THE THREE MYTHIC LORDS
ABRAXAS
Called the great God of the Ignorant, still today we invoke a form
of his name every time we say 'abracadabra.' Abraxas, also called
Abrasax, Abracax, Ablanathe, Abrasoa, etc. Gem carving
inscriptions, restored texts, haeresiologist tracts, all of these
present wildly different explanations of Abraxas. Abraxas, then, is
one of the first Gnostic mysteries. He must be one of the first if he
belongs to the ignorant. I will line up several descriptions, and
include [] commentary:
ABRAXAS...
1.
Who has a cock's head, serpent legs, a sword and a
shield which is marke with the three vowels Ipsilon,
Alpha and Omega. [These letters are not in order. Two
serpents resembles Ishtar.]
2.
Who is depicted with a double thunderbolt [skt. term for the
double thunderbolt which depels ignorance is Vajra,
drawn nearly identical.]
3.
Whose name is 365. [Total gramma or gematriatic value
of the name in Greek cabal.]
4.
Who is ruler of the 1st heaven, of which there are 365.
5.
By whom there is a method of symbolizing the Great Body of
Heavenly Man [Macroprosopus] and its 12 limbs
[Tree of Life]. An ideal dipensation of its
regions, planes, heirarchies and powers.
6.
The Schema of the One Element and the glyph of the diagram of the
Man of Truth. For the first letter of a simple alphabet reflects
the last letter of the Divine Name and the last note of the song of
Logos.
I believe the explanation of Abraxas lies in the answer to
Basilides' riddle: "Only one out of 1,000 and two out of 10,000 can
truly achieve Gnosis."
KHNOUBIS
Also Khnoumis, CHnouphis, Cholchnoubis, Semes Eilam [from heb.
Shemesh Olam].
Khnoubis is clearly a relation of Abraxas, for rarely is his image
presented without the accompanyment of letters and gramma. He is a
lion-headed serpent, always depicted with seven rays. The seven
rays in turn are usually lettered with the seven vowels of the Greek
alphabet. Vowels signify this creature, and the vowels are its
emanation. Khnoubis is serpentine force intensified, made lethal,
and he gives birth to expression. He is the power of transmission,
perhaps even mantra itself. He is often accompanied by three 's'
letters with a line drawn through them, and talismans composed of
vowels are likely attributed to him.
PHOENIX
Long before the Greeks came along this bird was cherished by the
Egyptians as the Benu bird, regulary displayed in funerary scenes as
alighting atop the burial chamber.
The fiery application of the Phoenix came from Hellenistic
influences, an animal tale akin to Persephone's imprisonment into
the underworld. Whatever the Egyptians meant by the presence of the
mythic bird, it was related to the migration of the soul.
One of my favorite peices by a Gnostic writer desribes the Phoenix
as a sign left to the creating Angels and Powers. According to
this, Gnostic Model Creation Story No. 901, the Angels and Powers
had created man in an attempt to justify their amnesia as to their
own creation. As the layers of the heavens are described, this
seems to be a revolving cycle of one emanation creating the next to
explain itself, until at last man was created upon the first level
of material, below the last layer of Aether. Containing a spark of
life that reflected all the way to the beginning Aether, so also came
a spark of Wisdom that existed even before the first Aeon, before the
Demiourgos. Because of this none of the Angels and Powers knew of
it, for they were but extension of the Father. This wisdom, Sophia,
was the mother of all, and as the sky reflects in the ocean she
reflected in man. When man looked up, we saw much more than our
creating Angels, the lowest of the low, ever imagined could be seen.
Some of us saw Abyss, and frightened vowed never to leave our forms.
Others saw the Aethyrs, and in doing so determined them to be
Father, and we feared. Others still looked further, and recognised
Sophia, and in that momentary recognition drew a line between their
earthly forms and the top of the Demmiourgos' head. The Angels were
frightened of this unexpected spark in man, and some sought to rule
over them, and many succeeded in imposing the rule of the Father.
Ultimately, as the Aethyrs became unsettled by the envy of the
Angels there was an attempt to destroy man. This, of course,
failed, and the Angels and Powers divided. It was at this moment
that man's mind briefly focused, releasing a great collected spirit
which is the immortal sum of man. Just as man reflected Sophia,
this burning spirit reflected man, and forever was placed in the
heavens to remidnd the creative forces of how they had erred. This
is the Phoenix. The last letter is a reflection of the first.
KABBALAH
Called Diadochi in Greek, the Gnostics were well inundated -
especially in Egypt - with Kabbalistic ways. The application
of numeric cabal to the Greek alphabet was young compared to the
Judaic system developed centuries before in Babylon, and relatively
little survives. There are numerous examples of abbreviations,
palendromes, single and triple letter replacements for whole
phrases, sequential codes, unusual use of upper and lower case and intentional misspellings. These were
especially applied in more talasmanic displays, such as pendants,
rings, and grafitti. In written documents, however, the cabal seems
almost limited to a more formal application of names. One
identifier might have five different spellings of their name present
in a single document, or dozens of Angels and Powers would be
listed, each only a single letter variation of the next.
Unlike Judaic Kabbalah, which is tied to a codex (Torah, Book of
Zohar, etc.) we have no such key to the Gnostic letter puzzles, and
a less than marginal knowledge of the phraseology of the time. To
be certain, the Coptic people had heavy interaction with Essenes,
Jews, Abyssinians, Zoroastrians and dozens of other religious forms.
It is also likely that there may be a connection between the Gnostic
use of broken syllables and the easern Tantric practice of Mantra,
where each syllable-sound has its own vibration and power, each
syllable is metalinguistic. The similarities between the 'nonsense'
greek fragments and mantra are striking.
Examples:
ThDTh, akeamma, chamaeet, aklana analka, ablanaThanalb abrasil
sator arepo tenet opera rotas, arChenteCh, ChmanocornoPsios
A common symbol of Gnostic Christianity was the dove, accompanied by
the alpha and omega symbol. The prominence of this symbol in modern
Christianity might even be the result of a blending of two groups of
early Churches, whose symbols were a fish and a dove.
The alpha and the omega are the first and last letters of the Greek
alphabet, and in cabal are worth 1 and 800 respectively. Likewise,
the total value of the letters in the word dove [peristera] are
80(p)+5(e)+100(r)+10(i)+200(s)+300(t)+5(e)+100(r)+1(a)=801.
Philo, in his writings about the Coptics, described certain numbers
as trines and squares. This adds another layer to numeric value.
Triangles are numbers whose components can be formed into a trine,
and they follow a natural order:
1=1, 3=1+2, 6=1+2+3, 10=1+2+3+4, etc.
Then there are Squares, the result of consecutive power, whose units
can be formed into perfect squares:
1=1sq., 4=2sq., 9=3sq., 16=4sq.