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THE UNKNOWN LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 107 deliver the children of Isracl from bondage and of bringing them under his own domination,
Conformable to the will of Pharaoh, still according to the Buddhists, Moses led the Israelites beyond the walls of the city; but instead of building a new city near the capital as he had been ordered by Pharaol, he Icd them out of the Bigyptian territory. One can casily understand the indignation of Pharaoh upon learning that Moscs infringed upon his commands, so lic ordered his soldicrs to pursuc thic fugitives. It scems, from thic geographical situation of this region, that Moscs must hiave skirted the inountain in his route and entered Arabia by the Isthmus now cut by the Sucz. Canal. Pharaoh, on the contrary, led his troops in a direct line towards the Red Sea, and in order to overtake the Israelites, who had already reached the opposite shore, he wanted to take advantage of the ebb of the sea into the gulf, formed by the shores and the isthmus and inake his soldiers ford it. But the distance across the arm of the sea at this point was greater than he anticipated, for the tide closed in on the Egyptian army when they were half way across and nonc of them could possibly escapc dcath.
This fact, so simple in itself, was transformed after centuries into a religious legend among tlic Israclites. who saw in it a divine intervention as it punishment 113llicted by their God upon their cremies. We think that Moses himself entertained this belief. But that is a thesis which I will undertake to develop in a future work.
The Buddhist chronicle then describes briefly the greatness and the downfall of thic kingdom of Israel and its conquest by strangers, who reduced its people to a state of scrvitude.
The misfortuncs which bcsell the Israelites and their
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