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THE THIRD OF THE SEVEN SERMONS TO THE DEAD
AS RECORDED BY BASILIDES IN ALEXANDRIA,
A CITY WHERE THE EAST
MEETS THE WEST

It is difficult to perceive the divinity of Abraxas. His power is supreme precisely because it eludes human perception. From the sun, he draws the *summum bonum*, and from the devil, the *infinum malum*; yet from Abraxas, he draws LIFE—utterly indeterminate, the mother of both good and evil.
To those who are smaller or weaker, life appears to stem from the *summum bonum*—which is why it is also difficult to conceive that Abraxas surpasses even the sun in power, acting as the singular source that saturates all vital force.
Abraxas is the sun, yet simultaneously the eternal, devouring maw of excess, the devil who humbles and consumes.
The power of Abraxas is dualistic, but you remain blind to it, for the opposing forces of this power are hidden from your sight.
What God declares is that the sun is life.
What the devil declares is death.
But Abraxas utters that consecrated and cursed word which is both life and death in a single breath.
Abraxas brings forth truth and lies, good and evil, light and darkness, through the same word and the same deed. Thus, Abraxas is terrifying.
He is as majestic as a lion in the moment it strikes its prey.
He is as beautiful as a spring day. He is the great Pan himself, yet he is also the small. He is Priapus.
He is the monster of the underworld, a polyp with a thousand arms, a writhing mass of winged serpents, pure frenzy.
He is an androgynous being from the very moment of creation.
He is the master of the frogs that dwell in the water and emerge onto land, their chorus rising at noon and midnight.
He is the abundance that seeks union with the void.
He is the holy conception.
He is love and the murder of love.
He is the saint and the betrayer of saints.
He is the brightest light of day and the darkest night of madness.
To look upon him is to invite blindness.
To know him is to invite sickness.
To worship him is to court death.
To fear him is to find wisdom.
To resist him is to find salvation.
God dwells behind the sun; the devil dwells behind the night. Whatever God creates from the light, the devil breathes into the darkness.
But Abraxas is the world itself, its becoming and its passing. For every gift that comes from God—the sun—the devil places his curse.
Everything you pray for from God—the sun—gives rise to some work of the devil.
Everything you create through God—the sun—grants the devil functional power.
Such is the formidable Abraxas.
He is the most powerful of creatures, and within him, that very creature fears itself.
He stands as the clear opposite of the creature in relation to the *pleroma* and its nothingness.
He is the son's fear of the mother.
He is the mother's love for the son.
He is the sweetness of the earth and the cruelty of the heavens.
Before his face, man turns to stone.
Before him, every question and every answer vanishes.
He is the creature of life.
He is the act of differentiation.
He is the love of man.
He is the speech of man.
He is the manifestation of man's shadow.
He is the illusory reality.