350 
ment, the food was found to be eaten, and the same quantity was again put 
into the bowl, for it was not lawful for any one to see the sacred reptile. 
“ According to Juvenal, t the priests of Isis, in his time, contrived that 
the silver idols of snakes, kept in her temple, should move their heads to a 
supplicating votary .’’ — Ancient Egyptians, vol. v. pp. 240-1. 
Pig. 62. The serpent in the tower. From a Gnostic gem. (Montfaucon, ) 
All this is in exact accordance with monumental evidence, and 
in harmony with one of the most curious of the Apocryphal 
books, the story of Bel and the Dragon. . , 
12. Return we now to the serpent, the rise of whose mytb 
is more immediately before us,— Apophis, t “the Destroyer. 
Prominent above all other species of reptile, a king among his 
genus, this baleful serpent twines his imbricated folds, as it were, 
around the stem of the ancestral tree of the Egyptian Thoo- 
gonv, and with brazen head and fiery eyes § stands forth 
in awful prominence. Vengeful and mysterious always a 
malignant being, he was chosen to represent the very 
impersonation of spiritual, as his brother Typhon or Baal 
was of physical, evil. For the remainder then of this, not 
* Cf. Ovid, lib. ii. Amor. Eleg. 13 to Isis : “ Labatur circa donaria serpens;’ 
t “Et movisse caput visa est argentea serpens. —Juvenal, feat VI. bit. 
“ Gently the silver serpent seems to nod. — Holyday s Translation. 
“ The silver snake 
Abhorrent of the deed, was seen to quake.” . 
fiiflfnrrl’s rppnfYrmff. 
+ Apophis = duplicate of nose, wrath, foaming with 
ra °§ 6 The Visual epithets applied to Apophis, in the Ritual of the Dead and 
the Litany of the Sun. 
