polis, at the close of which Ra
appeared in the form of a cat or lion, and beheaded the
great serpent.

Pierced with wounds, Apopi the serpent sank into the depths of Ocean at
the very moment when the new year began. The secondary members of the
Great Ennead, together with the Sun, formed the first dynasty, which
began with the dawn of the first day, and ended at the coming of Horus,
the son of Isis. The local schools of theology welcomed this method of
writing history as readily as they had welcomed the principle of the
Ennead itself. Some of them retained the Heliopolitan demiurge, and
hastened to associate him with their own; others completely eliminated
him in favour of the feudal divinity,--Amon at Thebes, Thot at
Hermopolis, Phtah at Memphis,--keeping the rest of the dynasty
absolutely unchanged.[*] The gods in no way compromised their prestige
by becoming incarnate and descending to earth. Since they were men of
finer nature, and their qualities, including that of miracle-working,
were human qualities raised to the highest pitch of intensity, it was
not considered derogatory to them personally to have watched over
the infancy and childhood of primeval man. The raillery in which the
Egyptians occasionally indulged with regard to them, the good-humoured
and even ridiculous _roles_ ascribed to them in certain legends, do not
prove that they were despised, or that zeal for them had cooled. The
greater the respect of believers for the objects of their worship,
the more easily do they tolerate the taking of such liberties, and the
condescension of the members of the Ennead, far from lowering them
in the eyes of generations who came too late to live with them upon
familiar terms, only enhanced the love and reverence in which they were
held. Nothing shows this better than the history of Ra. His world was
ours in the rough; for since Shu was yet nonexistent, and Nuit still
reposed in the arms of Sibu, earth and sky were but one.[**]

* Thot is the chief of the Hermopolitan Ennead, and the
titles ascribed to him by inscriptions maintaining his
supremacy show that he also was considered to have been the
first king. One of the Ptolemies said of himself that he
came "as the Majesty of Thot, because he was the equal of
Atumu, hence the equal of Khopri, hence the equal of Ra."
Atumu-Khopri-Ra being the first earthly king, it follows
that the _Majesty of Thot_, with whom Ptole