Figures

Abraxas

uh-BRAK-sus
The rooster-headed, serpent-legged figure on Gnostic gems, a god whose name numerologically totals 365, the year's own number.
Documented

The 365 god

Irenaeus (Against Heresies, c. 180 CE) reports Basilides teaching a ruler named Abraxas whose Greek letter values sum to 365, matching the heavens' daily powers. Hundreds of engraved gems show the hybrid figure with shield and whip, called Abrasax in the inscriptions. Whether the gems depict Basilides' god is disputed.

Assessment: Documented: the heresiological report and the gem corpus; the identification is the gap.
Stories

Jung's rediscovered god

Jung's Septem Sermones ad Mortuos (1916, privately printed) made Abraxas the god beyond God and devil, the union of opposites, launching his modern esoteric career from occult paperback to Hermann Hesse's Demian. Most people who invoke Abraxas today are quoting Jung, not Basilides.

Assessment: Stories: the Sermones are real and pseudonymous; the modern devotion is reception, not antiquity.
Interesting claims

The number that protects

The functional reading of the gems: 365 as a completeness charm, the whole year bound into a name, protection by calendar. Abraxas may be less a deity than a spell that learned to stand upright, arithmetic wearing a body.

Assessment: Interesting: apotropaic readings of the gems are mainstream; the personification is the disputed layer.
Sources and further reading
  1. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.24, on Basilides and the 365
  2. C. Jung, Septem Sermones ad Mortuos (1916)
  3. The Campbell Bonner magical gems corpus, Abrasax inscriptions
Worth asking

Is Abraxas a god, a word, a number, or a mirror held up to whoever names him?

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GR8YFILES · competing origin stories, labeled by the strength of their evidence · readers 14+