The “Egyptian version” as we found it in Hecataeus is far from malevolent. In Manetho it is plainly inspired by hatred. The Jews are represented as the mongrel offspring of Egyptian outcasts and half-civilized Bedouins. The vice of unsociability is reasserted, coupled with a charge of “atheism,” a term we shall have to deal with later in detail. Moses, or Osarsiph, forbade the Jews “to have any dealings with anyone whatsoever except their confederates” (συνωμοσμένοι). That is, of course, more precise than the words “inhospitable and inhuman manner of life” of Hecataeus, and formed in ancient times a more serious indictment than in our own.

Now Josephus, of course, is roused to considerable heat by the “silly lies” of Manetho, although as testimony to the antiquity of his people the story is grist to his mill. He points out very clearly and correctly that many of the incidents are admissions that the corresponding incidents of the Jewish story are essentially true. These admissions do not prove that Manetho read these matters from the hieroglyphic records, but merely that he knew the Jewish story, and, except for the confusion of Moses and Joseph, that he knew it well.

Nearly all Manetho’s details are suggested in some way by the Biblical story. The leprosy of Osarsiph is probably derived from the story of Moses (Exodus iv. 7); the convicts in the quarries (οἱ ἐν ταῖς λᾳοτομίαις), from the bondage which the Jews acknowledged of themselves (Exodus i. 12-14). Manetho cannot accept Joseph’s rule nor Pharaoh’s discomfiture at the Red Sea, but, as many other ancient and modern writers did, he will not absolutely deny what he wishes to avoid, but prefers to present it in a form less galling to his pride. Osarsiph did rule over Egypt, but his rule was a chastisement of the Egyptians for the impiety of King Amenophis, and was effected only by the aid of foreign mercenaries. Pharaoh did advance to “the river” with a picked army and then withdraw before the enemy, but it was a voluntary withdrawal, impelled by his fear of the offended gods.[[98]]

It is by no means impossible that all the facts implied may have been learned by Manetho through oral acquaintance with the Jewish story of the Exodus. But if Manetho acquired his information so, we should expect confusion in the sequence of events. We should find anachronisms of various sorts. It is therefore more likely that he had an actual book before him. Tradition of strong intrinsic probability assigns the translation of the Pentateuch into Greek to the reign of Philadelphus. Writing at about 270 B.C.E., Manetho may well have read the Pentateuch, at least cursorily. Indeed it would be easy to suppose that it was the circulation in Greek of stories so offensive to Egyptians that specially moved him to publish his own interpretation of those stories. He was hardly likely to have made so much of them, if they were merely legends, scarcely known except to the Jews themselves and their closest neighbors.

The “Egyptian version” may be said to have been the more successful. The leprosy of Moses, the founder of the nation, was constantly girded at by later writers. Tacitus repeats Manetho faithfully in the matter,[[99]] and one of the latest pagan writers of whom we have fragments concerning the Jews, Helladius, makes allusion to the same thing.[[100]] The point does not seem to us of capital importance, but among peoples that regarded bodily defects as obvious signs of divine displeasure in the person afflicted, it was likely to have weight.

It may, however, be well to remember that both versions were in equal circulation. To many the Jewish story seemed the more probable. But it is significant that at the very beginning of the period when the Jews took a larger share in the life of the Mediterranean world we find Jews and Egyptians distinctly in conflict. That conflict was destined to become embittered, but it must not be taken as an epitome of Jewish relations generally with other nations.

CHAPTER VIII
JEWS IN PTOLEMAIC EGYPT

Greek civilization was essentially urban. The city-state, or polis, was its highest governmental achievement. When, therefore, under Alexander and Ptolemy, Egypt was to be transferred wholly within the sphere of Greek culture, it was by means of a polis that this was to be effected.

The same was still more largely true for the other parts of Alexander’s empire. In Asia and Syria the “Successors” were busy founding, wherever convenient, cities diversely named. However, in these regions they were merely continuing, in a somewhat accelerated fashion, a practice begun long before. In Egypt, on the contrary, it was plain that a modification of that policy was necessary. There was, to be sure, an ancient Greek city at one of the western mouths of the Nile, the city of Naucratis. But that had been founded as an emporium, and due care was taken that it should be essentially nothing more, that it should acquire no supporting territory in Egypt. And however important and wealthy Naucratis became, it remained confined to its foreign trade for its subsistence.[[101]] Besides, it had considerably dwindled in 330 B.C.E., so that its claims could never have been seriously considered by Alexander, in comparison with his desire to found a new city and in comparison with the much superior location of Alexandria.