(urth) Abraxas

[Sergei SOLOVIEV]

 From "Seven sermons to the dead" by C. G. Jung (I've seen it in the 
appendix to
Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G. Jung, Vintage Books, 1961.).

I cannot quote all, but I think it is important for the understanding of 
BoTNS and Wolfe
ideas (at least as a context). The text is openly "gnostic". Jung writes 
it in the name of
Basilide of Alexandria.

...

 From Sermo III

Hard to know is the deity of Abraxas. Its power is the greatest, because 
man perceiveth it not.
 From the sun he draveth the summum bonum; from the devil the infimum 
malum; but from Abraxas
LIFE, altogether indefinite, the mother of good and evil.
...
The power of Abraxas is twofold; but ye see it not, because for your 
eyes the warring opposites of
this power are extinguished.
What the god-sun speaketh is life.
What the devil speaketh is death.
But Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word which is life and 
death at the same time.
...
Everything that ye create with the god-sun giveth effective power to the 
devil.
That is terrible Abraxas.
It is the the mightiest creature, and in it the creature is afraid of 
itself.
It is the manifest opposition of creature to the pleroma and its 
nothingness.
...

 From Sermo IV

...
Each star is a god, and each space that a star filleth is a devil. But 
empty-fullness
of the whole is the pleroma.
The operation of the whole is Abraxas, to whom only the ineffective 
standeth opposed.
Four is the number of principal gods, as four is the number of the 
world's measurements.
One is the beginning, the god-sun.
Two is Eros; for he bindeth twain together and outspreadeth himself in 
brightness.
Three is the Tree of Life, for it filleth space with bodily forms.
Four is the devil, for he openeth all that is closed. All that is formed 
of bodily nature
doth he dissolve; he is the destroyer in whom everything is brought to 
nothing.