Abel - The biblical Abel is the son of Adam and Eve and the brother of Cain, who slew him. Gnostic manuscripts, providing much more information about him, interpret Abel and the events of his life as allegorical. In the first three centuries of Christianity, the paternity of Abel was a subject providing opportunity for speculation among both Christian and non-Christian Gnostic sects. Suggested as his father are various notables: Abel is the son of Eve without Adam because Eve, in Adam's absence and without his ever knowing about it, is seduced by the Archons, the rulers of the seven planets, who are ignorant of the existence of the Supreme Divinity. Another Gnostic manuscript describes the seduction of Eve by Ialdabaoth (similar to Satan), the ignorant creator of the lower, visible world. With Ialdabaoth, Eve gave birth to both Cain and Abel, the "accursed ones." Ialdabaoth and the Archons, who are said to have created Eve, are so attracted by her beauty that they lead her away from Adam and seduce her. In another account the God of Genesis, who the Gnostics believed to be Ialdabaoth, appeared as himself, or as the Serpent, and seduced Eve.

These astonishing accounts of cosmic powers seducing Eve express two important motifs of early Common Era Gnosticism: the entities of the supernal world are actively involved in the affairs of the physical world; and the particulars of the physical world are patterned on the activities of the universals in the supernal realms.

Abel's birth was preceded by the birth of Cain, who had a murderous heart and who represents the inscrutable evil of those who prey upon others -- those powered by forces as yet not fully understood. Cain is a necessary component to the symbolism expressed by the philosophy of Dualism, the Principle of opposing forces, a philosophy embraced by Gnosticism, Christianity, Judaism, and other religions, both major and minor.

As the son of Ialdabaoth, Abel is one his twelve powers. It would seem to make better sense if Cain were one of the ignorant creator's powers, but this, too, is a further expression of Dualism -- even Ialdabaoth has "good" and 'bad" within him.

The beings of the supernal world, emanations of a hidden, infinite God, hand-made Adam and Eve from base Matter. In one account of this creation, the angels had to 'borrow" earth from Matter, who loaned it to them. The children of Adam and Eve were born to them according to the biological laws of the natural world; intercourse and human birth. The story of Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, the Archons, Ialdabaoth, God and the Serpent, a story steeped in symbolism, begins the structure upon which is built early Common Era Gnosticism, the most ambitious and esoteric religious philosophy ever conceived. By the inner path and by interior knowledge, by prophecy, vision and revelation, this philosophy seeks Gnosis: knowledge of the inconceivable, unbegotten God.

Abel is also named Yave, who is set over two elements, fire and wind. Cain is Eloim, who is set over the other two elements, water and earth. Yave, fire and wind, is righteous and Eloim, water and earth, is unrighteous. The four elements, the constituents of matter, were elucidated by Aristotle. When he wrote of them, he considered them equal in rank and originating from the fifth element, quintessence--ether or spirit.

The Gnostic designation of Eloim and Yave for Cain and Abel is a thinly disguised reference to the dualistic god of Judaism, Yahveh and Elohim, united by Moses into Jahveh Elohim, "Lord God." The Gnostics intended to convey that the "accursed ones" of the Bible included not only Cain and Abel but also Jahveh Elohim, who represents Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, the constituents of Matter. According to these correspondences the Hebrew God of the Old Testament is Ialdobaoth, the unrighteous god of Matter and the material world. Ialdabaoth indirectly originated from the supreme quintessence, who is not responsible for Ialdabaoth's existence nor diminished by it.

"Farming in the world requires the cooperation of four essential elements. A harvest is gathered into the barn only as a result of the natural action of water, earth, wind, and light. God's farming likewise has four elements--faith, hope, love, and knowledge." (The Gospel of Philip, Gnostic papyri)

Abraham- Also Abram. The biblical Abraham, patriarch of Judaism, was a citizen of Ur in the Sumerian half of Babylon. About 2000 BCE, Abraham's father, Terah, took Abraham and Abraham's wife Sarah and his grandson Lot, the nephew of Abraham, and emigrated from Ur. After Terah died, Abraham had a personal encounter with the Lord "Jehovah," who instructed Abraham that his descendants would become his Chosen People to reign in Canaan. In return, Abraham must obey Jehovah's commandments that all newborn males be circumcised on the eighth day after birth or, if converted, be circumcised upon conversion.

"Abraham circumcised the flesh of the foreskin, teaching us that it is proper to destroy the flesh." (The Gospel of Philip, Gnostic Papyri)

The intervention of the supernal into human affairs is a popular, recurring theme in nearly all religions, interpreted to be God speaking to his people. But the Gnostics conceived of an infinite, hidden and unknowable God, one who would not, could not (without destroying us), personally intervene into the mundane affairs of humanity. They surmised, therefore, that any account of a personally intervening God is an account, not of God, but of an emanation of an emanation of God, divine but besmirched by its proximity to Matter. Most Gnostics believed the Old Testament Jehovah to be Ialdaboath, the subordinate demiurge, inferior to the supreme divinity but ruler of the material world. They said it was Ialdaboath who spoke with Abraham and made a covenant with him.

"His disciples said to him. "Is circumcision beneficial or not?" He said to them, "If it were beneficial, their father would beget then already circumcised from their mother." (The Gospel of Thomas, Gnostic papyri)

The Gnostic belief that the god of the Old Testament is a second-class god is confirmed, they said, by passages in the Bible wherein, by his own words, this god exposes himself as inferior.

According to the Hebrew Great Hekhaloth, Abraham and Enoch founded astrology. The Jews, in asserting their religion as superior to that of the Persians, claimed Zoroaster, the great religious leader of Persia, was Abraham's astrology student. The Gnostic Ishma'ilites considered Abraham to be the head of the generation of the Perfect, to which Zoroaster belonged. Mohammed, founder of Islamism, claimed all Arabs were descended from Abraham. Although the bible gives Abraham's profession as that of a sheepherder, he may have been a merchant prince in Ur. It is recorded outside Jewish literature that Abraham was well versed in the celestial sciences. When he left Ur, he took with him his extensive knowledge of the Babylonn religion, the theology of Dualism.

Abrasax - Also Abraxas. This is the name that Basilides, an important Gnostic thinker and leader, gave to the great Creator-Archon who is usually known as Ialdabaoth. According to Basilides, Abrasax, the supreme divinity of the lower, visible world, comprised within himself the 365 gods who presided over the days of the year. In one system of numerology, the Greek letters of Abrasax have a mystical value of 365. Abrasax is identifiable with Osiris, the god of the Nile, because the Greek for Nile, Neilos, has a numerological value of 365. The Gnostic sect, Mithras, a delineation of Persian theology, has a mystical value of 365.

Gnostics believed that this numerological equivalency of Mithra to Abrasax proved the divinity of both. Mithra is the spiritual intermediate principle of Persian Dualism identified as the sun god of Persia.

Abrasax, also defined as one of the guardians of the Aeons (supernal powers and eternal realms), is depicted on engraved gems with the head of a cock and legs of a serpent. Abrasax is associated with Aberamentho of mystical texts, who has the head of a cock. Worshipped by a Seth-Typhon cult in Egypt, and portrayed by then as having an asses head and a serpent's body, Aberamentho is identified by this cult as Jesus, who they said transported himself and his followers into the upper realms of the universe to celestial ships manned by fantastic beings and flying in space. After the crucifixion of Jesus, Roman graffiti was found portraying Jesus on the cross as a man with the head of an ass. Another account of this animal-headed divinity involves Zacharias, who was struck dumb in the Temple at Jerusalem when he had a vision of a being with a human body and the head of an ass. When he reproached the Jews for worshipping such a god, they put him to death. After his terrible vision, the high-priests were instructed to carry little bells whenever they went into the temple. That way, God would hear the tinkling of the bells and have enough time to hide himself and not be caught in that ugly shape and figure.

Into this tangled Judaic/Egyptian/Roman/Persian quarternity of Abrasax-Aberamentho-Jesus- Mithra came the Gnostics, who cleared up (?) the confusion by identifying Aberamentho- Abrasax as Ialdaboath, the son of the god of the Old Testament, and Mithra as an Aeon, and Jesus as a divinized human, a man Christified by the Cosmic Christ force who merged with him.

"And it was in the place of the Darkness, and the fire, and the power of the mind, and the light, that human beings came into existence." (The Paraphrase of Shem, Gnostic papyri)

Adam - In the Bible, Adam is the first human created by God. He becomes the husband of Eve and the father of Cain, Abel, Seth, and others. According to St. Paul, whose thinking was dominated by the concept of original sin, humanity is contaminated by the guilt of Adam, the first sinner. In Hebrew writings outside the Bible, Adam is symbolic, known as Adam Qadmon, the archetypal and primordial man, the Microprosopos (Lesser Countenance) of the Macroprosopos (Vast Countenance). The Adam of Gnosticism is no sinner, but is symbolic and prophetic, and the events of his life are allegorical.

Various Gnostic books were inspired by Adam, as channeled from him. He is called Adamas (Indomitable), The First Man, so named by the Chaldeans, Medes and Hebrews. According to the Gnostics, the name Adam is symbolic and is derived from the language of the angels. The name Adam is said to correspond to the four cardinal points and the four elements; fire, water, air and earth. Adam was called Thoth by Zosimos, who relates that Adam's spiritual name is Phos (light). This defines Adam as an angel of light.

In Gnosticism, the supernal beings of creation are composed of Light, from which they derive their powers. The ancients conceived of a great celestial drama wherein there is the continuous plotting on the part of the powers of Darkness to steal Light from the beings of light. The spirit Phos is tricked by the Archons (rulers of the seven planets) into putting on the body of Adam, a body born of fatality and formed of the four elements. The Archons hoped to trap Phos in matter and deprive him of his light. Zeus (of Greek mythology) in sympathy sent him Pandora, called Eve by the Hebrews.

In Greek mythology, Pandora opened the Box, releasing the ills of the world. The biblical Eve disturbed the tree of knowledge and unbalanced the Good and Evil synthesized on the tree. They flew apart into the dualistic thesis-antithesis relationship. This Hebrew account of the consequences of Eve's action symbolizes the divine dyad, the first opposites, as emanating from the unity of the supreme monad.

The blending of Greek mythology with Gnostic mythology is typical of the eclecticism of the Gnostics, who incorporated into their theology all elements which they believed complimented their concepts.

The Gnostic Adam and Eve received the revelation of gnosis (Greek for knowledge) from the serpent, the anointed agent of the supreme divinity. In some Gnostic accounts the serpent, the errant son of Ialdaboath, acts against his father's wished and helps Adam and Eve. Ialdabaoth traps the couple in the prison of matter. The serpent, determined that the pair should become aware of their serious situation, brings them Gnosis. As soon as they gain knowledge, their third eye chakra is opened and they no longer worship Ialdaboath, who then ejects then from Paradise, along with his mutinous son.

The intellectual Gnostics considered these accounts of the first humans struggling with the cosmic powers to be more allegorical than actual. These accounts symbolize events occurring at the supernal level, as well an represent each humans individual, personal experiences in the struggle against Error. The symbolic Adam represents, in one respect, the fate of a humanity fallen from angelic grace, one that hopes its psychic power will be restored, that power taken from humanity by the fatality dispensed by the spheres (planets). Once restored, immortality can be recovered.

Adam is said to have deposited in the Cave of Adam, where he and his descendants are buried, the gifts the Magi carried to Bethlehem. The Cave of Adam is also the Cave of Treasure. This cave is thought to be in Azerbaijan, or perhaps Persia (Iran). Adam is said to have dictated to Seth a book of wisdom in which he prophesied the birth of Jesus and the Deluge. In other accounts Adam, after death, inspired Seth to write the book. Seth passed this book on to his descendants, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch and Noah. Noah took. the books onto the Ark and later passed them on to his descendants. This book, or books, may be a reference to the Book on the Sapphire Stone, a legend of the primitive Jews.

At the command of the Father, Adam created all the things seen in Heaven and Earth. In other accounts, he gives names to the creatures created by the Archon-angels. Adam credits the Father with having created 27 universes, all outside this heaven and earth. 12 of the universes are hidden from the angels, 7 more were created, then 5 more to contain the Spirits of the Power, and then 3 more for the Dwellings of the Angels.

There are various creation accounts regarding Adam. When he was created, he was alive but inert. This is the Adam Michelangelo depicts in the "Creation of Man" painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Ialdabaoth, the trickster, was himself tricked into breathing life into the inert Adam, making him resplendent. Adam became superior to his creator-angels who then jealously cast him into the nether realms.

According to a Greek account, borrowed from Persia, each of Adam's seven body parts was fabricated by each of the seven planets (including the sun and the moon) in its turn. Adam is the microcosmic representation of the macrocosm, the Microprosopos of the Macroprosopos. Uttering words of wisdom far beyond his own abilities, Adam was thought to be channeling (modern terminology) the supreme divinity. The creator-angels and the creator Mother believed his words were divinely spoken. She pitied Adam for this great power moving through him and sent him a spark, a thought of light called Zoe. But the creator-angels again forged together the four elements to make another creation in opposition to Adam. They then took the first Adam away to Paradise, where the delights are illusory.

In another account, Jesus is said to have descended to Eden three times to help Adam stand upright, to exercise the demons of mortality away from him, and to make him taste the Tree of Life, whereupon Adam gained gnosis of his ignorant creators. The Gnostics said that although Adam was never born, he died. In those early Common Era times, this piece of information became part of a riddle known throughout the Mediterranean world.

There is an account of three Adam's. The first Adam (Adam of Light) is spirit-endowed and appeared on the first day. The second Adam is soul-endowed and appeared on the sixth day. The third Adam is a creature of the earth and appeared on the eighth day, Sunday, the day of "tranquillity of poverty." The third Adam is the father of humanity. The third Adam and his mate Eve were allotted lifespans of 1,000 years. Each of the Archons subtracted 10 years from their lives so that 930 years became their allotted time, years lived in pain and weakness and evil distraction. When Adam died he descended to hell, where all the residents there, everyone who had been born before the birth of Jesus, waited for their release - the advent of the descent of Jesus into hell.

"My son, do not allow your mind to stare downward, but rather lot it look by means of the light at things above. For the light will always come from above." (The teachings of Silvanus, the Gnostic papyri)

Adamanous - From a Hermetic treatise 'Upon the Creation of Man" attributed to Hermes, Adamanous is the Form of Forms, the template upon which humanity is patterned. Nous means 'mind.' In this Egyptian-Gnostic account of creation, the first man is Adamanous, a creation of Harous, who is himself the creation of the planets seeking spiritual expression. Above Harous, and enabling this creation, is the heavenly Virgin. Adamanous is the living microcosm patterned after the highest heavens. Harous channels the forces of the Archons into Adamanous, who is perfect in appearance, but ignorant and mute. Harous then channels the power of the stars into Adamanous so that he becomes intelligent and speaks. Even though the colossal Adamanous is as tall an the clouds and can hear the sound of the rotation of the planets, he worships Harous for his size, who is so tall he can touch the planets and any sign of the zodiac. Harous creates a mate for Adamanous, called Haivanous.

The planet Saturn, who is excluded from participation in these creations, becomes enraged and wishes to destroy both micro- and macrocosm. Harous invokes powers to constrain Saturn, and to bind all impure spirits to the four corners of the macrocosm where they are held as prisoners in watch-towers. Adamanous and Haivanous, now free from danger, parent 14 children - seven sets of twins, each pair a boy and a girl. The planets endow these children with their respective personalities and appearances.

"How has the existence which does not exist appeared from an existing power?" (Zostrianos, Gnostic papyri)

Aeons - The supernal beings comprising their eternal realms; the occult forces of the universe, the hierarchy of divine beings in the universe who are emanations of an utterly transcendent deity existing in negative existence, and who, in successive emanations, are the patterns and causation of material reality. Each successive Aeon of the universe is formed on the basis of the models in the layer above, with each Aeon less perfect than its model.

"Their begetting is like a process of extension...They are a unity and a multiplicity." (The Tripartite Tractate, Gnostic papyri)

The Aeons are the light-beings of the eternal, celestial drama, and all the world's a stage whereon the Aeons, through humanity and all of nature, actualize themselves. Beside these, historic persons and facts are sublimated half-way between the real and the symbolic, so that the events of the world seem to disappear beneath the weight of their symbolic content.

"The entire system of the Aeons has a love and a longing for the perfect, complete discovery of the Father...who grants that he be conceived of in such a way as to be sought for." (The Tripartite Tractate, Gnostic papyri)

The Aeons are "places on the path which leads toward him...They are silent about the incomprehensibility of the Father, but they speak about the one who wishes to comprehend him... All the names which are great are kept there by the Aeons, names which the angels share." (The Tripartite Tractate, Gnostic papyri)

"They are not crowded against one another, but to the contrary they are alive, existing in themselves and agreeing with one another, as they are from a single origin. Each of the aeons has ten thousand aeons in himself." (Zostrianos, Gnostic papyri)

Gnostics believed they could take their place in the Pleroma as Aeons, as humans who become divine and who function with powers and responsibilities of divinities.

"If you become spirit, it is the spirit which will be joined to you... If you become light, it is the light which will share with you. If you become one of those who belong above, it is those who belong above who will rest upon you." (The Gospel of Philip, Gnostic papyri

Aeons are the power of creation of the human body. Basilides elaborated on five Aeons; Nous (Mind); The Word; Reflection; Wisdom and Force; and the Virtues, powers and angels who engendered a succession of emanations by which the world was created. Each emanation is a world complete, filled with angels and layers of firmaments ranging from vaporous idea to dense matter, and each stage of emanation is ruled by an administrative power. As generations of humanity progress, one successively following the other, so do the parallel macrocosmic generations of Aeons progress, one after the other but at a much slower rate. Expressed alchemically as 'As Above So Below,' humanity and the Aeons are linked together by a sacred cord.

In some Gnostic systems, heavenly bodies were systematically on a time schedule of seven aeons. Each planet with its planetary as Aeon, reigned at its assigned time for one millennium, during which time its powers determined the course of human events.

In one account of the creation of the cosmos, two Aeons, one masculine who governs all things, the other feminine who gives birth to all things, have neither beginning nor end. These two opposites generate an offspring - intangible apace with no beginning or end, in which resides the androgynous Father who upholds, protects and nourishes all finite things. From this Father emanates one bindu after another, thoughts which drop into the field of time, break into opposites, and participate in the lower, visible world. The words "a new Aeon" refer to a spiritual rebirth.

"I am in the process of becoming." (On the Origin of the World, Gnostic papyri)

Alchemy - Popular Hermiticism involving magic and astrology, thought to have originated in Egypt about the time of the building of the pyramids, and as such, represents the practical application of a brand of Egyptian Gnostic-like philosophy.

Olympiodorus of Alexandria gave an alchemical interpretation to the Persons of Adam and Eve, saying they were composed of basic, integrated alchemical substances: fire, earth, mercury, sulphur, water and air. In this respect, they are symbolic of Prime Matter. Adam represents red earth, mercury. sulphur, soul and fire. Eve means white earth, philosopher's mercury, root of moisture and spirit.