Lysimachus of Alexandria on the Jews

Lysimachus of Alexandria is one of a great many authors in antiquity that we have records of but whose works have not - unfortunately - survived the ravages of history. Lysimachus survives principally through Josephus' mention of him at the end of the first book of 'Against Apion'.

Predictably Josephus vilifies him, but in doing so he provides information about Lysimachus' arguments that he found so offensive. I quote the whole of Josephus' mention of Lysimachus as always to give the reader the chance to read the sources for themselves and make up their own mind.

To wit:

'I shall now add to these accounts about Manetho and Cheremon somewhat about Lysimachus, who has taken the same topic of falsehood with those aforementioned, but has gone far beyond them in the incredible nature of his forgeries; which plainly demonstrates that he contrived them out of his virulent hatred of our nation. His words are these: "The Jewish people being leprous and scabby, and subject to certain other kinds of diseases, in the days of Bocchoris, king of Egypt, they fled to the temples, and got their food there by begging: and as the numbers were very great that were fallen under these diseases, there arose a famine in Egypt. Whereupon Bocchoris, the king of Egypt, sent some to consult the oracle of Ammon about this famine. The god's answer was this, that he must purge his temples of impure and impious men, by expelling them out of those temples into desert places; but as to the scabby and leprous people, he must drown them, and purge his temples, the sun having an indignation at these men being suffered to live; and by this means the land will bring forth its fruits. Upon Bocchoris' having received these oracles, he called for their priests, and the attendants upon their altars, and ordered them to make a collection of the impure people, and to deliver them to the soldiers, to carry them away into the desert; but to take the leprous people, and wrap them in sheets of lead, and let them down into the sea. Whereupon the scabby and leprous people were drowned, and the rest were gotten together, and sent into desert places, in order to be exposed to destruction. In this case they assembled themselves together, and took counsel what they should do, and determined that, as the night was coming on, they should kindle fires and lamps, and keep watch; that they also should fast the next night, and propitiate the gods, in order to obtain deliverance from them. That on the next day there was one Moses, who advised them that they should venture upon a journey, and go along one road till they should come to places fit for habitation: that he charged them to have no kind regards for any man, nor give good counsel to any, but always to advise them for the worst; and to overturn all those temples and altars of the gods they should meet with: that the rest commended what he had said with one consent, and did what they had resolved on, and so travelled over the desert. But that the difficulties of the journey being over, they came to a country inhabited, and that there they abused the men, and plundered and burnt their temples; and then came into that land which is called Judea, and there they built a city, and dwelt therein, and that their city was named Hierosyla, from this their robbing of the temples; but that still, upon the success they had afterwards, they in time changed its denomination, that it might not be a reproach to them, and called the city Hierosolyma, and themselves Hierosolymites."

Now this man did not discover and mention the same king with the others, but feigned a newer name, and passing by the dream and the Egyptian prophet, he brings him to Ammon, in order to gain oracles about the scabby and leprous people; for he says that the multitude of Jews were gathered together at the temples. Now it is uncertain whether he ascribes this name to these lepers, or to those that were subject to such diseases among the Jews only; for he describes them as a people of the Jews. What people does he mean? Foreigners, or those of that country? Why then does he call them Jews, if they were Egyptians? But if they were foreigners, why does he not tell us whence they came? And how could it be that, after the king had drowned many of them in the sea, and ejected the rest into desert places, there should be still so great a multitude remaining? Or after what manner did they pass over the desert, and get the land which we now dwell in, and build our city, and that temple which has been so famous among all mankind? And besides, he ought to have spoken more about our legislator than by giving us his bare name; and to have informed us of what nation he was, and what parents he was derived from; and to have assigned the reasons why he undertook to make such laws concerning the gods, and concerning matters of injustice with regard to men during that journey. For in case the people were by birth Egyptians, they would not on the sudden have so easily changed the customs of their country; and in case they had been foreigners, they had for certain some laws or other which had been kept by them from long custom. It is true, that with regard to those who had ejected them, they might have sworn never to bear good-will to them, and might have had a plausible reason for so doing. But if these men resolved to wage an implacable war against all men, in case they had acted as wickedly as he relates of them, and this while they wanted the assistance of all men, this demonstrates a kind of mad conduct indeed; but not of the men themselves, but very greatly so of him that tells such lies about them. He has also impudence enough to say that a name, implying "Robbers of the temples," was given to their city, and that this name was afterwards changed. The reason of which is plain, that the former name brought reproach and hatred upon them in the times of their posterity, while, it seems, those that built the city thought they did honour to the city by giving it such a name. So we see that this fine fellow had such an unbounded inclination to reproach us, that he did not understand that robbery of temples is not expressed By the same word and name among the Jews as it is among the Greeks. But why should a man say any more to a person who tells such impudent lies? However, since this book is arisen to a competent length, I will make another beginning, and endeavour to add what still remains to perfect my design in the following book.' (1)

The first thing to notice about Josephus' comments is the fact that he immediately states that he ascribes Lysimachus' comments about the jews to a 'virulent hatred' of them, which is intended to suggest to the reader that Lysimachus was a calumniator rather than a critic of the jews. We cannot however credit this as we do not know enough about Lysimachus to determine whether he was motivated by any distaste for jews or whether he would have made-up charges against the jews if he did not like them.

Some may seek to argue at this juncture that because Josephus states that Lysimachus speaks of the issue of the jewish origin being among lepers in Egypt and because we generally believe that this is not the case. Then Lysimachus is being deliberately pejorative and thus is a calumniator of the jews. However this argument presumes perfect knowledge on the part of Lysimachus and other critics of the jews in antiquity: as in order to knowingly lie about the jews - as Josephus claims they are doing - then they would have had to have known that what they argued was not the case (which clearly cannot be evidenced or even reasonably conjectured).

Bearing in mind that other critics of the jews that Josephus mentions argued precisely the same thing - as indeed did many other authors Josephus does not mention (for example Diodorus) - then one should see the argument about the origin of the jews being among lepers being a historical theory based on unknown sources as opposed to a simple libel against the jews.

We should also bear in mind - as I have pointed out in relation to Clearchus of Soli  (2) and Pythagoras of Samos - (3) that Josephus can be reasonably argued to have deliberately distorted sources to suit his rhetorical purposes in at the very least 'Against Apion'. If we understand this context and Josephus' prefacing claim that Lysimachus had a 'virulent hatred' of jews then it becomes rather clear that Josephus is anything but a good source in so far as he is extremely hostile to Lysimachus and has a nasty habit of misrepresenting critics of the jews in order to attack them.

We can see this untrustworthiness express itself almost with equivocation in Josephus' attack on Lysimachus' historical retelling of the origin of the jews among the lepers of Egypt. Josephus attacks Lysimachus for using a different king's name to other sources (a common enough mistake in antiquity) and for not mentioning the lawgiver's origin and name (not even pausing to think that Lysimachus may have not been able to discern this or noting his own inability to name the ancestry and full name of Moses). Both of these - as I've briefly pointed out - are contrived attacks on Lysimachus and are not supportive of Josephus' case or his own version of events.

Now further to this Josephus tries to use some sceptical reasoning about Lysimachus' historical chronology and argues that it is absurd that many of the jews may have been drowned as a form of execution and then a 'multitude' ejected. However, this - if we but think about it a moment - is likely Josephus being somewhat disingenuous as he appears to be confusing two traditions: that of Lysimachus who asserts that some of the ancestors of the jews were executed by drowning and the remainder were deported in addition to the jewish tradition - as current in Josephus' day as in our own - which states that approximately 600,000 jews left Egypt with Moses.

By subtly conflating these two traditions together - and remember the ancients didn't have our ready access to numerous jewish sources so wouldn't have easily spotted the probable deception - Josephus then gives himself enough intellectual leeway to attack Lysimachus by sceptically asserting the improbability of the execution of many jews and there still being a 'multitude' (i.e., the 600,000 remaining jews) to come out Egypt with Moses to form Israel.

We can thus see once again that Josephus is no objective source and that his claims about other sources and their attitudes should not be taken at face value.

Now having dealt with Josephus as an interpolator to Lysimachus' historical chronology of jewish origins: we can address ourselves to what Lysimachus is actually talking about in the text reproduced by Josephus. In doing so we can also clear up Josephus' attempted sceptical counterarguments.

Lysimachus is telling us very simply this.

In the reign of King Bocchoris: a discernible group called the jews began to descend on temples throughout the length and breadth of Egypt. These jews did not work for a living, but rather begged and demanded that others provide for them. This group was also heavily inflicted with disease and began to grow in numbers creating a famine: so much so that King Bocchoris decided to consult the creator god of Egypt Ammon [i.e., Amun] via his principal oracle. This oracle instructed that Bocchoris should drown those most infected with the disease (the lepers) in the sea by wrapping them in sheets of lead, but that those less infected by the disease (the impure) should be collected together and cast out into the desert. By doing this then Ammon promised that the favour of the gods would be restored and the famine would end.

Among those who were less infected (the impure) there was a lot of debate as to what should be done next, but a leader arose among the these new citizens of the desert called Moses. Who promised the jews that if they followed him and trusted no one but him and themselves then they would meet with success and reap future bounty. This they did by raping, pillaging and murdering their way to a new land which they then named Judea and founded a city called Hierosyla in honour of all the temples they had robbed and destroyed on their path to the land of milk and honey.

This obviously seems quite implausible if read literally, but interestingly it makes perfect sense if we but understand that we are dealing with an allegorical not a literal disease. We can see this revealed in several aspects of the story that Lysimachus tells in so far as one wonders why the diseased were split into two factions - the lepers and the impure - rather than simply all being designated as lepers (as would make more sense) and also why the focus of these lepers was the temples. In addition to wondering why their presence at the temples both offended the priests (as diseased beggars were not uncommon) and actually increased the numbers of lepers and impure.

If we understand this implausibility of a literal reading of Lysimachus: we should then seek to identify if we are instead dealing with an allegorical disease or rather a disease of the mind. Or put more simply: a competing religious system which subverted the power of the Egyptian priesthood and hence challenged the status quo forcing King Bocchoris to take action in deciding whether to complete the destruction of the old religious order or destroy the subversive religious sect.

This is strengthened by Lysimachus' mention of the sudden appearance of a discernible group in significant numbers at the Egyptian temples, which then feeds itself by using its number to blackmail and cajole the priests and the worshippers at those temples to pay this group in coin or in kind to pass (i.e., feeding/providing for them) unmolested about their religious business.

Further we can note that the reference to how quickly the group was growing and that this caused a famine can be also easily interpreted in this light to mean that the sect was winning converts who refused to work the land for Pharaoh (King Bocchoris) and who instead joined in criminal idleness with those already outside the temples of Egypt.

The famine then is caused by the movement of a significant amount of the population away from the official Egyptian religion and working on the land towards this new cult and its habit of blackmail outside the temples. Thus, you have less people working the land and concomitantly less food being produced while having approximately the same number of mouths to feed, which in short leads to a scarcity of food (i.e., a man-made famine).

That King Bocchoris then seeks the aid of the chief of the Egyptian gods Ammon [i.e., Amun] is also important as there were other gods that would have been invoked if the Egyptians were merely plagued by illness (and more specifically leprosy) such as Isis, Nefertem and/or Hathor (i.e., deities associated with magic, healing and beauty respectively). However if there was a threat to the very foundation of Egyptian religion then one would consult Ammon and indeed not only offer sacrifice and prayers to him, but rather seek to garner the god's wisdom directly via an oracle.

Clearly then a great threat to the official Egyptian religion and the absolute monarchy that was associated with it was understood to come from this diseased group, which is not likely to be a literal plague, but rather a mental or spiritual one.

This reading of the text is confirmed by what the oracle of Ammon tells King Bocchoris to do: in so far as the 'lepers' should be wrapped in lead and drowned in the sea. However the 'impure' should be spared and merely banished from Egypt. This informs us that there were two levels to the problem: those who had fully contracted the religious disease (the lepers) and those who had simply converted for an easy life or had only recently done so (the impure).

The action demanded of King Bocchoris by the oracle of Ammon then makes sense. In so far as the oracle demanded the execution of the leaders and devotees of the sect (the lepers) in a manner fairly unique to Egyptian civilisation: giving them back to the water (the primordial watery underworld of the abyss) so that they could be purified. Further those who had become tainted by what Lysimachus calls 'impious ways' were to be driven out so that there would no longer be a taint of this cult in Egypt and all would be as it was before and the famine would quickly abate.

This reading is also given further credence by Lysimachus' description of the impure not knowing what to do after they had been ejected from Egypt by King Bocchoris as their leaders were dead. This allowed Moses - who Lysimachus paints as a thoroughly disreputable character - to take over by promising the ancestors of the jews that he would get them out of the predicament they found themselves in.

In return they would - in Lysimachus' portrayal - agree to do whatever Moses commanded of them and in time conceived a great hatred for all those who were not with them: leading - in Lysimachus' view - to the fact that they pillaged, raped and murdered their way across the Levant. Ultimately naming their city after all the pagan temples - again pointing to a religious sect not a disease-ridden horde - they had looted and thrown down in the name of this intolerant religious cult.

This then counters all of Josephus' objections and also tells us that Lysimachus was actually relating what his research suggested was the case and that his research may - or may not - have turned up some information of genuine interest. Since - as before noted - this story of the lepers being driven out of Egypt is a common and an old one, which runs as a counter-theme to the historical chronology given by the Torah and accepted as genuine by jews.

Thus we can suggest that while Lysimachus was certainly a critic of the jews: he is very far from being the irrational and almost violent hater of jews that he is portrayed to be by Josephus. A portrayal that very likely has its origins in Josephus' (who remember was a very strong believer in the orthodox jewish assertions about their own origins) absolute rejection of Lysimachus' alternative chronology and stated origin of the jewish people.

References

(1)  Joseph. Cont. Ap. 1:34-35

(2)  See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/clearchus-of-soli-aristotle-and-the

(3) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/hermippus-of-symrna-pythagoras-of