ABRAXAS (ἀβράζας). - A magical-mystical word (also written ἀβράζας) of isopsephic value, that is, relating to the numerical value of the individual letters that compose it, and therefore lacking a satisfactory etymology.
It designates: 1) according to Iranian-Babylonian heliocentric theology, the annual course of the sun; in fact Hyginus (Fab. 183), a polygraph of the Augustan age, states that one of the four horses (symbolizing the four seasons) that draw the chariot of the sun is in fact called ἀβράζας; 2) the supreme Being in the Gnostic system of Basilides (v.); 3) the engraved gems on which it is written together with names of various divinities and with designs relating to them.
The Alexandrian Gnostic Basilides posits, in accordance with the fundamental schema found in all Hellenistic religious philosophy (and Hellenized Oriental philosophy, and therefore not exempt from Iranian influences), three descending worlds: the supracelestial, where the supreme Being reigns; the intermediate, populated by aeons corresponding to as many heavens, 365 in number, which is the isopsephic value of ἀβράζας (α = 1, β = 2, ρ = 100, α = 1, ζ = 60, α = 1, ζ = 200) and which corresponds to that of the days of the solar year in the Alexandrian reckoning: only through this intermediate world does the supreme Being communicate with the third world, that is, with the sublunar or terrestrial world, the domain of matter. According to St. Irenaeus (Adv. haer., 1, 24) the supreme Being of Basilides is called ἀβράζας, insofar as it is the first source of the 365 aeon-heavens through a hierarchy that goes from the Nous to the angelic hosts. The theological-solar meaning of ἀβράζας had already been noted by St. Jerome (In Am. 3) and by the author of the Acta Archelai, who had brought it close to that of Mithra (Μεθρᾶς), whose isopsephic value likewise corresponds to 365; where it is nevertheless to be noted that while Mithra is only a demiurge, A. in the Basilidian system is the supreme Being.
As for the engraved gems ἀβράζας, which have the value of amulets, they present on one of their faces the said word and on the other various designs: human figures with a rooster's head, with the head or body of a lion, serpents; or images of Egyptian divinities, especially Serapis, Anubis, or sphinxes. Sometimes there is the name of Egyptian divinities or of the Judeo-Hellenistic religious milieu, such as Osiris, Iao, Sabaoth, Gabrielsabaoth; or even words of purely magical value connected with the mysticism of the alphabet and of numbers, such as abracadabra. This word is repeated several times in descending series, always diminishing it by one letter at the end, so that the whole comes to form a triangle with the base abracadabra at the top and the apex (a) at the bottom: an amulet held to be most useful against tertian fever. Another frequent magical word is ablanathanabla, whose most recent example, on an ostracon, was found in the excavations of the Vogliano mission at Madinet Madi, in 1936.
Bibliography5 works
Nicola Turchi