Page "Abraxas" Paragraph 34

It is therefore not unlikely that some Gnostics used amulets, though the confident assertions of modern writers to this effect rest on no authority.

Isaac de Beausobre properly calls attention to the significant silence of Clement in the two passages in which he instructs the Christians of Alexandria on the right use of rings and gems, and the figures which may legitimately be engraved on them ( Paed.

241 ff.

; 287 ff .).

But no attempt to identify the figures on existing gems with the personages of Gnostic mythology has had any success, and Abrasax is the only Gnostic term found in the accompanying legends which is not known to belong to other religions or mythologies.

The present state of the evidence therefore suggests that their engravers and the Basilidians received the mystic name from a common source now unknown.