Apophis is the Greek name for the Egyptian god Apep, who embodies the darkness and disorder, who threatens to destabilize the harmony of existence, known as Ma’at. This was embodied by the ancient Egyptians in a nightly conflict with the sun god Ra on his sun barque. He is vanquished every night, but he can never be fully eradicated.
Origins of Apep
He appears on a bowl dating to the Naqada I period (c. 4000-3550 BCE) as a snake on the inside of the bowl rim alongside other desert and aquatic animals. They seem to be exotic animals emerging from chaos. The desert was also seen as a source of chaos. This suggests that the idea of a chaotic snake existed since prehistoric times. The evidence suggests that a number of different snakes and demons were imagined at this time.
Surviving myths suggest that he was born sometime after the god Ra, perhaps as his umbilical cord. As the solar deity, Ra was considered the upholder of Ma’at, who was a goddess and also the concept of harmony and justice in the universe. He was imagined as a giant serpent, characterized as emerging from the Nile, described by at least one source as 16 yards in length. In the Roman period, he was called “he who was spat out” and may have been considered born from the saliva of the goddess Neith.
Apophis might be the necessary negative side of Ra. Other stories suggest that he already existed at the beginning of time from the primeval waters.
Ra vs Apophis
While Apep seems to have been an old god, stories about his battle with Ra only seem to have become elaborate during the New Kingdom. They suggest that he spends the day below the horizon, away from the mortal world, implying that he is in the underworld, known as the Duat. There he waits for Ra when the sun sets. Other versions of the story suggest that he waits where the sun rises. His diverse locations earned him the title “world encircle,” not unlike the Norse serpent Jormungandr, “earth necklace.” He was often depicted with tight coils, emphasizing his enormous size.
The Coffin Texts suggest that Apep has a magic gaze that he uses to overwhelm Ra and his entourage on his sun barque. Apophis was sometimes described as flooding Ra’s sun barque with the waters of the underworld. At the same time, his movement could cause earthquakes, and his roar made the world rumble. He seems to have been used to describe scary natural events such as eclipses.
Each night, Ra and his allies had to defeat Apophis so that the sun could rise again. Interestingly, it was sometimes Seth, another god associated with chaos, who was described as slaying Apophis each night because he was the only god who could resist his hypnotic power. On other occasions, it was Ra who defeated Apophis, in the form of a cat, an animal that was seen as a protector.
On other occasions, Apep would successfully swallow Ra and his cohort, and they would cut their way out of his stomach.
Sometimes, the dead living in the Duat could aid the gods in their fight against Apep. Some of the spells in the Book of the Dead were also designed to prevent Apep from harassing the dead on their journey through the afterlife.
Worship
It was believed that the Egyptian priests contributed to Ra’s nightly success through their rituals and worship.
Most important was an annual rite called the “Ritual of Overthrowing Apophis, during which priests built an effigy of the god, which they then destroyed. The Egyptians believed in sympathetic magic and that destroying an effigy or other symbol in the mortal world could have an influence in the spiritual world. The effigies were spat on, mutilated, or burned while spells were recited.
The “Book of Apophis” was a collection of magical spells, written down during the New Kingdom, that was designed to repel the serpent and evil more generally.
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