LYSIMACHUS OF ALEXANDRIA°
- LYSIMACHUS OF ALEXANDRIA°
- LYSIMACHUS OF ALEXANDRIA° (of uncertain date), author of
several mythographical works and a book on Egypt. In addition to the
scurrilous versions of the Exodus given by manetho and
chaeremon , Josephus adds the account of Lysimachus, who, he says,
"surpasses both in the incredibility of his fictions" (Apion, 1:304–20).
According to Lysimachus' version, in the reign of Bocchoris (perhaps a
corruption of bekhor, in allusion to the plague of the
first-born during which the Jews left Egypt), king of Egypt, the Jews
(see also tacitus , Historiae, 5:3), afflicted with
leprosy and scurvy, took refuge in the temples. A dearth ensued
throughout Egypt, and an oracle of Ammon informed the king that the
failure of the crops could be averted only by purging the temples of
impure persons, driving them out into the wilderness and drowning those
afflicted with leprosy. After the lepers had been drowned, the others,
numbering 110,600 were exposed in the desert to perish. A certain Moses,
however, advised them to proceed until they reached inhabited country,
instructing them to show goodwill to no man, to offer not the best but
the worst advice, and to overthrow any temples which they found. When
they came to the country now called Judea, they built a town called
Hierosyla ("town of temple-robbers"). At a later date they altered the
name to avoid reproach and called the city Hierosolyma. Josephus
attempts to refute the account, not by offering other evidence, but by
showing its intrinsic improbability.
-BIBLIOGRAPHY:
A. Gudeman, in: Pauly-Wissowa, 27 (1928), 32–39; Reinach, Textes,
117–20; Schuerer, Gesch, 3 (19094), 535f.
(David Winston)
Encyclopedia Judaica.
1971.
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