339 
serpent in the waters/* as it were denouncing him as the 
serpent Apophis, the enemy and destroyer of his country by 
his fierce opposition to that god, by whose right hand he, like 
Apophis, should be overthrown. “ Son of man/* says the divine 
afflatus to Ezekiel, “ set thy face against Pharaoh, king of 
Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt. 
Speak, and say. Thus saith the Lord God : Behold, I am 
against thee. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that 
lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is 
mine own, and I have made it for myself. .... I will have 
thee thrown into the wilderness . . . thou shalt fall upon the 
open fields, and all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I 
am the Lord.** — Ezek. xxix. 3 — 6. Cf. also Isaiah li. 9, and 
xxvii. 1, where the same reference to the Apophic myth runs 
throughout. (Pig. 37.) 
Fig. 37. Apophis in the mystic celestial ocean between the goddesses Isis and 
Nepthys. (Sar. Oimen.) 
8. The urseus is also the ideograph of the word “ immortal ** ; 
whence the phrase, “ the living years of the urseus/* as applied 
to the immortality of the king. (Pig. 38.) 
Fig. 38. A Greek coin, representing Ptolemy with the attributes of the Grecian 
Herakles, and the sacred snakes of the Egyptian Amun-Ra. (Sharpe, Lee 
collection.) 
“ The asp is worshipped on account of a certain resemblance between it 
and the operations of the Divine Power, and being in no fear of old age, and 
moving with great facility, though it does not seem to enjoy the proper 
organs for motion, it is looked upon as a proper symbol of the stars.” * 
* Plutarch, Be Iside et Osiride, § 74. 
