Most authorities agree that a foul and disfiguring disease once 3 broke out in Egypt, and that King Bocchoris,[470] on approaching the oracle of Ammon and inquiring for a remedy, was told to purge his kingdom of the plague and to transport all who suffered from it into some other country, for they had earned the disfavour of Heaven.  A motley crowd was thus collected and abandoned in the desert.  While all the other outcasts lay idly lamenting, one of them, named Moses, advised them not to look for help to gods or men, since both had deserted them, but to trust rather in themselves and accept as divine the guidance of the first being by whose aid they should get out of their present plight.  They agreed, and set out blindly to march wherever chance might lead them.  Their worst distress came from lack of water.  When they were already at death’s door and lying prostrate all over the plain, it so happened that a drove of wild asses moved away from their pasture to a rock densely covered with trees.  Guessing the truth from the grassy nature of the ground, Moses followed and disclosed an ample flow of water.[471] This saved them.  Continuing their march for six successive days, on the seventh they routed the natives and gained possession of the country.  There they consecrated their city and their temple.

To ensure his future hold over the people, Moses introduced a new 4 cult, which was the opposite of all other religions.  All that we hold sacred they held profane, and allowed practices which we abominate.  They dedicated in a shrine an image of the animal[472] whose guidance had put an end to their wandering and thirst.  They killed a ram, apparently as an insult to Ammon, and also sacrificed a bull, because the Egyptians worship the bull Apis.[473] Pigs are subject to leprosy; so they abstain from pork in memory of their misfortune and the foul plague with which they were once infected.  Their frequent fasts[474] bear witness to the long famine they once endured, and, in token of the corn they carried off, Jewish bread is to this day made without leaven.  They are said to have devoted the seventh day to rest, because that day brought an end to their troubles.[475] Later, finding idleness alluring, they gave up the seventh year as well to sloth.[476] Others maintain that they do this in honour of Saturn;[477] either because their religious principles are derived from the Idaei, who are supposed to have been driven out with Saturn and become the ancestors of the Jewish people; or else because, of the seven constellations which govern the lives of men, the star of Saturn moves in the topmost orbit and exercises peculiar influence, and also because most of the heavenly bodies move round[478] their courses in multiples of seven.