un worship is believed to have been
imported, and the sun deity is a male, it is not surprising to find
that the night demon, Apep, was a personification of Set. This god,
who is identical with Sutekh, a Syrian and Asia Minor deity, was
apparently worshipped by a tribe which was overcome in the course of
early tribal struggles in pre-dynastic times. Being an old and
discredited god, he became by a familiar process the demon of the
conquerors. In the eighteenth dynasty, however, his ancient glory was
revived, for the Sutekh of Rameses II figures as the "dragon
slayer".[178] It is in accordance with Mediterranean modes of thought,
however, to find that in Egypt there is a great celestial battle
heroine. This is the goddess Hathor-Sekhet, the "Eye of Ra".[179]
Similarly in India, the post-Vedic goddess Kali is a destroyer, while
as Durga she is a guardian of heroes.[180] Kali, Durga, and
Hathor-Sekhet link with the classical goddesses of war, and also with
the Babylonian Ishtar, who, as has been shown, retained the
outstanding characteristics of Tiamat, the fierce old "Great Mother"
of primitive Sumerian folk religion.

It is possible that in the Babylonian dragon myth the original hero
was Ea. As much may be inferred from the symbolic references in the
Bible to Jah's victory over the monster of the deep: "Art thou not it
that hath cut Rahab and wounded the dragon?"[181] "Thou brakest the
heads of the dragons in the waters; thou brakest the heads of
leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people
inhabiting the wilderness";[182] "He divideth the sea with his power,
and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud (Rahab). By his
spirit he hath garnished the heavens: his hand hath formed (or
pierced) the crooked serpent";[183] "Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces
as one that is slain: thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy
strong arm";[184] "In that day the Lord with his sore and great and
strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing (or stiff) serpent,
even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that
is in the sea".[185]

In the Babylonian Creation legend Ea is supplanted as dragon slayer by
his son Merodach. Similarly Ninip took the place of his father, Enlil,
as the champion of the gods. "In other words," writes Dr. Langdon,
"later theology evolved the notion of the son of the earth god, who
acquires the attributes of the father, and becomes the god of war. It
is he who sto