‘Abraxas’, an Ancient Word Linked to Magic and Religion that is Still a Mystery
By: Richard Bruschi
Tags: Religion, History, Mystery, Magic, Culture

‘Abraxas’, an Ancient Word Linked to Magic and Religion that is Still a Mystery

Found on what are considered magical amulets, this mystic word true meaning has eluded historians and experts for centuries.

A computer-traced of the basic image of the entity supposedly identified with the name ‘Abraxas’. Photo from Wikipedia.

From England, to Spain, and to the Middle East and dating back millenia, innumerable engraved stones have been found with the word Abraxas carved alone or along with a vast number of symbols, animals, letters, images, words of different languages, as well as deities of different religions and historic times. These stones have been dubbed ‘magical stones’ and entered the curiosity of many scholars and experts in religion, history, and linguistics.

Tracing back the derivation of the word Abraxas from many languages such as Greek, Hebrew, Coptic, hasn’t brought any results because they all stop at a first initial and usually stretched connection.

The interpretation of the word has yet to be successful. But let’s start from the beginning, if there is such a thing.

Overview

Gnosticism is a collection of religious principles and systems of which origins can’t be pinned down, but most modern scholars place them in strict connection with Jewish sectarian social environments and early Christians. Some scholars link Gnosticism’s origin to Neoplatonism and Buddhism due to some similarities or connections, but ultimately it is obscure. What seems identifiable is that it came to notice in the 1st century AD among Jewish and Early Christian sects. Gnosticism’s emphasis on spiritual knowledge and direct experience kept it away from being a standardized system of beliefs, developing in many different currents.

Central is the concept of knowledge, gnosis in the feminine Greek noun. Another meaning is ‘awareness’, helping understand how it is usually used in the sense of ‘personal knowledge’ which it maintained even after developing according to the historic period and philosophical angle of the many Gnostic teachers.

Adherents to Gnosticism (the term as we know it came to be only in the 17th century) were called ‘gnostics’ by their critics, who later labeled them as heretics, because Gnostics’ two core principles were: strive for spiritual knowledge of the Divine within, which was paramount for salvation, rather than faith; and the differentiation between the highest and unknowable divinity to a “lower” creator of anything material called ‘Demiurge’, or ‘Archon’.

Among the various sects is the one following the teachings of Basilides of Alexandria, an early Christian Gnostic religious teacher in the 2nd century. Apparently, according to Hippolytus (170–235 AD, one of the most important Christian theologians of his time and a mysterious figure himself) for Basilidians the first of the Archons’ name was Abrasax. Basilidesians were the only ones to have done so, while other Archons’ names are in common with other Gnostic sects.

Gnosticism is a bit of a mystery and many uncertainties in defining Gnosticism and tracing its history are in big part due to the fact that, until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in 1945, it has been known mostly through the views of those who opposed it, with widely different if not conflicting statements. For this reason, the actual role of Abrasax for Basilidians is unknown, because the “experts” usually don’t show familiarity with the doctrines of Basilides.

Therefore, let’s focus on what can be identified.

Abraxas stone, from Britannica, courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum.

What, when, where

Through gematria (‘gematria’ is an alphanumeric code of assigning a numerical value to a name, word, or phrase based on its letters) the Greek letters of Abrasax add up to 365, which for them was the number of the heavens, the days of the year, and the members of the body.

The word Abrasax was later discovered in the Gnostic text Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (dated between the 2nd and the 4th centuries and among the codices in the ‘Nag Hammadi library’, discovered in 1945), the Pistis Sophia (3rd to 4th century AD), as well as in the Greek Magical Papyri (1st century BC to 5th century AD).

But perhaps what aroused most interest was the name engraved on ‘engraved gems’, also called intaglio (informally ‘gemstones’), now dubbed ‘Abrasax gems’ or ‘Abraxas stones’. The different spelling, Abraxas, probably comes from the wrong translation of two letters from Greek to Latin. The stones are thought to have been used as charms or generally magical stones, also because letters on amulets are often abbreviated forms of the magical formulas found in the surviving Papyri.

The name Abraxas has often appeared with or around a figure that has therefore been commonly designated as a depiction of this entity. The basic appearance on the stones is anthropomorphic and shown with the head of a rooster, the muscular body of a man, and the lower body as two snakes. It is holding a scepter in one hand, and a round shield in the other.

The stones might have reverse and the basic appearance has some variations, such as a sword instead of the scepter. Yet the main point is that this image is usually carved next to a variety of other figures, animals, letters and words of different languages, symbols from Gnosticism and Judaism, and deities from a number of different religions such as Persian, Egyptian, and Greek.

The two strongest symbols are the circular element and the snakes, although the scepter is important too, although perhaps with less wide-spreading connections.

It has been found that Abrasax is referred to as an Aeon In the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, therefore many Gnostic sects refer to Aeon as an emanation of God, also called Aion teleos. The emanations are also called ‘sonships’ in the Basilidian Gnosis and for them a flaw (passion or sin in other sects) in the last sonship caused the transition from the immaterial to the material, the “above” and the sensible.

Detail of the Ancient Roman ‘Parabiago Plate’ depicting Aion. The plate is a silver art piece found in an Ancient Roman cemetery and depicting mythological figures. Photo from Wikipedia.

‘Aion’ and ‘Aeon’, link to an Hellenistic deity of the same name, god of time, the circle around the universe, and the Zodiac. The latter is interesting as references to astrology are a common theme in Gnosticism. On the other hand, time has the acception of limitless (opposed to Chronos which is divided in past, present, and future) associated in the Greco-Roman mysteries with the afterlife. Also, Homer refers ‘Aeon’ to life or lifespan, while Plato denotes it to the eternal world of ideas which is beyond the perceived world. Furthermore, this Greek god is shown with the snake, the circle, and the scepter.

Sceptre, snakes, circular object. Other strong references, both in function and in representation, are to a number of deities or concepts found as far back as the 3rd millennium BC. As one can imagine, they’re all interconnected with one another. Among some of them, the Egyptian god Thoth, god of Wisdom, and Mithraic cosmogony.

One standing out is Hermes, the herald of the gods in Greek mythology. Mercury for the Romans, he might come from the earlier Mesopotamian snake-god Ningishzida, god of the underworld who served as mediator between humans and the divine. Hermes shares this connotation and his relationship to the underworld is actually his original only feature. As he developed, he was linked to magic, divination, and initiation, having a role of mediator between the worlds of the visible and invisible, among other functions such as interpretative communication. Hermes is a divinity found as far back as Mycenaean Greek (the earliest Greek form) from 1600–1100 BC and always in association with one or the other goddess. His symbol is also the rooster, but his main symbol is the caduceus, a winged staff intertwined with two snakes (which looks similar to, but it is different from, Apollo’s son Asclepius medicinal rod).

As for the circular element it links to a number of ancient figures and symbologies, such as the sun and the wheel. An example is the sun god in Greek mythology Apollo (who came after Helios, but I digress), Hermes’ half-brother, who is also the god of medicine and prophecy, symbolized by snakes by the way. Examples about the wheel are: the Greek and Roman sun-chariot or other stories which involved Hermes; also, the four wheels in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 10:10): “each like a wheel within a wheel”; and what about how the Gnostic texts often discuss how through gnosis a person can be free from the wheel of fate and the stars.

The Egyptian deity Set as depicted in the ‘Greek Magical Papyri’. In Ancient Egyptian astronomy, he was associated to the planet Mercury. Photo from Wikipedia.

As for strictly and directly references to magic, there are the Greek Magical Papyri. They are a body of work containing many magical spells, formulae, rituals, and hymns. Among many other connections to figures such as Michael and Osiris, the same ideas and words on many Abraxas gems are found here, and many connections are made — some would say confirmed — such as Abraxas being a name for Hermes. Nevertheless, those incantations are of unknown use, given that the meaning of Abraxas has not been identified.

The Papyri have strong association also to the texts Corpus Hermeticum, part of the Hermetica, and found in the Nag Hammadi trove. They are said to have been written by Hermes Trismegistus, an incarnation of the deity Hermes according to the religious, philosophical, and esoteric tradition that is Hermeticism. Magic has a defined and important presence in this tradition. According to the Hermetica, salvation is achieved through gnosis and in the Papyri many spells would achieve ‘inspiration’.

Open mystery

Since the significance of the word Abrasax or Abraxas can’t, in the end, be pinned down, Abraxas role in magic from the stones where it has been carved so often and with such variety has yet to be uncovered.

A speculation, given by the countless variety of discovered gems across history, cultures, and religions, is that Abraxas significance developed through time. From a celestial deity in Gnosticism, to an entity giving magical powers in Celtic society, its ramifications go back millenia in the past and are still vivid today, holding unanswered questions, hidden power, and timeless references.