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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Two questions, the early contact of Buddhism with Christianity, and the origins and character of Gnosticism, have attracted much attention of late Although these questions are independent of each other in the main, they happen to join hands in the case of the great Gnostic Basilides. I propose to show that the famous scheme of that arch-Gnostic was an attempt at fusing Buddhism with Christianity, and thus to throw some light upon the one question and the other.
page 377 note 1 Basilides occupies a considerable place in all works dealing with early Church history or the Gnostics. For the special bibliography regarding him see Bardenhewer's Patrologie, and the admirable article on Basilides by Dr. Hort in Smith's Dict, of Christian Biography.
page 377 note 2 A useful collection of parallel texts will be found in “Christianity and Buddhism,” by DrBerry, T. Sterling (S.P.C.K., London).Google Scholar
page 377 note 3 Upon the motion of M. Camerlynck, of Amiens, the Congress agreed to the following resolution: “That at the next Congress attention be drawn to the relations which may have existed, at the commencement, between Buddhism and Christianity.”
page 378 note 1 Epigraphia Indica, vol. ii. The latest transliteration and translation of the text with which I am acquainted is given in McCrindle's “ Invasion of India by Alexander the Great,” pp. 372–374. I understand that it was supplied by the late Dr. Bühler.
page 378 note 2 Some of the Celtic gods are occasionally represented as sitting cross-legged in an attitude resembling that of Buddha. These rude representations probably date from the first or the beginning of the second century A.D.; and are in any case posterior to the time of Julius Cæsar. The resemblance is limited to the general attitude; the figures themselves with their symbolism are purely Gallic, and they cannot have been borrowed from Buddhism, since figures of Buddha are unknown in India until the first century A.D. (V. pls. xxv and xxvii, “La Religion des Gaulois,” par M. A. Bertrand, pp. 314 and 318). The swastika and the aureole were not peculiar to Buddhism, and the swastika travelled to Gaul before Buddha was born.
page 379 note 1 I have discussed the earliest communications between India and the West in an article on “The Early Commerce of Babylon with India,” in J.R.A.S., 1898, p. 241 ff.; and I gave a sketch of its subsequent history in a lecture delivered before the Royal Asiatic Society in March, 1900. I hope some day to deal with the whole subject in a more extended form. For the opening up of the Egyptian trade with India under Augustus, v. Mommsen's masterly account in the “Provinces of the Roman Empire,” vol. ii, p. 298 ff., Eng. trans.
page 380 note 1 We must not conceive of the Gnostic schools either now or afterwards as in any way akin to the Stoa and the Porch or the other schools of Greek philosophy. They are of the Oriental type, the religious family, the Mohant and his Chelas, the master and his disciples. The only Hellenic thing about Gnosticism is the approximation, by certain schools in later days, of the Gnostic mysteries to the Greek. But the Greek mysteries had borrowed most of their contents from the East, they were mainly Oriental themselves, even the Eleusinian, and they represent the most Oriental aspect of the many-sided Greek intellect. Here, therefore, a rapprochement was easy
page 381 note 1 v. Professor Rhys Davids' article on “The Soul in the Upanishads,” J.R.A.S., 1899, pp. 79–80.
page 382 note 1 Lassen's attempts (Ind. Alter., iii, p. 379 ff.) to connect Gnosticism with Buddhism have not met with general acceptance; v. Garbe, “Die Sānkhya-Philosophie,” p. 96 ff. The resemblances are, some unreal, some superficial, and others are more easily accounted for otherwise. The emanation theories of the Gnostics are totally opposed to everything Buddhist.
page 384 note 1 According to Baur, Basilides laid special stress upon free-will, according to Neander upon fate; Dr. Hort finds his psychology “curious”; some hold Basilides for a Pantheist, others find dualism in him. These and other hypotheses are all justified, explained, and modified by the Buddhist theory.
page 384 note 2 Clement affects to doubt the tradition, but apparently only from a general suspicion of such claims. There are no chronological difficulties, the tradition was accepted by the Basilidians in Clement's time, and as they professed to base their doctrines on the secret teachings of S. Matthew and not of S. Peter, they had no reason to invent a fable.
page 384 note 3 A comparison of Clem. Strom., vii, 17. 106, and Justin Martyr, Ap. i, 26, makes this almost certain.
page 385 note 1 A very ingenious person might conjecture that Basilides is merely a translation of Rajput. The conjecture would be on a par with a good many others that have been hazarded. But unfortunately the Rajputs are not heard of in India for five centuries after this.
page 385 note 2 Egyptians usually retained their heathen names after their conversion to Christianity, even although the name was taken from a god. Ammonius, Serapion, Pachomius, are instances in point. But I am not sure that they gave heathen names to children born after the conversion of the parent. Isidore must have been born when his father was a comparatively young man, and probably before Basilides joined the Christian Church.
page 385 note 3 Euseb. H.E., iv, 7, and Theodoret, Haer. Fab., i, 4.
page 387 note 1 Dio Chrysos., Orat. xxxii, ad Alexandrinos (Teubner ed., vol. i, p. 413). I have said something of these Indian merchant colonies in “The Early Commerce of Babylon with India ” (J.R.A.S., 1898, p. 269 f.).
page 387 note 2 Mrs. Rhys Davids gives a number of examples in her essay “Economic Conditions in Northern India” (J.R.A.S., 1901, p. 859 ff.), and it would be easy to extend the list.
page 387 note 3 Baur, Mansel, Hort, and others.
page 388 note 1 The literary question is fully discussed in Dr. Hort's article. Clement wrote his “Stromata” at Alexandria some sixty years after the death of Basilides, and had excellent opportunities for knowing the facts. He gives extracts from the “Exegetica” and from Isidore's works; he repeatedly refers to or summarizes the opinions of Basilides and the Basilidians, using the terms usually as synonymous, and sometimes interchanging them. In one passage he pointedly contrasts the degenerate teachings of the later Basilidians with the doctrines of their master. Clement's object was ethical and practical, while Hippolytus dealt with the speculative part of the Basilidian philosophy. The two therefore seldom deal with the same subject, but where they do they agree. They also agree in undesigned ways, as, for instance, in the use of terms which had a technical significance in the Basilidian teaching, e.g., φυλοκρίνησις, ἀποκατάστασις, etc. The extracts given by Hippolytus are evidently from the “Exegetica,” although Hippolytus does not give the name of the work. Moreover, Hippolytus expressly distinguishes in one passage a work circulating among the later Basilidians from the works of Basilides and Isidore. The only serious objection to the general opinion is the Greek character (so-called) of the Hippolytian extracts, but if they turn out to be not Greek at all, but Buddhist, this objection vanishes.
page 388 note 2 Clem. Alex. Strom., iv, 12. 90, p. 218. Clement denies the doctrine οὐκέτι οὖν δ πόνος καὶ δ φόβος ὡς αὐτοὶ (i.e. the Basilidians) λέγουσιν ἐπισυμβαίνει τοῖς πράγμασιν ὡς δ ἰὸς τῷ σιδήρῳ, ἀλλ᾽, etc.
page 389 note 1 From the Buddha's First Sermon, translated in “Buddhist Suttas.” Compare Dhammapada, 186 ff.
page 389 note 2 Basilides' views on martyrdom were grossly misrepresented. The extracts given by Clement (Strom., iv, 12. 83–85, p. 217) from the 23rd book of the “Exegetica” show this clearly. “For I say that all those who undergo the aforesaid tribulations have undoubtedly sinned, though they be ignorant of it (λανθάνοντες), in other ways; but are led to this particular good by the goodness of Him who directs (them), being really accused of other faults (than those they have committed); so that they suffer not as malefactors for confessed iniquities, nor as the murderer and adulterer reproached by all, but as Christians—a fact so consoling that they appear not to suffer at all. And even granting that the sufferer is entirely innocent of actual sin (which rarely happens), yet not even will this man suffer by the design of any (evil) power, (the orthodox held that persecutions were the work of the devil), but he will suffer as suffers the infant apparently innocent of sin.” Further on Basilides says that as the infant, although obviously incapable of sinning, “ suffers because he has a sinful nature, and gains the benefit of suffering,” so the perfect man, innocent of actual sin, suffers for his evil propensities. According to Clement, Basilides admitted that his argument applied even to the Lord Himself, although in the extract Clement gives us Basilides will not mention Him by name, taking refuge in the text “none is free from stain.” Dr. Hort has some excellent remarks on the whole subject.
page 390 note 1 The Divine Providence (ἡ πρόνοια) plays a great part in the Stoic and rhetorical literature of the second century A.D., but it always applies to the universe, and not to the individual. With Basilides, Providence in the ordinary sense is an impossibility; he means by it the constitution of the world “involuntarily willed” by “not-being God.”
page 390 note 2 Origen expressly mentions transmigration into beasts and birds. “Dixit enim, inquit, Apostolus, quia ego vivebam sine lege aliquando, hoc esset, antequam in istud corpus venirem, in ea specie corporis vixi quae sub lege non esset, pecudis scilicet vel avis.”
page 390 note 3 Dr. Hort.
page 391 note 1 Tylor (“Primitive Culture,” 2nd ed., ii, p. 6) says that they may possibly have been influenced by Indian ideas. Ovid mentions transmigration into plants, but this is the only instance I can remember among Western writers.
page 393 note 1 For Gallic and Celtic beliefs v. “La Religion des Gaulois,” par A. Bertrand, p. 270 ff., and Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, 1881.
page 394 note 1 Or more probably the Khshatriyas.
page 394 note 2 On the Indian ideas of transmigration v. chap, xiv of Dr. P. Deussen's excellent work “Die Philosophie der Upanishad's” (Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. i, pt. 2), and Garbe, “Die Sāmkhya-Philosophie, ’ p. 174 ff.
page 395 note 1 προσαρτήματα, a technical word employed by Basilides and by Isidore. Tertullian translates it as ‘appendices’ (“ceteris appendicibus sensibus et affectibus,” Adv. Marc., i, 25); and Dr. Hort also refers to M. Aurelius, xii, 3, with Gataker's note. τὰ προσαρτήματα might be translated as parasites which attach themselves externally.
page 395 note 2 I have adopted Dr. Hort's translation with a few alterations.
page 396 note 1 For the double aspect of Avidyā, v. Deussen, “Die Philosophie der Upanishad's,” p. 217 (Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie).
page 397 note 1 v. “A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics” (translation of the Dhamma Sangani), Or. Trans. Fund, vol. xii, by Mrs. Rhys Davids: Introd., p. xli ff.
page 397 note 2 ἦν ὅτε ἦν οὐδὲν, etc. (Hippolytus, Haer., vii, c. 8).
page 398 note 1 “Hinter der als Liñgam individualisierten Prakṛiti steht die allgemeine, Kosmische Prakṛiti, ohne dass von ihr weiter die Rede wäre” (Deussen, “Die Philosophie der Upanishad's,” p. 217).
page 399 note 1 “Nach der Ansicht der Buddhisten geht das Seiende aus dem Nichtseienden hervor,” says Garbe, quoting Vacaspatimiçra (“Die Sāmkhya Philosophie,” p. 201).
page 399 note 2 “Buddhism,” by Professor T. W. Rhys Davids, p. 87. Compare his “Dialogues of the Buddha,” pp. 187, 188.
page 400 note 1 Basilides (or rather Hippolytus) does not give us the exact Greek equivalents for the second and third Guṇas. The second Sonship is called ἡ παχυμεστέρα [υἱότης] (Haer., vii, c. 10). The third Sonship is the Sonship “left behind in Formlessness” (Haer., vii, c. 14). The second Sonship is less deeply embedded in the material world, and resides in the Aether, the region of the Great Archon (Haer., vii, c. 10 and 11).
page 400 note 2 Prakriti, says Deussen, “besteht aus den drei Guṇa's (am besten als Faktoren zu übersetzen …) Sattvam (das Leichte, Helle, Intellektuelle), Rajas (das Bewegliche, Treibende, Leidenschaftliche) und Tamas (das Schwere, Dunkle, Hemmende), und auf der verschiedenen Mischung der drei Guṇa's beruht die ursprüngliche Verschiedenheit der Li
ga's.” (“Die Philosophie der Upanishad's,” pp. 218–219.)
page 400 note 3 Basilides divides τὰ ὄντα εἰς δύο τὰς προεχεῖς καὶ πρώτας διαιρέσεις, καὶ καλεῖται κατ' αὐτὸν τὸ μέν τι κόσμος, τὸ δέ τι ὑπερκόσμια (Haer., vii, c. 11).
page 401 note 1 The not-being God and the first Sonship abide in the ὐπερκόσμια (Haer., vii, c. 10). The Firmament is between the ὐπερκόσμια and the Kosmos (στερέωμα τῶν ὑπερκοσμίων καὶ τοῦ κόσμου μεταξὺ τεταγμένον : vii, c. 11). It is the abode of the Holy Spirit, also called the Limitary Spirit (τὸ δὲ μεταξὺ τοῦ κόσμου καὶ τῶν ὐπερκοσμίων μεθόριον πνεῦμα. τοῦτο ὅπερ ἐστὶ καὶ ἅγιον, etc. : vii, c. 11). For the division of the universe below the Firmament into Ogdoad, Hebdomad, and Formlessness, v. vii, c. 15. The highest of these regions is the Ogdoad, the region of the Aether and the seat of the Great Archon (αὕτη ἐστιν ἡ κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς ὀγδοὰς λεγομένη, ὅπου ἐστὶν ὁ μέγας ἂρχων καθήμενος πᾶσαν οὖν τὴν ἐπουράνιον κτίσιν, τουτέστι τὴν αἰθέριον, αὐτὸς εἰργάσατο ὁ δημιουργὸς ὁ μέγας σοφός: vii, c. 11). This region extends to the moon (τοῦ ἄρχοντος τοῦ μεγάλου τὰ αἰθέρια ἅτινα μέχρι σελὴνης ἐστίν : vii, c. 12). The greatness of the Great Archon is frequently extolled: “He is more ineffable than things ineffable, more potent than things potent, wiser than things wise, and his beauty surpassingly beautiful” (vii, c. 11). He surpasses every entity except the Sonship left behind (vii, c. 11). He believes the Kosmos to be His creation, and that there is nothing higher than Himself (vii, c. 11). He is called demiurge and God (τὸν ἀρρήτων ἀρρητότερον θεόν: vii, c. 12). The region below the Ogdoad is the Hebdomad, the region of the Air which extends from the moon to the earth (σελήνης … ἐκεῖθεν γὰρ ἀὴρ αἰθέρος διακρίνεται: vii, c. 12); (καλεῖται δ τόπος οὗτος ἕβδομας: vii, c. 12). The second Archon, like the first, is administrator and demiurge (in appearance) of all subject to him (διοικήτης καὶ δημιονργός: vii, c. 13). He is the God of Abraham and inspired the Prophets (vii, c. 13). The Great Archon is ἄρρητος, ρητὸν δὲ ἡ ἕβδομας (vii, c. 13). The distinction between the two Archons, in Basilides' opinion, probably corresponded to the Gnostic distinction between Yahve and Adonai. The Formlessness is the lowest sphere (διάστημα τὸ καθ' ἡμᾶς ὅπου ἐστὶν ἡ ἀμορφία: vii, c. 15). The Gospel comes first to the Ogdoad, then to the Hebdomad, and lastly to us (vii, c. 14). The body of Jesus reverts to Formlessness, and His psychical part to the Hebdomad (vii, c. 15).
page 402 note 1 Even the region (χωρίου τοῦ μακαρίου: Haer., vii, c. 10) of the ineffable ‘not-being God’ had its treasury (θησαυρόν: vii, c. 14).
page 402 note 2 “The Religions of India,” by A. Barth, translated by the Rev. J. Wood (Trübner's Oriental Series), p. 69.
page 402 note 3 ὅλη γὰρ αὐτῶν ἡ ὑπόθεσις σύγχυσις οἱονεὶ πανσπερμίας καὶ φυλοκρίνησις καὶ ἀποκατάστασις τῶν συγκεχυμένων εἰς τὰ οἰκεῖα (Haer., vii, c. 15).
page 403 note 1 For Prakriti and Purusha v. Deussen, “Die Philosophie der Upanishad's,” pp. 216–219, and Garbe, “Die Sāmkhya-Philosophie,” p. 204 ff.
page 403 note 2 Basilides' repute for Hellenism is mainly founded on his Metaphysics, but it does not amount to much. The attempt of Hippolytus to affiliate the architectonic ideas of the system upon Aristotle has long been abandoned; and modern critics are divided between Plato and the Stoa. ‘Not-being God’ and the ‘not-being world’ are expressions which go back through Philo to Plato, but there is little Platonism in Basilides' use of them. According to Plato that which is ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας is the ideal good; but the οὐκ ὢν θεός of Basilides is the first stage of evolution from the Absolute; it is only in his Theology that ‘not-being God’ becomes the ideal good. Nor has the ‘not-being world’ any connection with the invisible world of the Platonic ideas; it is the embryonic germ, the cosmic Prakriti. The corrective power of suffering is a Platonic idea, but it is applied for the explanation of the value of martyrdom, and not to the suffering of the world. These ideas are common to Philo, Celsus, and Clement (οὐδ' οὐσίας μετέχει δ θεός), and were part of the mental equipment of the time; they do not necessarily imply any knowledge at first-hand of the master. The word πανσπερμία is used by Plato (Timæus, 73, c.) and by Aristotle with reference to Anaxagoras, but in neither case in the Basilidian sense. Baur has pointed out the analogies between Basilides and Anaxagoras. Anaxagoras starts his physical theory of the universe with an infinite number of seeds, but apart from this there is no resemblance between the two systems. The seeds of Anaxagoras are all specifically different from each other; they are moved little by little at a time by mind, which orders and arranges them. Order arises from their commixture, corruption from their separation. There is an express denial of fate and chance (Ritter, Hist. Anc. Phil., i, p. 284 ff., Eng. trans.). The alleged resemblances to Stoicism are based on the supposed Pantheism of Basilides, and are general. But ‘not-being God’ is not consubstantial with the world, and has no further connection with it after it is started. The Buddhist hypothesis alone meets all the requirements of the case.
page 404 note 1 It is always necessary to distinguish between Jesus and Chrestos in dealing with the Gnostics. Hippolytus uses the word ‘Christ’ in speaking of the Son of the Great Archon (vii, c. 14), but whether Basilides gave it this limited signification is not clear. The Son of Mary is always Jesus in the summary of Hippolytus.
page 407 note 1 ἦν γὰρ οὐχ δμοούσιον οὐδὲ φύσιν εἶχε μετὰ τῆς υἱóτητoς (Haer., vii, c. 10, cf. c. 11). Hippolytus (c. 10) attaches this Limitary Spirit to the second Sonship (ἡ παχυμεστέρα υἱότης). But there is evidently some confusion, since he explains why this Limitary Spirit could not enter into the communion of not-being God. Moreover, nothing could have checked the upward flight of the second Sonship, had there been no limit. In c. 14 the Holy Spirit is also represented apparently as Light.
page 408 note 1 τίς ἐστιν δ οὐκ ὢν τίς ἡ υἱότης, τί τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα, τίς ἡ τῶν ὅλων κατασκευὴ, ποῦ ταῦτα ἀποκατασταθήσεται. αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ σοφία ἐν μυστηρίῳ λεγομένη (Haer, vii, c. 14) ; cf. Clem. Strom., ii, 8. 36, p. 162, τὴν ἔκπληΞιν αὐτοῦ (of the Great Archon) φόβον κληθῆναι ἀρχὴν γενόμενον σοφίας φυλοκρινητικῆς τε καὶ διακριτικῆς καὶ τελεωτικῆς καὶ ἀποκαταοτατικῆς. These words recall the ‘fourfold path’ of the Buddha, hut while the latter is moral the fourfold wisdom of Basilides is intellectual. Each of the four adjectives employed by Clement bears a technical meaning in the Basilidian philosophy.
page 408 note 2 ἦν γὰρ, φησὶ, καὶ αὐτὸς [δ Σωτὴρ] ὑπὸ γενεσιν ἀστέρων καὶ ὡρ ῶν ἀποκαταστασεως ἐν τῷ μεγάλω προλελογισμένος σωρῷ (Haer., vii, c. 15).
page 408 note 3 ἐπεὶ οὖν ἔδει ἀποκαλυφθῆναι ἡμᾶς τὰ τέκνα τοῦ θεοῦ (Haer., vii, c. 13).
page 409 note 1 The φύσει πιστὸς and the ἐκλεκτός are convertible terms; φύσει πιστοῦ καὶ ἐκλεκτοῦ ὄντος (Strom., v, 1. 3, p. 233).
page 409 note 2 It is ἐν μέρος ἐκ τοῦ λεγομένου θελήματος τοῦ θεοῦ. … τὸ ἠγαπηκέναι ἅπαντα ὅτι λόγον ἀποσώζουσι πρὸσ τὸ πᾶν ἅπαντά. “It is one part of the declared will of God” “to be in a state of charity with all things, because all [individual] things bear a relation to the whole, i.e. the general scheme of the Kosmos.” This “declared will of God” is the constitution of the universe “involuntarily willed by not-being God.” “Deus nec amat nec odit” is a fundamental maxim of all Indian philosophy as well as of Spinoza, and to attribute a state of charity to ‘not-being God,’ as some commentators do, is to furnish with morality a being above all predicates.
page 409 note 3 τοῦ μακαρίου καὶ νοηθῆναι μὴ δυναμένου μηδὲ χαρακτηρισθῆναί τινι λόγῳ χωρίου. Professor Rhys Davids has pointed out to me that Nirvāna is, properly speaking, a state and not a region. Now Basilides certainly conceived that “being with not-being God” implied not only a state but a place, a supramundane region with its ‘treasury.’ We must remember that Basilides acquired his knowledge, not from learned Srāmanas, but from the popular beliefs of Buddhist merchants, and that at this very time the doctrines of the older Buddhism were falling into abeyance, and Buddha himself was widely worshipped. Even Clement was aware of that. But if Buddha were worshipped, he must be somewhere; he must have some shadowy existence in some supra-mundane region.
page 410 note 1 Apparently a favourite text with Basilides. Hippolytus twice quotes it in his summary.
page 410 note 2 “ As a mere system of metaphysics the theory of Basilides contains the nearest approach to the conception of a logical philosophy of the absolute which the history of ancient thought can furnish, almost rivalling that of Hegel in modern times.” (Mansel, “ Gnostic Heresies,” p. 165.)
page 411 note 1 The one, directly mythological expression I find in Basilides is the remark that Righteousness and her daughter Peace dwelt in the Ogdoad (Strom., iv, p. 231). The Ogdoad was doubtless inhabited by a number of abstract entities—Nous, Phronesis, Logos, and the rest mentioned by Irenæus—but not emanations as Irenæus and the later Basilidians held. All these were probably treated, like the Sonship, as collective germs, and characteristic of the sphere. But these are merely abstractions hypostatized after the Oriental fashion. They do not necessarily wear a mythological or even an anthropomorphic dress. At the same time the spheres of the first and second Archon were inhabited by innumerable hosts of κυριότητες, ἀρχαὶα, ἐξουσίαι, and δυνάμεις, the Gnostic counterpart of Greek demons, Jewish angels, and Buddhist devas, who were ready to supply the later Basilidians at once with a full-blown mythology.
page 412 note 1 “ You yourselves must make the effort: the Buddhas are only preachers” (Rhys Davids, “Buddhism,” p. 107). Compare the striking elaboration of the theme, “Be ye lamps unto yourselves,” in the Maha Parinnabbāna, translated by Rhys Davids, “ Buddhist Suttas,” pp. 36–39.
page 413 note 1 It is clear from Hippolytus, vii, C. 14, that that “tedious treatise” on the 365 heavens had nothing to do with Basilides or Isidore. These 365 heavens correspond with the 365 days of the Egyptian ‘ common ’ year, and are connected with Abrasax and the solar cult of the later Basilidians.
page 413 note 2 The Abraxoid gems are numerous, especially in the Delta of the Nile, and they are the only ones which are certainly Gnostic. Hippolytus tells us (vii, c. 14) that Abraxas, or more properly Abrasax, was supreme lord of the 365 heavens, which represent the 365 days of the year. He bears therefore a solar character, and the Greek letters of his name have 365 for their numerical value (α=1, β=2, ρ=100, α=1, ξ=60, α=1, ς=200=365). Neilos and Meithras give the same arithmetical result. The iconic representations of Abrasax on the gems represent him in the main as an Egyptian solar deity. He has the head of the solar hawk, the bird of Horus, or rather Horus himself, and the addition of a rude cock's comb on some gems may represent, as in other cases, not a cock's head, but flames or rays. With his left hand Abrasax advances a shield, his right hand holds a scourge upraised to strike. The scourge I identify with the khu of the Egyptian gods, and the attitude recalls the attitude of Min Amen at Thebes. The Abrasax legs are snakes, the symbols of the underworld. The bark of Ra is drawn by serpents in its passage through the twelve hours of the night, and on the sarcophagus of Seti I serpents represent the hidden fires of germination in the realms of Osiris (v. “ The Alabaster Sarcophagus of Oimenepthah I, ” by J. Bonomi & S. Sharpe, 1864, pl. vii). Abrasax is often identified with Iao, and Iao is occasionally represented by an immense python for ever travelling—a python such as we find on the walls of the same Seti's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. These Abraxoid gems are magical talismans for the protection of the wearer. But Abrasax is much more than ἥλιος ἀλεξίκακος, more than Amen-Ra ; he is the invention of Egyptian Jews and Gnostics, and has Jewish and even Syrian elements in his composition. For Abrasax, v. King, “ The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 226 ff. Also Dr. Hort s.v. Abrasax in Smith's “ Dictionary of Christian Biography.”