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Ch. 4: Engraved Gems as Talismans

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128 THE CURIOUS LORE OP PRECIOUS STONES
According to the Greek notation the letters comprising this name give that number:
It is, however, not unlikely that the 365 days in the solar year are signified ; and this enigmatical name might thus be brought into connection with Mithra, the solar divinity, who was worshipped throughout the Persian and Roman empires in the first and second centuries of our era.
A very recondite but ingenious explanation of the Gnostic name Abrasax is given by Harduin in his notes to Pliny's "Natural History."18 He sees in the first three letters the initials of the three Hebrew words sig­nifying father, son, and spirit (ab, ben, ruah), the Triune God; the last four letters are the initials of the Greek words ανθρώπους σώζει άγίω ξόλψ or ' ' he saves men by the sacred wood " (the cross). This seems rather far­fetched, it must be confessed, and yet to any one familiar With the vagaries of Alexandrine eclecticism, and with the tendency of the time and place to make strange and un­couth combinations of Greek and Hebrew forms, there is nothing inherently improbable in the explanation. In­deed, the Hebrew and Greek words in this composite sen-
18 Caii Plinii Secundi, Naturalis Historie, ed. Harduin, Parisiis, 1741, vol. ii, p. 489.
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