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The Gnostics and Their Remains

By Charles William King

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Various Types of the God Abraxas

PLATE A.
VARIOUS TYPES OF THE GOD ABRAXAS.
1. Abraxas brandishing a whip, to scare away malignant influences, his shield emblazoned with some word of power. Reverse, the usual Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name of God.

2. Abraxas, armed with a sword; the exceptionally neat execution of the intaglio bespeaks the first days of the religion.

3. Abraxas, wielding a mace, a Persian weapon that betrays the Asiatic origin of this particular design; the thunderbolt in the field identifies this Power with the classic Jupiter. The reverse exhibits the Triple Hecate, Queen of Hell, brandishing various weapons for the same prophylactic purpose as the god himself. A unique combination of ideas, engraved upon a circular copper plaque, found in the south of France.

4. The Agathodæmon Serpent, with radiated head, identified by the legend with the god Abraxas. One of the few types that can with confidence be attributed to the sect of Ophites.

5. Abraxas, of very debased and late execution. The title "Sabaoth" on the reverse, properly signifying "of hosts," was mistaken by the ignorant Hellenists for the actual name of a Power, by translating "Lord of Hosts" as "the Lord Sabaoth." Under this title he figures largely in the sigillum of the "Pistis-Sophia."