Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 21

We will address a little later the question of whether the philosophers' doctrines were seen by the Hebrews; first, as is fitting, we must speak about the times of Moses, through which it will be shown unmistakably that the philosophy of the Hebrews is the most ancient of all wisdom. Tatian has treated these matters precisely in his *Address to the Greeks*, and Cassian has also done so in the first of his *Exegetical* works; nevertheless, this memorandum requires us to run through the statements made in the relevant place. Apion the grammarian, surnamed Plistonicus, in the fourth book of his *Egyptian History*—though he is hostile toward the Hebrews, being an Egyptian by birth, and has even composed a book against the Jews—mentions Amosis, king of the Egyptians, and the events of his reign, and adduces Ptolemy of Mendes as a witness. Ptolemy's words are these: "Amosis, having become king in the time of the Argive Inachus, dug up Avaris," as Ptolemy of Mendes recorded in his *Chronicles*. This Ptolemy was a priest, and he set forth the deeds of the Egyptian kings in three whole books; according to him, during the reign of Amosis, king of Egypt, the Jews made their exodus from Egypt under the leadership of Moses, from which it follows that Moses flourished in the time of Inachus. The most ancient of Greek histories are the Argolic—that is, those reckoned from Inachus—as Dionysius of Halicarnassus teaches in his *Chronicles*. Of these, the Attic chronicles, which begin with Cecrops the two‑natured and autochthonous, are forty generations younger, as Tatian says word for word; the Arcadian chronicles, which begin with Pelasgus—who is also said to be autochthonous—are nine generations younger; and the Phthiotic chronicles, which begin with Deucalion, are two generations younger still. Reckoning back to the time of the Trojan War from Inachus, twenty or a few more generations are counted, amounting, so to speak, to four hundred years. But if Assyrian history is older than Greek by many years, as Ctesias says, it will appear that the movement of Moses out of Egypt, in the reign of Amosis the Egyptian and Inachus the Argive, occurred in the 402nd year of the Assyrian empire and in the 32nd year of the eighth dynasty of Belochus. In Greece, during the time of Phoroneus, who came after Inachus, the flood of Ogyges took place and the kingdom in Sicyon began—first Aegialeus, then Europs, then Telchin—and the kingdom of Crete in Crete. For Acusilaus says that Phoroneus was the first man to be born.