d scarabaeus or
beetle and drink it in water, believing that it will insure them a
numerous progeny. The name "Khepera" means "he who rolls," and when
the insect's habit of rolling along its ball filled with eggs is taken
into consideration, the appropriateness of the name is apparent. As
the ball of eggs rolls along the germs mature and burst into life; and
as the sun rolls across the sky emitting light and heat and with them
life, so earthly things are produced and have their being by virtue
thereof.

R[=A] was probably the oldest of the gods worshipped in Egypt, and his
name belongs to such a remote period that its meaning is unknown. He
was in all periods the visible emblem of God, and was the god of this
earth to whom offerings and sacrifices were made daily; time began
when R[=a] appeared above the horizon at creation in the form of the
Sun, and the life of a man was compared to his daily course at a very
early date. R[=a] was supposed to sail over heaven in two boats, the
[=A]TET or M[=A] TET boat in which he journeyed from sunrise until
noon, and the SEKTET boat in which he journeyed from noon until
sunset. At his rising he was attacked by [=A]pep, a mighty "dragon" or
serpent, the type of evil and darkness, and with this monster he did
battle until the fiery darts which he discharged into the body of
=Apep scorched and burnt him up; the fiends that were in attendance
upon this terrible foe were also destroyed by fire, and their bodies
were hacked in pieces. A repetition of this story is given in the
legend of the fight between Horus and Set, and in both forms it
represented originally the fight which was supposed to go on daily
between light and darkness. Later, however, when Osiris had usurped
the position of R[=a], and Horus represented a divine power who was
about to avenge the cruel murder of his father, and the wrong which
had been done to him, the moral conceptions of right and wrong, good
and evil, truth and falsehood were applied to light and darkness, that
is to say, to Horus and Set.

As R[=a] was the "father of the gods," it was natural that every god
should represent some phase of him, and that he should represent every
god. A good illustration of this fact is afforded by a Hymn to R[=a], a
fine copy of which is found inscribed on the walls of the sloping
corridor in the tomb of Seti I., about B.C. 1370, from which we quote
the followin