1. AOATHODAEMON, Cneph, or Chnuphis, appears to be the oldest representative of the divine power admitted by the Egyptians, _although his attributes are not distinctly ascertained, except as the parent of Phthah, whose origin is referred, in the works of the spurious Hermes, to an egg of Cneph, or Emeph, which is perhaps the Coptic 1HHNIFI, genius of rit. Even before this Cneph, we are told of the existence of an Eicton or Icton, which has been sup posed to mean IHHTHO, genius of the whole work ; but this seems to have been a sort of chaos, and the personification is not senerally admitted. Eusebius makes Cneph distinctly synonymous with Agatho daemon ; and this interpretation seems to identify the term with the Cnuphis, of whom Strabo men tions a temple in Elephantine; since IHHNUFI would naturally mean good genius, the word NUFI occur ring frequently in other compounds. In a Greek inscription lately brought to the British Museum. the emperor Nero is called the " good genius" of the world ; and the winged globe hovering over the inscription, seems to be allusive to this piece of flat tery : but the Chnuphis or Chnumis of the amulets of later times, is a serpent or a dragon raising itself on its tail, having rays about its head, and surround ed with stars. The name of Agathodaemon is in
serted by Manetho among the fabulous kings, im mediately before Cronus.
2. The same authority attributes a still higher an tiquity to PHTHAH, whom it places as the first of the fabulous kings of Egypt ; and he is universally considered as the great ancestor of the other deities,• and is especially called the father of the sun, as we learn from various chronologers, and from Callisthenes and others. He seems to have been a personifica tion of the creative, and perhaps of the generative power, designated under the character of a workman, or_an architect. He is sometimes compered to Pro metheus, as the discoverer of fire ; but Hephaestus, or Vulcan, is his common representative in the Greek and Roman mythology ; although it must always be remembered, that BETWEEN THE IMAGINARY PEW.