★ The Christian Gnostic Basilides of Alexandria and the ancient demon Abrasax ★

EGYPT. Uncertain. Gnostic Tessera (Lead, 18 mm, 3.22 g, 1 h), circa 2nd-4th century AD. IAω Abrasax facing, with the head of a rooster and snakes for legs, holding a whip in his right hand and a shield with his left. Rev. ABPA/CAΞ with star-in-crescent above. Cf. Elsen 124 (2015), 404 and Rauch MBS 8 (2004), 685 (both of cruder style and with I-A across the fields). Very rare and of great historical interest. Good very fine.

From a European collection, formed before 2005.

The worship of the ancient demon Abrasax (or Abraxas) rose to great prominence in Roman times through the teachings of the Christian Gnostic Basilides of Alexandria (circa 85-145 AD), who called Abrasax the 'great archon' and the first of the 365 Gnostic Aeons. The etymology of his name is still unclear: it may go back to the Egyptian words 'abrak' and 'sax', translating as 'the honorable and hallowed word', but it is noteworthy that the letters of his name, in Greek isopsephy, add up to 365, the amount of days in a solar year: Α = 1, Β = 2, Ρ = 100, Α = 1, Σ = 200, Α = 1, Ξ = 60, thus: 1+2+100+1+200+1+60 = 365. Basilides' followers believed, among other things, that Abrasax sent Christ as a ghost to the world, which lead to sharp refutations by Early Church Fathers such as Hippolytus of Rome, Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea. The popularity of Basilidianism was mostly restrained to Egypt, where a vivid Gnostic sect is attested in the 2nd-4th centuries, but its legacy still lives on today, as one compelling theory proclaims, in the famous magic word 'abracadabra!'.