Religions in Antiquity. In ancient Egypt a dualistic
tendency appears, on the one hand, in the religion of
the sun-god Rē, the principle of life and truth, who
has a perpetual adversary, Apophis, the gigantic ser-
pent of darkness; on the other hand, a similar tendency
appears in the legend of Osiris, in which Set is the
adversary who kills Osiris and constantly opposes Isis
and Horus. However, Rē (or another good god) might
be represented as the universal creator. As for Set, who
had been the principal god in certain provinces, he
was for a long time regarded as capable of doing good
in certain respects; only in a later epoch did he become
the personification of evil. Moreover, he was regarded
as the brother of Osiris, which means they had a com-
mon origin.
In the Vedic hymns we find two groups of divinities
who, though both were equally venerated, are some-
times conceived as opposed to one another: the deva
and the asura. In the Brāhmana, the deva remain as
gods, but the asura became demons. However, these
Indian demons are unorganized, scattered, without a
leader, and nothing is said about their origin. We also
find in the Veda a greatly stressed antithesis between
order (or truth, ṭta) and falsity (druh); but this opposi-
tion is not the basis of the entire religion, as it is in
Zoroastrianism.
Various ancient mythologies present a picture of a
tremendous battle between the gods and the giants,
monsters, or demons. Babylonian mythology tells of the
war of Marduk against Tiāmat. The Bible mentions
Leviathan, a sea monster of chaos, that God has van-
quished and will kill. Greek mythology relates the
battle of Zeus against the Titans. The mythology of
the Germans includes the past and future struggles of
the gods against the giants and against the demonic
powers, offspring of Loki. (German myths refer also
to the war of the Ases and Vanes, but this war seems
to be of a different kind, since Ases and Vanes seem
to be complementary forces whose struggle ends in a
reconciliation.) The Indian epic narrates the war of
the Pāndava, born of the gods, against the army of
their demon cousin; now this story is perhaps the
transposition of an older story in which the gods them-
selves fought the demons. These pictures of a gigantic
drama might suggest a dualism, but in none of these
examples is the dualism complete or systematic. The
two parties are always descended from one another
or from the same principle. Marduk is a descendent
of Tiāmat; Zeus and the Titans have the same origin;
Leviathan was created by God; the combatants of
Mahābhārata are in the same family; Loki is an Ase
like Odin who has a certain friendship for him.
