable tales in his desire to confuse us with a crowd of

Egyptians, who for leprosy and other maladies had been condemned … to banishment from

Egypt.”24

In spite of the clearly polemical nature of this claim and the justifiable skepticism as to

whether or not he had any real basis for it, Josephus may not have been entirely off base. Of

course, he may have been tipped off by the fact that Manetho prefaced his final remark with “it is

said.”25 Scholars have long presumed some degree of dependence on “popular” tales in Manetho,

but this has often been little more than a way of writing off many of the errors or less-than-

satisfactory elements in his data. Furthermore, Josephus’ perspective and tone have been carried

over: Manetho corrupted the more accurate information at his disposal and—at least in the

22 Contra Apionem 1.250, in Stern, 83. 23 Contra Apionem 1.73, in Stern, 68; see also the following reference. 24 Contra Apionem 1.228, in Stern, 81. 25 As we shall see, many of the sources relaying similar accounts preface or even qualify their reports in a

similar manner, indicating, so it will be argued, the milieu out of which these accounts grew.


present instance—did so out of rather sinister motives. W. G. Waddell, the editor of Loeb edition

of Manetho’s fragments, wrote the following when considering the sources behind Manetho’s

Aegyptiaca: “It is hardly to be expected … that Manetho’s History should possess more worth

than that of his sources; and the material at his disposal included a certain proportion of

unhistorical traditions and popular legends.”26 While Waddell does not seem to perpetuate a

hyper-critical evaluation of Manetho’s use of “popular” material, he unfortunately does not

comment on the nature and features of that material. The first goal of this study, then, will be to

do just that.

If the second account of Jewish origins in Egypt originated in or was influenced by

“popular” or, as Josephus put it, “improbable tales,” then why would someone setting out to

write an authoritative account of Egyptian history make use of them? Did Manetho compromise

the authoritative records of his nation and his historical veracity simply to malign Judeans and/or

Egyptian Jewry? Josephus seemed to think so, as have many subsequent scholars. But is there

another way to interpret his motives? From what can be gathered, Manetho wrote on a wide

variety of topics that interested him as an Egyptian, a priest of Heliopolis, a speaker of Greek,

and, perhaps, a significant proponent of the Ptolemaic-supported cult of Serapis.27 His interests

and motives were nothing less than manifold and his works no doubt bore them out. It is in this

respect all the more unfortunate that so little of his work has survived. Nevertheless, it is a safe

bet that he was more than a virile anti-Semite. What, then, were his motives? If we adopt the

more traditional perspective that these “popular” sources were of little value and that his decision

to turn to them was a negative one, then our choices are left to gullibility or, as Josephus implies,

duplicity. But what if we adopt a different perspective altogether? What if, to put it rather

crudely, there was more to those sources than wives’ tales or vulgar racial slurs born out of

“ethnic” prejudice?

The present study, then, is an experiment in altering the more traditional take on the form

and, to a lesser extent, function of Manetho’s second account of Jewish origins. It is argued that

the form of Manetho’s second account—or at least a number of its details and general outlook—

derives in part from a larger pool of apocalyptic literary and religious traditions circulating

during the Hellenistic period. A definitive feature of these traditions was a staunchly negative

26 Waddell, xx-xxi. 27 Waddell, xii-xiv.


and often hostile evaluation of the presence and especially domination of foreigners in Egypt.

Inasmuch as the latter was a reversal of traditional pharaonic ideology, it was considered both an

instigator and indicator of social and cosmic woes. These traditions were a valuable and viable

part of Egyptian literary and religious history, and authoritative in their own right for retelling

Egyptian history.28 As for the function of the account and Manetho’s motivations in reproducing

(and adapting?) it, it is hoped that concentrating on the wider literary and religious features of

these “traditions” will not only provide us with a bit more insight into the technique of this

Hellenistic historian, but will also suggest the ways in which Manetho’s second account was pro-

Egyptian and not just anti-Jewish; that is, how this account suited his interests as a national

apologist and was aimed at promoting and sustaining Egyptian identity as much as if not more

than attacking and de-legitimizing Jewish identity in Egypt.29

II. Form

1.

Manetho’s second account of Jewish origins is similar in several ways to a handful of

other accounts produced by writers from anywhere between the third century BCE and the first

century CE, three of which are transmitted in the same work of Josephus. All of these accounts

are pseudo-ethnographic, as it were, purporting to detail the origins of the Jewish nation or

“race.” The most succinct version is found in Diodorus of Sicily’s account of a debate between

Antiochus IV Epiphanes and his friends concerning the proper fate of the Jerusalem and the

Jewish people.30 As part of their argument for a more severe punishment, his friends point out

“that the ancestors of the Jews had been driven out of all Egypt as men who were impious and

detested by the gods. For by way of purging the country all persons who had white or leprous

marks on their bodies had been assembled and driven across the border, as being under a curse;

the refugees had occupied the territory round about Jerusalem, and having organized the nation

of the Jews had made their hatred of mankind into a tradition.”31 In addition to the ease with

28 Sørensen, in his article cited above (n. 1), emphasized the connection between Manetho and traditional, “apocalyptic” religious traditions of Egypt, but emphasizes the novel approach of Manetho and contextualizes his discussion in native response to foreign dominance in Hellenistic period, but without any discussion of why Manetho applies these traditions to Jews and not other, more dominant cultural influences, such as Hellenism in general. The following discussion and argumentation are not dependent on his work.

29 The two are, of course, often linked. 30 Bibliotheca Historica XXXIV-XXXV, 1:1-5; in Stern, 181-183. 31 In Stern, 183.


which this version, boiled down to its bare essentials, can be relayed, the fact that it is used here

rhetorically as a foil to the praiseworthy conduct of Antiochus suggests the extent to which this

story had become well-known during this period.

There is a justifiable temptation to find in this version—as well as those of Manetho et

al—an Egyptian “response” to the biblical Exodus tradition.32 Instead of the God of Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob forcefully extracting the Jewish people, here the Jews are forcibly expelled by

the gods of Egypt because they are loathsome. Instead of the Egyptian people suffering

numerous plagues, including boils on their skin, it is the Jewish people who are afflicted by a

skin disease—permanently. This particular claim is interesting in light of the fact that Jewish

writers of this and later periods33 opted to pass over such embarrassing biblical details as

Miriam’s leprosy or how Moses’ hand turned snow-white, perhaps as leprous, even if the latter

was a miraculous sign and only temporary. Other variations in the accounts as to which group

was leprous or plagued, as in the texts surveyed below, or expanded biblical accounts suggest

that this was a sensitive and volatile subject matter. Additionally, it is the expulsion of the Jews

from Egypt that it used in numerous accounts to explain the genesis of Jewish customs and the

supposed infamous misanthropy of the Jewish people. Is there a structural parallel to be found in

the biblical account of the giving of the law and founding of the Jewish nation following the

Exodus?

32 See A. Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Tübingen: Mohr, 1985), 328; and J. J. Collins, “Reinventing Exodus: Exegesis and Legend in Hellenistic Egypt,” in For A Later Generation: The Transformation of Tradition in Israel, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity, (eds.) R. A. Argall, B. A. Bow and R. A. Werline (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2000), 56-62. A unique, albeit complicated, view is taken by P. R. Davies, “Judaeans in Egypt: Hebrew and Greek Stories,” in Did Moses Speak Attic?: Jewish Historiography and Scripture in the Hellenistic Period, (ed.) L. L. Grabbe (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 108-128, who suggests that we are not dealing with autonomous Jewish or Egyptian versions, one of which distorted the other, but with a singular narrative evidenced in both traditions, demonstrating cultural borrowing through story-telling.

33 Exodus 4:6 reads, “Again, the LORD said to him, ‘Put your hand inside your cloak.’ He put his hand into his cloak; and when he took it out, his hand was leprous, as white as snow” (NRSV). While the exact meaning of the term translated “leprous” is unclear due to the ambiguity of words for skin disease and the lack of specific symptoms, it clearly refers to some type of skin disease. For a discussion of a similar problem in the ancient world, see J. V. Kinnier Wilson, “Leprosy in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Revue d’Assyrologie et d’Archéologie Orientale 60 (Paris: 1966), 47-58. The Jewish playwright, Ezekiel, writes in his Exagoge that Moses’ hand was white as snow. The same goes for Philo and Josephus, perhaps taking their cue from the LXX’s omission. Artapanus, a third- or second-century BCE writer, was a bit more aggressive and claimed that the Pharaoh Chanethothes was the first person ever to contract—and die from—Elephantiasis, as a result of his mistreatment of the Jewish people. According to C. R. Holladay, Elephantiasis “was similar to leprosy and the name under which leprosy was sometimes mentioned,” in Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors, (trans.) C. R. Holladay (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983), 238-239, n. 78.


There are a number of reasons to suggest, however, that various features found in

Manetho’s account and, as shall be seen, those of other writers did not originate as direct

responses to biblical themes or details, but were drawn from a general stock of Egyptian

religious and literary traditions, most of which seem to be “apocalyptic” in nature, or at least

attest suggestive similarities with Egyptian apocalyptic texts of the Hellenistic period. Before

turning to these texts, however, let us quickly run through the relevant pseudo-ethnographic

accounts.

Hecataeus of Abdera34

Active before Manetho in the time of Alexander and Ptolemy Soter, this Hellenistic

writer produced a “philosophical romance” of Egyptian history.35 In this work, he tells of a

pestilence that arose in Egypt “in ancient times,” which the common people (hoi polloi)

attributed “to the workings of a divine agency”36 The reason for this divine chastisement was

that the traditional religious observances had fallen into disuse as a result of “many strangers of

all sorts dwelling in their midst and practising different rites of religion and sacrifice.” As a

result, the natives surmised that the only course of action was to rid themselves of that foreign

presence and thus “the aliens were driven from the country” straight away. At this point,

Hecataeus’ account becomes pseudo-ethnographical and he tells of how “the most outstanding

and active among them banded together and, as some say, were cast ashore in Greece and certain

other regions,” including notable men like Danaus and Cadmus. He informs us that the greater

number, however, was driven into Judaea, and then begins to describe Moses’ “colony”—a

description infused with contemporaneous observations of Jewish life and religion and bearing a

certain resemblance to Polybius’ description of the Spartan constitution.37 It should be noted that

the Jewish people come off rather well in Hecataeus, undoubtedly accounting for his popularity

among Alexandrian Jews.38

Pompeius Trogus

34 Aegyptiaca, apud. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica XL, 3; in Stern, 26-29. Two indispensable studies on Hecataeus’ work and dating are O. Murray, “Hecataeus of Abdera and Pharaonic Kingship,” in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 56 (London: 1970), 141-171, and M. Stern and O. Murray, “Hecataeus of Abdera and Theophrastus on Jews and Egyptians,” in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 59 (London: 1979), 159-168.

35 Waddell, xxiv. 36 In Stern, 27. 37 Stern, 32. 38 See Stern and Murray, 165.


For the most part, this writer seems to follow, very roughly, elements of the biblical

narratives, e.g., Joseph being sold into slavery and later success in Egypt. When we arrive at

Moses, however—who is incorrectly said to be Joseph’s son—Pompeius briefly abandons the

biblical outline and resorts to the “Egyptian” version, whatever its origins. He writes that “the

Egyptians, being troubled with scabies and leprosy and warned by an oracle, expelled him

[Moyses], with those who had the disease, out of Egypt, that the distemper might not spread

among a greater number.”39 He then resumes the more or less “biblical” structure and tells of the

removal of sacred utensils by Moses and company and the unsuccessful attempt—due to

“tempests”—of the Egyptians to recover them by force of arms. Pompeius then briefly describes

the Jewish religion, which he refers to as “the Egyptian rites,” and claims that the supposed

misanthropic character of their religion and customs resulted from their desire not to become

odious to their neighbors on account of the infections for which they had been cast out of

Egypt.40

Lysimachus41

According to Josephus, this writers—active sometime in the second or first century

BCE42—surpasses all other similar writers “in the incredibility of his fictions, obviously

composed with bitter animus.”43 He writes that during the reign of a certain Bocchoris, “the

Jewish people, who were afflicted with leprosy, scurvy, and other maladies, took refuge in the

temples and lived a mendicant existence.”44 As a result of their large numbers, however, a dearth

quickly ensued throughout Egypt and the king, after consulting the oracle of Ammon, was

commanded “to purge the temples of impure and impious persons, to drive them out of these

sanctuaries into the wilderness, to drown those afflicted with leprosy and scurvy, as the sun was

indignant that such persons should live, and to purify the temples.” The king quickly obeys,

packing the lepers into sheets of lead in order to sink them in the ocean and collecting the others

in the desert to perish. Not having lost all hope, the survivors deliberated on their lot, fasted and

implored the gods to save them.45 It was not long before “a certain Moses” came forth to lead

them across the desert into the inhabited country, mistreating any people and plundering any

39 In Stern, 337. 40 In Stern, 338. 41 Aegyptiaca, apud. Josephus, Contra Apionem I, 304-311; in Stern, 383-385. 42 Apparently before Apion; Stern, 382. 43 In Stern, 384. 44 In Stern, 384. 45 Several details are somewhat tailored to Jewish practice, namely, Sabbath observance; see Stern 386.


temple they found there or came across along the way. Upon reaching Judaea, they built a city

for themselves, which “was called Hierosyla because of their sacrilegious propensities. At a later

date, when they had risen to power, they altered the name, to avoid the disgraceful imputation,

and called the city Hierosolyma and themselves Hierosolymites.”46

Apion the Grammarian47

This is the infamous, rhetorical addressee of Josephus’ work, in which many of these

accounts are recorded. Josephus claims that the former made many “shameless remarks,” some

of which “resemble the allegations made by others, some are very indifferent additions of his

own; most of them are pure buffoonery, and, to tell the truth, display the gross ignorance of their

author, a man of low character and a charlatan to the end of his days.”48 When it comes to the

subject at hand, however, Josephus only quotes brief excerpt before moving on, feeling confident

that he had “already given not merely sufficient, but even super-abundant, proof” that the Jews

were neither Egyptians nor were they expelled from that country on account of diseases.49 His

main purpose is to highlight the many discrepancies between the accounts of Apion, Manetho,

Lysimachus, Molon et al. It appears that Apion’s account essentially agreed with Manetho’s,

although he agrees with various details of Lysimachus’ version.

In any case, Apion adds “the blind and the lame” to the group of Jewish lepers and rather

cruelly—or humorously—explains origin of Sabbath customs, and even the name, in terms of a

disease of the groin resulting from the long trek across the desert. Additionally, Apion writes that

old people in Egypt say that Moses was a native of Heliopolis, a point to which we shall return.

Chaeremon

He writes that the goddess Isis appeared to the king Amenophis in his sleep, reproaching

him for the destruction of her temple in war-time. The alarmed king is then advised by the

“sacred scribe Phritibautes” that in order to appease the goddess he must purge the land of its

“contaminated population.”50 The afflicted persons, numbering 250,000, are then banished from

the country under the leadership of two scribes, Moses and Joseph, formerly known as Tisithen

46 In Stern, 385. 47 Aegyptiaca, apud. Josephus, Contra Apionem II, 1-11; in Stern 392-394. 48 In Stern, 393. 49 In Stern, 394. As J. M. G. Barclay, “The Politics of Contempt: Judaeans and Egyptians in Josephus’ Against

Apion,” in Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire, (ed.) J. M. G. Barclay (New York: T & T Clark International, 2004), 113, puts it, “By the time he [Josephus] gets to Apion, the exodus-theme is just about done to death.”

50 In Stern, 419.


and Peteseph. Upon reaching Pelusium, the exiles “fell in” with some 380,000 persons who had

been refused permission to cross into Egypt. After concluding an alliance, they turned round and

marched upon Egypt, whereupon Amenophis fled immediately to Ethiopia, leaving his pregnant

wife behind. The latter hid herself in some caverns and gave birth to a son, Ramesses, who

would later drive the Jews, numbering 200,000, into Syria and restore his father to the throne. It

is interesting that we find here the “child born in peril who will later save the day” theme, which

is characteristic of “folk” traditions across various cultures.

Common to all of these versions is an account of the expulsion of polluted a polluted

presence that was, would become, or at least included the Jews. There are, however, significant

differences between the versions, suggesting a decent range of “play” with source and traditions.

In the versions of Diodorus and Lysimachus, the polluted element is clearly the Jewish people in

Egypt. As discussed above, this claim served to explain why the Jews were subsequently

expelled from Egypt and thus could be interpreted to some degree as an Egyptian response to the

Exodus tradition. In other versions, however, namely those of Manetho, Pompeius Trogus,

Chaeremon and perhaps Apion, the leprous or polluted persons seem to have been—or were

viewed as—Egyptians. It is only later in the accounts that the authors refer to these persons as

Jews. It is not clear, then, at what point they “became” Jews. For instance, in Manetho, there are

only indirect references in the account that lead us to conclude that he viewed them as Jews, and

those details come later in the story. Perhaps later authors, more familiar with the tradition and

more adamant about emphasizing the role of the Jews in the story, emphasized this detail from

the beginning to distance the Jews from their supposed original “Egyptian-ness.”

In the account of Hecataeus, there is a further, interesting variant according to which the

Egyptians are the ones plagued, but due to the presence of foreigners, who do not seem to be

polluted. We also find an element of divine wrath in Chaeremon, who relates that Isis appeared

to king Amenophis and rebuked him for the destruction of her temple and demands consolation

by way of the purging of the land of contaminated persons. Another theme found in several

accounts is that of the seeking or receiving a divine oracle. In Manetho and Chaeremon, the king

Amenophis is advised by the seer Amenophis and sacred scribe Phritibautes, respectively. In

Pompeius, the people are warned by some unnamed “oracle,” whereas the king Bocchoris

consults Ammon in the account of Lysimachus.


In light of these numerous variants and overlaps, a few unique features of Manetho’s

account deserve to be mentioned at the outset. The first is the desire of the king, Amenophis, to

behold the gods as his predecessor, Or, had done. For some reason, it seems that immediate

access to the gods had been removed. The second feature is the death of the seer—also named

Amenophis—immediately after he delivered his oracle. As we shall see, this is a theme that will

resurface in two famous Egyptian apocalyptic texts from the Hellenistic and/or Roman periods.

The final feature, found in both Manetho and Chaeremon, is the story of how the expelled lepers

joined with some other group—whether the infamous Hyksos from Jerusalem or some

anonymous group hovering at the border—turned round and invaded and ravaged the country

before eventually being driven back for good. The many similarities between the two authors

allow for the possibility that Chaeremon knew Manetho, or that they both had access to a similar

version. The latter seems more likely at this point in light of the fact that there are clear

differences and that each author, as shall be seen below, seems to draw on “apocalyptic”

elements for those differences.

The problem in determining the relationship between these two authors is not only that

they are related in Josephus alone—and thus are at his mercy—but he seems to conflate a few of

their details. Josephus initially reports that Manetho claimed that king Amenophis, after placing

his five-year-old son somewhere safe, marched against the lepers with 300,000 troops, only to

turn and flee to Ethiopia before engaging them in battle. Later, when refuting certain details of

Manetho’s account, Josephus refers to Manetho’s claim that the son of Amenophis marched with

300,000 troops against the lepers at Pelusium.51 Leaving aside the contradiction regarding the

son, is it possible that Josephus simply neglected the first time round to include this bit of

information, namely, the location of the intended battle? Or is it possible that he was confusing

Manetho’s account with that of Chaeremon, who relays the same location? The latter is possible

considering that it was Chaeremon who reported that it was the abandoned son of Amenophis

who would later rise to repel the impure invaders and restore his father from Ethiopia. Seeing as

how Josephus claims that the son fled before the battle, and thus does not relay the exact same

information from Chaeremon again, it is possible that he was simply confusing characters and

details.

2.

51 Contra Apionem 1.274.


It is difficult to surmise the extent to which native Egyptians in the Hellenistic period

resented, repudiated and even rebelled against their Ptolemaic overlords. In fact, each stage of

the expected spectrum of reactions to foreign rule, including the less dramatic possibilities of

accommodation and acculturation, eludes detailed analysis, seemingly represented only by

individuals or single events. When it comes to illustrating outright rebellion—and understanding

its motives—our expectations may be the guiding interpretive factor due to the often fragmentary

evidence. In any case, perhaps the best analysis to date—or at least a classic study—is that of S.

K. Eddy’s 1961 work, The King is Dead. There, he confident claimed that “Egyptian religious

resistance to Hellenism”—as it had largely been to the Persians—“was based on two concepts:

insistence on the continuity of divine kingship by a native Pharaoh, and insistence on the

maintenance of justice and morality in this world.”52 One of the four forms in which, according

to his interpretation, this resistance took shape was “the dissemination of violent messianic

prophecies foretelling the overthrow of the Makedonian government by a divine Egyptian

king.”53 It is in such texts as the Demotic Chronicle and the Oracle of the Potter (or Apology of

the Potter), which he places in close proximity to the outbreak of native rebellions in 217 BCE

and which he labels “apocalypses,”54 that Eddy finds a potent source for gauging and

interpreting the Egyptian response to Greek presence, in general, and Ptolemaic rule, in

particular, during this period. They lament the current, backward state of nature, as well as the

social and economic conditions in the land, and hope for the destruction of foreign rule with the

return of a native pharaoh.

Before looking any further at the relevant literature of the Hellenistic period, a brief

discussion of the ideological and literary roots of Egyptian “apocalypticism” is in order. A

necessary step in understanding the literature of both periods, however, is to establish first a

basic definition of “apocalyptic” as it applies to Egyptian literary and religious traditions. The

most immediate problem in doing so, however, is that the term “apocalyptic” is not endemic to

Egyptology and has seldom been employed by Egyptologists, despite the efforts of C. C.

52 S. K. Eddy, The King is Dead: Studies in the Near Eastern Resistance to Hellenism, 334-31 B.C. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961), 271-272.

53 Eddy, 272; the three other forms being the passive creation of myths of Egyptian religious and cultural superiority, the promotion of legends exalting the god-kings of the Middle and New Kingdoms, and numerous revolts, which he characterizes as “holy wars,” of sorts, on par with the revolt of the Maccabees in Judea; see also 290f.

54 Eddy, 290.


McCown.55 In 1925, McCown wrote an influential article with which he hoped to reinvigorate

scholarly efforts of evaluating the influences of Egyptian literary and religious traditions on

Jewish ones. It had been—and remains—widely acknowledged that various elements in Jewish

“wisdom” literature or psalms were derived to various degrees from Egyptian traditions.

McCown endeavored to highlight the Egyptian influences on another type of literature and

religious expression, one that had been characterized as distinctly Jewish, namely, apocalyptic

literature in the first centuries BCE and CE. Leaving aside the inherent difficulties in importing a

definition from a Jewish literary phenomenon to characterize features of Egyptian literature of

the Middle Kingdom and Hellenistic period in order to highlight the influences of the latter back

on the former, let us consider his working definition. He defines “apocalyptic” as “a type of

thinking and writing which criticizes present evils and promises future improvement, all under

the guise of denunciations and predictions that are usually based upon supposedly supernatural

visions and revelations.”56 In order to account for texts that meet some but not all of these

criteria, he sets up two categories of texts, those that are “directly” apocalyptic and those that are

“indirectly” so.

In 1983, J. Bergman revisited McCown’s effort in a publication resulting from an

international conference on Apocalypticism in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East held four

years before. While he evaluates that effort and the concomitant introduction of these Egyptian

texts to Biblical scholars positively, he points out some of the difficulties of categorizing some of

the Egyptian texts as “apocalyptic.” For instance, supernatural visions and revelations are not

common, and many texts do not manifest a clear change from a period of woe to one of joy.

Moreover, even if a transition does occur, it is often a return to the correct state of things, not an

inauguration of a new era. What is expected of a coming king—however “messianic” he may

appear—is the same as what has been expected of all kings always. In the end, Bergman claims

that while these texts ought not to be called “apocalyptic,” per se, he certainly finds apocalyptic

motifs in them.57

55 J. Bergman, “Introductory Remarks on Apocalypticism in Egypt,” in Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean world and the Near East: Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Apocalypticism, Uppsala, August 12-17, 1979, (ed.) D. Hellholm (Tübingen: Mohr, 1983), 51.

56 C. C. McCown, “Hebrew and Egyptian Apocalyptic Literature,” in Harvard Theological Review 18 (Cambridge: 1925), 368.

57 Bergman, 55. He concludes that in the end, “this corpus of texts can be useful as comparative material with regard to apocalyptic literature, whatever definition one may prefer for an ‘apocalypse.’”


Where, then, does that leave us? It is important to note that neither a precise definition of

“apocalyptic” nor a secure connection between the literary traditions of two geographical areas

and religious traditions established therein is necessary for the present study. What matters here

are certain features found in various Egyptian texts, not the ways in which we categorize all or

some of those texts. Furthermore, the identification of apocalyptic “motifs” matters only for the

understanding of their place in Egyptian literary and religious traditions, not their influence on

the traditions of another group. The broad definition of McCown, then, can serve as a general

guide for identifying the “apocalyptic” elements of Manetho’s second account of Jewish origins.

With that in mind, let us take several steps back in time, ages beyond the cloudy past about

which Josephus quibbled with his rhetorical opponents.

3.

In traditional Egyptian ideology, the king not only preserves peace by uniting the land—

or Two Lands, to be exact—and securing its borders, but ensures cosmic order by subduing the

forces of chaos, symbolized from an early date by the nations/peoples beyond those borders.58

An effective reign was one in which the Nile flooded regularly, grain was available to all, the

gods received proper worship, and Egypt’s traditional enemies (the “Nine Bows”) were

subjugated, or at the very least properly “fenced off.”59 An example of the necessity of internal

(i.e., united Upper and Lower Egypt) and external (i.e., secure borders) order is the boast found

in the posthumous exhortation Amenemhat I, the founder of the Twelfth Dynasty, to his son

Senwosret I:

I strode to Elephantine, and I travelled to the Marshes; I stood firm on the limits of the land, having seen its midst. I attained the limits of strength with my strong arm, and my manifestations. … I tamed lions, and I captured crocodiles. I subjugated Nubians, and I captured Medjai;

58 T. Wilkinson, “Reality versus Ideology: The Evidence for ‘Asiatics’ in Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt,” in Egypt and the Levant: interrelations from the 4th through the early 3rd millennium BCE, (ed.) E. C. M. van den Brink and T. E. Levy (New York: Leicester University Press, 2002), 515, supposes that wild animals first represented the chaotic elements but, as Egypt moved towards statehood, its foreign neighbors began to take over this role. Unfortunately, he does not lay out any evidence for this development. In any case, as The Teaching of King Amenemhat 12 makes clear, both could stand in for “chaos,” even simultaneously

59 This becomes literally true during the Twelfth Dynasty.


I made the Syrians do the dog-walk.60

As for the proper perspective of foreigners, it is clear that from as early as the late fourth

millennium BCE, the scene of pharaoh smiting bound, foreign captives “is not only one of the

most enduring aspects of pharaonic art (appearing on temple pylons as late as the Roman period)

but also one of the first recognizable icons of kingship.”61 The Narmer palette, the most famous

artifact from the period of the emergence of the Egyptian state, shows king Narmer striking a

foreigner held captive by the hawk-god Horus.62 Decorative figures of bound captives featured in

palaces and temples throughout the pharaonic and Greco-Roman periods.63 The traditional

ideology was even reinforced in symbolic and ritualistic actions: foreign figurines were

ceremonially cursed;64 throw-sticks portraying traditional enemies were thrown down to

represent and/or bring about their downfall; and similar depictions were found on sandals,

footstools and the like so that the pharaoh could symbolically tread on his enemies on a regular

basis.

In the Middle Kingdom, however, there emerges a rather dark and gloomy picture that

seems worlds away from the swollen confidence of Amenemhat. As one text puts it,

…all happiness has fled, and the land is laid low with pain, by those feeding Syrians who go throughout the land. Enemies have arisen in the East! Asiatics have come down to Egypt.65

If traditional pharaonic ideology portrayed the subjected foreigner as part of and a necessary

condition for cosmic order, then it follows that an uncontrolled foreign presence or, worse,

domination in the land would signal a disruption of that order, a breaching of the created

boundaries. In addition, foreign presence and power could become a literary expression of a

sense of dissatisfaction, disillusionment, or despair, brought on by a breach of any of the

components of Egyptian ideology. Such is a common way of imagining the genesis of

apocalyptic-esque literature during the Middle Kingdom in the wake of the chaotic period of

60 The Teaching of King Amenemhat 12, in The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems: 1940-1640 BC, (trans.) R. B. Parkinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 207-208.

61 Shaw, 315. 62 Shaw, 78; illustration, 79-80. 63 Shaw, 317; see his mention of the rekhyt-bird. 64 Redford, 54. 65 The Words of Neferti 7, in The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems: 1940-1640 BC, (trans.) R.

B. Parkinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 136.


social upheaval, dynastic feuding and an influx of foreigners and foreign impiety that supposedly

was the First Intermediate Period. McCown represented this view well:

The glories of the Old Kingdom had withered during the “first interregnum” of the seventh to the tenth dynasty. The hated Asiatics had prevailed over the armies of Egypt. They had invaded its sacred territories, devastated its cities and palaces, and desecrated its tombs. The social order, which had seemed as firmly established as the pyramids, had failed to withstand the shock, even as the pyramids has failed to guard the bodies of the dead. As thoughtful Egyptians pondered on their broken pyramid-tombs and their shattered social institutions, a wave of pessimism swept over them. Out of this period of disillusionment and despair came a social awakening which the literature of the time brilliantly reflected.66

Not surprisingly, this chaotic picture of the First Intermediate Period is being substantially

revised. Periods of transition, especially when they immediately follow or precede a more

distinct and easily recognizable cultural period about which we are better informed, have often

been portrayed as times of decline (e.g., the Hellenistic period or Late Antiquity). A modern

tendency among scholars—surely a necessary one—is to downplay the traditional perspectives

of “decline” in favor of highlighting the unique, creative aspects of the period, especially when

the former perspective is based primarily on retrospective literary sources. As S. Seidlmayer

writes,

Modern Egyptologists still largely present a negative image of the First Intermediate Period. It is characterized as a period of chaos, decline, misery and social and political dissolution: a “dark age” separating two epochs of glory and power. This picture, however, is based only partly on an evaluation of sources contemporary with the period. It largely reproduces—sometimes with surprising naivety—the literary theme developed in a group of Middle Kingdom literary texts.67

What, then, of the “hated Asiatics” who, as Neferti claims, had come down to Egypt? Although

they were certainly present in Egypt during this period—as in all periods—there does not seem

to have been a particularly significant influx during this period. The same cannot be said,

however, about the Middle Kingdom, the period during which the majority of these texts were

composed.68 In what capacity, then, did they come during the First Intermediate Period? It does

66 McCown, 368. 67 S. Seidlmayer, “The First Intermediate Period (c. 2160-2055 BC), in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt,

(ed.) I. Shaw (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 139. 68 Seidlmayer, 139; for a differing opinion as to the significant presence of “Asiatics” during this period, see W.

C. Hayes, “Egypt: From the Death of Ammenemes III to Seqenenre II,” in The Cambridge Ancient History: Vol. 2, Part 1, History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region c. 1800-1380 B.C., (eds.) I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, and E. Sollberger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973, Third edition), 49.


not seem to have been as conquerors. Perhaps they benefited from the social upheavals about

which the authors lament—in an exaggerated fashion, naturally. What seems most likely is that

the picture of an uncontrollable influx of foreigners or of foreign domination was a literary

expression of a sense of dissatisfaction. There is a telling parallel in the ubiquitous motif of

famine in the literature of this period. For instance, the author of The Dialogue of Ipuur and the

Lord of All writes,

O, but <men eat> only plants, and wash them down with water: now they cannot find seeds, plants, or birds, and [fodder] is taken from the pig’s mouth. No one can be benevolent, when they are bent double with hunger. O, but the grain is ruined on every side; they are stripped of clothes, unanointed with oil; everyone is saying, “There’s nothing!” The storehouse is bare, its keeper stretched out on the ground.69

However, as Seidlmayer points out, there is no indication of decreased rainfall during this period

according to the recorded Nile levels.70 It seems likely that many of these descriptions were

hyperbole, meant to reinforce the picture of a world gone terribly awry. Additionally, as

Seidlmayer understands it, this literary motif—found also in numerous inscriptions from the First

Intermediate Period—provided an effective platform from which local rulers could boast of their

abilities to provide for and thus save the people.71 It is no wonder, then, that the biblical account

of Joseph’s unparalleled wisdom helped save all of Egypt in a time of famine was frequently

included—appropriately elaborated—by Jewish writers in Egypt during the Hellenistic and

Roman periods.

Nevertheless, there is no possibility—and no need, really—of getting around the

likelihood of social and political instability during the First Intermediate Period, even if those ills

were perceived and reported in a much more dramatic manner than modern scholars are willing

to concede. As a result, the literature of the Middle Kingdom—when a sense of stability

reemerged—either reinforces the traditional pharaonic ideology of cosmic and social order with

a vivid sense of the dangers of a world without (or with less of) that order or presents a strong

sense of disillusionment in the wake of that disruption.

The two type of Middle Kingdom literature demonstrating apocalyptic elements are

“discourses,” such as The Word of Neferti, and “teachings,” such as the appropriately named

69 The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All, in The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems: 1940-1640 BC, (trans.) R. B. Parkinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 177.

70 Seidlmayer, 146. 71 Seidlmayer, 146.


Teachings of King Amenemhat. Common to each of these, generally speaking, is a lament

concerning the current state of things, whether that is the social, political, or religious realm. It is

this potent sense of “woe” that led McCown to label this literature apocalyptic, even if

“indirectly” so.72 In any case, all of the texts bemoaning the present state of the world share a

few essential features, many of which frequently overlap.

1) The loss or removal of divine presence

“For the sun is covered, and will not shine for folk to see”73 “The Sungod separates Himself from mankind … He is in the sky, but like the moon … his rays on the face are now a thing of the past”74 “There is no Pilot in their hour of duty—where is He today? So can He be sleeping? Look, no sign of His power can be seen”75

2) Reversals

“O, but the land is spinning as does a potter’s wheel; the robber is a lord of riches; the <lord of riches> has [become] someone who is plundered”76

“And the river of Egypt is dry, so that water is crossed on foot; water will be sought for ships to sail on, for its course has become a sandbank. The bank will be a flood, and the water’s place will be what was once the bank’s. The south wind will oppose the north wind; there is no sky with a single wind”77

“O, but every nobody is a well-born man, those who were people are now aliens, so that they are packed off. O, but everyone’s hair has [fallen] out, a gentleman cannot be told apart from a have-not”78

3) Violence, sacrilege and wrong

“The land is <in> calamity, mourning in every place, towns and districts in woe, and everyone alike is wronged. The back is turned on reverence; the Lords of Silence are violated; morning still happens every day, but the face shrinks from what happens”79 “Arms will be made out of copper; bread will be asked for with blood; a sick man will be laughed at out loud; death will not be wept at; the night will not be spent fasting for

72 McCown 368; also, see the brief discussion above. 73 The Words of Neferti, 135. 74 The Words of Neferti, 138. 75 The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All, 185. 76 The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All, 172. 77 The Words of Neferti, 136. 78 The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All, 174. 79 The Words of Khakheperreseneb, in The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems: 1940-1640 BC,

(trans.) R. B. Parkinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 147.


death, for a man’s heart is concerned only with himself. Mourning will not be done today, for the heart has turned away from it entirely. A man will sit and bow his back while one person is killing another. I shall show you a song as a foe, a brother as an enemy, a man killing his own father”80 “O, but [faces] are pale, the archer is settled, and the wrongdoer is everywhere; there is no man of yesterday. O, but the plunderer [rob]s everywhere; the servant is taking as he finds….O, but the [heart] is savage, plague throughout the land, blood everywhere. There is no lack of death; the shroud is calling out before they approach it. O, but many dead are buried in the river; the flood is a grave, for the embalming-place has become the flood”81 “No [protectors] from enemies can be seen; the [temple enclosure has been destroyed, and desecrated] in its outer hall, entered up to the temple [with evil deeds] for which the Gods weep […….]….The land has fallen [into tumult, on its face]; the images have been burnt, their chambers are ravaged”82

4) Foreign presence

“He ponders the happenings in the land. He recalls the sad state of the East, the Asiatics journeying in their strength, terrorizing the hearts of the harvesters, and seizing the cattle from ploughing”83 “An alien bird will breed in the lagoons of the Delta, having made its nest upon its neighbours, and the people will have to approach it through want”84 “And the flock of the foreign countries will drink at the river of Egypt. They will cool themselves on their banks, lacking anything to make them fearful. This land will go to and fro; the consequence is unknown, and what will happen is hidden…”85 “…everywhere the foreigners have become people”86 “For the heart of a king is happy only when true tribute comes to him, and then every foreign country would [say], ‘He is our water! He is our prosperity!’ What can we do about this, when it all has fallen into ruin? O, but laughter is ruined, and [no longer] sounds. There is only groaning throughout the land, mixed with laments”87

80 The Words of Neferti, 137. 81 The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All, 171-172. 82 The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All, 186. 83 The Words of Neferti, 135. 84 The Words of Neferti, 136. 85 The Words of Neferti, 136. 86 The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All, 170. 87 The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All 174.


“O, but the desert is throughout the land; the nomes are ravaged; the barbarians of outside have come into Egypt”88 “What is now happening to the land is letting the Syrians know how to govern it!”89

As a result of this last feature, a powerful symbol of the reversal of woes and reestablishment of

the proper order became the scene of the expulsion and subjugation of those unwanted

foreigners. In Neferti, after the king from the South (Amenemhat) arises and repossesses the Two

Lands, the rebellious elements will be struck silent with fear and “Asiatics will fall to his

slaughtering, and Libyans will fall to his flame.”90 Not only will the king expel the unwanted

foreigners, but he will also prevent their future return:

And The Walls of the Ruler will be built. There will be no letting Asiatics come down to Egypt, so they will ask for water as suppliants do, to let their flocks drink. Truth will return to its proper place, with Chaos driven outside.91

As R. B. Parkinson notes about a similar perspective in Ipuur, “Retributive action is offered as

an answer to the chaos.”92 As we saw at the beginning of this section, The Teachings of King

Amenemhat places a related boast in the mouth of the same ruler “foreseen” in Neferti.

4.

Considering that one of the staples of the Middle Kingdom apocalyptic-esque literature is

a fear of foreigners run amok, it is surprising that there are no discernable contemporary texts of

this sort during the reign of the so-called Hyksos (i.e., Second Intermediate Period) or the Persian

periods. This is particularly striking for McCown, whose dramatic description of the First

Intermediate Period sounded an awful lot like the later descriptions of life under the Hyksos.

Nonetheless, he writes that “for nearly two thousand years we can discover no new documents of

their kind.”93 J. B. Pritchard shares a similar sense of disbelief: despite suffering what surely was

their “greatest indignity,” i.e. Hyksos rule, “There is surprisingly little in Egyptian literature, in

88 The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All, 173. 89 The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All, 189. 90 The Words of Neferti, 139. 91 The Words of Neferti, 139. 92 Parkinson, 195, n. 83. 93 McCown, 387.


view of the real change which this foreign domination made in the national psychology: the

change from a confident sense of domestic security to an aggressive sense of national peril.”94

Although there may not be any literary texts on par with those more “classical” works of

the Middle Kingdom, the basic “sense of national peril” is nevertheless attested. For instance, the

Carnarvon Tablet I, a schoolboy’s exercise tablet from western Thebes, describes the dismal

scene:

Each man has his slice of this Egypt, dividing up the land with me….no man can settle down, being despoiled by the imposts of the Asiatics. I will grapple with him, that I may cut open his belly! My wish is to save Egypt and to smite the Asiatics!95

Moreover, as this same document evinces, the memory of the foreign domination lived on in the

subsequent propaganda of the pharaohs, who portrayed themselves—even as late as a century

after the fact—as undoing the ruin caused by the Asiatics96 and avenging Egypt by means of

their foreign campaigns (Thutmose III).97 Kamose, ignoring the counsel of supposedly “great

men,” whose words “were hurtful to the heart of his majesty,” refused to share the land with “an

Asiatic and a Negro.”98 The tablet breaks off before the end, but not before recording some of

Kamose’s boasts about his bloody revenge.

An additional instance of the re-emergence of an “apocalyptic mindset”—or, better, the

exploitation of “national peril” as a literary motif—is the royal ideology of a member (Ramses

III) of the Twentieth Dynasty. It seems that for a few years shy of a decade, between the

Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties, Egypt was ruled by “a Syrian.” Ramses III describes the

period—the so-called “Syrian Interregnum”—before his father’s rule:

The land of Egypt had been cast aside, with every man being his (own standard of) right. They had no chief spokesman for many years previously up to other times. The land of Egypt was officials and mayors, one slaying his fellow, both exalted and lowly. Other times came afterwards in the empty years, and …, a Syrian with them, made himself

94 J. R. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955; 2nd edition), 230.

95 In Pritchard, 232. 96 E.g., the description of the state of the land at the ascent of Queen Hatshepsut of the Eighteenth Dynasty,

which will be restored at her coronation; see J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt: Vol. 2, The Eighteenth Dynasty (Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 2001; original, 1906), 89.

97 Hayes, 57: “Represented as an unmitigated disaster by native historians of later times, the Hyksos domination appears actually to have provided the Egyptians both the incentive and the means towards ‘world’ expansion and so laid the foundations and, to a great extent, determined the character of the New Kingdom, or, as it is often called, ‘the Empire’.” The Hyksos supposedly accomplished this by shattering “a misplaced confidence in Egypt’s unassailable superiority over, and aloofness from, the other nations of the world” and bringing “Egypt into more intimate and continuous contact with the peoples and cultures of western Asia than ever before in her history,” 56.

98 In Pritchard, 232.


prince. He set the entire land as tributary before him. One joined his companion that their property might be plundered. They treated the gods like the people, and no offerings were presented in the temples.99

Of course, in this instance there is no need to look to the future for a promised rule—Egypt’s

savior was writing the text himself!

But when the gods reversed themselves to show mercy and to set the land right as was its normal state, they established their son, who had come forth from their body, to be Ruler—life, prosperity, health!—of every land, upon their great throne….He brought to order the entire land, which had been rebellious. He slew the disaffected of heart who had been in Egypt. He cleansed the great throne of Egypt.100

Nevertheless, these few examples do not completely stem the surprise that it is not until the

Ptolemaic period that we discover the re-emergence of a strong apocalyptic outlook. Recalling

that this outlook is the flip-side of traditional Egyptian ideology, it is possible that the insecurity

and pessimism often associated with apocalyptic literature was replaced by the confidence and

prosperity of the New Kingdom, thus bringing that traditional ideology round full circle,

although now with a renewed vigor. When these new texts do emerge, they are much closer to

the numerous Jewish apocalyptic texts of the Greek and Roman periods. “Like the latter,” writes

McCown, “they are the product of the dissatisfaction and despair induced by the long-continued

repression of Egyptian national hopes under the rule of foreign conquerors. They are even more

distinctly nationalistic than the prophecies of 2000 B.C.”101 If the various literary texts of the

Middle Kingdom were semi-apocalyptic, these are full-blown; after all, these were not written

under national rule in the wake of foreign domination, but in the midst of the rule of one foreign

power after another with no clear end in sight.

5.

As part of his effort to characterize Egyptian nationalistic sentiments in the Hellenistic

period, Eddy makes recourse to the Papyrus Dodgson, written in Demotic at some native shrine

around 200 or 150 B.C., which, as he understands it, still upheld the old ideals of the good, quiet

life of the Middle Kingdom. He writes, “This document shows the old norms of Egyptian culture

still being followed in the Hellenistic period—foreigners are not named, they must not be one’s

companions, there must be no oppression of one’s fellows, there must be no disrespect shown the

99 In Pritchard, 260. 100 In Pritchard, 260. 101 McCown, 387.


gods.” 102 In addition to the ideals of the Middle Kingdom, the religious outlook and literary

means of expressing a powerful sense of discontent were also carried over into the Hellenistic

period; in fact, the first apocalyptic text to be discussed below, the Apology of the Potter, may

have been copied or adapted as late as the second century CE, testifying to “the extreme

persistence of the traditional literary form of the apocalypse.”103

Apology of the Potter

The most famous of the apocalyptic texts from the Hellenistic period is the Apology of

the Potter, on account of its reference to the hated “city by the sea,” i.e. Alexandria, attesting to

both the period of its composition (at least in the present form) and a nationalistic distaste for

Ptolemaic Alexandria.104 The text is a defense (apologia) before king Amenophis,105 implying

that the potter “had been accused of some crime, such as impiety or lack of patriotism,”106 but

unfortunately the beginning—and thus the “setting”—has not been preserved. As it happens, the

missing portion seems also to have contained the bulk of the “dire” perspective characteristic of

apocalyptic texts. A few fragmentary lines, along with info found in the following section,

however, create a fairly clear picture: “In its earlier lines one finds references to ‘lawless,’ and

‘unnatural,’ and ‘evil-doers,’ an apostrophe to ‘unhappy Egypt,’ and mention of … ‘those who

are in want,’ of ‘attacking,’ and ‘carrying away.’”107

We then learn of “the hated king from Syria,” certain “unholy ones” and the desolation of

the Egyptian land and people: “[fe]w of the inhabitants of Egypt shall be left.”108 There is no

ambiguity, however, about act two of this drama: a certain king “who is a friend to all will

appear” and “the city of the Girdle-wearers shall be desolated … [shall burn like] a furnace

because of the lawless deeds they have committed against Egypt.”109 The right state of nature

will also be restored: “‘And at the end of those things the leaves shall fall and the Nile shall be

filled, and the bare and inharmonious winter shall run its cycle, and then the summer shall run its

102 Eddy, 271. 103 McCown, 400; Eddy, 294, claims that it was composed in Egyptian and translated “into wretched Greek” in

the first century BCE, remaining popular until at least the third century CE. 104 According to Eddy, 292, this was perhaps the more popular of the “apocalypses,” among both Greeks and

Egyptians, evinced by the fact that it is extant in three slightly variant versions. 105 According to the subscript, which also informs us that the apology was “translated as carefully as possible,”

leading McCown and others to imagine that it is a copy “of a much earlier demotic or hieroglyphic document, with an anti-greek interpolation intended to bring it down to date,” 399.

106 McCown, 397. 107 McCown, 397-398. 108 McCown, 398. 109 McCown, 398.


own course. And the winds … shall be well ordered and the breezes shall be mild. For in the

time of the Typhonians the sun was darkened, … but it will shine forth exhibiting the

punishment of the wicked and the poverty of the Girdle-wearers.’”110 The apocalyptic flavor of

these nationalistic hopes is clear, even if the prophecies and future vision are “remarkably

vague.”111

Demotic Chronicle

This document, consisting of a series of “oracular statements,” was composed sometime

in the first half of the Ptolemaic period, likely somewhere in Lower Egypt.112 The purported

perspective of the author is the fourth century BCE, specifically the time of Tachos,113 and his

main objective is to summarize and comment on the rule of six pharaohs of the Twenty-Eighty

and Twenty-Ninth Dynasties.114 McCown, following E. Meyer, finds in this “commentary” the

same general outlook and “religious philosophy of history” that is found in canonical as well as

deutero-canonical books of the Hebrew Bible, namely, that “rulers who serve the gods are

continued on the throne those who do not are speedily disposed, or vice versa those who reigned

but a short time are supposed to have been guilty of impiety or else to have suffered for the sings

of their fathers.”115 The document thus provides not only insight into the ideological and political

context of the fourth century BCE, but also informs us about the chronology and political events

of the Twenty-Eighty through Thirtieth Dynasties.116

The outline of the Demotic Chronicle is very similar to that of other Egyptian and Jewish

apocalyptic-esque texts: there shall be a great catastrophe, followed by a foreign conquest and

the concomitant desolation of temples, cessation of proper worship and overturning of the

110 McCown, 398. Seth-Typhon, the god closely associated with the desert, chaos and impiety, was increasingly associated with foreigners, especially Syrians, after the rule of the so-called Hyksos. The latter seemed to have adopted his worship from local traditions, associating him with a national god of their own and subsequently incorporating his name in their royal epithets. For a discussion of the application of this epithet to the Jews, see D. Frankfurter, “Lest Egypt’s City be Deserted: Religion and Ideology in the Egyptian Response to the Jewish Revolt (116-117 C.E.),” in Journal of Jewish Studies 43 (Cambridge: 1992), 203-220. As for the “girdle-wearers,” Eddy, 293, not accepting the suggestion of R. Reitzenstein that the phrase results from the influence of the Persian text Bahman Yasht, suggest that phrase refers to armored soldiers or policemen in the Greek regime.

111 J. Gwyn Griffiths, “Apocalyptic in the Hellenistic Era,” in Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean world and the Near East: Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Apocalypticism, Uppsala, August 12-17, 1979, (ed.) D. Hellholm (Tübingen: Mohr, 1983), 288-290.

112 See McCown, 388; Shaw, 6; and Eddy, 290-291. 113 361-362 BCE. Tachos is most likely the Teos of Manetho; see McCown, 389. 114 Eddy, 291. 115 McCown, 390; see also Eddy, 289, and Gwyn Griffiths, 279-283. 116 Shaw, 6-7. The only other source for the period, apart from fragmentary papyri and inscriptions, is Manetho,

who provides only the names of pharaohs and the lengths of their reigns.


established social order; finally, a divinely-chosen king will arise from Heracleopolis, after the

time of the Ionians, and will expel the foreigners for good.117 The king-to-come shall be from the

South, Significantly, as Eddy points out, the objections to foreign rule are threefold: “they have

supplanted the national god-kings; they have interfered with the conduct of the normal religious

festivals; and they have caused want and suffering through non-observance of law.”118

Prophecy of the Lamb

The Roman author, Aelian, and the near-contemporary Christian chronographers, Sextus

Julius Africanus and Eusebius, report a peculiar legend of a talking lamb that lived in the time of

Bocchoris, a pharaoh of the Twenty-Fourth Dynasty.119 Aelian wrote,

The Egyptians relate … that under the famous Bocchoris a lamb with eight feet and two tails was born and broke into speech. And they celebrate the two heads of the lamb and say that it was four-horned.120

Building upon this legend, an apocalyptic—or perhaps prophetic—text was written sometime

around 7-8 CE.121 Not surprisingly, the present text is fragmentary and bereft of the introductory

narrative, without which we only know that someone sought out an oracle from this

extraordinary lamb. The text picks up in the middle of that oracle and speaks of the sad state of

Egypt, an impending disaster from the land of Charu (Syria or Phoenicia), and a period of 900

years of smiting during which the shrines of the gods will be taken.122 At the end of this

designated period, of course, their fortunes will be reversed and a much happier period will be

inaugurated.

“… the infertile shall (3) exult, and she who has borne (children) shall rejoice because of the good events which shall happen; and Egypt and the generation (?) of men that shall be in Egypt (4) shall say: ‘O now, would that my father and my grandfather were here with me’, in the good time (5) that shall come.”123

After finishing its oracle, however, the lamb dies and is subsequently “buried like a god” and

(perhaps) put into a shrine to be honored in perpetuity.

117 McCown, 389-391. 118 Eddy, 292. 119 Gwyn Griffiths, 285. 120 De Natura Animalium, 12.3; in McCown, 393. 121 McCown, 392. 122 See McCown, 393-394. 123 In Gwyn Griffiths, 286. The parenthetical numbers refer to the edition of the Vienna papyrus prepared by J.

Krall, “Vom König Bokchoris,” in Festgaben zu Ehren Max Büdinger’s von Seinen Freunden und Schülern (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1898), 3-11.


There are scholarly debates as to when this story originated, and some have traced it—

with no real way of confirmation—back to Manetho or Apion, assuming that the later Roman

and Christian authors who make reference to this story would have found it in one of these

authors.124 If such were the case, then it would add an additional “apocalyptic” interest to the

very writers with whom we are concerned. It is interesting that McCown did not bring up the fact

that Chaeremon, whose account is very similar to Manetho’s, places the expulsion of the Jews in

the time of a certain Bocchoris.

CPJ 520125

This fragmentary yet enticing papyrus was composed sometime during the third century

CE, the same general time period when the Oxyrhynchus papyrus of the Apology of the Potter

was copied.126 In fact, a particular expression and the future tense of the verbs occurring in the

text, as well as its apparent outlook, have led scholars to associate the two texts more closely.127

According to G. Bohak, a comparison of the fragment with the Apology of the Potter “would

convince us that this is a prophecy, supposedly uttered by someone in the distant past, and

relating, in future tense, all the bad things which will happen in the (real) author’s days.”128

Despite its imperfect condition, there is general agreement that the text refers to and vilifies the

Jews, a hypothesis supported by the contextual reference to an expulsion from Egypt.129 What is

much debated, however, is the initial impetus for this “prophecy,” whether it was the building of

the temple of Onias sometime between 167-164 BCE,130 the Jewish revolt in Egypt under Trajan

in 115-117 CE, or some other uncertain event in the Hellenistic or Roman period. We may

perhaps catch a glimpse of the significance of the event that prompted the composition of this

prophecy in another papyrus, CPJ 450, dating from the second century CE, which refers to an

124 See McCown, 394-397; Gwyn Griffiths holds espouses this view. 125 Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum: Vol. 3, Late Roman and Byzantine Periods, (eds.) V. A. Tcherikover, A.

Fuks and M. Stern (Cambridge: Harvard University Press; for Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1964), 119-121. 126 Stern, in Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum: Vol. 3, 120. 127 Stern, in Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum: Vol. 3, 119. 128 G. Bohak, “CPJ III, 520: The Egyptian Reaction to Onias’ Temple,” in Journal for the Study of Judaism in

the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Period 26.1 (Leiden: 1995), 32-41. 129 επελθε ουν Ιου[δαιοις... 130 This is the position on Bohak’s article, cited above.


annual festival in Oxyrhynchus by which the people remember and celebrate the defeat of the

Jews.131

The small fragment makes it clear that we are dealing with an “unhappy Egypt,” in which

cities are desolate, there is a lawlessness of some sort, prophets either become law-breakers or

have no office, and something—presumably bad—is happening to the sacred things. In light of

all of this, there is an exhortation to “go against the Jews.”132 The mobilization of traditional

themes and the creation of a prophetic text akin to the apocalyptic literature of the Hellenistic

period—not to mention the literature of the Middle Kingdom over a millennium before—to

oppose some or all Jews in Egypt is significant in its own right, but is of paramount importance

for the present study. The possibility that a Hellenistic historian reached to elements of a

traditional religious outlook and, generally speaking, literary genre in order to recount a phase of

Jewish history in Egypt becomes much more probable in light of the fact that, at some point,

another Egyptian writer reached to the same elements—although directly and with a much more

acute interest—in order to arouse hostility towards Egyptian Jews.

6.

Once again, the central thesis of the present study is that the form of Manetho’s second

account—or at least a number of its details and general outlook—derives in part from a larger

pool of apocalyptic literary and religious traditions circulating during the Hellenistic period. In

light of the above discussion and run-through of Egyptian religious and literary traditions from

before the Middle Kingdom to the Hellenistic period, let us return to the pseudo-ethnographic

accounts of Manetho and company, which were discussed in II.1, above. What do the former

have to do with the latter? What follows is an effort to highlight the various overlaps and

similarities between the two types of texts, suggesting that there was a general “apocalyptic

pool” from which these authors, especially Manetho and Chaeremon, might have drawn.

First, as mentioned above, one of the pieces of evidence supporting the identification of

the Jews as the enemies in the fragment CPJ 520 is the reference to those “cast out from Egypt

by the anger of Isis.”133 While it is unclear exactly what version of the account of the Jewish

expulsion from Egypt—which, as we have seen, was rather varied—the author had in mind, it

131 Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum: Vol. 2, The Early Roman Period (eds.) V. A. Tcherikover and A. Fuks (Cambridge: Harvard University Press; for Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1961), 258-260; see also the article by Frankfurter, cited above

132 Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum: Vol.3, 121. 133 Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum: Vol. 3, 121.


seems clear that the author of the prophecy both knew some basic version and considered it

relevant and worthwhile to dredge up that “memory” for his audience when expressing a sharp

distaste for contemporary Jews in an apocalyptic fashion. We find, then, a direct link between

apocalyptic traditions and an account of—or reference to—the expulsion of the Jews in the

distant past. Furthermore, the reference to the “anger of Isis” brings to mind the account of

Chaeremon, in which the goddess appears to king Amenophis and demands that he purge the

land of its polluted persons—namely, the Jews—in order to obtain her favor. Is there also some

correspondence between her complaint that her temple had been destroyed and the prediction in

CPJ 520 that cities and sacred things with be removed and/or desolated?

Second, several of the Hellenistic or Roman writers placed their accounts of the

expulsion of the Jews under historical Egyptian rulers who featured in apocalyptic accounts.

Both Manetho and Chaeremon cast Amenophis as the principal character, the name of the

pharaoh before whom the potter made his famous “apology.” Lysimachus, on the other hand,

looks to Bocchoris, the recipient of the oracle of the prophesying lamb. As McCown points out,

there were numerous conflicting legends circulating about this latter pharaoh, and suggests that

“all the various traditions of the misfortunes of Egyptian monarchs came to be attached to this,

the last native-born Pharaoh before the Assyrian conquest.”134 In light of these many accounts

and his important place—even if only symbolic—in the history of Egyptian kingship, it is

reasonable to imagine that for both the author of the prophetic text and—if he was not drawing

from this text directly—Lysimachus, invoking the name of this last native pharaoh, or the time of

his rule, was a significant and “loaded” act. The fact that the Oxyrhynchus version of the

Apology of the Potter makes reference to “the evils which the lamb announced to Bakharis”135

further emphasizes the widespread and overlapping nature of many of these apocalyptic

traditions.

Third, a distinct feature of both apocalyptic texts just discussed, the Apology of the Potter

and the Prophecy of the Lamb, is the death of the potter and lamb, respectively, immediately

after delivering the grim prophecy. Both figures are subsequently buried by the very kings before

whom they spoke: the potter is laid away in Heliopolis and the lamb is buried somewhere “like a

god.” Moreover, in each case there is some sort of public reminder of the message that had been

134 McCown, 393. 135 Gwyn Griffiths, 287.


delivered: the potter’s message was recorded in a sacred book, which the king Amenophis

“placed in his sacred treasure chambers and showed … freely to all men”136; and the lamb

appears to have been placed in a shrine in order to be honored. It is thus rather significant that in

Manetho’s account the seer who delivers the oracles, another Amenophis,137 takes his own life

not after delivering an oracle about the need to cleanse the land, but after delivering a second

oracle about the impending devastation in the land that will result from the alliance of the lepers

and Hyksos. The accounts of Pompeius Trogus and Lysimachus both tell of an oracle of some

sort, although each only advises the people or king how to free themselves from the present

dearth and neither involves the death of the messenger.

Fourth, in the accounts of Manetho and Chaeremon, there is a period of time—thirteen

years in the former, an uncertain amount of time in the latter—during which the polluted persons

and their allies—Hyksos in the former, unidentified in the latter—wreak havoc in the land. All of

the other writers report that the Jews were expelled from Egypt and then either end their account

or turn to the founding of the Jewish “state.” These two writers, however, choose to tell a

different story, the end of which consists of the return of the rightful king and the defeat and final

expulsion of the unwanted elements, whether foreign, polluted, or both. There is a clear parallel

here to the prophetic formula of most of the apocalyptic texts surveyed above. Moreover, the fact

that the prediction of the brief foreign dominance in Manetho ends with the death of the seer, as

already mentioned, and the fact that Chaeremon employs the “child born in peril who will later

save the day” motif, further suggest the apocalyptic and/or “popular” flavor of their perspective

and/or sources.138 In addition to their destructive ways in general, both authors refer specifically

to the impiety of these marauders. For instance, in Manetho we learn that the king took the

sacred animals with him to Ethiopia, likely in anticipation of the inevitable sacrilege that would

come with the invaders.

Finally, a unique feature of Manetho’s version is the desire of Amenophis to behold the

gods as his predecessor, Or, had been able to do. This setup is the launching point from which

Josephus mounts his attack on Manetho and company, declaring from the outset that “the reason

which he [Manetho] suggests for his fiction is ridiculous…. Gods indeed! If he means the gods

136 In McCown, 398. 137 See Waddell, 122-123 n. 1, for a discussion of this historical personage, Amenhotpe, son of Hapu, who was

later deified. 138 Both Hecataeus and Manetho allude to the “popular” or “folk” nature of the traditions they relay.


established by their ordinances,—bull, goat, crocodiles, and dog-faced baboons,—he had them

before his eyes; and as for the gods of heaven, how could he see them?” As he continues his

ridicule, however, he provides us with an additional, peculiar piece of information: “And why

did he conceive this eager desire? Because, by Zeus, before his time another king had seen

them!”139 What in the world does Josephus mean? Is he referring to a Manethonian detail that he

forgot to include in the prior account? Or is he merely being sarcastic? The textual note in the

Loeb edition, which chalks up the “by Zeus” phrase as a “strange expression” having something

to do with an anti-Semitic polemic, is not very helpful.140

In the second book of his Histories, Herodotus told a story of how the Egyptians,

followed by the “Ammonians,” came to represent Zeus by means of a ram’s head. It all began

with the overwhelming desire of Heracles to behold the god, who eventually acquiesced,

although deceptively donning a ram’s fleece and displaying its severed head.141 Did Josephus

have this account in his mind when he was ridiculing Manetho? Is that why he refers to the

animal-gods that the pharaoh must have had before him, which of course included a “goat,” or

was he simply relishing the opportunity to take a cheap shot at this notorious feature of Egyptian

religion?142 Or, if the detail originally came from Manetho, was he tapping into another account

from Egypt’s distant past, thus drawing from the religious stores of his native country? The

connection, while certainly intriguing, is admittedly not a very strong one. Another detail from

the account, however, is a bit more persuasive.

Manetho claims that the predecessor of Amenophis, who was capable of beholding the

gods, was a certain Or. As scholars have pointed out, Manetho listed a pharaoh by this name as a

ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty,143 and there is a possibility that there is some confusion here

with the god Horus.144 As Sørensen understands it, then, the reference is to a mythical time when

139 Contra Apionem 1.254-255, in Waddell, 133, 135, emphasis is my own. 140 Waddell, 133, n. 1. 141 Histories 2.42. I am indebted to Waddell, 121, n. 3, for the reference to this passage, although he did not

mention the connection between Zeus in the two passages, referring instead to the suggestion of another scholar that the name of the previous pharaoh, Or, resulted from some confusion with the god Horus. See the discussion below.

142 Sørensen, 168, reminds us of the impiety that the invaders allegedly showed during their thirteen-year campaign in Egypt and Amenophis’ concern for the sacred animals and images. He speculates that this detail reflects “the contemporary serious religious dissent between Egyptians and Jews on animal worship and sacrifice.”

143 Frs. 51-53, in Waddell, 107-117; there is a minor disagreement as to whether he was the eighth or ninth ruler and the exact length of his reign.

144 See n. 141, above.


Horus was king of Egypt, and thus to a “primeval condition.”145 While I am not entirely

confident about this conclusion—after all, Horus was the most persistent god in Egyptian

religion and pharaonic ideology and pharaohs were often conceived as being a manifestation of

the hawk-god146—there is certainly something to be said about the loss of and desire for a

“primeval condition” in Manetho’s account. As we saw above, the “removal of divine presence”

was a feature in Middle Kingdom apocalyptic-esque literature. Sørensen, emphasizing this

theme, along with his conviction of the historical unreliability of the account overall, writes, “No

true Amenophis of the 18th dynasty could have longed to behold the gods; he saw the sun rise

and set every day, and in all the temples of Egypt a priest would every morning open the naos

and ‘see the god’ on his behalf. Manetho’s Amenophis has assumed the colouring of a much

later time. He is in search of a spectacular revelation, a particular dispensation from the normal

and reluctantly accepted condition…. This apocalyptic element in the story corresponds to an

awareness of living in a decadent, if not fallen, world: access to ultimate reality is barred by the

presence of a great number of impure inhabitants.”147 While I do not share Sørensen’s evaluation

of apocalypticism in this period and its specific role in Manetho’s account,148 I do agree with

him that “Manetho’s Amenophis is in serious difficulties; he lives in a polluted world, and access

to the primeval condition and to ultimate reality is for him a matter of apocalypticism.”149 This

final, unique feature of Manetho’s second account of Jewish origins contributes to the possibility

that the entire account is strongly influenced by, if not drawn from, traditional and reinvigorated

apocalyptic religious and literary traditions circulating in the Hellenistic period.

145 Sørensen, 168. 146 G. Hart, A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 94. There

is a bronze statuette of Horus-the-Child as the ruling pharaoh dating to the Eighteenth Dynasty, viewable at: http://www.virtual-egyptian-museum.org/Collection/FullVisit/Collection.FullVisit-JFR.html?../Content/MET.SS.00454.html&0.

147 Sørensen, 168; see also n. 1, above. 148 See n. 28, above. Sørensen’s final conclusion, 180, is “that the prevalence of apocalypticism in the

narratives and the magical literature of Hellenistic Egypt was a reaction to foreign rule and culture, i.e. both to cultural conflict and to the many and drastic social changes brought about by the Ptolemaic régime.” He does not account adequately with the fact that while there certainly apocalyptic elements in Manetho’s account—as the present study is aimed at demonstrating!—Manetho was not composing a prophetic lament or religio-political treatise. As far as we can tell, Manetho’s account was inserted into his run-through of Egyptian dynasties. Perhaps he inserted similar elements elsewhere that provided a commentary of sorts on foreign rule that implemented the Greco-Macedonians, but we have no indication of this. What he did do—at least if we are accepting the authenticity of the account and its details—was reach to traditional, apocalyptic-esque traditions when describing the expulsion of the Jews from Egypt and the subsequent establishment of the Jewish “nation.” The fact that he did not reach to similar sources—but to more traditional, “historical” ones—when describing the rule of the so-called Hyksos, which also had some bearing on the Jews—suggests to me the nature of the different sources he had at his disposal.

149 Sørensen, 170.


III. Function

By way of conclusion, let us return to the second, lesser focus of the present study: the

function of this account and Manetho’s potential motivations in reaching to and adapting

elements of apocalyptic religious and literary traditions. As has been (hopefully) demonstrated,

these traditions were a valuable and viable part of Egyptian literary and religious heritage, and

authoritative in their own right for retelling Egyptian history. Buy why did Manetho reach to

them when reporting on a phase of Jewish history in Egypt? The fragmentary CPJ 520

demonstrated that at some point another Egyptian writer reached to similar elements—although

directly and with a much more acute interest—in order to arouse hostility towards Egyptian

Jews. Manetho, however, was writing at least a century earlier, most likely more, and there is no

reason to image that they were writing under the same conditions. What might his motivations

have been? Moreover, in keeping with one of the interests of this study, how would this second

account have served his interests as an Egyptian national historian and apologist?

The answer is most likely to be found in the give-and-take occurring between Jewish and

Egyptian writers during the Hellenistic period, as well as Roman, not only about the history of

Jews in Egypt and the establishment of the Jewish “nation,” as we have seen, but also about the

Jewish contribution to the Egyptian cultural legacy. As mentioned above at the outset of the

survey of pseudo-ethnographic accounts (II.1), the theme of “leprosy”—who had it and why—

seems to have been a rather volatile and potentially embarrassing one. When discussing the

Jewish presence and especially “exodus” from Egypt, the stakes were no less than the self-image

of each group, and Jewish and Egyptian writers used this theme to conflicting ends. In sharp

contrast to the image of the Jews as a leprous group of Egyptians who are despised by the gods

and eventually adopt impious and anti-Egyptian customs, Philo claims that when the Jews left

Egypt, they were followed by a crowd of proselytes who admired their superb piety.150

There were also a handful of attempts made by Jewish writers of this period to lay claim

to various cultural achievements. For instance, the writer Eupolemus claims that Moses was the

first true wise man and that it was he who first gave the alphabet to the Jews, who in turn

150 See the discussion of K. Goudriaan, “Ethnical Strategies in Graeco-Roman Egypt,” in Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt, (eds.) P. Bilde, T. Engberg-Pedersen, L. Hannestad, and J. Zahle (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1992), 74-99.


transmitted it to the Phoenicians, who gave it to the Greeks, and so on.151 Another writer,

Artapanus, claimed that it was Moses who first taught the Ethiopians, and then Egyptian priests,

circumcision.152 While this last claim was not one valued by all cultures of the Hellenistic world,

it was a reversal of the more traditional take, according to which the Egyptians and Ethiopians

were among the first to circumcise, followed by the Phoenicians, Syrians and/or Jews.153 A claim

coming a bit closer to and thus threatening to usurp specific Egyptian interests is found in the

same writer about the patriarch Joseph. Artapanus writes that “Joseph was the very first to

subdivide the land, to indicate this with boundaries, to render much of the waste land tillable, to

assign some of the arable land to priests. In addition, it was he who discovered measures, and he

was greatly loved by the Egyptians because of these accomplishments.”154 If Manetho is

supposed to have written to correct Herodotus on various points about Egyptian civilization, thus

acting as a national apologist, how would he have reacted to statements made by Jewish writers

which threatened to rob Egypt of some of its claims to cultural primacy and/or supremacy? In

order to better answer this question, let us first look closer at some of the claims made by

Artapanus about Moses, the most famous Jewish figure in antiquity, about whom Manetho also

had a few, rather negative things to say.

The work of this Hellenistic Jewish writer, supposedly entitled Judaica, has survived

only in fragments preserved by Eusebius and Clement of Alexandria.155 Unfortunately, given the

lack of information about the writer himself, the period of his activity can be dated no more

exactly than sometime between 250-100 BCE.156 In addition to various remarks about Joseph’s

career in Egypt, part of which is quoted above, Artapanus also commented on Abraham’s

sojourns into in the land. By far the longest and most interesting portion, which is transmitted by

Eusebius, deals with Moses and his Egyptian enterprises. Artapanus, passing over the rather

unpleasant account of the attempt of the pharaoh to murder all Hebrew children, claims that

Moses was adopted by Merris, daughter of pharaoh Chenephres, who was barren. Not only was

151 In Holladay, 113. 152 In Holladay, 168. 153 E.g., Herodotus, Histories 2.104.1-3, who includes the Colchians among the first groups and refers to the

Jews as “the Syrians of Palestine,” in Stern, 1. 154 In Holladay, 207. 155 R. Kugler, “Hearing the Story of Moses in Ptolemaic Egypt: Artapanus Accommodates the Tradition,” in

The Wisdom of Egypt: Jewish, Early Christian, and Gnostic Essays in Honour of Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, (eds.) A. Hilhorst and G. H. van Kooten (Boston: Brill, 2005), 67.

156 J. M. G. Barclay, “Manipulating Moses: Exodus 2.10-15 in Egyptian Judaism and the New Testament,” in Text as Pretext: Essays in Honour of Robert Davidson, (ed.) R. P. Carroll (Sheffied: JSOT Press, 1992), 31.


Moses somewhat of a child prodigy, but, when he came of age, “he was named by the Greeks

Musaeus, and he became the teacher of Orpheus.”157 Not only is this claim remarkable, but, as R.

Kugler points out, it reverses the Greek tradition on which it is based.158 Artapanus continues,

“As a grown man he was the source of many great inventions for humankind: ships, cranes for

lifting large stones, Egyptian weaponry, devices for lifting water and for war, and philosophy. He

was also responsible for dividing the country into thirty-six nomes, appointing to each the

appropriate god to be worshipped, whether cats, dogs, or ibises, and appointed sacred scriptures

for the priests as well.”159 Even though Moses’ later career included the destruction of these cults

in response to the pharaoh’s ill-will, the confident claim that Moses was initially responsible for

establishing the animal worship practiced throughout Egypt—the practice that bore the brunt of

much criticism throughout the Roman world, including Josephus—is nothing less than

astonishing.160

Artapanus also informs us that Moses was responsible for the breeding of the “Apis”

bull,161 the solidification of pharaonic rule,162 and the regular flooding of the Nile, the latter of

which resulted from the series of miracles that he performed when attempting to deliver the

Jewish people.163 In fact, a rod similar to that with which Moses performed numerous miracles

was eventually set up “in every temple, especially in the temple of Isis, since the earth is Isis and

it brought forth these wonders when it was struck with the rod.”164 For all of these reasons, then,

Moses was “well loved by the people, and so highly esteemed by the priests that they considered

him divine, calling him Hermes on account of his ability in the interpretation of holy

scripture.”165

As a natural consequence of Moses’ widespread popularity, the pharaoh began looking

for some way to dispose of him and thus, when the country was invaded by Ethiopia, Chenephres

157 In L. M. Wills, Ancient Jewish Novels: An Anthology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 167. 158 Kugler, 68. 159 In Wills, 167. D. J. Silver, “Moses and the Hungry Birds,” in Jewish Quarterly Review 64 (Philadelphia:

1973), 127, suggests that the number thirty six derives from astrology, “rather than from the actual number of nomes which varied from 38 to 44.”

160 In Wills, 166-167. 161 In Wills, 169. 162 In Wills, 168: “for prior to this the people had been quite disorganized and would depose of established

rulers at will, at times reinstalling former rulers, at other times elevating new ones.” 163 In Wills, 171. 164 In Wills, 171. 165 In Wills, 168.


sent Moses against them as the general of an army made up primarily of farmers.166 Moses’

abilities as a general, however, proved to be more than sufficient for making up for the

inexperience of his soldiers and, consequently, over a period of ten years “they prevailed in

every battle with distinction.”167 Even the Ethiopians came to love Moses and they learned the

practice of circumcision from him.168 In light of the aggrandized stories about Sesostris and his

unparalleled acts circulating during this period—many of which were aimed at rivaling or

surpassing those of Alexander the Great—T. Rajak concludes, “The claim that a different hero,

the leader of the Jews, had conquered Ethiopia for the Egyptians, was thus a direct challenge to

Egyptian national traditions.”169 In any case, due to the length of the war and the amount of

soldiers he had, Artapanus writes that “those who fought with Moses founded a city there called

Hermopolis, with the ibis as its sacred symbol because it kills animals that are harmful to

humans.”170 In a similar account produced by Josephus, Moses ingeniously uses ibises to

negotiate a hazardous route crowded with serpents.171 In each case, the association between

Moses and the use of ibises serves, according to D. J. Silver, as a sign of Moses’ loyalty to

Egypt, since “only a patriotic Egyptian could take the ibis with him outside of Egypt and use it

for military purposes.”172

What can be said about the overall thrust of this biographical “romance,” filled with such

fascinating, extra-biblical materials and interesting takes on biblical ones? Modern scholars have

not missed the opportunity to comment on Artapanus’ apparent interest in and startling claims

about Moses’ connection to rather significant components of Egyptian cultural and religious

heritage. J. M. G. Barclay writes, “This picture of Moses is clearly motivated by a complex

commitment both to Judaism and to Egyptian culture.”173 Kugler contends that the essential

argument of the writer “was that recipients should emulate Moses, a hero of the faith…. And

what would one do to emulate Moses? Seek the stability and well-being of one’s Egyptians

166 In Wills, 168. 167 In Wills, 168. According to D. J. Silver, “Moses and the Hungry Birds,” in Jewish Quarterly Review 64

(Philadelphia: 1973), 131, Artapanus wished to present Moses as having displayed the standard requirements of Hellenistic heroism.

168 In Wills, 168. 169 T. Rajak, “Moses in Ethiopia: Legend and Literature,” in Journal of Jewish Studies 29.2 (Cambridge: 1978),

115; see also Eddy, 280-282 and 289-290, for the legends of Sesostris and his significance during this period. 170 In Wills, 168. 171 Rajak, 120, remarking on some of the parallels between Artapanus and Josephus, concludes that both had

access to a “common fund of oral materials.” 172 Silver, 140-141. 173 Barclay, “Manipulating Moses,” 32.


neighbors and respect and appreciate their religious practices.”174 It would seem, however, that

Artapanus was interested in more than just promoting Egyptian practices—in the form of

acceptance and toleration, not adoption—to Egyptian Jews; he was also concerned with

defending Egyptian Jews—that is, Jewish presence and history in Egypt—and particularly Moses

from any negative press they might have received. Thus, Barclay writes, “Artapanus is

determined to silence any criticism and to support any adulation, even to the extent of implying

that in worshipping Hermes, Egyptians are in fact paying honour to Moses.”175

In light of this latter motivation, several scholars have lined up Artapanus and Manetho

against one another and speculated about a “dialogue” of sorts taking place between them, or at

least between the information they put forth and the traditions they potentially reflect. Silver,

reversing the apparent chronological order of these writers, compares the structure of Manetho in

light of Artapanus and concludes that “Manetho’s story turns Artapanus’ inside out.”176 For

instance, he notes how in Manetho, Moses is not the defender of Egypt, but an instigator in its

invasion and destruction; and in Manetho, the Ethiopians are allies to whom the pharaoh can

flee, not enemies who invade and must be repelled. Restoring the proper chronological order,

one could add to this the fact that whereas in Manetho Moses contributes to the disruption of

order and pharaonic rule, in Artapanus he is credited with having been the first to secure the ruler

of the pharaoh, thus ending a long period of chaotic overthrows. Whereas Manetho claims that

Moses sent to the Hyksos in Palestine in order to solicit their help in invading Egypt, Artapanus

claims that Moses prevented a full-scale invasion, despite the wishes of his father-in-law,

Raguel.177

Furthermore, we can also see in Artapanus the desire to acquit—at least in part—both

Egyptians and Jews of some of the more unpleasant events of the biblical Exodus account. As

mentioned above, there is no account of the attempt of the pharaoh to murder all Hebrew

children, and Artapanus claims that in addition to the miracles performed by Moses that plagued

the Egyptian people, Moses also caused the Nile to flood for the first time, which essentially was

a gift to Egypt and its civilization. In any case, Rajak, also comparing the two authors, writes,

“There is no doubt that some of the ingredients of Artapanus are reversals of Manetho, but his

174 Kugler, 75. 175 Barclay, “Manipulating Moses,” 33. 176 Silver, 136. 177 In Wills, 169-170.


whole story can hardly be explained as originating in that way.”178 There is not, then, a one-to-

one relationship between these authors, but rather a reflection of and appeal to wider plain of

information.

One of the things clearly at stake in both writers is the reputation of Moses. Whereas in

Artapanus Moses is the source of so much good in Egyptian history and is thus a source of pride

of both Jews and Egyptians, in the second account of Manetho he is not only a leprous, polluted

Egyptian, but also a former priest of Heliopolis—originally named after the god Osiris—turned

traitor and impious invader. Why might Manetho have been so bent on sullying Moses’

reputation? Hecataeus of Abdera, one of Manetho’s predecessors, had presented Moses as a

remarkable and praiseworthy military leader and founder of a nation, comparable to Danaus and

Cadmus. After Manetho, the notorious Apion would note that old people in Egypt used to say

that Moses was actually a native of Heliopolis. Artapanus reports that native Egyptians at

Heliopolis and Memphis had varying traditions about the Exodus account, particularly the events

that took place at the Red Sea.179 In fact, Moses would become so well known in the later Greco-

Roman world that we find his name invoked on magical amulets and cited in magical papyri by

both Jews and non-Jews alike, and it has been demonstrated “that Moses’ name was deemed

efficacious in itself and is even cited without any apparent connection to the Jewish tradition.”180

Do we find in Manetho an early occurrence of the desire to combat the popularity of this famous

Jewish leader? If so, why would he have been so inclined? Eschewing the temptation to chalk up

his motivations to anti-Semitism plain and simple, I suggest that he was responding to claims

such as those found in Artapanus—whose work is but one example of such claims—and acting

in the interests of his native Egyptians by viciously de-legitimizing Moses as a beneficent figure

in Egypt’s cultural heritage.

Additionally, I suspect that Manetho also had yet another agenda vis-à-vis the Jewish

population of Egypt. As noted above in the Introduction, one of Josephus’ immediate criticisms

of Manetho was the simple fact that Manetho relayed two separate accounts concerning the

Jewish people, one of which involved the founding of Jerusalem by the Hyksos, and the other the

178 Rajak, 111, n. 2. 179 In Wills, 171. 180 Silver, 142; see also J. G. Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972).

Silver, 141, has also suggested that the references in Artapanus and Josephus to Moses’ use of ibises reflect, not military brilliance, “but memories of an early syncretistic cult of the Egyptian Diaspora which had centered on Moses as healer and intercessor.”


“exodus” of polluted persons under the auspices of Moses. Since Josephus saw in both varying

and thus contradictory accounts of the biblical Exodus tradition, he accepts the former as

approaching the historical truth and the latter as a work of nefarious fiction. It does not seem to

occur to him that the two narratives could serve as complementary accounts, either depicting two

stages of the history of the Jewish nation or, perhaps, differentiating between contemporary

Judeans in the Jewish polity and the Jews residing in Egypt. In support of this tentative

argument, let us return briefly once more to Artapanus, this time to a different fragment

preserved by Eusebius.

In the eighteenth book of his Praeparatio Evangelica, Eusebius reports that “Artapanus,

in his work Judaica, says that the Jews were named Hermiouth, which means ‘Jews’ when

translated into the Greek language; and he says that they were called Hebrews from the time of

Abraham.”181 One scholarly speculation about this curious appellation sees it as a corrupt Greek

form of a Hebrew compound, designating “Syrian Jews.”182 As noted above, Herodotus referred

to the Jews as “Syrians of Palestine.”183 There is, however, another, more intriguing explanation.

J. Freudenthal first suggested, at the end of the Nineteenth century, that this appellation is related

to Artapanus’ later comment that Moses was identified by the Egyptians as Hermes.184

Moreover, this Hellenistic writer also claimed that the soldiers who fought with Moses against

the Ethiopians founded a city called Hermopolis.185 Does “Hermiouth,” then, mean “Moses-ites”

or “Moses Jews,” as the name “Hebrews” may have been considered a derivative of Abraham?186

Did a Jewish writer, active around a century after Manetho, refer to some or all Jews as “Moses-

ites”? Considering that Artapanus endeavored to secure a more lasting place for Egyptian Jews,

coupled with the fact that an ousted Jewish priest later established a rival temple at

Leontopolis,187 an event which prompted some anxiety among Judean Jews about the religious

181 In Holladay, 205. 182 Holladay, 226, n. 4. 183 See n. 153, above. 184 See Holladay, 226, n. 4. 185 In Wills, 168, mentioned above. 186 Holladay, 226, n. 4. 187 See M. Delcor, “Le temple d’Onias en Egypt,” in Revue Biblique 75 (Paris: 1968), 188-205; C. T. R.

Hayward, “The Jewish Temple at Leontopolis: A Reconsideration,” in Journal of Jewish Studies 33.1-2 (Cambridge: 1982), 429-443; J. E. Taylor, “A Second Temple in Egypt: The Evidence for the Zadokite Temple of Onias,” in Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 29.3 (Leiden: 1998), 297-321; and the article of Bohak, cited above.


loyalties of their Egyptian compatriots,188 I cannot help but wonder whether Manetho either

perceived a difference between “Jews” in Egypt and those in Judea or wished to make such a

distinction. If so, then the specific group targeted by his second account would not have been all

Jews everywhere, necessarily, but specifically the Jews living in and perhaps making claims

about their role—or the representative of their religion par excellence—in the history and

cultural legacy of Egypt. Manetho, writing at a time when the fate of his country and that of his

compatriots was uncertain189 and stepping into the role of historian and apologist, reached to

traditional, apocalyptic religious and literary traditions in order to undermine those rival claims,

thereby re-securing the cultural primacy and, perhaps, supremacy of his native country.

188 E.g., 2 Maccabees 1.1-10. 189 See the analysis of Sørensen.

The Form and Function of Manetho’s “Second” Account of Jewish Origins

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