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guardian deities, standing upon its voluminous folds, stab 
the Apophic monster with knives and lances (fig. 71).* * * § 
Fig. 71. Apophis transfixed by knives. (Sar. Oimen.) 
Wounded, tortured, and a prisoner, the great snake is 
at last destroyed and annihilated, f and the boat of the sun 
shortly after attains the extreme limit of the horizon, and 
disappears in the heavenly region of Amenti, or the west. J It 
has been necessary a little to anticipate this struggle of good 
against evil, the origin of the Persian dualistic system, and 
the Ophite Gnostic heresy, necessary, because the soul of the 
deceased, in the character of the gods, performs these avenging 
acts, and in the taunting speeches which preface them, declares 
the supreme sovereignty of one Divine being, § the creator alike 
of good and evil, the rewarder of all the just, and the ultimate 
annihilator of the wicked. This prefaced, the following 
extracts from the 39th chapter of the Ritual will now become 
intelligible. It is the soul who is accosting the baffled Apophis, 
and prophetically foretelling his future conquest of it by 
speaking in the past and present tenses. 
“ I act peaceably for thee, 0 sun ; I make the haul of thy rope, 0 sun. 
The Apophis is overthrown ; the cords of all the gods bind the south, 
north, east, and west. Their cords are on him. Victory, the sphinx, has 
overthrown him ; the god Harubah has knotted him. The Apophis and 
accusers of the sun fall, overthrown is the advance of Apophis. [To Apophis] : 
Thy tongue is greater than the envious tongue of a scorpion which has been 
made to thee ; it has failed in its power for ever. Back, thy hard head is 
cat ; the gods drag thy limbs and cut^thy arms. [To Horus] : 0 Horus, 
the water of the sun is stopped by thee. The great Apophis, the accusor of 
the sun, has been judged by Akar. (?) , Lift ye up your good faces. The 
wicked one has been stopped by the assembled gods ; he has been received 
by Nu (the deity Chnuphis). He stands, and the great gods are victors 
towing him. Athor and the gods drag him exhausted, avenging the sun four 
times [an Egyptian idiom, signifying perfectly] against the Apophis.” || 
* Bonomi, Sarcophagus of Oimenepthah I., Plates 2, 3, 7, and 8. 
+ Of. Isaiah xxvii. 1 ; Rev. xii. 9 ; Job xxvi. 13. 
X Champollion, Lettres ecrites sur VEgypte, 1833, p. 232. 
§ “I make peace and create evil.” — Isaiah xlv. 7. 
|| The whole of this chapter is dreadfully corrupt, and unintelligible 
except by bits. — Renouf. 
