Abraxas (Abrasax, Abraxis)

Abraxas Name of a god or Demon found on Gnostic gems and amulets from the second century c.e. Abraxas’s name was used in various magical rites. The name denoted the Supreme Being, the source of 365 emanations, the sum of the numbers represented by the Greek letters to which numerical equivalents had been assigned. The god appears on amulets with the head of a cock or a lion and the body of a man with legs that terminate in scorpions, holding in his right hand a club or flail and in his left a round or oval shield. The word abracadabra, according to some scholars, is derived from Abraxas. He appears in The Book of the Angel Raziel, a mystical work. In Hermann Hesse’s novel Demian (1917), Abraxas is used as a symbolic representation of the realm “beyond good and evil.”

SOURCE:

Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, Third Edition – Written by Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow Copyright © 2009 by Anthony S. Mercatante

Abraxas: (or Abracax). The Basilidian (q.v., ) sect Gnostics, of the second century, claimed Abraxas as the supreme god, and said that Jesus Christ was only a phantom sent to earth by him. They believed that his name contained great mysteries, as it was composed of the se Greek letters which form the number 363, which is also number of days in a year.

Abraxas, they thought, under his command 365 gods, to whom they attrib 365 virtues, one for each day. The older Mythology placed him among the number of Egyptian gods, demonologists have described him a – a demon, with head of a king and with serpents forming his feet. Represented on ancient amulets, with a whip in his. It is from his name that the mystic word, Abracad (q.v.) is taken.