Anubis: The Abrahamic Inversion

author: Temple of Zeus Ministries

This page follows the dog-headed figure printed as Ipos back toward Anubis. A slanderer's name opens no door to the Gods and must never be used to invoke Them. Approach Him as Anubis, by the legitimate name He has always held.

St. Christopher

In the eastern martyrdom tradition, Christopher was originally called Reprebos, possibly connected to a Latin word meaning "the false one," and belonged to a remote people variously described as cannibals, barbarians or dog-headed men. After baptism he received the name Christophoros and was eventually martyred at Antioch. The dog head therefore marks his origin beyond the civilised Roman world and his subsequent transformation through Christianity.^1,2,3

Bede Millard argued that close parallels between their roles suggested that the Byzantine dog-headed Christopher derived from Anubis. Danijela Stefanović subsequently proposed that Roman Hermanubis was “perhaps” one of the ancestors of the dog-headed Christopher. Her cautious wording accurately represents the evidence: Hermanubis is a possible contributor to Christian visual language, not proof that an Anubis cult simply became the cult of St. Christopher.^1,2,3

Ipos

Ipos is only the last of the names this Daemon was printed under, after Ipes, Ayperos and Ayporos, and the record does not begin with that modern spelling. The older recoverable form is Vipos in the Livre des esperitz, Cambridge, Trinity College MS O.8.29, folio 181r. The language is better called Middle French than Old French. Boudet's comparison of the Livre des esperitz with Weyer shows that this Vipos is the ancestor of Weyer’s Ipes or Ayperos, and of the later English Ipos or Ayporos.^4,5,6,7

Vipos eſt un grãt cõte qui aꝑt en ſẽblance Dun ange et faict home ſaige et hardy et dit verite de ce q̃ on luy demande / et a xxv legions

The entry says that Vipos is a great count who appears in the likeness of an angel (angelos, messenger), makes a man wise and bold, tells the truth about what is asked of him, and has twenty-five legions. There is no lion head, no goose feet, no hare tail, no title of prince, and no thirty-six legions in this earlier French form. He is simply like an angel, in other words, a Hermetic messenger who tells the truth.^4,5,6

Johann Weyer gives the first printed Latin form in the Pseudomonarchia daemonum, appended to the fifth edition of De praestigiis daemonum in 1577. His entry changes Vipos into Ipes, adds the alias Ayperos, raises the rank from count to count and prince, and changes the plain angelic apparition into an angelic appearance crossed with a foul lion-like and animal-bodied form.⁶

Ipes, aliàs Ayperos, est magnus Comes & Princeps, apparens quidem specie angelica, interim leone obscurior & turpis, capite leonis, pedibus anserinis, cauda leporina. Præterita & futura novit: redditque hominem ingeniosum & audacem. Legiones huic obediunt trigintasex.

The Latin says that Ipes, otherwise Ayperos, is a great count and prince. He appears in an angelic form, yet is darker and foul like a lion, with the head of a lion, the feet of a goose and the tail of a hare, three animals preserving three aspects. He knows past and future things, makes a man clever and bold, and is obeyed by thirty-six legions. Weyer therefore darkens the image and increases the demonic apparatus around him.^4,5,6

The familiar English spelling Ipos, alias Ayporos, belongs to Reginald Scot's 1584 English transmission of Weyer. For a history page this is important: Vipos is the first recoverable form, Ipes/Ayperos is Weyer's Latin form, and Ipos is the early English form that feeds much later Goetic usage.⁷

In Dr. Rudd's Goetic angelology, the demon Ipos is set under the restraining or answering force of Ieiaiel. Rudd's system aligns the seventy-two Shem-ha-Mephorash angels with the Goetic spirits. Ieiaiel is the twenty-second angel, of the order of Thrones, and is paired specifically with Ipos.⁸

The exact psalm is Psalm 121:5 in modern English and Hebrew numbering, corresponding to Psalm 120:5 in Vulgate and Papus-style numbering. The verse indicates divine guardianship being like the shade of the right hand, paralleling the psychopomp role. This is why Lenain and Papus call Ieiaiel "the Right of God"; the psalmic indication is a theological key to the angel's name^8,9,10,11

Lazare Lenain gives the fuller planetary and practical profile of Ieiaiel in 1823. He calls Ieiaiel "la droite de Dieu," gives the holy name Good according to the English language, places the ray from the 106th to the 110th degree of the sphere, assigns it to the eleventh decan and the genius Syth, and puts it under Mercury. The invocation time is given as seven to seven-twenty in the morning.⁹

Lenain says the good genius rules fortune, renown, diplomacy and commerce. He makes Ieiaiel govern voyages, discoveries and maritime expeditions, and says he protects against storms and shipwrecks. A person born under this influence loves commerce, is industrious, and is distinguished by liberal and philanthropic ideas. The contrary genius rules pirates, corsairs and slaves, and acts on maritime expeditions in the dark sense. This is clearly a reference to Hermes' powers.⁹

Papus repeats the same material in compressed table form in La Cabbale: Ieiaiel is "La Droite de Dieu," occupies 106 to 110 degrees, corresponds to Good, and is attached to Psalm 120:5. He abbreviates the domain as fortune, renown, diplomacy, commerce, voyages, discoveries, and protection from tempests and shipwrecks; the contrary genius is reduced to pirates and slaves.¹⁰

Later occult summaries show Ambelain keeps the Lenain-style practical cabala profile, while Davidson reduces Ieiaiel to an angel of the future in dictionary form. Neither source moves the first attestation of the demon away from Vipos in the Livre des esperitz, nor the first printed Latin expansion away from Weyer.^12,13