Apophis (Apep)

Apophis is in fact the Greek name for the Egyptian mythological creature “Apep”; the symbol of all things evil, and chaotic in Egyptian culture, he was portrayed as a snake of unbelievable size and length. As he was the personification of darkness, and chaos, –chaos was “isfet” in Egyptian, Apep’s natural enemy was Ma’at, or truth and light. Apep was believed to exist from Egypt’s era of the Middle Kingdom onward. The belief survived later into Coptic Christianity, which was influenced significantly by the Roman Catholic traditions; which in turn was inspired in numerous ways by the Greek mythology structure. Thus “Aphoph” has become the name of Apep in the Egyptian Coptic religions.

Apep was the greatest enemy of the solar light, or sun god, Ra, although this was not fully developed until the merge of the Egyptian belief systems, which caused several changes in how the pecking order, and natural hierarchy of Egyptian gods went. The two systems to merge were the Ennead, and the Ogdoad structures. After this change, Ra became Atum-Ra and Apep became his greatest adversary; his title was literally, “Enemy of Ra.” In one of our other articles, we explore the volatile relationship between the two powerful deities; so we’ll save this story for later.

The theory was the Apep was actually one of earth’s creators, that predated the Egyptians, which is why Apep and Ra hated each other so much. Later on, after the Middle Kingdom ended, Set became gradually more demonised, as he became a favorite god of an outsider culture that settled in Lower Egypt. The sense of nationalism was and is still very strong in Egypt; as Set became a favorite god of the outside culture, so he became an antagonist in the Egyptian mythology’s hierarchy.