him, which shrivelled him up, and the fire of the god consumed him entirely.  In the temple of Amen-Ra the priests recited the spells that were supposed to help the Sun-god to burn up Aapep, and they burnt waxen figures of the monster in specially prepared fires, and, uttering curses, they trampled them under foot and defiled them.  These spells and burnings were also believed to break up rain clouds, and to scatter fog and mist and to dissipate thunder-storms, and to help the sun to rise on this world in a cloudless sky.  Aapep was a form of Set, the god of evil of every kind, and his allies were the “Red Fiends” and the “Black Fiends,” and every power of darkness.  In the midst of the magical spells of this papyrus we find two copies of the “Book of knowing how Ra came into being, and of overthrowing Aapep.”  One copy is a little fuller than the other, but they agree substantially.  The words of this book are said in the opening line to have been spoken by the god Nebertcher, i.e. the “Lord to the uttermost limit,” or God Himself.  The Egyptian Christians, or Copts, in their religious writings use this name as an equivalent of God Almighty, the Lord of All, the God of the Universe.  Nebertcher says:  “I am the creator of what hath come into being.  I myself came into being under the form of the god Khepera.  I came into being under the form of Pautti (or, in primeval time), I formed myself out of the primeval matter, I made myself out of the substance that was in primeval time."[1] Nothing existed at that time except the great primeval watery mass called NU, but in this there were the germs of everything that came into being subsequently.  There was no heaven, and no earth, and the god found no place on which to stand; nothing, in fact, existed except the god.  He says, “I was alone.”  He first created himself by uttering his own name as a word of power, and when this was uttered his visible form appeared.  He then uttered another kind of word of power, and as a result of this his soul (ba) came into being, and it worked in connection with his heart or mind (ab).  Before every act of creation Nebertcher, or his visible form Khepera, thought out what form the thing to be created was to take, and when he had uttered its name the thing itself appeared in heaven or earth.  To fill the heaven, or place where he lived, the god next produced from his body and its shadow the two gods Shu and Tefnut.  These with Nebertcher, or Khepera, formed the first triad of gods, and the “one god became three,” or, as we should say, the one god had three aspects, each of which was quite distinct from the other.  The tradition of the begetting of Shu and Tefnut is as old as the time of the pyramids, for it is mentioned in the text of Pepi I, l. 466.  The next act of creation resulted in the emerging of the Eye of Nebertcher (later identified with Ra) from the watery mass (NU), and light shone upon its waters.  Shu and Tefnut then united and they produced Keb, the Earth-god, and Nut, the Sky-goddess.