(5) The Alexandrian Basilides inculcated Egyptian Hermeticism, Oriental occultism, Chaldean astrology, and Persian philosophy in his followers, and in his doctrines sought to unite the schools of early Christianity with the ancient pagan Mysteries. To him is attributed the formulation of that peculiar concept of the Deity which carries the name of Abraxas. In discussing the original meaning of this word, Godfrey Higgins, in his Celtic Druids, has demonstrated that the numerological powers of the letters forming the word Abraxas when added together result in the sum of 365. The same author also notes that the name Mithras when treated in a similar manner has the same numerical value. Basilides caught that the

(7) Those who have been brought forth in a lowly thought of vanity, that is, (a thought) which goes to things which are evil through the thought which draws them down to the lust for power, these have received the possession which is freedom, from the abundance of the grace which looked upon the children. It was, however, a disturbance of the passion and a destruction of those things which he cast off from himself at first, when the Logos separated them from himself, (the Logos) who was the cause of their being destined for destruction, though he kept at end of the organization and allowed them to exist because even they were useful for the things which were ordained.