CHAPTER V.

APOPHIS.

The Naturalistic Theory of Apophis--The Serpent of Time--
Epic of the Worm--The Asp of Melite--Vanquishers of Time--
Nachash-Beriach--The Serpent-Spy--Treading on Serpents.


The considerations advanced in the previous chapter enable us to
dismiss with facility many of the rationalistic interpretations which
have been advanced to explain the monstrous serpents of sacred books
by reference to imaginary species supposed to be now extinct. Flying
serpents, snakes many-headed, rain-bringing, woman-hating, &c., may be
suffered to survive as the fauna of bibliolatrous imaginations. Such
forms, however, are of such mythologic importance that it is necessary
to watch carefully against this method of realistic interpretation,
especially as there are many actual characteristics of serpents
sufficiently mysterious to conspire with it. A recent instance of
this literalism may here be noticed.

Mr. W. R. Cooper [224] supposes the evil serpent of Egyptian Mythology
to have a real basis in 'a large and unidentified species of coluber,
of great strength and hideous longitude,' which 'was, even from the
earliest ages, associated as the representative of spiritual, and
occasionally physical evil, and was named Hof, Rehof, or Apophis,'
the 'destroyer, the enemy of the gods, and the devourer of the souls
of men.' That such a creature, he adds, 'once inhabited the Libyan
desert, we have the testimony of both Hanno the Carthaginian and Lucan
the Roman, and if it is now no longer an inhabitant of that region,
it is probably owing to the advance of civilisation having driven it
farther south.'

Apart from the extreme improbability that African exploration should
have brought no rumours of such a monster if it existed, it may be said
concerning Mr. Cooper's theory: (1.) If, indeed, the references cited
were to a reptile now unknown, we might be led by mythologic analogy
to expect that it would have been revered beyond either the Asp or the
Cobra. In proportion to the fear has generally been the exaltation of
its objects. Primitive peoples have generally gathered courage to pour
invective upon evil monsters when--either from their non-existence
or rarity--there was least danger of its being practically resented
as a personal affront. (2.) The regular folds of Apophis on the
sarcophagus of Seti I. and elsewhere are so evidently mystical and
conventional that, apparently, they refer to a serpent-form only as
the guilloche on a wall may refer to sea-waves. Apophis (or Apap)
would have been a decorative artist to fold himself in such order.

These impossible labyrinthine coils suggest Time, as the serpent
with its tail in its mouth signifies Eternity,--an evolution of the
same idea. This was the interpretation given by a careful scholar,
the late William Hickson, [225] to the procession of nine persons
depicted on the sarcophagus mentioned as bearing a serpent, each
holding a fold, all being regular enough for a frieze. 'The scene,'
says this author, 'appears to relate to the Last Judgment, for Osiris
is seen on his throne, passing sentence on a crowd before him; and
in the same tableaux are depicted the river that divides the living
from the dead, and the bridge of life. The death of the serpent may
possibly be intended to symbolise the end of time.' This idea of long
duration might be a general one relating to all time, or it might
refer to the duration of individual life; it involved naturally the
evils and agonies of life; but the fundamental conception is more
simple, and also more poetic, than even these implications, and it
means eternal waste and decay. One has need only to sit before a clock
to see Apophis: there coil upon coil winds the ever-moving monster,
whose tooth is remorseless, devouring little by little the strength
and majesty of man, and reducing his grandest achievements--even his
universe--to dust. Time is the undying Worm.


God having made me worm, I make you--smoke.
Though safe your nameless essence from my stroke,
Yet do I gnaw no less
Love in the heart, stars in the livid space,--
God jealous,--making vacant thus your place,--
And steal your witnesses.

Since the star flames, man would be wrong to teach
That the grave's worm cannot such glory reach;
Naught real is save me.
Within the blue, as 'neath the marble slab I lie,
I bite at once the star within the sky,
The apple on the tree.

To gnaw yon star is not more tough to me
Than hanging grapes on vines of Sicily;
I clip the rays that fall;
Eternity yields not to splendours brave.
Fly, ant, all creatures die, and nought can save
The constellations all.

The starry ship, high in the ether sea,
Must split and wreck in the end: this thing shall be:
The broad-ringed Saturn toss
To ruin: Sirius, touched by me, decay,
As the small boat from Ithaca away
That steers to Kalymnos. [226]


The natural history of Apophis, so far as he has any, is probably
suggested in the following passage cited by Mr. Cooper from
Wilkinson:--'Ælian relates many strange stories of the asp, and the
respect paid to it by the Egyptians; but we may suppose that in his
sixteen species of asps other snakes were included. He also speaks
of a dragon which was sacred in the Egyptian Melite, and another
kind of snake called Paries or Paruas, dedicated to Æsculapius. The
serpent of Melite had priests and ministers, a table and bowl. It
was kept in a tower, and fed by the priests with cakes made of flour
and honey, which they placed there in a bowl. Having done this they
retired. The next day, on returning to the apartment, 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.' [227]

It was in this concealment from the outward eye that the Serpent was
able to assume such monstrous proportions to the eye of imagination;
and, indeed, it is not beyond conjecture that this serpent of Melite,
coming in conflict with Osirian worship, was degraded and demonised
into that evil monster (Apophis) whom Horus slew to avenge his
destruction of Osiris (for he was often identified with Typhon).

Though Horus cursed and slew this terrible demon-serpent, he reappears
in all Egyptian Mythology with undiminished strength, and all evil
powers were the brood of himself or Typhon, who were sometimes
described as brothers and sometimes as the same beings. From the
'Ritual of the Dead' we learn that it was the high privilege and task
of the heroic dead to be reconstructed and go forth to encounter
and subdue the agents of Apophis, who sent out to engage them the
crocodiles Seb, Hem, and Shui, and other crocodiles from north, south,
east, and west; the hero having conquered these, acquires their might,
and next prevails over the walking viper Ru; and so on with other
demons called 'precursors of Apophis,' until their prince himself is
encountered and slain, all the hero's guardian deities attending to
fix a knife in each of the monster's folds. These are the Vanquishers
of Time,--the immortal.

In Apophis we find the Serpent fairly developed to a principle of
evil. He is an 'accuser of the sun;' the twelve gateways into Hades
are surmounted by his representatives, which the Sun must pass--twelve
hours of night. He is at once the 'Nachash beriach' and 'Nachash
aktalon'--the 'Cross-bar serpent' and the 'Tortuous serpent'--which we
meet with in Isa. xxvii. 1: 'In that day the Lord with his sore and
great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent,
even leviathan that crooked serpent.' The marginal translation in the
English version is 'crossing like a bar,' instead of piercing, and the
Vulgate has serpens vectis. This refers to the moral function of the
serpent, as barring the way, or guarding the door. No doubt this is the
'crooked serpent' of Job xxvi. 13, for the astrological sense of it
does not invalidate the terrestrial significance. Imagination could
only project into the heavens what it had learned on earth. Bochart
in identifying 'Nachash-beriach' as 'the flying Serpent,' is quite
right: the Seraph, or winged Serpent, which barred the way to the tree
of life in Eden, and in some traditions was the treacherous guard
at the gate of the garden, and which bit Israel in the wilderness,
was this same protean Apophis. For such tasks, and to soar into the
celestial planisphere, the Serpent must needs have wings; and thus
it is already far on its way to become the flying Dragon. But in one
form, as the betrayer of man, it must lose its wings and crawl upon
the ground for ever. The Serpent is thus not so much agathodemon
and kakodemon in one form, as a principle of destructiveness which
is sometimes employed by the deity to punish his enemies, as Horus
employs fiery Kheti, but sometimes requires to be himself punished.

There have been doubts whether the familiar derivation of ophis,
serpent, from ops, the eye, shall continue. Some connect the Greek
word with echis, but Curtius maintains that the old derivation from
ops is correct. [228] Even were this not the etymology, the popularity
of it would equally suggest the fact that this reptile was of old
supposed to kill with its glance; and it was also generally regarded
as gifted with præternatural vision. By a similar process to that
which developed avenging Furies out of the detective dawn--Erinyes
from Saranyu, Satan from Lucifer [229]--this subtle Spy might have
become also a retributive and finally a malignant power. The Furies
were portrayed bearing serpents in their hands, and each of these
might carry ideally the terrors of Apophis: Time also is a detective,
and the guilty heard it saying, 'Your sin will find you out.'

Through many associations of this kind the Serpent became at an
early period an agent of ordeal. Any one handling it with impunity
was regarded as in league with it, or specially hedged about by the
deity whose 'hands formed the crooked serpent.' It may have been
as snake-charmers that Moses and Aaron appeared before Pharaoh and
influenced his imagination; or, if the story be a myth, its existence
still shows that serpent performances would then have been regarded
as credentials of divine authentication. So when Paul was shipwrecked
on Malta, where a viper is said to have fastened on his hand, the
barbarians, having at first inferred that he was a murderer, 'whom
though he hath escaped the sea, yet Vengeance suffereth not to live,'
concluded he was a god when they found him unharmed. Innumerable
traditions preceded the words ascribed to Christ (Luke x. 19),
'Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions,
and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means
hurt you.' It is instructive to compare this sentence attributed to
Christ with the notion of the barbarians concerning Paul's adventure,
whatever it may have been. Paul's familiarity with the Serpent seems
to them proof that he is a god. Such also is the idea represented
in Isa. xi. 8, 'The sucking child shall play on the hole of the
asp.' But the idea of treading on serpents marks a period more
nearly corresponding to that of the infant Hercules strangling
the serpents. Yet though these two conceptions--serpent-treading,
and serpent-slaying--approach each other, they are very different
in source and significance, both morally and historically. The word
used in Luke, pateiin, conveys the idea of walking over something in
majesty, not in hostility; it must be interpreted by the next sentence
(x. 20), 'Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not, that the spirits are
subject unto you (ta pneumata hypotassetai).' The serpent-slayer
or dragon-slayer is not of Semitic origin. The awful supremacy of
Jehovah held all the powers of destruction chained to his hand;
and to ask man if he could draw out Leviathan with a hook was only
another form of reminding him of his own inferiority to the creator
and lord of Leviathan. How true the Semitic ideas running through the
Bible, and especially represented in the legend of Paul in Malta,
are to the barbarian nature is illustrated by an incident related
in Mr. Brinton's 'Myths of the New World.' The pious founder of the
Moravian Brotherhood, Count Zinzendorf, was visiting a missionary
station among the Shawnees in the Wyoming Valley, America. Recent
quarrels with the white people had so irritated the red men that they
resolved to make him their victim. After he had retired to his hut
several of the braves softly peered in. Count Zinzendorf was seated
before a fire, lost in perusal of the Scriptures; and while the
red men gazed they saw what he did not--a huge rattlesnake trailing
across his feet to gather itself in a coil before the comfortable
warmth of the fire. Immediately they forsook their murderous purpose,
and retired noiselessly, convinced that this was indeed a divine man.