Annotatio CXXIII

”Miriam spoke against Moses, because of his wife the Ethiopian.” — Numbers 12:1

Josephus, in the second book of the Antiquities, describing this history, is refuted in the Annotations of Augustine, Bishop of Kissamos,¹ in these words: “Josephus reports that Moses married this Ethiopian woman on this occasion: that, while he was being brought up in Pharaoh’s court, he was chosen general against the Ethiopians, and thence carried off the woman as a captive, and made her his wife — the daughter of the king of the Ethiopians — and that Moses had two wives, this one and Zipporah; which I judge to be most fabulous. Apollinaris also lies, that Moses had two wives. For who does not see that these things are invented by them? For it is clear that this [woman] is Zipporah, the daughter of the priest of Midian — not that Midian is [that] Ethiopia which is beyond Egypt, but that Ethiopia which is joined to Arabia. For the sons of Israel fought against the Midianites, coming into Palestine; and the Midianites came down from those places into Egypt.”